{"id":7717,"date":"2012-04-11T08:17:08","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T15:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/?p=7717"},"modified":"2012-04-11T18:30:15","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T01:30:15","slug":"candidates-statements-starting-to-come-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/?p=7717","title":{"rendered":"Post-election Statements from All Seven City Council Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted 4\/11\/12 &#8211;<\/em> New Council member John Capoccia, elected to one of two 4-year seats in the regular election last night, has issued the following statement to the News Net following last night&#8217;s election:<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>&#8220;First, my congratulations to Chris Koerber and John Harabedian for their  victories.  I&#8217;m honored to serve along side them as we all work to fulfill our  respective commitments to preserve this great town for present and future  generations.  My sincere regrets to candidates Gene Goss, Colin Braudrick, Bill  Tice and especially to MaryAnn MacGillivray, who has worked tirelessly for the  sake our city.  I admire her immensely, and I will miss her contributions and  leadership. All the candidates are terrific people and are to be commended for  their effort in reaching out to the voters, and for displaying remarkable  civility.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I want to thank all my supporters who believed in me and worked so hard to  help me connect with Sierra Madre&#8217;s citizens.  I especially want to thank all  the voters of Sierra Madre for their record turnout in this election. This  confirms for me that Sierra Madreans are engaged, involved, are paying attention  to the issues, and care deeply about our town.  I promise to continue to listen  closely and carefully, and I&#8217;m looking forward to working with my fellow council  members in a collaborative way to meet the expectations of our citizens.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Thanks again to everyone.  I&#8217;m deeply honored and humbled to be entrusted  to represent the wonderful people of Sierra Madre for the next four  years.&#8221;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>John Harabedian, who garnered the most votes in the 5-person election for two 4-year seats in the regular election, had this to say: &#8220;As a kid growing up in Sierra Madre, I never imagined I would have the  honor to serve on City Council.\u00a0 I am truly humbled and invigorated.\u00a0  Now it&#8217;s time to get to work.\u00a0 Thank you to everyone who\u00a0voted, and  especially to those who\u00a0supported me.\u00a0 I look forward to serving as your  representative for the next four years and tackling\u00a0the challenges  facing Sierra Madre.\u00a0 Congratulations to all the candidates, especially  John Capoccia and Chris Koerber, for taking part in a spirited  campaign.\u00a0 Thank you to MaryAnn MacGillivray for her 12 years of service  to the City.\u00a0 And thank you to two leaders and friends, Colin Braudrick  and Gene Goss, for whom I have the utmost respect.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Chris Koerber, who won the special election for the two years remaining on Joe Mosca&#8217;s vacated seat, had this to say in a statement he issued to the News Net: &#8220;I am honored and humbled to be the people of Sierra Madre\u2019s choice as city councilman for the two-year seat.\u00a0 This election came at an extremely important time for the city, and being selected\u00a0 by my fellow citizens shows that the city is ready for a councilman who will work for clarity, community, and economic accountability.\u00a0 My fiscal expertise and dedication to maintaining the character of our village community will ensure that Sierra Madre can continue to be the unique town that it is while meeting its fiscal obligations in a responsible way.<\/p>\n<p>I thank the many volunteers who helped out my campaign by phone banking, walking neighborhoods, and spreading the word about my candidacy.\u00a0 I sincerely congratulate the other candidates who won city council seats, and extend a hearty congratulations to my opponent, Colin Braudrick, for a well-fought race.\u00a0 I look forward to serving the citizens of Sierra Madre on City Council for the next two years. &#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Colin Braudrick, who was defeated by Koerber, told us this: &#8220;I want to thank all of my supporters, we fought the good fight. I want to  congratulate Chrs Koerber on his victory and wish him luck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>We may have lost, but our voices were heard. We ran a positive campaign,  and upheld integrity throughout, which might have cost us the race, but was  worth it. I hope that this process has brought the City closer to healing and  that someday the rancor and divisiveness will end.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>From Gene Goss: &#8220;I wish to congratulate John Harabedian, John Cappocia and Chris  Koerber on their victories. Also, I wish to thank Mary Ann MacGillivray  for her years of service to our community.\u00a0 And  from the bottom of my heart I want to thank all of \u00a0my supporters in  town. Sierra Madre is the finest city in America because of our people. I  am confident that our town&#8217;s future is bright!&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>We have now also heard back from MaryAnn MacGillivray.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s what MaryAnn had to say:\u00a0 &#8220;Thank you to all the voters of Sierra Madre  for such a great turn-out; the power of government is in its people.  Congratulations to John Capoccia, John Harabedian and Chris Koerber. The  challenges are great, but I expect that you will all rise to the occasion to  protect the unique character of our village in a fiscally responsible way. I am  grateful for the trust my fellow Sierra Madreans placed in me for the 12 years I  served as a council member. It is a daunting responsibility to be a civil  servant and one that I took very seriously. Most especially, I thank the  volunteers who helped in my campaign and all my supporters in town. &#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Said Bill Tice:\u00a0 &#8220;My first response is, it doesn&#8217;t matter.\u00a0 It just doesn&#8217;t matter.\u00a0 If I want something from the City Council, I&#8217;ll go down and work on trying to get it.\u00a0 I&#8217;m very discouraged at development.\u00a0 I ran against development and people don&#8217;t vote for me, but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s sad, they just don&#8217;t like me&#8230;Oh, and I wanted to say thank you to Susan at the paper, she did a real nice article about me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted 4\/11\/12 &#8211; New Council member John Capoccia, elected to one of two 4-year seats in the regular election last night, has issued the following statement to the News Net following last night&#8217;s election: &#8220;First,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[136,30,139],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}