Young Emerging Leaders

My fellow young professionals...

My name is Travis Stephens, and I approve this message

One of our goals for YEL is to help young professionals become more aware and better educated of how city government works so that eventually they may identify an area where they can contribute and make a difference. As you may or may not know I have decided to throw my hat in the ring for city director. What better way to inform and educate than to do it myself and give everyone else a back stage pass to the entire process. To be honest I have never had any political aspirations but I think being a city director is more about what you can do for your community than it is taking on a career in politics.

So what can you expect from this blog? 

Basically my plan is keep you the viewer fully up-to-date of all my critical decisions and my daily progress of how the campaign is going. My ups, my downs, why I did this or that, twists and turns the political landscape may provide, and all my interesting encounters along the way.

My first plan of action was to surround myself with people smarter than I that can help me get elected. Mark Myers of E-Magination is serving as my campaign manager and Steven Bell of Warner Smith Harris Law Firm is serving as my campaign chairman. Both are YEL members themselves.

Our first big decision was to decide how to announce that I was running. Mark wanted me to hold a press conference last week. If you recall we announced on Friday. The deadline to file is actually this Friday but the idea was to announce early and do it in grand style in hopes to maybe sway any on-the-fence challengers not to enter the race. Great idea however I wanted no part of a press conference. I just felt that this was a little too over the top and I'm not the kind of person that wants that much attention. So the very first recommendation my smarter-than-me advisors gave me I declined. Therefore we went with a simple press release. We did hear that 2 potential candidates decided not to run. Can't really say it was because they knew I had already entered the race but we did hear of a few people who picked up registration packets at the city clerk's office that have apparently decided against it. However I did find out just today that I have indeed drawn an opponent.

GAME ON!!!