Young Emerging Leaders

                                Votes       %

Steve Tyler                741        61

Travis Stephens        471        39

WOW!

First off congratulations to Steve Tyler. I've gotten to know him through the campaign trail and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. His heart is in the right place and I have all the confidence in the world that he will do a fine job representing the voters.

Obviously I was hoping the voters of Ward 1 were ready for a new look and a new direction but in the end I guess the majority felt more at-ease having another retiree on the board. If you've been reading my blog you'll know I felt that I was the underdog and it would have been a major upset for me to have pulled off the win, but I will readily admit that I truly expected it to be a much closer race. My hope was to make it a close race, market myself as a young up and comer who happens to live in the wrong ward, and then make a run in the near future at a city-wide position. However given the vote margin results I'll have to think long and hard about that possibility. 

Maybe it's Ward 1. Maybe it's demographics. Maybe it's major inexperience condensed into a very short election period. Like I said previously, we left no stone unturned regarding the campaign trail so at this point I'm left scratching my head a little. If anyone has any thoughts please feel free to share them.

The one theory I have is that my opposition beat us to the punch at, and quite frankly did a better job of, "branding" me to the public with a certain image. I was running as a young, fresh face with new ideas wanting to see a real change in the direction our city was heading - one that favored families and young people and the future growth of our city.  Unfortunately my opposition painted a picture that I was already a part of the status quo and we were never able to shake the fallacy. As the saying goes "perception is reality".

Oh well, live and learn. The end results were obviously not what we were hoping for but the process was an amazing experience and I am truly greatful for everyone who played a role and helped along the way. It was fun seeing myself on You Tube. It was fun knocking on doors and talking to people. It was fun reading about myself in the paper and hearing myself on the radio - even on La Raza (Hola, soy Travis Stephens. Vota por mi.) And most of all, it was fun being a part of so many young and energetic "greenhorns" trying our hand at politics.

I still feel this community needs more young people involved in the city's leadership but for now we'll have to lick our wounds and analyze what we can improve on in the future.

Now if you'll please excuse me, I have to go and remove about 200 yard signs that are scattered across Ward 1.