Submitted by Richard Bailey
This past Tuesday I was honored to be elected the 51st Mayor of Coronado. To be trusted with the responsibility of leading our city is incredibly humbling and I look forward to working with the entire community to move Coronado forward, while respecting our city’s unique character.
Too often in elections people find themselves voting against someone rather for someone. I truly believe we had two candidates running for mayor that gave voters someone to vote for, rather than against.
I would like to congratulate Councilmember Carrie Downey for running a great campaign and thank her for ten years of service on the city council. It is people like Ms. Downey that continue to make our city such a great place to call home and I am very much looking forward to working with Councilmember Downey for the years to come.
I would also like to thank Mayor Casey Tanaka for his fourteen years of service on the city council – six as a councilmember and eight as mayor. Mr. Tanaka was able to lead the city council in a manner that fostered a professional, constructive and respectful dialogue, while utilizing the respective strengths of each councilmember to arrive at decisions that created a better Coronado. One of the characteristics I admire most about Mayor Tanaka is his modesty. On the few occasions where the council made a “wrong” decision, he never passed the responsibility onto the entire council, even though it was a collective decision, he would simply accept the criticism and make the necessary adjustments. But whenever someone gave praise for a job well-done, Mayor Tanaka was the first to say the credit belongs to the city staff and city council, often shirking praise that he had rightfully earned. He did this all while adding his own unique sense of humor along the way. In addition to the lives he influenced during his time as mayor, I am inspired by the young lives he continues to influence as a teacher. Always approachable and available, I think Mayor Tanaka is and will always be the “people’s mayor.” He has left some big flip-flops to fill.
Congratulations to our two new councilmembers Whitney Benzian and Mike Donovan. Having spent a lot of time on the campaign trail with both of them, I feel very confident we will be able to make a lot of progress on important issues over the next few years. I would also like to thank to the other candidates for city council, Marvin Heinze, Derik Mundt and Ron Hauser – we were very fortunate to have many great candidates running for local office.
Thanks to all of my friends and family that believed in me during this campaign. There are too many to name here but I would like to give one big thank you to my campaign manager, Brad Gerbel – our campaign would not have been successful without him.
It is an incredible honor to be elected the 51st Mayor of Coronado and I thank the voters of Coronado for their support!
Richard Bailey
