Amy Steward: Above the Fray

A paid political endorsement letter from Dawn Richards

Why is Amy Steward the best City Council candidate for Coronado’s stewardship?

Amy is 100% credible, truthful, and never claims credit for something she hasn’t done, and seldom acknowledges the credit she is due. She refuses partisan endorsements — particularly from politicians outside the community — because she wants our City’s governance to remain nonpartisan. Refusing to engage in mud slinging, she never sends texts or mailings disparaging other candidates. In a word, Amy displays the increasingly rare qualities of integrity, fairness, and honesty.

To serve her community and learn how the city operates, Amy has served as a City Commissioner and on many civic and educational organizations’ committees… never with the thought of running for public office. In 2003 she began working to bring attention to the cross-border SEWAGE issue with the founder of WILDCOAST (and former IB two-term mayor) Serge Dedina, PhD. In 2009, Amy’s 5^th grade class researched, wrote, and produced an educational musical, “We Can Save Our Ocean”; the play received rave reviews from the community. Arm-in-arm with this project, her class raised and donated $10,000 through WILDCOAST to save a sea turtle nesting area on a Mexico beach as well as spotlight the sewage crisis.

In 2017, Amy and her middle school students produced a documentary that included interviews of City Council Member Whitney Benzian, IB Mayor Serge Dedina, Congressman Scott Peters, a local physician, surfers, and a Tijuana resident. Her KCMS students toured and filmed the IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission) sewage treatment plant and local beaches. The documentary highlighted the ongoing cross-border pollution disaster, creating greater student and community understanding of the crisis. Competing with college-level entries, the documentary (The Awful Truth) won the People’s Choice Award at the Coronado Island Film Festival.

Earlier this year, Amy accompanied her husband as he traveled to Washington, D.C. at the invitation of Congressman Scott Peters. The Congressman and her husband attended the State of the Union, participated in nationally broadcast interviews, and met with various senior congressional and government representatives to explain local and strategic impacts of the sewage crisis. Concurrently, Amy met with the Congressman, his staff, and the Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs to underscore the impact of the sewage crisis on South Bay residents and national security. Coincidentally, as she and her husband were meeting in his office, Congressman Peters received word of allocation of $156M to address the sewage crisis. Neither Amy nor her husband have claimed any credit for the funding — tacit acknowledgement that decades of hard work by hundreds of activists and elected officials produced this result.

Among her many accomplishments, Amy founded and presides over her non-profit, Emerald Keepers; successfully tackled sewage from the moorings in Glorietta Bay; co-founded the city-wide Neighbor-2-Neighbor program during the pandemic; and envisioned, researched, advocated for, and proposed to Council what is now a reality… the Island Express.

Amy always chooses the path of collaboration to address civic problems — studying the issues, gathering facts, and then finding common ground to bring about consensus and build community. She gains trust, respects all opinions, and has earned a reputation for nonpartisanship, cooperation, and collaboration. Amy has shown herself to be our Steward for Coronado.

Dawn Richards
I write this as an individual and not as a city commissioner or member of any organization.

A paid political endorsement letter