To Direct Democracy site.

Thank You Mission.

I would like to thank all of the people of Mission who have participated in our democratic process. I especially want to say thank you to the people who have voted for my "Vision of a better Mission". We need to continue to pressure the council to adopt aggressive strategies to market Mission to responsible industry. We need to grow our industry in conjunction with any residential expansion. When sixty percent of our community is forced to seek work outside of Mission we are already at a crisis point. We need to achieve a balanced tax base. Without industrial growth we will only see a rise in our residential taxes and an export of our retail dollars to other communities as commuters shop in other locations. Let's get out and vigorously promote ourselves to responsible industry with low environmental impact and quality paychecks. These industries include the bio-tech sector, the film industry, tourism(develop downtown as an Art Mecca), the gaming industry and other high tech. We should exploit Mission's outdoor beauty, access to the highways and reliable power. These are our assets and we should strive to let industry know what we have to offer. In the future the high tech industry will need reliable power sources to remain "turned on". Brown outs in California are one of our best marketing strategies to bring these companies here. Identify the vulnerable and bring them here by active solicitation. Let's not become a passive player in the quality of life game in the Lower Mainland. We need to develop and promote our community as a niche for Arts in the Lower Mainland. This will help us market ourselves to the industries we want and increase our tourism potential. If a tourist would want to come a visit us then so will industry. Lets become a good tourist destination. Again thank you for your support. This is not the end but only the beginning of a long campaign to bring responsible planning to Mission.

As to the Direct Access Democracy model that I have presented, I can only hope that in the future more people will see that we need to take responsibility for the important decisions concerning our community. The process of voting for a one horse candidate should be a thing of the past. We will always have another horse coming along inbetween elections and the one you are riding may not agree with you a second time. Important issues should rest in the hands of the people. In the future I shall strive to continue to further this democratic process. It is on the horizon and let Mission be the one to profit by bbringing it to fruitation.

To all the candidates I must commend you all for a race well done. It has been a pleasure meeting every one of you and I hope to be working with you in the future to make Mission a city we can always be proud of. I wish you all the best in everything you do. I can only encourage all of you to continue to be a driving force to make Mission a better home for all of us.

Scott Malcolm Etches
Your Council Candidate 2005.