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Submitted By: ben.killen.rosenberg@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Posting on behalf of Kim Rosenberg loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com
I’m Voting For Brad!
I didn’t know Brad Mayerle back in March when he emailed me to see if I’d be willing to talk. He’d read my posts and wanted to have a conversation. Well, you know that’s my deal–conversations.
I called him on a Sunday morning and had him on speaker while I folded laundry. I figured it would be a quick chat but we talked for a couple of hours about city government, the comprehensive plan and the 3rd Street lot. What I learned right away is that Brad is both smart and he has an open mind. He doesn’t think he knows what he doesn’t know, and he never once said mean things about other people in the community. There was also no mansplainin’, which I always appreciate.
He’d been watching meetings via livestream and zoom like the rest of us and had the same questions and concerns many of us did. I think he’d talked with Councilor Spegman at that point. Spegman had proposed the local voters pamphlet that the council was hesitant to move forward with. As a guy with an undergrad degree in Political Science from Lewis and Clark, Brad was interested.
We had a good talk on the phone. I found out he loves the outdoors like my husband, Ben. I found out he loves the Riverside for fish and chips and we do, too. I found out that he and his wife Jennifer have had their home in Manzanita for 20 years and had moved here full time during the covid like we did.
I’ve had the chance to get to know Brad more since then at the Concerned Citizens group. Since it formed, Brad has been involved, coming to meetings, writing letters, getting signatures, reading materials, listening and asking questions. You’d be wrong if you think Concerned Citizens was and is only interested in the Manzanita Lofts project. That group began with an interest in stopping view grading of the dunes and learned about the existing loopholes in our code and our out of date land use documents. People with all different opinions and perspectives are part of that group. We have some professionals with backgrounds in engineering, contracting and land use who are part of the group. Far from being a talking only kind of group there’s been plenty of work involved and all of it has been done by, I guess you’d say, volunteers.
After he announced his run for council back in May, Brad told me he was meeting with people in government and land use here and in other towns near Manzanita to learn more. He’s met with business owners up and down Laneda. He’s met with people who both agree and disagree with him.
He’s never been involved in the Facebook Feuds here. He’s never called people names or shut them down. He has no history of that kind of stuff even when others have gone low.
I didn’t plan to write this endorsement for Brad until this week when he and I met over coffee with Jon Reimann, the president of the Dune Association and the guy who’s permit for view grading was denied.
You all know that I’ve been a vocal opponent of view grading. So, you may wonder, why would I meet with a guy with the opposite perspective? And why would he want to meet with me?
Well, why not?
I’d met Jon at the first listening session and agreed then to get together to talk. I asked Brad if he wanted to join us because a local resident had reached out to Brad about wheelchair accessibility on the beach.
If you know someone who uses a wheelchair you know it’s just not as simple as jumping in the beach wheelchair at the visitor’s center and zipping down to the hard sand–it’s hard work.
Jon is interested in greater accessibility for folks and so is Brad and so am I. Here’s a notion. Maybe there are a lot of solutions to our problems, if we can just work together to make them happen.
What I’ve learned about Brad is that he really is the guy he says he is. He’s open minded, highly principled and he really does listen. He’s well informed about local issues and can work with people of different views to come to a middle ground.
When we shut people out of the conversation because we see them as the enemy we shut out the possibilities that they bring. That’s a missed opportunity.
I want leaders who are more interested in moving the ball forward than their own personal views. I want leaders without divisive baggage from the past. I want leaders who take the high road every time and respect others both to their faces and behind their backs. I want leaders who include everyone in the conversation even those people they don’t agree with.
That person is Brad Mayerle.
Kim Rosenberg loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com