Elia Salinas believes she’s a good candidate for county supervisor because she knows the community and she knows the issues.
“The reason I believe I’m a good candidate for the supervisor position is because I’ve been in this community for over 25 years,” said Salinas, a director of community relations in her professional life. “I have been attending supervisor board meetings for approximately three years now on a consistent basis.”
She said that’s more than any other candidate, except for the incumbent Jerry Muenzer. Salinas is running against that incumbent, Chief Financial Officer Robert Bernosky, Hollister City Councilman Jim Gillio and marketing professional Sandy Swint.
Salinas has been known to voice her opinion at county board meetings and Hollister City Council meetings in support of pro-cannabis laws and it motivated her to run.
“I decided I can do this. I care for this community,” she said.
Salinas said a big motive was to get more local people involved in local politics.
“I’d like to find a way to get more people involved in what is going on in the community,” she said.
She has noticed that one of the biggest complaints on social media has to do with traffic congestion.
“I would like to have those people come forward,” she said. “Let’s get together and find a solution instead of just complaining about it.”
It was her perception of lacking community involvement that got her so involved. She also sees poor road infrastructure as a major issue, while Salinas argued there is a misperception about housing growth in this county.
“We are actually below the growth rate that we should be at,” she said. “There’s misinformation and there’s not really anybody out there to really clarify for them what it is that is really going on unless they come in and they educate themselves and start being part of what is going on in the community.”
She said because people see houses going up, they believe there’s too much growht.
“Because we had a recession and then we had the real estate crash, we are really behind on building in this community,” she said, adding how she wants to get more people educated on “what is going on in the county.”
Her goal as a supervisor would be to have more people attend meetings and went on:
“I can’t say what can or what can’t be done in four years, but the roads are a big issue. They’re talking about doing a tax so we can make money to build the roads. But if you’re going to build the roads and you’re going to tax the citizens of this county, when is that tax money going to be used? How long do we have to wait for those roads to get taken care of?”
Candidate Profile
Name: Elia Salinas
Age: 58
Occupation: Director of Community Relations
Political Experience: None
To see video interviews with four candidates running for District 4 supervisor, see below. Incumbent Jerry Muenzer has not committed to an interview.
http://sanbenitolive.wpengine.com/election-2018-video-interviews-in-district-4-supervisor-race/
