I want to see someone with courage and vision.
I am horribly bored with Omaha politics. I am horribly bored with Omaha politics because there is not courage, no vision and no real leadership. And in my opinion there has not been any in my 10 years in Omaha. It does not take courage or vision to support the building of new buildings. Anyone can do that. But it does take courage and vision to champion a re-investment in our people, the relationships that exist between our people and our communtiy culture. Those are the things that make a community unique. Those are the things that cannot be duplicated. Any city can get organized and come up with money for new buildings. Not every city has the courage to focus on and invest in the really important stuff.
That takes courage. It takes courage because it is so easy to campaign against. I want to see someone with courage and vision.
- I want to see someone that understands that we should be telling the whole world about the life and legacy of Malcolm X, and that people from all over the planet should be coming here to learn more about the man and the movement.
- I want to see someone that understands and is uncompromising on our need for an independent police auditor. If anyone seriously thinks that institutions such as police departments (or governments or insurance giants) can “police” themselves, they are simply not paying attention to the world.
- I want to see someone that champions the young professionals movement… really champions it, not just show up at a conference from time to time.
- I want to see someone really understanding and championing the use of social media to change how we do local government.
- I want to see someone that puts North Omaha and South Omaha at the top of the list of priorities. It is shameful that we can continue to find massive, multi-million dollar projects but cannot invest in these two parts of our community in a decent way.
Right now I see none of this. Simply another bunch of the same guys saying the same things. And when one of them gets elected, I am afraid they will do the same small things. We continue to have political leadership in the form of people who have professional aspirations for themselves but no real aspirations for this community…and this is sad, because the potential here is off the chart.
-Joe Gerstandt
