HomeMy WebLinkAboutEmily Trivette
Dana Smith
From: Emily Trivette <emilytrivette1 @gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2017 2:06 PM
To: Dana Smith
Subject: City Council seat 6 Application
Emily Trivette
215 Tolman Creek Road #15
Ashland, OR
97520
cell phone 541-631-8598
Letter of Interest and Intent for the position of City Council Position #6
Dear Mayor and City Council Members,
My name is Emily Trivette and I am hoping to gain the City Council position, #6.
When my family started, we were in the depths of the great recession. I have lived in
Ashland for almost ten years. I moved here with my one year old son and husband at the
age of 22. We came here when the economy crashed in 2008 and my husband had to fold
his construction business in Santa Ynez, CA. My parents retired to Ashland three years
earlier and we were lucky enough to be able to move in with them in order to get back on
our feet and find a place of our own in which to start over.
I quickly got a job at Nimbus, the high end retail store downtown, and my husband
Tyler went to work for the Ashland Grange Co-op. We put our young son in day care and
worked very hard until we were able to move into our own house. Over the following
years, Tyler was given an opportunity to work for a local landscape company and we were
able to move yet again, to a nicer house better suited to our growing family. I was
eventually able to stay home to care for our now three year old and were expecting a
second child. We had government assistance to help us with feeding our family and my
parents helped with pre-school for my older son. Tyler continued to move up in the
company until eventually we launched our own construction company in Ashland. We
used our entire tax return so Tyler could get his license as well as launching a website and
paying for advertising. I'm the office manager which includes budgeting salaries, filing
taxes, accounts recievable, accounts due and mailing 1099's to our sub-contractors. I am
in charge of our Public Relations and Marketing. I joined a well respected networking
group, Business Networking International, and I am in charge of Marketing and Public
Relations for our Ashland chapter, Ashland Business Connections. We have come a very
long way thanks to the City of Ashland.
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I am a high-school graduate and instead of going to college I worked as a horse
trainer until I met my husband and got married in 2007. 1 am a lover of books, I read
anything I can get my hands on. I am a mother of two boys, 8 and 5, and I run a
successful business with my husband. I teach spin class at the YMCA once per week, and
I manage a working stable of 13 horses during the rest of the week. I am on the Ashland
Little League Board as the Rookies Coordinator and I volunteer extensively with the
Bellview PTO and within my childrens classrooms. I taught myself how to use QuickBooks
so I can do all of our accounting, and I also taught myself how to do web design so we
could have a beautiful website to share with our clients. I wake up every morning and
make breakfast, get my kids off to school, and go to work. Its a good life.
You may wonder why I have given you my back story in such a fashion. Let me
explain. I do not have college degrees and I have not run huge companies. My
qualifications come from within. I am a traveler. I have been to several different countries
and all over the United States. I am proactive in my community. I am civic minded and
truly care for other people and the City we live in. I am a voracious reader of history and
science, with a few Sci-Fi's thrown in there once in a while. I know how to manage large
groups of people (and animals) and I know how to do it with a mind of democracy and
equality. Serving on the Little League Board for three years has taught me a lot about
volunteering for a greater good of the community and I get true joy from it. I love
volunteering at school and working with the PTO. I volunteer my time to give horse back
riding lessons to bullied girls so they can know what it is to be confident and have self
awareness and self -respect. I am, in no uncertain terms, your average hard working
American success story. I have come from the bottom and worked my way up, to owning
a home and running a company, however small it may be. I can identify with a lot of
different demographics, and I feel that I would be a clear, positive voice for the
hardworking people of our awesome City. We need more people in local government who
truly understand the majorities voice. They are desperate to be heard, and I want to hear
them and help them. I want to provide a womans voice, a woman who has gone from
recieving government assistance in order to put food in my childrens stomachs, to a
woman who is now successfully running a business and continuing as a full time mom as
well.
The biggest issues I can see within our city, is the exponential growth of residences and
business buildings and the vagrancy that has all but taken over our downtown and lovely
YMCA fields.
Growth is a wonderful thing but not when it starts to change the face of a town or
city. Ashland is a proud City and we love our open fields and working farms. For large
developers to come in and build matching houses with little to no character, packed so
tightly next to each other there are no yards in order to squeeze as much profit out of the
land as possible, this poses a problem. Our town prides itself on the quaint feel as well as
the progressive designs that improve everything around us. Large business complexes
and housing tracts take us dangerously close to resembling a lot of the highly populated
areas all over the country. Ashland is a special place that needs to keep its distinction
from `everywhere else'. Thats why we love living here! I would like to be a voice in helping
Ashland maintain its ambience and charm.
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The vagrancy problem. I am not without empathy. My sons and I regularly hand out
sandwiches to some of the local homeless people and I have been known to give them
jackets or socks when they are in need. The vagrants seem to be younger, on drugs or
drinking, and they gather in our most beautiful and public parts of town. Downtown and at
the YMCA. I live down the street from the Y and I see it firsthand. Yelling, litter, illegal
fires, grafitti and theft. I would like to help find new ways to help the homeless people in
need while creating a better alternative for the vagrants who post up in our downtown area
panhandling and all in all, bothering a lot of our locals and out of town tourists alike. I want
to find a way for us all to cohabit in a more positive way without being taken advantage of
by the vagrants.
What is my motivation for seeking a city council seat?
I have wanted to take a more active role in our local government for about a year
now. After my experience on the Little League Board and working at the YMCA, I have
realized my calling is to public service. This realization was cemented at 11:30pm on
November 8th. I, and many fellow Americans have woken up from a complacent slumber,
always trusting the people and the government to do the right thing. Well, as is evident we
can longer rely on other people, and it is time for voices and ideas like mine to be heard
and executed. I am driven, and I want to help people at the same time as serving our City
of Ashland.
What does a city councilor do?
A city councilor helps with decisions regarding ordinances, finances, development
and infrastructure of their City. A city councilor works closely with the Mayor to make the
best decisions pertaining to their city. A city councilor is a voice for many and a lot of the
time a voice of reason. A city councilor works for the people and businesses of their city.
I believe I have answered the other questions in my opening paragraph. Please consider
me for the appointment. I would make an excellent addition and I am readly willing and
able to work hard for our fellow Ashlanders as well as the Council itself.
Thank you for your time,
Emily Trivette
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