HERE COMES SARA MESTAS

This is Sara Monique Mestas’ story. It is a compelling American tale of a young woman who struggled through a difficult childhood and adolescence that would have defeated most people; but against all odds has risen to be a viable candidate to hold the office of Mayor of San Leandro, California. This story is a journey into the personal and political heart and mind of this remarkable young woman.

Her Message:

“EQUALITY AND OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL”

“LIFE AFFORDS SECOND CHANCES TO THOSE WILLING TO WORK FOR IT”

“NEVER FEAR CHANGE TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE”

“TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT IS BEST FOR THE PEOPLE”

“PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN THE POLITICAL SYSTEM ENCOURAGES DEMOCRACY”

Her History:

Now 33, Sara grew up in a broken home in San Leandro, Calif. and by the time she finished Middle School and entered San Lorenzo High School she had begun running with a bad crowd, she dealt drugs at age 12 and wound up as a teenage unwed mother at age 14, dropped out of school and went out on her own at age 15. She had several brushes with the law, one of which resulted in her incarceration before she got a grip on reality and determined to turn her life around. 

While many people would sooner forget the pain and heartache of a troubled youth and lack of family stability, Sara faced what went wrong with her life and without assessing blame upon anyone but herself, set out to rectify the situation and raise her children with a better life style than had been meted out to her. From 1990 through the present time she has been employed in as lower management in the fast food business; business administration with various corporations, business and loan consultant and additionally since 2007 has become a rap recording artist under the name Mo Wiley, with favorable notices throughout the East Bay area and a recording contract with First Kut Records, Las Vegas. This indefatigable woman has also during that same period, raised three children, attended college at Cal State East Bay and received certificates of completion as a Certified Network Administrator and an Emergency Medical Technician. Despite this load she has also found time to be a civic and community activist. From juvenile drug dealer to mother; from rapper to City Hall; Sara lives by her credo “your past need not disqualify your future”.

Her Motivation and Compassion

Asked many times why she would want to enter politics she answers in the simplest and most elegant of ways. “I am motivated by my genuine love of people, my persistent optimism about society, and my unbound faith that government can be an agent of progress. I believe in fiscally responsible liberalism and as Mayor I will take appropriate risks, make proper deals and will tirelessly work to achieve the best possible quality of life for all San Leandro residents.”  Sara is very community minded and has already gone on record, as Mo Wiley, to say that a large percentage of her net earnings from entertainment will be invested in San Leandro community activities.

Her compassion for others is exemplified by her repeated statements that in a society as affluent as ours no person should go hungry or be without shelter.  Additionally she tells the story of a person she knows when expressing her opposition to the Arizona version of immigration reform. There are many law abiding immigrants in the East Bay Aarea, many who have lived in our country for decades, who have paid their taxes, who are law abiding and deserve citizenship and not deportation. We definitely need to secure our borders, but we also need to stop racial profiling of people who, although illegal, have lived the life of normal law abiding citizens. They should not feel that at any minute they will be sent to Mexico.

Her Platform:

• Incentives for new businesses that will give our community notoriety, promote walk-ability, employment, entrepreneurship, and shopping in San Leandro. Incentives for smaller businesses if they qualify for city grants or tax abatements. Local sales tax free shopping holidays once or twice a year as a business builder.
• Education reform provided by a meaningful City involvement in our schools, creative ways to provide crucial services and programs geared towards youth.  Places for our youth to go after school, affordable public education, sports, music, programs geared towards life skills and entry level employment.
• Increased senior services and places for seniors to gather and the creation of a Seniors Volunteer Corps to help our youth find their way to a meaningful life and to administer and work as volunteers in city sponsored youth and senior facilities – saving taxpayer money and providing a meaningful outlet for our senior citizens.
• Incentives for new home ownership, increasing our city’s revenues by stimulating the economy, and creating jobs by applying for and getting federal and state grants.  Raising sales taxes that work against our poorest segment of society cannot alone and will not support the closing our budget gap in its entirety. We cannot justify or sustain any raise in municipal salaries and we should ask for a moratorium on automatic increases in pensions for any City employee, until we create prosperous and stable revenue.
• With both crime and population is on the rise, we need to explore and promote proven crime prevention methods. We need a coordinator of Public Safety who will report directly to the Mayor. It has been proven that for every $1 invested in crime prevention the city saves approximately $60 post corrective services. We need to put strong plans in place with strategies that meet federal funding requirements and aggressively go after grant money to save our vital police and fire services and provide crime prevention services of all types for public safety.
• We need to close the budget gap by examining and where feasible putting a stop to unnecessary entitlement spending, eliminating fines and penalties charged to the city because of missed deadlines & non-compliance when dealing with the City debt. We also need to watch the cost of borrowing money and explore new means of financing municipal debt.
• We need to and should enact a program of “workfare” for able bodied recipients of welfare and other social services.
• We need transparency in government and programs to encourage more community support and involvement in City government as a means of sustaining our American democracy and giving renewed vitality to the promise of our great country. An educated and participating citizen is a good citizen and the quality of life in San Leandro will be enhanced for all.