Dear Neighbor,

Thank you for visiting our campaign web site. With over 20 years experience working in the community, I've seen how city government often operates and I know we can do better. There are certainly good people in City Hall, yet many folks in the community feel disconnected from what goes on there. I'm running to change that!

In fact, I've developed a 4-point plan to improve trust and confidence in city hall and make San Francisco work better for you:

• Make Customer Service a Top Priority at City Departments

• Engage Elected Officials in Meaningful Community Service Projects

• Improve City Hall's Responsiveness to Neighborhood Problems

• Organize and Involve the Community Through Regular Town-Hall Listening Sessions

By working together, we can make City government respond to our needs while restoring trust in City Hall. We need to stop the needless in-fighting that distracts our supervisors and city workers from their real work—serving the people of San Francisco.

I've lived in District 5 for 17 years and worked in the district for over five years at the City College John Adams Campus. In my twenty plus years organizing city residents on local policy issues and working on community service efforts, I've seen city government listen to us at times and forget about us other times. We can do better. With your support, we can improve the culture of City Hall by making it more responsive.

I'm currently an environmental policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Prior to that, I worked for the Sierra Club. During the last 20 years, I've worked as an advocate, policy analyst, nonprofit board member, progressive political activist, city commissioner and community service volunteer. I've found that small issues are sometimes as important to people's lives as the high profile policy debates. We can solve challenges, both large and small, when people are brought together and given the opportunity to personalize their issue.

Some of my proudest moments working to make our City better came while I was working at the John Adams Campus. Years ago, the once beautiful mural on Masonic had been trashed by graffiti. I worked with the student council and organized the campus and the neighborhood to volunteer to help restore the mural. A little act of community service goes a long way to restoring pride.

A few of us at the Adams campus began to notice that a number of our disabled students were having difficulty safely crossing the street at the corner of Grove and Ashbury. You would think getting the City to install a safer four-way stop sign to replace the two-way stop would be a no-brainer. I certainly did.

My first attempt to get the City to put in a four-way stop sign went nowhere. I then contacted a Supervisor for help in getting the stop sign installed. The Supervisor's office was helpful, but still no stop sign. Finally, I organized the school and the students. We put real faces in front of a real safety concern and got that stop sign. It shouldn't be that hard to get the City to respond.

If we are to improve confidence and trust in our government, the Board of Supervisors must lead by example. Our City's leaders need to serve, volunteer, respond and listen.

We also need to make sure the City strictly adheres to our open government ('sunshine') laws—something that I lobbied for at both the local and state level. Most importantly, if our elected leaders truly earn the confidence and trust of the public, then we will be better able to do bigger things to address the challenges we face in our city.

I am running a campaign based on optimism and ideas....a campaign that is committed to instilling a greater sense of social responsibility in what comes out of City Hall....and a campaign that genuinely respects who you are and calls upon all of us to respect each other.

My commitment to you is to work hard to solve problems with determination and innovation, pay attention to people's real-life concerns, and stay true to my strong sense of integrity and community service.

I invite you to join my exciting campaign. We are talking to voters about better government and real problem-solving, about social responsibility, about environmental leadership, and about making that genuine connection between the people who live here and the problems we face on an almost daily basis.

Please take a few moments to look at my web site and send me your comments. Thanks again so much. I would be honored to have your vote.

DAN KALB
EXPERIENCED LEADERSHIP for a BETTER SAN FRANCISCO