Irene O'Connell Announces For November San Bruno Council Seat

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ARTICLE SOURCE: San Bruno CA Vice Mayor Irene O'Connell

“KEEPING EXPERIENCE ON YOUR SIDE”
Irene O’Connell Announces Candidacy for Re-Election
To San Bruno City Council

A life-long resident of San Bruno, with decades of combined experience in education, elected office, and public service at city and county levels, I am seeking reelection in November to San Bruno City Council – to keep my experience on YOUR side.

Early endorsers include Senator Jerry Hill; Assembly Member Kevin Mullin; Dave Pine, President San Mateo County Board of Supervisors; and San Bruno leaders, former mayor Jim Ruane, Dave Nigel, Mary Lou Johnson, Frank Hedley, Judy Puccini, among others.

San Bruno is positioned on the crest of the most exciting chapter in our City’s more than 100-year history – a chapter that will need determined, experienced leadership on the City Council to accomplish; e.g., the BayHill and Mills Park Developments; the future of SB Cable; implementation of the Transit Corridor Plan; downtown Street Scape and Parking Plans; and the new Recreation/Aquatic Center Complex, the first major new community facility in San Bruno in over 30 years.

Concurrently, San Bruno faces challenges: finding the means to build a new library/media center that affords equal access for all ages to information and opportunity; dealing with sea-level rise; and working on congestion management and housing concerns. We are continually exploring compassionate ways to help the homeless children and adults in our community. We must find ways as well to deal with more and more state and federally imposed requirements on cities. For example, there are state mandates that require us to completely eliminate trash in our storm drains – an expensive, difficult task. There are proposed state bills that would infringe on the City’s ability to regulate parking requirements on new developments near transit, taking away local control. I am seeking re-election to continue to work on your behalf on these and other issues at the regional level.

Because I grew up in San Bruno on the East Side, I experienced first-hand the issue with flooding in those neighborhoods such that my father, Mike Kaiser, got us to school in a row boat! Keenly aware from that experience of the importance of proactive, preventative infrastructure maintenance and repair, one of my first initiatives after being seated on the Council in 1995 was to advocate for the preparation of planning documents for each utility: our streets and roads; our water, waste water, and storm drains. With my leadership, those Master Plan documents are updated periodically to provide a roadmap for full rehabilitation and replacement of these aged and critical systems in San Bruno. Much has been done that is not necessarily visible; more remains to do, especially on the East Side where extensive work has already begun with more scheduled for completion in the next few years.

Growing up on the East Side, I brought to my role on the City Council a vision for building a park on Florida Avenue where none existed before by converting a long vacant and deteriorating property into a neighborhood treasure for children and their families.

My first act of public service in San Bruno was at San Bruno Pool, lifeguarding and teaching swimming, illuminating for me the many needs children have for after school programs. In my first years on the Council, I was the driving force behind establishment of the City’s afterschool and summer programs now serving hundreds of San Bruno children.

As an educator raising our three children in San Bruno, I have also brought to the City Council a focus on connecting our City with art and culture. Together with my mother, Marina Kaiser, we worked to keep Art-Rise in San Bruno to promote local art and artists. As a Council Member, I helped create the Culture & Arts Commission and began San Bruno’s Beautification Task Force as a way to involve residents in projects to improve our community. Operation Clean Sweep, scheduled this year for May 4th, is one of those projects I have led for over twenty years, which attracts hundreds of volunteers annually.

During my tenure on the Council, I have supported the work of the San Bruno Community Foundation to administer the $70 million restitution settlement from PG&E, which has resulted in prudent decisions by the Foundation to put that money into grants and programs that benefit the entire community; e.g., the new recreation/aquatic center project.

As your Council Member, I have represented San Bruno for many years at the County level on boards and committees that are inextricably tied to issues affecting the region we live in: City/County Association of Governments; Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency – service which includes committees on the environment, legislation policy, congestion management, etc. – service which further translates into experience where it counts, when it counts, and that will continue to work for YOU.

Thank you for your past and continued support as we work together to keep improving San Bruno for everyone.

For questions and/or to help, contact Irene O’Connell: ioconnell1989@gmail.com

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Photo Credit: San Bruno CA Patch Archives

Source Credit: San Bruno Patch Mayor Robert Riechel

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