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SALINAS, Calif. - Three candidates are officially in the race for Mayor. Margaret Serna Bonetti, Joseph Gunter, and Rick Phinney have submitted their intent to run.
Margaret Serna Bonetti said she's got the passion and said she was called by the lord to serve the people. Serna Bonetti was a part of the group who stopped the city from building a prison over soccer field a few years back. One of the main issues she's concerned over is public safety and feels there needs to be a better allocation of money towards the youth.
"There's the violence issue with gangs, but these things are surrounding the lack of jobs in Salinas, lack of infrastructure. Putting money into development. Bringing money and putting money back into the youth," said Serna Bonetti.
Joseph Gunter served 32 years on the Salinas Police Department and is now President of the California International Air Show Salinas. He told me Salinas needs to concentrate on attracting new businesses and helping current ones. He hopes to "fill in those empty buildings with jobs."
"We need to encourage new businesses to come and in turn will create tax revenue which will help us provide for the services our citizens deserve. I think I'm going to tackle to fill the empty buildings with new businesses. I think we need to work with businesses that are here to ensure they are going to stay," said Gunter.
Lastly, Rick Phinney said volunteering to go to Vietnam in 1968 gave him the feeling of giving back to his community and feels that now being mayor is the next step for his life. He has every intent on bringing a new thought pattern to city hall as well as a new way to do business.
"I plan to go through the budget and try and analyze that and see where there are duplications in the budget in the administration department in the city where we may have a job descriptions overlapping one another where we are not operating as efficiently as we can," said Phinney.
The official day to submit intent to run for mayor is on Monday July 16.
