MATT GARCIA WINS!

Printed on Thursday, November 8, 2007
Garcia's Unlikely Ascension
By Kelvin Wade

How can you not be happy that 21 year old Matt Garcia laid the smackdown to both newcomers and veteran politicians alike on Tuesday to capture a City Council seat? In Garcia, Fairfield has the youngest elected official in the state of California.

Kudos also to Chuck Timm, who ran a solid campaign. From the moment he announced, with his resume’, his fundraising ability, the support of the Police Officers Association, I knew he’d take a seat on the Council. When he came under attack for raising large sums of money I knew it wouldn’t stop him because it came down to a question of integrity and charges of impropriety were never going to stick to Chuck Timm.

It was a nail biter of a night when the election returns started coming in. When the absentee ballots came in strong for Garcia, you could feel the winds of change in the air. Absentee voters usually skew older so that was a very positive sign for this political upstart that he collected so many of their votes.

Yet, Garcia wasn’t going to give any speeches before a crowd of 250 friends, family and supporters until 100% of the vote were tallied.

I reached an ecstatic but frazzled Matt Garcia the morning after. He’d dropped and broken his cell phone, losing tons of numbers the night before.

He said the victory still hadn’t sunk in. “I tell myself to stay humble and do what’s right. We’ve made history and people are going to remember this. But what they’re really going to remember is what we do from here.”

He wasn’t the best financed. He didn’t crunch numbers like an accountant. And he didn’t have a long impressive resume’ to unfurl.

What Matt Garcia has is a passionate story. You have someone who has seen the downside of gang life in his biological father’s life and in the lives of other family members. He’s someone who didn’t walk down that road and chose a different path. He has a vision of a city that takes care of its young and old by listening to what they want, that brings in good paying jobs and that has Fairfielders spending their time, money and energy here in town instead of having to hit the freeway.

This guy who’s wanted to be the mayor of Fairfield since he was a kid, who’s been trying his best to walk the straight and narrow and plant seeds for future generations in his talks at area schools with young people is living his dream.

Matt told me he’d received a congratulatory phone call from Mayor Harry Price. He looks forward to working with the mayor and others on the council but will make his own decisions to better Fairfield.

He also shared that ousted incumbent City Councilman Jack Batson stopped by Tuesday night to congratulate him and shake his hand. Despite the hard fought campaign, Garcia said that was a “class act” by Batson. He was genuinely moved by the gesture.

It’s been a tough, hard fought campaign. Hopefully, we can now move forward and continue to show the rest of Solano County and Northern California why we chose to move to Fairfield in the first place. Peace.