Carrollton City Muncipal Elections

I am committed to the well being of our City and will continue to support the efforts in building an exemplary city of peace where no one is apprehensive of the other.

Election season has just begun in North Texas Municipalities and most of the city council elections are scheduled for May and I urge you to participate in the affairs of your City. It is important to seriously take the civic responsibility of choosing your next council person. The future of your city is dependent on the candidates you chose.

I am pleased to be involved with my City, the City of Carrollton in Texas. I delivered the invocation at the City Hall on Tuesday and attended the Candidates forum tonight and hope to participate in the coming forums.
 
The event was hosted by the Metropolitan community Church of Carrollton, a LGBT church and most of the candidates responded fairly well. There was one candidate who was called by his opponent to respond to the anti-GLBT stance his Church had taken in “apparently” calling on the Mayor not to meet with the special interest groups insinuating the GLBT members. Of course, the candidate is not responsible for the actions of others, but members of his Church had “apparently” attempted in vain. However, due to a lack of the follow up format, the candidate did not have the opportunity to disassociate himself with such a stance. There is next time!

The moderator of the event, pastor of the Church deserves appreciation for gracefully moving on to the next topic, when none of the candidates expressed support to pass ordinances in extending the medical benefits to domestic partnerships.

Former Mayor Becky Miller asked my reasons for not endorsing Pravin Desai. I shared my story with her about Bonnie Kaplan whom I am supporting.  Bonnie worked the Carrollton Quilt two years ago doing a real outreach and received participation from diverse Carrolltonians.  I had suggested her that she should run for the council.  Prior to the registration deadline, she asked for support and I gave the commitment, which I had shared with Pravin Desai as well when I met with him.  I wanted transparency and clarity, I am an inclusive person but when a commitment is made, one should stick with it and it should not alter the relationships formed.

Mayor Ron Branson was gracious about my support for Matthew Marchant; it was the same story, commitment made earlier on.

So, I am asking the candidate to make their call today to make it easy on the voters like me.  We all are friendly people in Carrollton and we care about each other.

The old saying, "early bird gets the worm" holds good in this election and it is as simple as that. No candidate can really turn the city upside down but certainly can take the initiatives to bring positive things.  All of you are great candidates. 

A few of the long time residents of Carrollton are apprehensive about the new demographics and the changing ethnicities with Transport oriented developments and they legitimately harbor phobias about the future make up of "their" city.  On the other hand people from different ethnicities, faith traditions and GLBT orientation are apprehensive about the old attitudes of some in "their" newly chosen City. As responsible members of the society, we have to mitigate the apprehensions and nurture goodwill. It is our City, your City, my City and every one's City.

I ask all of you to write an essay in about 250 words about your efforts in building a cohesive Carrollton, where no citizen is excluded” and write about your outreach efforts on your job, your past or whatever you have done.  

When I receive your op-ed, I will share it here at the http://carrolltondiary.blogspot.com/  and will mail out to my huge mailing list of Carrolltonians.

You are welcome to write you comments in the blog for publication, personal attacks will be deleted.

Mayoral candidates:
Branson, Ron - http://www.runwithron.net/ 
Marchant, Matthew  - http://www.matthewmarchant.com/ 

Place 2:
Desai, Pravin - http://www.electpravindesai.com/
Kaplan, Bonnie - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Kaplan-for-Carrollton/158601764196487
Wilder Anthony - http://www.wilderforcarrollton.com/

Place 4:
Henesey, Cathy - http://www.cathyforcarrollton.com/
Garza, Bob - www.
Patel, Tino - www.
Wright, Terry - www.

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Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions to media and the public on issues of the day and is available to speak at your place of worship, work, seminars and conferences. He is a speaker thinker and a writer on the topics of pluralism, cohesive societies, Islam, interfaith, India and peace.

The Foundation for Pluralism champions the idea of co-existence by respecting and accepting the otherness of other and World Muslim Congress is committed to nurturing the pluralistic ideals embedded in Islam. His work is reflected in 4 website's and 27 Blogs at http://www.mikeghouse.net/