The Candidates State Their Cases / 8th Council District : ANDREA PALACIOS SKOREPA

Challenger Andrea Palacios Skorepa, 43, is executive director of Casa Familiar, a social services agency in San Ysidro. She also chairs the Citizens Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations. Skorepa is a graduate of San Diego State University. She lives on Otay Mesa.

The primary issue facing District 8 is the failure of our representative to effectively respond to our needs. Whether by design or default, the failure to forge the critical link between the people and the governance process has magnified the severity of problems all of us now face. As these problems intensify, they become more expensive to combat. And that will end up costing the residents of every district.

I have been walking and talking to the people who are becoming prisoners of the 8th District and barring themselves inside their homes.

I am overwhelmed by the profound nature of poverty and real sense of alienation and frustration that it brings. Crime, drugs, unemployment, substandard housing, dirty streets and barren landscapes greet me almost everywhere.

Political abandonment is not new to me; I was born, raised, live and work in District 8. The challenge is to address the vastness of these problems by working from the neighborhood level up, thereby involving our greatest resource, which is people, not money.

One way is to fully implement programs to prevent at-risk youth from becoming involved in gangs, alcohol and drugs. We cannot simply erect signs that declare drug-free zones or paint out graffiti. We must work with people to create drug-free communities and create alternative activities for young people besides marking their gang territories.

The people who actually live with gangs, drugs, crime and poverty know what solutions work and don’t work. For instance, the community says, give us more police presence. The bureaucracy responds with a brief crackdown, which looks effective. But, if the officials asked the community, they would learn that crime and drugs get worse after a crackdown because criminals know they are safe for a while.

We must tackle problems by building coalitions of parents, children, police, teachers and our entire government. By helping people learn how to help themselves effectively, we develop skills that will be there even if the money isn’t.

It’s not enough to believe that electing a representative will get problems solved. People must also become involved.

The only way to encourage that is for the elected representative to stop ignoring the very people who are a part of the solution. We can do this by changing the kind of individuals we elect to office.