Town Council Candidates Survey  - Actual Cover Letter

Dear Candidate:

Part of the mission of Sustainable Fairfax is to educate the residents of Fairfax about sustainability issues. We appreciate the cooperation we have received from the existing town council and hope to coordinate our efforts even more closely with town initiatives in the future. With this in mind and in light of the upcoming election, we, the Board Members of Sustainable Fairfax would like to offer you the opportunity to complete the enclosed survey covering your support for sustainability in the town of Fairfax and its sphere of influence. Sustainable Fairfax has not, and will not, support a specific candidate in any election. In keeping with this tradition, please understand that we are not tying our name to any specific candidate in the 2003 election.

The attached survey is designed to assess how your current positions and past actions have demonstrated sustainability as a factor in your decision-making . We also see this survey serving to provide a format for each candidate to express his or her vision for our town beyond what was revealed at the Candidates night on October 15, 2003.

Since sustainability means different things to different groups of people, rather than attempt to provide a comprehensive definition, we generally agree that achieving sustainability will improve three areas:

1. Environment - preserving the health and diversity of the natural systems laced throughout our town.
2. Economics - maintaining a healthy and vibrant business community.
3. Culture - promoting a balanced and strong sense of local and global community while being inclusive of all humans and non-humans present in our area (and beyond.) Respect, Equality and Expression are all important aspects of a sustainable culture, but there are many more!

Our sister organization, Sustainable Sonoma has come up with a definition that we feel captures the essence of this work:

Sustainability secures people's quality of life within the means of nature in a way that is fair and equitable to all of humanity, to other species and to future generations. Sustainability recognizes the interrelatedness of the economy, society and environment. It requires that we not consume resources faster than they can be renewed nor produce wastes faster than they can be absorbed.

We ask that you complete the survey within the next week and return it to Sustainable Fairfax by October 24, 2003. Your responses will be widely distributed throughout the town and posted on our web site: www.sustainablefairfax.org on October 28th. To assist you, a member of our board will be calling you in the next week to verify that you have received the survey and to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you for your participation,

The Board Members of Sustainable Fairfax: Rebekah Collins, Bonnie Leonard, & Scott Valentino