Mayor Rick Neal will be delivering a State of the City presentation Thursday, February 21, 6pm, at Wm L Morris Chevrolet showroom. It will be sponsored by the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce. Everyone is invited.

There are a lot of hopeful, positive things in the works since the new city council took over, and it was a pleasure discussing some of them with our interim City Manager/Fire Chief, Rigo Landero and Management Consultant Mike Sedell at lunch Tuesday. Mike is a very distinguished former City Manager of the City of Simi Valley and was Chief-of-Staff to Congressman Elton Gallegly in Washington, D.C., with many other credits to his service. He has generously volunteered to help Fillmore with its financial and budgetary challenges. You can learn a great deal by listening to Mike’s advice.

Fillmore’s future seems bright as we slowly climb out of the financial doldrums we’ve experienced these past several years. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting close. We discussed ideas for funding our swimming pool/tennis complex, alternatives for the Towne Theatre and much more. Our Film Commission is having great success this year, approaching the $100,000 mark in revenue. Maybe some of that money could be spent on reactivating our graffiti removal service. Fillmore is being seriously damaged by graffiti again. Solutions for these issues are being actively pursued and I’m sure the mayor will have encouraging reports for us tomorrow evening. Hope to see you all there.

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I was going to say a few words about what our federal government is doing to us these days, but it’s too depressing and alarming. The insane debt, deficit, attacks on our Second Amendment, hollowing-out of our defenses, bleeding us with new taxes, attacks on our churches, in general, an all-out attack on our freedoms deserves more space than I have this week. Fifty two percent of the electorate has voted into office a president intent on destroying the freedom and dynamics which created this great nation. Obama is a clear and present threat to our republic’s constitutional government. And, the people he has appointed to our highest offices are sycophants, thugs, incompetents, and fellow socialists. I expect a complete financial, military, and moral breakdown before the end of his last term.

I almost began another rant, so I’ll sign off now while I recall my reasons for believing in Fillmore’s bright future.