Hi. I'm Kari Windes. Good to meet you.

A bit about my past: I was born in Ohio, across the street from the Football Hall of Fame. My parents, Dale, an engineer, and Karen, a social worker, brought myself and my siblings to California when the steel industry was failing in the Midwest during the 1980s. We moved to Brea, where my brother and I graduated from Brea Olinda High School. I am so grateful; Brea has been the source of great friends, my spouse, an education, a second career out of the rat race, and a comfortable home in my childhood and adult life.  

I earned an MA in Communications from CSUF, a degree that brought me a fun career where I learned professional skills and also how to take risks, such as taking race car driving lessons at Bondurant Driving School. By running the Colorado Pikes Peak hill climb in a heavily modified Subaru.  And I learned self sufficiency by changing my own radiator, my own brakes, my own shocks.  (No, I don't do that any more!)  I embraced risk by examining the situation and listening to experts and companions in the journey. Trust, then don't look back. Brea can be a leader.

My political education has been recent: After a career in magazine editing, I decided to take a position with the school district at Laurel Magnet Elementary as a Library Media Tech. There, myself and others discovered that the population of Laurel, as a Title I school, was vulnerable to repercussions from a drive through being proposed within the pick up and drop off zone. 

This was no ordinary drive through, but a mega drive through, placing the students and families at risk. We fought back, and while it has been resolved for the time being, the students and neighborhood are by no means safe from zone change proposals.  The take away? Brea's citizens need people to help them get their voices and concerns heard; in this instance, for street safety of the students of Brea, and against the unsafe conditions for residents that a late-night drive through chicken establishment would create when next to restaurants with bars. And an open campus next to it.  We need common sense governing, with thoughtful development that supports community and business needs.  

Can we as a city create opportunity by prioritizing safety, while also taking risk? Can we listen to the ideas, innovative concepts and concerns of Brea's citizens? I am going to try.