Why I'm Running
My father was a Cuban immigrant. He came to the United States in 1956 with a third grade Cuban Education. He taught himself to read, write and speak English so that he could take his United States Citizenship test in English. He became a US citizen in 1964 and renounced his Cuban citizenship. My father did not want me to be bi-lingual. In fact, he would spank me if I spoke in Spanish. He told me that “you are an American and you will speak like an American.” He loved our country and I remember staying up until 2 or 3 am on presidential elections just to find out who our next president would be. My father was amazed that we could actually vote for who we wanted to lead us.
My father taught me that the United States is a special place. He taught me to love my country, and I do. I also love my community. I raised four children in Allegan County. I coached little league, AYSO soccer and AAU basketball. I’ve purchased and renovated buildings in our county. I’ve been committed to trying to make Allegan County a better place.
That is why I am running for Allegan County Prosecutor. As an attorney, I’ve seen what has happened in the legal community for the past 33 years. In the last six years during my opponent’s regime, I have seen a terrible decline in the administration of justice here in Allegan. My opponent has a track record that can only be described as sheer incompetence. In the past six years, 18 assistant prosecutors have resigned and another was fired. She started with 8 assistant prosecutors. They have all resigned. The assistant prosecutors who replaced them have largely resigned. In the previous 25 years, only a handful of assistant prosecutors resigned.
This is important because the prosecutor’s office has lost a huge amount of institutional knowledge. Long term prosecutors know the judges, the police officers, the defense attorneys and the court system in general. Replacing them with new attorneys means losing experienced attorneys with non-experienced ones who don’t know the system. As a result, our prosecutor’s office is losing over 80% of its District Court trials. They have not one a misdemeanor trial in 2024, and it is now May. They are only winning about half of their circuit Court trials as well. This has all happened over the backdrop of a budget that has gone from $1.2 million in 2018 to $2.1 million in 2024. In addition, the county commissioners, lead by Jim Storey (who has worked on my opponent’s campaign this year and four years ago) have also approved an additional three assistant prosecutor’s positions, raising the total to 11 assistant prosecutors.This comes at a cost of over $400 per year to the county. It appears that throwing money at the problem has not solved the problem.
I am running to restore fiscal sanity to the prosecutor’s office and to turn the office into a stable, effective team. The first thing that has to happen is to stop the rampant loss of assistant prosecutors. Then you have to train the assistant prosecutors and provide a work environment that is conducive to keeping them long term. As a successful coach and businessman, I plan on doing just that. If I am fortunate enough to receive your vote on August 6, 2024, I will begin the process of turning around our county prosecutor’s office to make it a stable, effective and winning team.
