Creating Successful Communities Through Positive and Determined Leadership
In This Episode: 02:36 Guest Mayor Rey Leon is introduced. 02:56 Mayor Leon describes his community. 05:54 Mayor Leon tells how long he’s been mayor. 07:16 Mayor Leon conveys what he would like to accomplish during his time as mayor. 19:20 Mayor Leon gives the status of three projects. 21:38 Mayor Leon identifies some of the challenges he faces as a mayor in a small community. Guest and Organization:Rey Leon is the Mayor of Huron, California. Leon is also president and founder of ValleyLEAP and a member of the Air Resources Board Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (EJAC) in California.
Take Away Quotes:“Huron is a farm-worker city. It’s got the highest rate of Latinos for an incorporated city in the nation, at the national level. And, of course, it’s a small community, around 7,000 on paper. I venture to say that there’s at least 10,000 residents. We, having an agricultural base and being a farm-worker community, we have a population that good amount of folks that are, I would say, economic refugees… It’s a community that speaks a good nine languages at least, which, to me, is amazing.”
“[A plaza is] just a magical space where you’re able to bond with the rest of the folks in your community, some way, somehow. It’s where young men, young women meet their mates; it’s where entertainment is shared; it’s where farmers’ markets happen; it’s where you do some exercise out there; it’s just ’the’ place.”
“The vision, the goal, my dream, in the period not just as mayor because it was prior to this but as we continue forward whether as mayor or just as a leader that I’ve been even before getting into elected office is making Huron the greenest farm-worker city in the country.”
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