RIPON – Ripon Realtor Dan Prince feels he can help the city recover from the current economic slump as he is hoping to regain his seat on the city council.
Prince was on the council from 1998 to 2006 – serving one year as mayor and three years as vice mayor.
During the year that he headed the council, a 25 X 25-foot-pool was built for a community swim center that was used for water polo swim team competitions. Recycling programs were also begun that year and more businesses were coming into town, Prince recalled.
He easily voiced his objection to the recent Main Street Project that was being proposed because of a stimulus fund grant – a project that would have interrupted business in Ripon’s downtown, he said. With objections from citizens over a million dollars in stimulus funds was given back to the federal government in rejecting that project.
Prince added that other stimulus money was used on the clock tower construction and upgrading round-abouts. He countered the thinking that because the money is there for the taking that it has to be used.
During his term on the city council he represented the community on various other boards including the San Joaquin Partnership for a year, Doctors Hospital of Manteca, six years, and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District Board of Directors for six years.
Prince said he “strongly encouraged” the building of a new city animal shelter. The former mayor said he had worked with the police chief in an attempt to enhance drug and gang enforcement within the city.
“Working together, we can preserve our quality of life and the small town atmosphere that makes Ripon a great place to live and to raise a family,” Prince said. “Every decision made by the city should be in the best interest of its citizens and the community – that’s first and foremost,” he stressed.
“Hopefully the economy will turn for us and then the city will be able to do things again,” he said. “We have to be very frugal in what we do.”
He and his wife Orelene have two grown children, Aaron, 28, who is currently doing his residency for a doctorate in pharmacy at a hospital in Massachusetts and daughter Deanna, 26, an ultrasound technician at a Modesto hospital. Orelene has a 35-year tenure with Bank of America and is currently a traveling auditor going up and down the Central Valley and into San Jose.
Prince was on the council from 1998 to 2006 – serving one year as mayor and three years as vice mayor.
During the year that he headed the council, a 25 X 25-foot-pool was built for a community swim center that was used for water polo swim team competitions. Recycling programs were also begun that year and more businesses were coming into town, Prince recalled.
He easily voiced his objection to the recent Main Street Project that was being proposed because of a stimulus fund grant – a project that would have interrupted business in Ripon’s downtown, he said. With objections from citizens over a million dollars in stimulus funds was given back to the federal government in rejecting that project.
Prince added that other stimulus money was used on the clock tower construction and upgrading round-abouts. He countered the thinking that because the money is there for the taking that it has to be used.
During his term on the city council he represented the community on various other boards including the San Joaquin Partnership for a year, Doctors Hospital of Manteca, six years, and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District Board of Directors for six years.
Prince said he “strongly encouraged” the building of a new city animal shelter. The former mayor said he had worked with the police chief in an attempt to enhance drug and gang enforcement within the city.
“Working together, we can preserve our quality of life and the small town atmosphere that makes Ripon a great place to live and to raise a family,” Prince said. “Every decision made by the city should be in the best interest of its citizens and the community – that’s first and foremost,” he stressed.
“Hopefully the economy will turn for us and then the city will be able to do things again,” he said. “We have to be very frugal in what we do.”
He and his wife Orelene have two grown children, Aaron, 28, who is currently doing his residency for a doctorate in pharmacy at a hospital in Massachusetts and daughter Deanna, 26, an ultrasound technician at a Modesto hospital. Orelene has a 35-year tenure with Bank of America and is currently a traveling auditor going up and down the Central Valley and into San Jose.
