Candidate says MAC needs new blood

By Sylvie Belmond Acorn Staff Writer

Tony Fote

Tony Fote (pronounced Fo-tay) said he has many positive ideas and nothing negative to say about living in Oak Park.

But when it comes to politics, Fote, 47, believes the Oak Park Advisory Council needs fresh perspectives. "The MAC should be made up of a wide range of people in our community, not just professionals or people who have the time," he said. "We all have different ideas about what’s important to preserve the quality of life here."

As the crew chief for the editors at KTLA-TV’s morning news show, Fote gets home early in the afternoon, and noted that people have different needs depending on what they do in the community. Fote has been with KTLA for 23 years. His job brought him to Oak Park in 1985 when he was assigned to do a story about landscaping with drought-tolerant plants. "That’s what turned me on to this place," he said.

Fote and his family moved to Oak Park in 1990. His wife, Elaina, is a yard supervisor at Oak Hills Elementary, and the couple’s two children, ages 12 and 9, attend Medea Creek Middle School and Red Oak Elementary respectively.

Whereas Fote said he’s glad to see many people are running for a position on the MAC, he doesn’t think incumbents should run for another term. "You need people in there to have fresh ideas," he said, pointing to the 18-year-old candidate supportively.

The MAC is not a political office––it’s an advisory office––so communication and ideas are important. From commuters to mothers, to students and local business owners, people have different visions. "Every person that lives here has a different idea about what makes Oak Park a great place to live," Fote said.

  Fote’s primary concerns are traffic and the maintenance of the infrastructure. As a triathlete who runs and rides his bike in Oak Park, Fote noticed potholes and dangerous street conditions.

"But Oak Park pays a lot of taxes to the county and the streets should be maintained," he said, noting one of the functions of the MAC is to relate the needs of the community to the county.

Oak Park is also unique because the community is composed of homeowners associations and each one of them is a microcosm within the larger unincorporated area that makes Oak Park.

"It would be a disaster if Oak Park incorporated," said Fote. "It’s working fantastically; the less the government is involved with us, the better," he added. That’s why communication between the MAC and the county supervisor (Linda Parks) is imperative, he said.

County budget cuts have forced law enforcement providers to make cuts in unincorporated areas, and often Oak Park is patrolled by just one policing vehicle. So Fote suggested the MAC should start a campaign to promote more community-type policing like the neighborhood crime watch program.

He also recommended the MAC should exchange information and ideas with the water district and the utility companies that serve the area.

If elected, Fote would encourage the installation of solar panels to resolve power problems, and he’d like to promote homeowners association quarterly forums.

Fote and other MAC candidates are profiled on www.smartvoter.org., the website of the League of Women Voters.