I am 100% pro voting.  I believe that a society with an extremely low voter turnout such as what it has been known for in the past and no political motivation to stand up and do what's right is no society at all.  I fear that political inactivity and the doom and gloom mentality that a lot of people are exhibiting nowadays may very well cause if not accelerate the death of our chance to save this unique local flavor we have here and restore it back to its intended glory.  The more people that we have voting, the more power I hope we can gain.  I have always thought that non-voting is just ensuring that we'll continue to have the same old shit that we have already.  I believe that its about time that we get up and tell our elected officials of all levels of governemt that they HAVE to answer to us and when they start the corruption of the law of our land we have to hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.  We can't afford to sit around being depressed letting our potential and quality of life slip away from us further and further.  Now more than ever we need to elect politicians in office that realize and believe that the constitution is the law of our land and cannot be used for personal gain ever.  Politicians need to be more open to us giving them feedback on how they can improve and us telling them what to do.  No longer should they consider being above us or the law.  I say, lets get our freedom back and nurture and restore what makes Eureka our nice cozy little corner of the Redwoods.

Just recently I traveled to the Czcech Republic and Germany for two weeks for my brother's wedding.  I sure learned a lot from the Europeans in those two weeks.  I admire their minimalist take on things.  Smaller cars, they walk everywhere, they eat less.  Almost everything they do is minimal.  As an American traveling overseas, this was quite a delightful sight to behold for me.  After arriving back into the states observing the Americans again, I can't help but notice that compared to the Europeans too many of us do a lot of everything in great excess.  Imagine if we took up the mindset of minimalization!  Just imagine how we can improve our debt situation, our continuous waste, our constant abuse of our resources (yes, all of them) and all of that if we just embraced this mentality.  Think of how much better off we could be.

Anyways, enough rambling for today.  This Art's Alive (August 2nd) I am going to be at the Obama table sigining people up to vote.  If you're interested in helping out with that, please contact me, I'll see what I can do to hook you up.

Hi guys.  My name is Christopher Holmquist.  I'm a 23 year old moderate democrat.  In two or possibly four years, I am planning on running for Eureka City Council.  For more then 4 years I have been volunteering for various political campaigns.  I have worked for all kinds of candidates such as Larry Glass and Nan Abrahms (amongst many of them) going door to door, phone campainging, and many more.  Ever since I first started this, I could never get enough of it and I got such a delightful rush of accomplishment and doing a lot of good for the better of the community.  I have learned so much from the community from this involvement and others.  I have also been a Eureka resident for over 9 years.

I was born and raised a Pastor's kid (in the Lutheran church) in Portland, OR.  Being born and raised into such a politically charged and diverse place like the Pacific Northwest and the Christian church has given me quite the opportunity to learn a lot about people and the politics involved when you get them together to make official decisions.  Throughout the past I have served on various positions on different church boards and as a result have learned a lot about the political structure and mind set of organizations and political groups.  Luckily I managed to survive and learn from the inevitable board conundrums coming out with a better sense of how to work with people and gain more maturity.  Always being the observer of organized religious politics, I have always taken the role of peacekeeper.  So much turmoil and unrest, something needed to be done.  Seeing this happen in many aspects of the community as well as my passion in campaigning prompted me to run for city council. 

As a business owner of a sharpening business and Eurekan, my biggest concerns out of many are the survival of local businesses, public safety (I would like to advocate for more programs in the community to bridge the communication and understanding gap between the police as well as other public safety organizations and the general public.  Just one of my many ideas on public safety), and getting young people excited and more involved in voting in current elections.  I have been a supporter of getting the good word of voting out to the people who don't usually vote and to the young people as well.  I believe that the politicians need to answer to us and have to have the good will of the common human kind in mind constantly.  I will be a strong advocate of all of this and much more if elected to office.  I have a lot of respect for one's political individuality and political desires in a candidate.  With that in mind, please tell me what you want to see in a candidate and how I could be a better political figure/person.  I want to keep a pulse on a local's desire for a politician.  Your input will be very cruicial to me.  I have been for a while and still am observing closely city council members and local politicos to see what people think is wrong with some and what they wish would improve.  I must admit, I am learning quite a bit!  Disagree with me or want to learn more about me?  Send me a message or come have coffee with me.  Lets understand each other and come together!  My aol instant messenger username is chrisholmquist and my yahoo one is didgeman1984.  Hope to hear from you soon!