At the ripe age of 22, Councilman Matt Garcia was definitely an inspiration to both the younger and older members of his community. He became the youngest member of the city council just last year at the age of 21 and had set goals for himself that included running for Mayor of Fairfield, Ca. The Councilman's term was set to expire November 2011, but instead it, along with his life, expired last night when he was approached by a gunman and shot once in the back of the head while talking with a friend in her driveway. Today, Councilman Garcia was declared brain dead and his family has made the difficult decision to take him off of life support.

I was not familiar with the Councilman until now, but I am deeply saddened by what has happened. Deeply saddened because he was someone who had so much more to give to his community and he was very eager to give it. And also saddened because this type of violence holds a status of normalcy in the Bay Area. I grew up in a community where it wasn't safe to play outside because you could become collateral damage in a drug deal gone wrong or a revenge drive-by shooting. You can still be shot in my old neighborhood if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which could be your own livingroom. More often than not, an innocent by-stander ends up with a gunshot wound or a make shift memorial on the side walk because their life was taken. The Bay really needs some solutions to this madness, NO ONE IS ABOVE BECOMING A VICTIM, young or old, regular citizen or civil servant.

My heart goes out to the Garcia family for their senseless loss and I pray everyday for a better day in the place that I call home. My mind and heart can't dwell on this for much longer so I will leave you with some of Councilman Garcia's last words from a blog that he posted on his Myspace page (yes, the Councilman was a Myspacer):

On Wednesday Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Matt posted this entry on his MySpace blog:

MY LIFE

Current mood: blessed

Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Well I should be in bed but I thought to myself, I have never wrote a blog in my entire myspace life and I been having this "principal in my head". I will keep it short and straight to the point. I been thinking about my life and it is not complete but it is getting there. I thought about the things I have accomplished over the years it has truly been a blessing. It just shows people when you put your mind to something you can make it happen. I still haven't accomplished everything, but I am working towards it and I believe if it is God's Will, it will happen. All of us have goals but they are all different, hold on let me take that back, they could be the same but with different agendas. I just see the potential in our generation to make things happen. Some other people in past generations, and sometimes in my case our generation don't feel that way but let's prove them wrong. That is what drives me proving people wrong when they think I CAN'T but then, I keep making things happen. It feels good but at the same time you wonder why these people can't stand you or like you. There are people that don't support anything you ever do but if you prove to them you can, they can still hate, but "Who looks Stupid"? Exactly!!! But this is one of those things I learned and wanted to share with my friends on myspace. Everyday we learn something new. Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. It doesn't have to be an "A" the next day, but let's hope it improves. Hope you can use this one day when you feel the way I feel right now!!!!

God Bless 08/27/2008

Matt Garcia

[note: entry courtesy of http://electmattgarcia.com/]