Local resident Greg Ritchie is seeking a District 2 post
On Tuesday, the new Vacaville City Council will be seated with six members for the first time in its history. A seventh will be seated in June, as the council recently voted to fill outgoing Councilman Mitch Mashburn’s District 2 seat through a special election.
The election is not until May 4, but several are already declaring their intention to run. One — Greg Ritchie — has the advantage of having lived in Vacaville his entire life.
Ritchie, broker and owner of Citizens Financial, said he has “deep roots” in the city. His parents moved to Vacaville after the Vietnam War, where his father was a cargo pilot at Travis Air Force Base and his mother was a special education teacher for 42 years.
Ritchie attended Orchard Elementary School, Willis Jepson Middle School and Vacaville High School, from which he graduated in 1998.
His time in Vacaville has given Ritchie a deep appreciation for the city, and he said he still has memories that flood back when he visits his mother’s home in Orchard Park.
“I look and smile at Orchard School or Orchard Park or the creek as places that, when I was a kid, that was everything,” he said.
Ritchie said that kind of passion for Vacaville has lingered into his adulthood, and he wants to see it continue to progress.
“It’s an amazing time in our country, state and local community to have the ability to step up and be a positive force of change,” he said.
Part of Ritchie’s drive was a lifelong passion for sports. He played football for the Bulldogs at Vaca High and then attended Eastern New Mexico University where he was a collegiate athlete.
“Athletics has been a big, big part of my success,” he said. “It teaches you perseverance to go forward and the ability to focus, achieve a goal and see it through.”
After college, Ritchie moved to Los Angeles to begin his career in real estate finance where he started a mortgage company that he had to close amid the Great Recession. Nonetheless, he said working in L. A. gave him the ability to test his mettle and achieve his goals on his own.
Ritchie later moved back to Vacaville where he started Citizens Financial on Main Street, which assists homeowners throughout Solano County.
Ritchie wants to be a representative for small business on the City Council.
“One of my platforms I want to bring forward is making sure small business has a voice…and we can do things through COVID and beyond COVID — because we’ll get this — to support small business and growth,” he said.
One thing Ritchie wants to do is mitigate the impacts that large chains have on independent businesses and also give entrepreneurs the opportunity to start their own businesses. He also feels the city should address how it will handle the economic impacts of COVID-19.
“The instant issues are going to be how we’re going to deal with and navigate the changing economy of having a shuttered community due to COVID restrictions and COVID guidelines and the possible relapsing of certain more aggressive guidelines,” he said. “How’s it gonna affect the large companies here, the large employers and the small businesses that have more of the service industry style.”
A long- term goal for Ritchie is to maintain Vacaville’s reputation as “one of the best places to live.” To that end, he reiterated his support for entrepreneurial startups as well as the city’s efforts to attract more biotechnology businesses and have Vacaville be a place for their employees to live and not just commute into.
“Creating more jobs in the city has a double effect,” he said. “It will keep us a strong city or a better community but also a place where employers want to go to mitigate travel.”
Ritchie also wants to address issues within his own district. District 2 includes much of the northeastern part of the city, including all or portions of Leisure Town Road, Elmira Road, Orange Drive, Marshall Road and Vanden Road. It is also home to NorthBay Medical Center, several car dealerships, part of the Vacaville Premium Outlets and big-box stores such as Home Depot and Kohl’s.
“There’s a lot of commerce in that side of the city,” Ritchie said. “We’re a bedroom community, and we also have a lot of commerce.”
Ritchie also wants to see the former Green Tree Golf Course be developed in a manner that is appropriate to the area.
“I want to go to work with the city, the landowner and try to attract ideas on how to incorporate something that would suffice in Leisure Town to replace a golf course with either another golf course or something else to meet the needs of the residents of Leisure Town. That’s a large group of people of a certain age who deserve to have their voice heard.”
Ritchie and his wife Melissa are continuing to lay down roots in Vacaville by raising their children in town, and Ritchie serves on the Board of Directors for Kairos Public School Vacaville Academy.
Ritchie was pleased that the council began the process of making the special election solely for residents of District 2, and he wants to be a representative that residents can come to and express their concerns.
“I want to be a person who has an ear that they can come to listen and take their voice or passions or demands or desires to the city and make sure they’re heard,” he said.
Joe Desmarais, co-owner of Primo’s Barbershop, has also announced his intention to run.
For a complete listing of District 2 boundaries, visit Ci.vacaville.ca.us/government/city-clerk.