Dear Friends,

As you know, one of our opponents in the race for City Council Seat 4 is the incumbent, Steve Castaneda. In light of Steve's complete exoneration from the felony charges filed against him, I have suspended our campaign for Chula Vista City Council seat 4, and I am urging our supporters to support Steve.

We decided to take this step after much reflection. Although I have some differences with Steve, it seems our goals and values when it comes to most issues facing our community are the same, and we don¹t want to split votes between us.

Those who have contributed to our campaign will have as much as possible of their donations returned. Any additional contributions we receive will be returned to the contributor.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to our campaign treasurer, Sandy Duncan for keeping our records straight, to my son Phillip Collum for designing all our campaign literature, and to my husband Nick Aguilar and my friend Peter Watry for their wise advice and counsel.

But my deepest gratitude and warmth goes to all those Chula Vistans who gave our campaign so much heart-felt encouragement and support over the past month and a half. And I want them to know I have not ruled out running for city council again at some future date.

With Affection,

Patricia (Pat) Aguilar