Where I
stand.
Our challenges are interconnected, and so are the solutions we build together. Three priorities for District 140.
An unaffordability crisis
The rising cost of housing, healthcare, childcare, utilities, groceries, and education is stretching household budgets to a breaking point. Seniors worry about aging in place. As affordable housing disappears, working and fixed-income families are pushed out. Multigenerational farms face rising costs that threaten our rural way of life, and young adults carry debt that puts the American Dream further out of reach.
There's nothing affordable about an economy that prices people out of participating. When families, small businesses, and farms are forced out, the whole community feels the loss. Schools, healthcare, emergency services, and town governments all struggle to hold on. These issues are interconnected, and lasting solutions begin when we treat them as part of the same story.
Local roots
The strength of a small town isn't in its buildings or budgets. It's in the relationships that give us a sense of belonging. Neighbors lending a hand. Family farms feeding local families. Small businesses sponsoring the softball team. Teachers opening doors, libraries sparking curiosity, volunteers answering the fire call. Repeated thousands of times, these everyday acts become the roots that hold a community together.
From those roots grow the institutions we build together, including our representative government. They let us invest in the people, places, and opportunities none of us can sustain alone. These roots nourished the community that raised me, and I'm committed to strengthening them for generations to come.
Connected leadership
Effective government doesn't stand above a community. It grows from it, and works best when it stays connected to the people it serves. That begins with listening, learning, and recognizing that the people closest to a problem often hold the wisdom to solve it.
Through my work in the judicial system, I've seen how hard it can be for ordinary people to navigate systems meant to serve them. When government becomes too complicated or unresponsive, it stops feeling like something we built together, and that erodes trust. Public service isn't about wielding power; it's about honoring trust, earned through honesty, humility, accountability, and a willingness to listen even when we disagree.
Then let's get to work.
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