Occupation/Current Position
Firefighter - Paramedic - incumbent County Council District “G” representative
Education
Memorial Hospital / SJRMC Paramedic School, Ivy Tech, IUSB, John Adams High School
Campaign Phone
574-532-0330
Candidate video
I have served on the St. Joseph County (SJC) Council for many terms. My breadth of experience and dedication bringing good paying jobs balanced with responsible growth initiatives makes me the best candidate for District “G”. I am a lifelong public safety professional who has many experiences from which to draw upon in helping to guide decisions which matter most to voters. Things such as lower crime rates, increased public safety protection, traffic safety, public health, courts and detention, environmental concerns, and reduced travel time on the South Shore commuter line are just a few of the things I’ve championed. I served as the Chair of the Human Services/Criminal Justice Committee and Engineering and Transportation Committee for several years. I have helped to craft budgets which reflect some of the highest cash reserves ever.
I will continue to work to protect our environment and bring good quality jobs to SJC while being fiscally responsible. If we ask companies to stay or locate here, and want our future generations to stay and prosper here, then we need to foster a climate which brings good high quality jobs. Jobs with good pay, great benefits, thoughtful to a work-life balance, and a robust retirement plan. I’m talking about jobs that will lead to home ownership and being able to provide for your family. In doing this, we need to be guardians of our actual environment. If we neglect our environment, including the clean, abundant, yet vulnerable, St. Joseph Aquifer, we won’t be able to attract good employers, good jobs, or keep our families here. Keeping families united and protecting and preserving the environment will help accomplish these goals.
If we create an environment where we attract new residents and have opportunities for our future generations to be able to remain here, then we need to responsibly continue to expand opportunities for good paying jobs coupled with quality of place and life initiatives. We will need to balance this growth with the desire to help New Carlisle retain their small town charm and character. In order to retain good jobs, we will need to continue to consider several factors to convince companies to remain or expand here. These would include promoting our low cost of doing business (taxes), our quality of place (parks, trails, cultural attractions, institutions of higher learning, environmental quality, etc.), and having a talented and capable workforce. Rewarding companies to expand or come here may require the use of tax phase in incentives.
I absolutely favor the tried and true practice which has taught us from other parts of our country, and our own “Motels for Now” program. That is, in order to most effectively treat chronic homelessness, you need to house the person first in order to get treatment for whatever ails them. Ideally, you would want the new center in an area which has the least impact on surrounding homes and existing businesses. It needs to be on a public transit route (bus line) for purposes of transportation to and from jobs, treatments, or access to groceries with the hope of eventually getting the homeless person treated and independent. The county, as well as, the cities of Mishawaka and South Bend should play a role in helping to partially fund this initiative. What that dollar amount or percentage should be needs to be further evaluated.
I support the current model of 9 elected districts, however, I don’t know what happened historically to deviate from how it’s done in Indiana’s other 89 counties. With the 4 district/3 at-large council method, including 3 at-large commissioners (living in 3 distinct districts), voters would have and opportunity to vote for 4 council members and 3 commissioners. That’s 7 votes to shape the direction that voters want their county government to go compared to the 2 votes they get now. I think voters would have a greater voice in selecting their county representatives with the system that’s more widely used in our State. If we keep the 9 district system, I advocate that an equal number of councilmembers & commissioners from opposing parties and the judge of the Circuit Court draw the boundaries. Our State law doesn’t provide for that, though.
The county commissioners and council members who voted to close Portage Manor did a horrible job in closing the facility. With the great fiscal job we’ve been doing as county government over the last couple of decades, we were rich with surplus dollars and income and the closure was not necessary. We could have continued to fund the deficit the facility had been experiencing while lobbying the State FSSA and legislature for increased funding for RCAP recipients and/or increased the patient population verses decreasing it. The RCAP rate of reimbursement hadn’t been increased for 15 years. We, as a county, spend more money per capita, on housing animals in our animal shelters than we did on humans in our county home. I would have worked for a permanent more humane solution and continued to lobby the FSSA and legislature for more funding.
I am very committed to and know that the more transparent we are as local government is what is needed for successful outcomes in our democracy. As an example, the Portage Manor debacle and the displaced “family” members from Portage Manor could have been avoided if a more transparent process had been used from the start. With a very short deadline and no funding, a true solution to the situation at Portage Manor was not found. Given the plethora of talented professionals, academia, front line health and mental health workers, and dedicated elected officials in our community, the issues related to Portage Manor could have been tackled with a more open and transparent process engaging all the stakeholders in our community. I fully commit to open meetings and public records as prescribed by the Indiana public access counselor.
