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Personal Biography
[please see website]
Education
Lawrence High School, Class of 2003. University of Kansas + Emporia State University.
Community/Public Service
Elected to Douglas County Commission in 2020. Court/Systems Advocate at The Willow DV Center since 2013. Currently on the Douglas County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) + the Douglas County E-Community Leadership Team/Financial Review Board (entrepreneurship program). Elected member of National Association of Counties' FFI Leadership/Peer Learning Network ("Familiar Faces Initiative"). Former member of Affordable Housing Advisory Board (AHAB). Previous crisis hotline advocate at STA Care Center (then *GaDuGi SafeCenter). AmeriCorps member for 2 separate years of service, at Groundwork Inc. in Brooklyn NYC and United Way of Douglas County, KS. Camp Counselor/LEAD Director at Camp Fiver. Elected Class President at Lawrence High School 2yrs. + Editor-in-Chief of LHS's The Budget '02-'03.
Road and bridge improvements are a constant work in progress, and in recent and upcoming years we've been particularly focused investing in some critical bridge replacements and county route repairs across the county that make those routes safer. Additionally, we're embarking on a big renovation and expansion project of largest building - our judicial center - to plan for the next 20+ years of growth needs, along with developing a secure facility for Douglas County's Emergency Communications Center (dispatch) and Emergency Management, all huge assets for our county at large. Those capital projects, and more, are best paid for with cash reserves -- money which has been gradually accumulating over time so that we can pay for large capital improvement projects as we go, with cash. It's especially important to do that because counties are in fact limited in how much they can bond or debt finance for projects - so cash on hand is necessary to pay-as-we-go.
I think there are many ways to approach local employment opportunities in our community, and as with most things I think that a diversity of tactics is how we will make real progress. In my time on the commission so far, we have increasingly broadened our discussions about workforce issues and economic development across the board. Our community is lucky to have 3 unique universities, along with Peaslee Technical Training Center, and each of those campuses offer distinct opportunities for cultivating talent and offering specialized education opportunities that provide a spectrum of career pathways and trade skills, as well as helping to incubate more robust entrepreneurship opportunities. I'm interested in how we grow the county's partnerships with those entities across the board, as well as local economic support/development orgs specifically working to make our county a thriving ecosystem for small local business. We can attract new industry/big business here, but it must be measured
The county's government is most effective when it helps to convene systemic public health + public safety discussions, across sectors/systems in our community. I believe that DG County continues to grow its capacity for bringing partners together to identify the opportunities in front of us all that can help us make meaningful change for all. The county's government is most effective when we help facilitate collaboration + cooperation across our departments and our external partners who share a purpose of improving all public services for the community. Counties are responsible for helping to fund/facilitate many of the core functions that our community interacts with or relies upon - from elections to District Courts to rural infrastructure + road safety, from 911 dispatch to Emergency Management to jail operations, from land records to rural zoning + codes, and from social service funding to crisis care coordination - we rely on working well with each other to make effective change.
