Gallatin County Commissioners act as the chief executive and legislative body for the county, managing its business, budget, and policies. Comprised of three members elected at-large to six-year terms, they oversee departments, subdivision reviews, zoning, road/bridge maintenance, and appoint citizens to over 43 boards.
Campaign Phone
4065795697
My greatest strengths are experience, passion for service, and my commitment to continued learning and personal growth in this important community leadership position.
Experience: I have spent most of my adult life in public service work, including 12 years serving in elected office. I served 3 terms in the Montana legislature. For the last 6 years, I have served all of you as a full-time Gallatin County Commissioner.
Service: I love this community and I am committed to leaving it better than I found it. I am particularly passionate about serving kids, the elderly, and strengthening our social service safety net.
Growth mindset: I am constantly learning and growing, seeking feedback from those around me. I am young and hungry to learn.
Leading the organization in partnership with other elected officials. We have distributed responsibilities across elected offices that must work together for the organization to succeed. Our partnership and cooperation between electeds provides the essential services upon which Gallatin County citizens and visitors rely. My first term was defined by a lot of turnover with my fellow elected officials, which brought some challenges. Our financial systems are reliant on the management of multiple elected officials, for example, and we are in the midst of implementing reforms that affect every aspect of County Government. I'm extremely optimistic about these reforms and am committed to implemention in partnership with other elected officials!
During the pandemic, I helped lead the investment of millions of dollars in our local agricultural irrigation canals, which is private infrastructure that keeps our valley green, mitigates floods, recharges ground water, and delivers irrigation water to our farmers and their crops. We were the only County Commission in Montana that made this type of investment, and this shows how important our agricultural producers are to me and my colleagues. We also invest millions of dollars every year in ag land preservation through the Open Space program. These kinds of efforts will continue to be front and center to our work at the Gallatin County Commission. We can also incentivize development near cities and towns, and disincentivize rural sprawl.
During my time on the Commission, Gallatin County has developed a deeply affordable housing development on some property we own in the city of Bozeman. This project will provide hundreds of families with affordable rental housing in perpetuity. We also have worked hard to be a partner to mobile home park owners and residents, and have helped to finance our county's first "Resident Owned Community (ROC)" mobile home park in Belgrade, helping our working class families invest in their own housing infrastructure. We have created a revolving loan fund of federal stimulus funds to support affordable housing projects, and I will continue to be an eager partner for below-market affordable housing developments.
The federal government and state of MT are failing to deliver sustainable resources for mental health services, so local communities are left to try and stitch together a mental health crisis safety net. This has been a priority focus for my first term on the County Commission and will continue to be a passion area for me moving forward into a second term. Since my election in 2020, we have successfully built a mobile crisis service; integrated 988 with 911 dispatch; helped Bozeman Health make generational investments in behavioral health care services and staffing; and we are in the process of helping to stand up a youth crisis service hub north of Belgrade, in partnership with HRDC, the Gallatin Behavioral Health Coalition and the MHLAC.
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