Occupation/Current Position
Farm educator
Education
Bachelor’s degree in Geology, Master’s in Systems Ecology, and a PhD in Environmental Science
Campaign Phone
5743441753
Candidate video
Owner & operator of Prairie Winds Nature Farm, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization since 2000. Grass fed sheep 15 years, grass fed cattle 10 years, kept bees & poultry 20 years. Currently direct our sustainable agriculture, environmental science, and horseback riding programs for adults and children. Keep the books, pay staff, and otherwise administrate the business; as well as teaching. Our programs provide educational field trips & classes for local schools; spring & summer day camps; and volunteer opportunities for college students. Include all income levels in our programs. Formal education included classes in policy, economics, planning, and business, in addition to science. Job experience included field studies, chemistry laboratory, statistical analysis of data, writing project reports, and policy work for 2 non-profits.
1. Stop the bleeding- restore financial accountability & investigate county expenditures/ solvency. Return control of tax dollars to elected representatives & citizen engagement. 2. Explore ways the county and cities/towns can work more efficiently together to provide appropriate location of jobs close to population centers, saving taxpayer spending on increased infrastructure. Incentives for affordable housing construction based on a teacher’s salary of $60k/year. I will be very interested in recommendations from the Housing Study. Our county quality of life: clean air & water, parks, green space, trails, community centers, etc. is at extreme risk at this time. Spend taxpayer $ more wisely on local product producing jobs. Focus on small to medium business that will return most profits to employees, not large out of state corporations.
We cannot allow moneyed interests to change our planning process to favor large outside interests who will receive the bulk of the profits from new business activity, and cause our county to use all its resources to lure those large companies here. Those resources currently include: infrastructure financed by taxpayer bonds, preparation of property to be “shovel ready”, extended tax abatements, possibly more. We need to value local returns from long term employment, instead of short term construction jobs & activity, and long term employment opportunities only for specially trained non-community members. We need to bring the County Comprehensive Plan update to Council in exact form to which broad citizen engagement contributed. Emphasize quality of life: active transportation, rural character, reduced sprawl of housing into farmland.
Our most vulnerable residents need a safe, well staffed place to live. Staff should be paid a good wage and all possible means of gaining community health support from federal sources should be used to achieve this. County dollars should be matching other financial opportunities.
Currently with 9 separate geographical areas, each part of our county is represented by someone who has to live in that area. That’s about as fair as you can get. If we reduced the number of districts, our rural communities would rarely, if ever, be able to get an At Large member elected, as those folks typically come from larger population centers. If a majority were elected from one larger population district, then those Council members could take directional control of all future actions of the Council.
A bipartisan and independent committee should be in charge of drawing district boundaries. No gerrymandering in our county!
Employees and volunteers were treated very poorly. Some had given their best years, at no or very low pay, in service to the most vulnerable of our county’s population. The county created the emergency by years of neglect of facilities maintenance and staff salaries. What I would do differently is not to neglect these important factors in the success of the enterprise.
I believe strongly in expanded transparency, citizen involvement, and education of officials and residents. We need dialogue between elected and appointed officials and Citizen groups & organizations such as for example the Juday Creek Task Force, Michiana Community Health Coalition, Community Foundation, Civil Rights Heritage Center, and Ecological Advisory Committee. Dedicated, engaged, and knowledgeable citizens should have more formal input and greater opportunity to help with local government & community issues. This could be accomplished by creation of committees who advise elected and appointed officials before they pursue courses of action so that conflicts can be identified and resolved. Guidance on open meetings and access to public records is welcome to allow scrutiny of development projects supported by county taxes.
