VOTE411 Voter Guide

The Commission holds the power of the purse and is beholden to the people regarding how tax dollars are allocated. Commissioners are responsible for seeing that every branch of county government is properly funded and has access to every resource needed to operate in an efficient manner.

I also believe that the commissioner should be an organizer in their district. A commissioner should also be on the lookout for ways to bring about changes and institutions that will make their district a better place to live.

It is, in my opinion, a commissioner's responsibility to keep the public informed about upcoming decisions, both local and state, and how they could affect the people's day-to-day life.

Universal free breakfast and lunch for every student in Rutherford County Schools and ensuring that county infrastructure is prioritized in such a manner that it can keep pace with growth.

I have a detailed proposal regarding universal breakfast and lunch on my website, but the Cliff's Notes version is that we simply have to prioritize feeding kids. Paying for breakfast and lunch would cost about 1% of the county's annual budget. We have hundreds of millions of dollars just sitting in reserves not being used. The money is there; we just have to spend it. The USDA has a program that would cover a large portion of the county's cost. If we tied into that program, it would literally cost us about 0.3% of the annual budget.

Infrastructure is a multifaceted issue, but again... the root to fixing it is a shift in priorities. Plan Rutherford is a solid start, but we need to ensure we put people over builders.