Principles, Platform, and Priorities
Our principles form the foundation on which our political platforms and positions are built. They act as a framework for decision-making and provide us with a clear set of values and behaviors to follow when making choices. Platforms and positions can change, but principles don't.
Guiding Principles
Some of my guiding principles in public service include:
- Put first things first: funding and support for the essential functions of government - public safety, water/sewer, and infrastructure must be our top priorities.
- Play the long game: Band aid fixes and kicking the can down the road only make matters worse in the long run. The plans we make today must take into account their impact on the future.
- Be proactive: Don't wait until the rain starts to patch the hole in the roof. If something needs to be done, don't sit around expecting someone else to take care of it - just do it.
- Own it: Don't be afraid to declare your beliefs and don't be ashamed to admit your mistakes.
- Remember where you came from: Don't lose the perspective you had as an ordinary citizen. Don't develop an "us vs. them" mentality toward your constituents. Don't expect or accept special treatment because of your elected position.
- Communicate: When we avoid talking about difficult or controversial topics, misunderstandings and misinformation flourish. Have the hard discussions; they often turn out to be the best discussions.
- Never stop learning: Nobody knows it all, and everyone we encounter can teach us something. Be open to new information and new ideas.
Platform and Priorities
A political platform is a set of goals for addressing the issues that our citizens care about. Platform goals are based on a candidate's priorities. Mine include (but are not limited to):
- Supporting our police department's efforts to proactively reduce crime and make our city a safe place to live, with adequate funding for equipment, personnel, training, and a facility that will accommodate their needs 20 years into the future.
- Ensuring our fire department has the personnel, training, and equipment to address fires in structures of all types and sizes, with facilities in key locations to enable fast response in emergency situations.
- Building an animal services facility and staffing it with adequate personnel to enable better care for more animals and an end to the constant "code red" status.
- Achieving more transparency in all aspects of government: policy, legislation, and operations.
- Making all public-facing processes more user-friendly for individuals and companies doing business with the city, including the revision and consolidation of the development codes.
- Supporting and enabling a working environment that will reduce the turnover rate and make our city a desired place to work.
- Creating policies to enable implementation of the downtown strategic plan.
- Reviewing our overall strategic plan and updating it to reflect the post-pandemic world.
- Developing a plan to beautify our city, with a two-pronged focus on our major thoroughfares and on neighborhoods.
- Finding ways to provide more and better lakefront and lakeview access for citizens without encroaching on private property.
- Creating legislation and policies that will shape our city's economic development in a positive way based on a new, clearly defined identity and vision.
Positions
Issues that come before the council do so in the form of zoning actions, special use permits, development plans, policies, ordinances, resolutions, and requests. As mayor, my position on each individual agenda item (and consequently my vote) will always be dependent on facts and law specific to that case.
The principles, platform, and priorities discussed above form the underlying basis for my positions on each item the council is asked to consider as well as the various broad topics that I discuss in the Issues section.
