Candidate Profiles

Cedar Rapids is an incredible city with exceptional resiliency and unlimited potential. We have the best people, and as we continue to rebuild from some of the US's worst natural disasters, we will continue to unlock our potential to attract economic development with high-quality jobs, revitalize our downtown, make gains on repairing our infrastructure, and achieve our goals with regard to housing needs. My top priorities always go to the core of what impacts people the most--housing and food security. Since I began working with Council, we have made significant improvements to stabilize resources for our unhoused residents by ensuring a permanent winter shelter and investing in partnerships with the National Alliance to End Homelessness. We continue to prioritize the way that people access food by looking for opportunities to expand community gardens in parks and identify food deserts and then recruit markets to these areas. Creating policies and opportunities that prioritize the goal of every Cedar Rapidian having food in their bellies, and a roof over their head will always be my priority because at the intersection of my two worlds in healthcare and in public service I have the fortune of focusing on looking out for the welfare and wellbeing of our residents. I will continue to prioritize opportunities to revitalize existing housing stock by promoting pilots to reduce risk for property owners to fill existing units, and look where we can recruit developers to build more where needed according to the Maxfield Housing reports, all while ensuring that everyone can live with dignity in properties that are safe and well-maintained. I remain committed to supporting efforts to attract, retain, and make our city welcoming for residents all while looking for efforts to continue delivering on our high quality services and for opportunities to tell our story of why Cedar Rapids is a must-see place to live and do business with.

While we have made incredible progress in our Flood Recovery efforts, we have sustained more natural disasters since 2008, and not losing steam on these recovery efforts will help us achieve all of our subsequent goals. Every street we protect, we can rebuild and that is evident by the growth we have seen in Kingston Yard as well as in the Czech Village and NewBo Districts near the Oak Hill Jackson neighborhoods. These investments are not possible without the protection that our intentional and significant efforts since I started on Council allow us to unlock. We will continue to make these investments and there will be a ripple out impact of breathing life back into these once-devastated areas with the vitality of both housing and new businesses that will allow Cedar Rapids to have it's resurgence and hopefully welcome those we lost from relocation, back home.

I have a lot of faith in our talented city team, who team up to accomplish whatever task is put before them. This is not even an improbable situation as we were forced to cut from our budget due to an estimation error from the state within recent budget cycles and had to address this very issue after we had already finalized our budget. The first place we start though, is going back to the Director and City Manager team, and assess what is most critical, whether that be essential infrastructure, continuation of road repairs, or projects we could could hedge our bets and put off. This is a common discussion during our budgeting meetings further evidenced by the pages that are always at the back of our binders that have unfunded requests. We deliver a methodical and thoughtfully balanced budget to our team which has consistently prepared us to weather emergencies when they arise. Given the fluidity of what each year brings, and the balance of funding opportunities through state and federal grants, it is hard to predict what would be cut first, but we always work as a team to make these decisions should they present.

There's a reason I have asked to stay on the Development Committee these past 8 years. Not only is this one of my top priorities but the additional unforeseen crises we have survived since the devastating floods of 2008 have made the need for this to stay as a critical part of our priorities. We work with our incredible city team and carefully evaluate the Maxfield Housing reports each year. From there, we create goals, and when presented with housing development opportunities look to ensure that the request, especially if it is seeking any city incentives, matches what our needs are. Additionally we work together to do several things: we ensure that our current housing stock is in good condition through more regular reviews and assessments, we ensure we have great policies with regard to best practices in building codes, we look for innovative ideas like our ROOTs program, Neighborhood Finance Corporation investments, revitalizing abandoned properties and lots, and ensuring we have zoning codes that support development where it needs to occur. Sometimes this also includes having tough conversation about change and addressing NIMBYism head on to explain that everyone's housing needs are different and everyone deserves to have a roof over their head and that we have strong policies to ensure that we create and facilitate creating good neighborhoods.

The city government, residents, and elected officials all have a part in driving population growth if this is what we decide to do. That can take a lot of different paths, but firstly we need to ensure that we have resources and opportunities for those that are here, before we can expect to grow or recruit others. I see it as our role to facilitate communication with one another, and give the gift of feedback about what we like or would like to see different. This can look like identifying more opportunities in our parks for disc golf, or investments in transportation infrastructure to recruit residents who do not wish to be reliant on owning a vehicle. It can also take the form of investing in a vibrant downtown with all hours of programming, or looking to find more community opportunities to embrace the river and facilitate river recreation or even opportunities for families. This can also take the shape of investments in murals and artwork that help to make Cedar Rapids unique, or investing in more opportunities for high-quality jobs to attract someone to relocate here. It is our job to tell our story about what we have to offer, to tell the story of what it's like to live and reside here, and to genuinely be open to growing with, being welcoming to, and attracting net new residents.

One of my first interactions with the City Council came before I was elected whereby I had concerns about our approach to panhandling. My concerns pulled me in, and with a trauma-informed care lens focused my efforts on better understanding the issue at hand. Once elected, I spent a lot of time advocating for a permanent overflow shelter because it was disheartening to see us struggle to find available empty spaces that met Fire code and could safely accommodate a large group of people, usually finding one after several brutal snow falls had begun. To now having a permanent structure and having partnered with the National Alliance to End Homeless as well as earned the support from my colleagues to have Homelessness as one of our top Council Priorities year after year means more than I have words to describe. I have met people who forever changed me, with Ghost who came to council and advocated on behalf of his unhoused friends for a permanent shelter, to Hector, the namesake of Hector's Place, who I would later serve as a regular letter of reference for. Unhoused persons are just people, who deserve our love and support to get into a better set of circumstances. A few Development Committee meetings ago, I shared my priorities regarding this which includes, doing a full assessment of available public restrooms in the city, and looking for appropriateness and opportunities for public showers as some other cities have had success with. I also prioritize adding another supportive housing project like The Heights and looking to facilitate a year-round overflow shelter.

While this was not my top priority during Council Goal setting, this to me looks like having clear policies that invite and retain businesses to do and continue doing business here in Cedar Rapids. We have residents for a variety of reasons, but facilitating job opportunities that provide for their livelihood and hopefully living wage, is something that Council can impact and is important in the larger picture of running a city. We need to hear what our existing and potential new employers are looking for, as well as what their team members need. Sometimes this is ensuring that we have housing for the size of team they are hoping to bring here; it can also look like having components and symbiotic economic infrastructure to close the distance on components of what they need to run their business. It shouldn't go without noting that we have a great business community here now. I learned early on that 75% of the US Mint's quarter production comes from metal made in District 5 at PMX. You could then take that quarter (which I loving say "is your reminder you always have a little piece of home with you) and buy a box of cereal at your locally owned grocery store that was produced within miles of your retailer. If you ordered a package, it might even contain recycled municipal paper with boxes that were manufactured from International Paper. We have had so much success attracting the growth of family-owned businesses in District 5 because our city teams are great at being available and answering questions and word gets out that we are the team you want to work with.

We have rules and regulations regarding these incentives, but I am always looks at the compliance of these parameters and if it aligns with our needs and Council's goals. I appreciate that our Council Packets and Agendas outline what Council Priorities this matches so that both we and our public know why we are making time for it. Incentives should be fitting a need we have in the city for either industry, or housing.

I don't foresee this dropping from our Council Priorities, or from mine until the projects are completed. Being born and raised in Cedar Rapids, I lived through the flood of 1993 (which helps me remember my younger siblings' ages), 2008 where I was in college and had to decide if I wanted to get stranded in my college apartment, or at home with family since the I-380 interstate was set to close, the flooding again in 2016 and 2018 where I met up with random strangers at Hawkeye Downs late into the night to fill sandbags, and then the devastating 2020 Derecho further compounded by the global pandemic while I was in my first management role in Healthcare within the Emergency Department during what would be the highest census in the hospital's history all while I had a tree through the roof of my own home and came home after a long shift that day to chainsaw said tree off my roof before I hand washed my scrubs in the bathtub by candlelit to air dry outside because the city was without power. I don't have a good mechanism for fully processing these events because each of them chinked our armor, and yet each of them made me prouder than words can describe about our collective strength and resiliency that makes me so proud to be a Cedar Rapidian. What these humbling events have showed is that we must remain committed to making as much progress as we can through budgeting and the help of Federal and State grants. I am so thankful to our residents for their support of our efforts to rebuild and further reduce any large consequential flooding impacts through our Flood Recovery, and to rebuild our tree canopy with our ReLeaf efforts.