Candidate Profiles

I am betting that every candidate has housing as one of their top priorities. And we are all right. We must increase affordable housing across the spectrum. This includes supportive housing for those most cost-burdened. I say supportive housing because those who are most cost-burdened most often need additional supports to successfully stay housed. We must make sure that supportive services are also part of the conversation when addressing affordable housing for those most in need. Additionally, we need affordable rentals for families, for professionals, and for workforce. As if that isn't enough, we must address home ownership needs. The National Association of Realtors tracked the average age for first time home buyers at 38. The median age in Iowa is 36. In Iowa City we need to provide more affordable options, and yes, that does mean working with developers to make sure that we can provide housing for the people who work here.

Another priority is building up retail on the Southeast side of Iowa City. The IC Marketplace is currently little more than an underutilized blight and a lot of wasted acreage in the form of a parking lot. Iowa City needs to invest in this area with retail, restaurants, townhomes, and apartments, a mini-park. What could you think of? We need your input! This is an area long overdue for rejuvenation and I will be championing this project--and asking for a lot of community input along the way.

My third priority is additional mental health supports as a part of public safety responses. Our state is the worst in the nation for mental health (in terms of beds; you can imagine how well other forms of support are [not] funded); we must bolster and create additional local options. We have the 988 hotline; we must continue to fund mobile crisis; we must sustain paired teams of social worker and police officer; and we need to investigate additional solutions. I am in favor looking into a trained crisis and/or social worker on the 911 triage floor to help re-direct calls to mental health workers instead of through the police.

The biggest issue to Iowa City is to maintain and continue to improve quality of life for Iowa City residents across the board, from big issues to small issues. They all add up. I have learned over this term that our City Council must attend to multiple concerns in order to foster and support a thriving community. We all have priorities, which leads to a strong and diverse council, but no single issue can overshadow all others. From creating more housing for all residents and their families, to lessening food insecurity, to protecting our most vulnerable residents from harm, to building up a climate conscious and active community, to ensuring we prioritize the arts, parks, and festival continue in order to thrive. . .these are many more than one issue. We have to work to maintain, protect, and in the face of immense pressures, improve daily lives for Iowa Citians. I believe, and as I have thought about and voted for over the past four years, that impacts felt by people in Iowa City matter immensely. They may not be big and bold, like fare-free transit, but an increased hourly wage for child care professionals, ADA entrances to City parks and our sidewalks, support for music in neighborhoods, all of these improvements make a difference regularly.

In terms of making sure we put people's lives first, we need to continue to partner with agencies that have specific knowledge and the ability to focus intensely on creating solutions we can support. The City should not own all solutions, but we should be at the forefront to drive them. A good example of this is what we are currently doing on the affordable housing front. We have a Harvard Bloomberg fellow here for two years to learn our community and to offer expert insights that fit our area. City Council's best work has been when we say we want to work on a problem and we bring in experts (within our community as well as more broadly) to listen, provide insights, and work to build sustainable solutions. We also have many partners (named in the question on affordable housing below). Their dedication and relationships within the community, and their reputations as affordable housing experts and resources, are important for the City to lean on and to collaborate with. Good solutions have many inputs. City Council needs to continue to support these efforts and, importantly, to broadcast these efforts and outcomes. That was a broad answer, but I hope it helps shed light on how our approach to problem solving helps to get to residents, which is ultimately what matters most.

Unfortunately, your question is not hypothetical. We are facing budget cuts. Our current budget is slated at a deficit. We have an incredible staff that accounts for contingencies and thus far we have balanced our budgets, but the reality is that we won't be able to rely on good fiscal responsibility as federal and state dollars are increasingly volatile or simply withdrawn. As a Council, we will need to make hard decisions in the future. We absolutely cannot cut essential services. I cannot fathom a specific area that we do away with or cut so severely we essentially cut a service or group out. We must be smart, and we will need to be lean--we have already postponed plans for our 5th fire station--but we got through COVID and we will get through these next few years. My hope is that LOST passes so that we can continue to plan and pay for improvements; I am aware of needing to look at our budgets in each area to ensure that we aren't cutting out important services.

Affordable housing is perhaps the single greatest need here in Iowa City and that covers the gamut, from the unhoused to first time home owners to families. City Council's role is, quite simply, to address these needs in multiple ways by working with partners. At no point has any government been the sole answer. I am proud that we are already taking steps to diversify and amplify our approaches to creating more affordable housing. We work with Shelter House, with DVIP, with The Housing Trust Fund, and we have been able to secure a Harvard Bloomberg fellow for 2 years whose expertise is in housing. She is embedded within our community so that her understanding is specific and her recommendations and assists are tailored. We are also working on becoming developers after winning a ProHousing federal grant. We will be building and owning permanent public housing nestled within an existing neighborhood. We cannot think of solving affordable housing as a single effort or with a single tool. As councilor, my role is to advocate for what works, to benchmark our efforts and successes, and yet not be beholden to one-size-fits-all solutions.

I support the local option sales ballot measure because it is going to allow us as a region to have control over our finances. At the same time I understand its regressive nature, there are two elements that I believe mitigate some of this reality 1) groceries, medical supplies and health products, diapers, feminine products, gas, utilities, rent, internet, and educational materials are not taxed 2) Iowa City (+Coralville, NL) are among 6 cities in Iowa that do not impose a LOST tax. As a result we are losing dollars spent in the community by those who do not live here. In 2023, Greater IC documented that $438 million was spent in Johnson County by people who did not live here. Without LOST, we are leaving a lot of money on the table that could be helping make a difference in our residents lives. IC has committed its LOST revenue to housing (25%), community partners (15%), and infrastructure including roads, bike trails, and parks (10%). 50% goes to property tax relief which means that homeowners who are cost burdened will not see their taxes go up. This also helps in terms of making Iowa City more affordable in the long term. Potential home buyers often cannot afford to think about increased property taxes. Ultimately, LOST gives IC more control over its finances, which also means we can continue to build up the community without state and federal oversight.

I view every opportunity or collaboration with interest. However, I also look at how Iowa City can benefit from the partnership or interest. There are some projects not even off the ground but part of our strategic plan, like making the Iowa River more of an attraction from Coralville through South Iowa City. It is far too big a project to take on by ourselves. I am glad that Greater Iowa City has this on their strategic map so that we can partner with them and offer our resources to gather community input, to tailor interests and needs within IC. My desire to collaborate and to be transparent abut regional needs is more foundational. Iowa City needs to have authentic and earnest conversations about funding for non-profit direct aid agencies with our neighboring municipalities, since most of them are housed in Iowa City while serving a regional population. I am also a board member of Early Childhood Iowa-Johnson County, and there are small pots of money for programing from the state for families that I want to be able to leverage. The City may not be able to tap into the money stream, but perhaps it can help support and multiply it. This is the importance of regional collaboration.

One of the lessons I've learned over my first term is the power and effectiveness of face to face conversations. While it takes more effort than an email or a social media post, it is the best way to give residents the attention they are due from elected officials. That said, I have also learned that simply being more visible and more communicative up front by way of posts helps people feel less distanced from us. Full confession: I have not been good about being proactive on social media during my first term! I know this but my constituents can expect more updates on a regular basis. I do see its value for providing insights about what I've been thinking, am concerned about, and getting public feedback in an easy way for both residents and me. Further, it is all the more important now, when government is so distrusted, that residents know they can reach out and get real information, opinions and insights, and even a coffee with their elected officials. For my part, I relish hearing from and talking with constituents so long as the desire for conversation is genuine.

Over the course of my four years on council we have had a lot of turnaround, and a lot of perspectives, so I have experience working with councilors who I disagree with and those who disagree with me on different issues. At no point have I agreed with any of my colleagues 100%. I see this as healthy. The way through all of this is by talking and by listening to one another in equal measure--not to make a point, but to learn and to share. This has to happen outside of formal meetings. My vantage points on a specific issue have not always changed based on conversation, nor have my colleagues' views changed because of mine, but I have learned to look at situations from differing perspectives and over time. This input influences my overall approach to decision making.I make a point of meeting or talking with all councilors outside of our scheduled sessions. It isn't always successful and I don't always connect with everyone, but if I am unwilling to listen or talk with another councilor then we are breaking down Council's efficacy.

I voted to collaborate with Johnson County on a joint law enforcement center, and more significantly, to put this vote to the voters to decide. The vote IC Council held was not to approve or not approve a joint enforcement center; it was to agree to collaborate in order to put it to voters. It seems very process oriented to point this out, but it is important to be clear. Iowa City Council and the County would not be approving or rejecting a new joint facility; the question before us was if we wanted to work together and put it to you to decide. Now, however, the collaboration will not be going forward because of some internal disagreements on Council that truthfully would have made a complicated collaboration even more fraught. As a result, the Sheriff recommended that the County not pursue a joint project. I voted for County and City to collaborate because I believed it would better working conditions for County employees working at the jail, for City employees currently working in overcrowded and sub-par conditions at City Hall, and most significantly, to better the living conditions of people incarcerated at the jail.

We aren't doing the residents any favors if we think we are done improving transportation systems. We are looking into increasing safe bike paths on streets, increasing the number of marked bike paths throughout the city, and our transit department constantly assesses the data of where ridership needs are. This is why some routes have changed, and why it remains important to get input about what's working and what isn't. Fare-free busses are overwhelmingly popular and I am proud to be on the council that prioritized this program to become permanent. We need to look at improving our bus stops so wait times are more comfortable. Where I differ from some of my colleagues is that we also need to make vehicular transit more efficient. Right now our stoplights seemed timed specifically to slow cars down (and that is indeed one way to increase safety); however, I have seen more cars speed up to make a light, which puts other drivers and riders (and pedestrians) in more harm's way. I would like to see signalization timing updated to reflect a commonsense approach to driving.

Iowa City needs to encourage and attract business and economic development to help grow our tax base, which directly impacts the types and levels of service we can provide residents. Attracting more economic development helps bolster our budget, which gives us more control over our finances. Further, Iowa City is a vibrant and diverse community where there is room for this growth. Our two biggest employers are the University of Iowa and P&G; we have the room to attract and support more. We can and should be our own best marketing campaign: we have people who want to stay in Iowa City to work and live; we foster several entrepreneurial incubators. Where it gets tricky is in thinking about incentives. Iowa City has not had a good track record with TIF agreements lately (the City is protected even with the failure of the TIF agreement for the Chauncey and before that, Lucky's). Over the long term, TIF can work well for a community if used judiciously and if the developer/owner has a strong history of completion and project sustainability. For any future project the City considers, we must look deeply at the company's track record, its reputation, and the benefits to the public. This vetting process is a long-standing practice of the City already, just to be clear, but given some recent public issues with incentivized business projects, we need to be that much more cautious. As with all things local, City Council needs to look at projects and opportunities that come before us on a case by case basis.