Access to quality affordable housing is a fundamental human right. In a Ward of renters, homeowners, seniors, youth, and families, we know many of our neighbors still need this right to be a reality. My commitment to you:

• Build more affordable housing at all levels and prioritize deeply affordable housing.

• Preserve our current affordable housing stock and provide strong renter protections, such as the right to counsel in housing court, just cause notice policy, screening criteria reforms to prevent rental discrimination, and funding the Department of Safety, Housing and Inspections so we can better hold landlords accountable and ensure tenants have better resources.

• Fund the Homelessness Assistance Response Team (HART) to ensure our unsheltered residents are treated fairly, humanely, and provided the resources they need.

• Work with the Department of Public Works and city staff to minimize increase in taxes. Eastsiders have experienced large increases in property taxes and many residents don’t feel this increase translates to better or more services.

As your councilmember, I will work to ensure that all of us feel safe and know that we belong in this community. We need a responsive community safety system in our city that meets the many needs of people in crisis, invests in community and family stability, and ensures police are accountable, professional and transparent. My commitment to you:

• Work with Eastsiders and our office of Neighborhood Safety to fully develop a comprehensive, community-first plan for public safety here on the Eastside and throughout the city. This includes developing a stronger partnership with the Community Alternative Response Emergency Services (CARES) Team, which pairs an EMT with a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and responds to calls involving mental health crisis, behavioral emergencies and non-emergency medical needs.

• Ensure our department policy and practices are upheld in ordinance to ensure no-knock warrants are completely and fully discontinued.

• Enforce speed limits on Eastside roads. Cars are speeding unchecked across the Eastside, leading to dangerous situations for everyone in our neighborhoods.

• Fix our potholes and improve our snow removal services. I will work with the Department of Public Works to reevaluate routes, services, and road quality in all seasons. I will support the will of the voters if a sales tax increase is put on the ballot to fix our aging roads.

• Invest in our community parks, rec centers, libraries, and schools. These community investments are public safety investments. This includes improving relationships between city council, school district and school board. Harding High School experienced one of the biggest tragedies in a long time. I will be a strong advocate of public safety in our schools and ensure we have no weapons in schools. Kids, parents, and educators shouldn’t go to school wondering if they will make it home alive.

Our small businesses are a critical part of what makes our neighborhoods great places to live. Supporting our entrepreneurs is key to building wealth and creating jobs in our community. As our Councilmember, I will advocate to make it easier to open or expand businesses in Saint Paul. My commitment to you:

• Improve our licensing and permitting processes and make it easier to open or expand Eastside businesses.

• Keep Eastside dollars on the Eastside. This means working with property owners to fill vacancies (like TJ Maxx) at Sun Ray Shopping Center and strengthening our business corridors like E 7th St and White Bear Avenue by bringing in additional city investment.

• Ensure the Eastside gets access to funding, grants, and investments. I will use my philanthropic and relational skills in government to make sure we secure more funding opportunities for programs like STAR and for our Eastside District Councils and community based organizations like Dayton’s Bluff and Southeast Community Organization, so they have resources they need to connect our residents to our city.

• Continue to protect and champion strong labor policies at the City of Saint Paul, including our model Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) ordinance, minimum wage, and working with unions to ensure strong labor standards in city contracts and agreements.

• Work to expand our tax base with more equitable development opportunities on the Eastside. This includes making sure Eastside voices have a voice in making decisions about new development opportunities like the Hamms Brewery Development and Boys’ Totem Town.

Our part of Saint Paul is poised to be among the most impacted by changes to our global climate. We must accelerate implementation of the City's Climate Action Plan, focusing on ways to reduce carbon emissions that will also help families reduce utility bills and transportation costs. My commitment to you:

• Make it easier to walk, use transit, and bike within the Eastside and to connect to other parts of the city. You can count on me to make sure our neighborhoods are places where we can walk and bike to meet daily needs.

• Grow green jobs in our city and create better career pathways into household-sustaining wages in careers in clean energy and clean transportation.

• Fight for state and federal funding to ensure we can successfully implement the city’s Climate Action Plan to weatherize more homes, improve the quality of our buildings, and dramatically reduce emissions overall.

• Conduct a study on potential lead exposure to Eastside water lines and the overall addressing of water quality specifically on the Eastside including Hillcrest, Pigs Eye Lake, and the 3M plant as well. The city has shown strong leadership in prioritizing lead water line replacement and I’d like to see that focus expand even more broadly, particularly on the Eastside.

• Work with the state and Met Council to increase bus transit funding, better bus service, and increased service.

• Ensure that our urban forestry diversification replacement efforts are strategic, funded, and learning from our past so that we don’t lose more of our beautiful tree canopy.

Ward 7 is our ward. The Eastside is our community. I’m proud to call Saint Paul and the Eastside home, and I want to keep uplifting our community together at City Hall. The Eastside is a place where we consistently take care of each other. I am running to be our next Councilwoman to make sure we’re always included – to keep accomplishing great things together for the Eastside, and to have a capable, positive, and community-focused leader that works with everybody for our shared future.