We pay for, and deserve, reliable and excellent city services. Clean and safe drinking water and affordable housing are human rights. We deserve drivable roads, effective public transit, safe and walkable sidewalks, and reliable trash, recycling, and composting services. With the frequency of catastrophic climate events increasing, we must invest in stormwater management programs and systems in our ward and city. We must engage our city residents and listen to their needs in developing policies and services that are accessible for everyone.

We deserve transparency in our governance, and to be represented by elected officials who are ethical and focused on improving our quality of life. My career has necessitated learning how to listen to communities, bring diverse partners together to create collaborative solutions, and develop programs, resources, and policies that don’t leave anyone behind. We must engage our community in our civic governance by running more efficient, transparent, and focused meetings. As your Council Member, I am committed to staying focused on your needs and issues.

As residents, we have an obligation to protect and maintain our beautiful natural environment and many parks. From the local park in my Turnberry neighborhood, to Buhr Park, and beyond, I commit to expanding programming for our parks that is accessible and benefits residents no matter where they live. We must: prioritize maintenance and upkeep, update our park facilities, and ensure that our parks receive adequate funding so they can remain clean and be enjoyed by generations to come.

Ann Arbor must be a city that prioritizes racial equity in all that we do. Due to structural racism, and historic and ongoing discriminatory housing policies and practices, we have become one of the most economically segregated cities in the nation. This harms all of us, and has got to change for the health and prosperity of our city.

From our climate change efforts, housing, policing, social service programs, city governance and services, we must make equity of all marginalized groups a priority that we evaluate and track in a measurable and meaningful way. Furthermore, we must make sure that city staff, and those that reach leadership positions, reflect the diversity of our city. Equity is hard to advance, however, without safe, well-paying, union jobs. As a union member myself, I am committed to fighting for all workers and advancing the labor movement.

As your City Council Member, I will strive to put the equity concerns of our community first and foremost in the decisions that I make on City Council.

We must be a city that leads the way in accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities, including for older adults. Disability is a beautiful part of human diversity, however people with disabilities are more likely to experience negative outcomes in almost every quality of life indicator. This doesn’t have to be the case. It is imperative that we make sure that everything we do as a city is accessible and inclusive for people with a variety of disabilities, from the ways people can move around our city, to having accessible and just housing, employment, voting, policing, city services, parks, cleared and safe sidewalks, and overall livability.

As your City Council Member, I will bring my background and expertise in accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities to our city efforts.

Small businesses that have made our city unique and given it character have been disappearing for decades. In addition, small businesses have been hit-hard during Covid-19, including in Ward 3. It’s critical to support businesses that have suffered during the pandemic to stabilize our local economy for future growth.

We must also create a path forward for minority and women-owned businesses to compete and succeed in Ann Arbor. Doing so helps to close the racial and gender wealth gap, and strengthens our local economy by increasing our job growth. I commit to ensuring that equity exists in awarding city contracts, and will advocate for more resources that help minority and women-owned businesses prosper and succeed.

We have an affordability crisis and a housing shortage. Our housing costs are pushing our essential workers, including our social workers, teachers, nurses, service workers, among others who are crucial to keeping our society functioning, out of the city. This is exacerbating the worker shortage that our local businesses are experiencing, and those who are commuting here are also living, spending their tax dollars, frequenting businesses, and voting somewhere else. The city is making strides around affordable housing, including the passage of the Affordable Housing Millage, and targeting efforts that help keep people in their homes. But we need to continue to expand upon these efforts by: building more housing; building more dense housing, especially along public transit corridors; investing in multi-family, mixed-use, mixed-income projects; and incentivizing inclusionary zoning policies. Doing so would increase our tax base, improve our city services, enable more people to live here, and allow us to age and retire in the community we love.

Our public safety officials agree that unarmed responders may be better suited to respond to mental or physical health emergencies, or social/economic crises. We must reimagine public safety and explore the creation of unarmed crisis response teams made up of professionals better trained for these situations. As a social worker, I know how important this issue is, and I commit to continuing conversations around creating an unarmed crisis response team that is housed separately from our law enforcement.

We also need transparency and oversight of public safety. Unarmed Black Americans are three times more likely to be shot and fatally killed by police officers, and per the CREW report, in Washtenaw County alone, Black people are up to 29 times more likely to be charged with a felony.

I support transparency in data of traffic stops and other violations; mandated, ongoing, and comprehensive anti-bias training and de-escalation tactics for police officers; transparent evaluation of use of force policies and incidents; continued community engagement with our public safety officials to build trust; revising/repealing local laws that have a known racial bias; and supporting the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission so they can create real policy change.

As one of the most pressing issues of our time, tackling the climate crisis will be one of my top priorities if elected. It is important to note that climate and environmental justice is also economic, racial, and disability justice. Marginalized populations are disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis and climate catastrophe. We have made progress targeting our climate change efforts to those most disproportionately impacted, and we must continue these efforts. With an equity overlay, we can make more just and effective decisions that benefit everyone. To reduce our carbon emissions and bring us closer to the goals of A2Zero, we must: increase and protect our walkable and bikeable infrastructure; explore clean, local, energy sources; encourage non-vehicular modes of transportation; invest in stormwater and sewer programs; and continue to target climate change programs in historically disinvested neighborhoods.