Our Future
This race is about expanding City Council to hear from all of our voices, not just the few loud voices we hear from over and over and over. I want to hear from you about the values we share. I've spent time getting to know my neighbors and business owners and attending Council and the City’s boards and commissions meetings: listening, learning, and readying myself to get to work for you.
Welcoming and Inclusive Community
Our community benefits from a multitude of perspectives and increased participation in the City. It is often referred to here as a divide, but I think we are experiencing the growing pains of a changing city. Progress is hard, takes work, but IS inevitable. The speed and intentionality of that progress requires a concerted effort.
As a City Councilor, I will work to remove the systemic barriers that slow progress and use my position to ensure city services and opportunities benefit all constituents, not just those with privilege, access, or existing connections. A large piece of removing the barriers is doing the active work of going out into underserved communities that are underrepresented in engagement with Council. The City must work to proactively bring the City out to all of its residents and bring the voices of our neighbors with us to the dais.
Affordable and Varied Housing Options
On City Council I plan to take an active role in supporting the development of affordable and attainable housing. This includes defining key terms, as the current ambiguity around "affordable housing" makes effective policy development challenging. Defining these terms helps us to do work at the municipal level, like creating a more coherent set of zoning policies to address housing issues and finding more win-win solutions like single-stair housing.
I support proactive adoption of beneficial state legislation, such as recent laws concerning Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and the City's first right of refusal on multi-unit buildings. Specifically, the first right of refusal ordinance is currently deadlocked in Council, and I will cast the tie-breaking vote to ensure its passage.
Development
The City Center development represents a transformational opportunity for our City. We need a forward thinking approach that incorporates what we need today and into the future.
As your City Councilor I will seek innovative solutions such as granting offsets for public transit funding in exchange for decreased parking minimums, or establishing programs that encourage retailers to hire our school-aged population to address the struggle for first jobs in their hometown.
I think it’s time for Englewood to stop being grateful that developers want to be here and leverage why they want to be here. Stronger offsets and in lieu of approaches with developers would bring new revenue dollars in to support expanding services and programs for our residents and small businesses.
I will also call for a moratorium on all development of data centers and detention centers within our city boundaries. These types of projects have serious implications for our residents and do not represent our shared values in Englewood.
Thriving Local Economy
For our economy to thrive we need to make it easier to start a business in Englewood. Equally, we need to actively support our existing small businesses and prioritize incentives for those looking to expand into our vacant retail spaces or new developments.
Through my conversations as both a patron and a candidate, a consistent theme of feedback from our small business community is that the City's current level of support is insufficient, leading some to consider relocation. My goal is proactive support, not post-mortem analysis. While engagement with the City’s economic development team, EDDA (Englewood Downtown Development Authority), and the Chamber is important, our top priority must be actively listening to and implementing solutions based on business needs.
Safe and accessible transportation means providing a true range of mobility choices. Residents and visitors must be able to traverse Englewood not only by car, but also via walking, biking, improved public transit, and expanded options for neighbors with limited mobility.
Partnerships with RTD and dedicated investments in BERT (Bringing Englewood Riders Together) are essential to meeting our mobility and environmental goals. We need strong East/West and North/South bike routes to connect our neighborhoods to small businesses.
Prioritizing pedestrians at street crossings near schools, parks, and businesses is also something that I look forward to working on with residents and the Englewood Transportation Advisory Committee. I advocate replicating the traffic calming measures planned for East Dartmouth on West Dartmouth to reduce speeds and enhance the safety of existing biking infrastructure.
I look forward to continuing the good work being done with the Complete Streets and Safe Routes to Schools programs and continued implementation of the Walk and Wheel Master Plan.
Safe and Accessible Transportation Options
Strong Public Education
Given the threats to federal and state funding, we must find new ways to collaborate with the Board of Education to ensure our students have everything they need to succeed. I plan to attend the upcoming community town hall co-hosted by the City and Englewood Schools on April 9 to gain a deeper understanding of their shared goals and determine how I can best support their work once elected.
While education budgets and City budgets are addressed through distinct, separate mechanisms, I support the upcoming state ballot initiative that would raise the TABOR cap to increase education funding.
Prrotecting Your Data Privacy and Enhancing Your Data Security
I will call for the termination of the city’s contract with Flock and the immediate removal of the stationary cameras in Englewood. Flock has well-documented instances of breaching contracts and sharing private information and Englewood should end the relationship.
To provide the proper oversight for contracts on future surveillance tools, including Axon, I will work to put in place reasonable and common-sense policies and ordinances that support public safety and oversight of these powerful surveillance tool
These include:
Council approval for changes to and public oversight of the use of digital surveillance tools.
City Attorney and IT review of current and future vendor contracts (and any associated terms of service) for compliance with personal data policies and ordinances.
Recurring timely, standard public reporting from the Englewood PD on how these systems are being used and outcomes, including numbers of reads, hits, enforcement actions, and audit results.
Appointed citizen oversight commission to review reports of use and audit access logs of surveillance tools, and provide recommendations to Council.
Disclosure of the type, location, and capability of digital surveillance tools.
Restrict warrantless sharing of ALPR and other surveillance data to only Colorado agencies that meet the same privacy standards as the City of Englewood.
Shorten the retention period for data not linked to an active criminal investigation from 30 days to 5 days or fewer and require a warrant to review retained data not already linked to an active investigation.
Disclose probable data breaches and corrective actions on a timely basis.