Remember to vote on Tuesday.

Please vote yes on the ordinance and yes on Metro Transit. 

And you have 7 votes for the City Commission race; please give me one of those votes and I promise that I will continue to work hard for you.

Why am I running?

The present economic downturn threatens that prosperity.  It affects the City’s ability to keep Kalamazoo safe and clean and prosperous.  As an urban economist, and as one of the architects of the City’s five year fiscal planning process and of the quarterly budget review process currently used by the City, I know that I can help the citizens of Kalamazoo face and triumph over these challenges.  Kalamazoo, like other local communities in Michigan and the US, faces unprecedented fiscal challenges.   The public sector has to retrench and restructure.  At the same time, we must strategically plan for and act in ways that will lead to our future prosperity.  I believe that the work we have done this year to prepare for upcoming revenue shortfalls gives us an advantage.  Other communities will slash expenditures; we will intentionally prune.  As a result, Kalamazoo can and will emerge from this period of economic woes as the best place to live and work in the Midwest. 

I am particularly proud that in the last term I have:

• Worked with area non-profits and governmental units to create a unified plan and programs to prevent foreclosures and reduce the negative impacts of them in our neighborhoods
• Helped to redesign the City's budgeting process in light of the revenue reductions we face
• Worked with local governmental administrative leaders to help the understand the impacts of the financial downturn on their revenue streams and expenditures
• Helped to create a land bank in Kalamazoo County for tax foreclosured property