Together, we can make Clark County an even better place to live and work.

The following are my three main goals, which I will use to help guide decisions on the Clark County Council.

1. Support Families:

Families are the strength of Clark County and need safe, thriving communities with adequate and affordable resources. I will prioritize:

Affordable Housing - Provide more funding resources and better zoning so that everyone can achieve home ownership
Health - Ensure our residents have a healthy community with access to excellent health care
Emergency Services - Provide safe communities through supporting our Sheriff's Office, Fire Districts, and CRESA
Education and Youth Services - Support our community's high quality of educational opportunities and the Clark County Children's Justice Center
Parks and open spaces - Support outdoor recreational spaces for our kids and families

2. Promote Local Businesses, Farms & Jobs:

Strong businesses - I run a nonprofit business. I know how hard it is to generate income while keeping quality staff. Business owners have a lot to do and they need our support and resources.

Farms & Rural Economy - Farms are the backbone of our rural economy. Once we lose a farm to development, it is gone forever. I was the agricultural policy advisor to bipartisan Members of Congress and currently work on the Farm Bill for Ducks Unlimited. I am committed to the health and vitality of our rural farmers and landowners.

Local jobs -- Employers want to locate where their employees will be happy, have walkable thriving neighborhoods and affordable housing, and enjoy their community and surrounding rural areas. How we plan and build determines all of these things.

3. Balanced Community Growth:

Let's keep Clark County a place that we all cherish and want to live and work.

With more balanced planning, we can have communities with more walkable urban centers and affordable homes, small businesses and family-wage jobs, retail, and entertainment within a smaller footprint. And we can maintain the rural character of Clark County that we all love.

One of the most important things a county councilor does is determine where the urban growth boundaries are located. Over time, they have expanded until practically all our cities are bordering each other and our rural areas are disappearing.

Under Washington law, there is a solution not yet tried in Clark County that compensates rural landowners to keep their land just the way it is, while providing developers with financial incentives to grow our urban centers into more healthy, thriving communities. Through a County agreement with our cities, we can create a system that allows for the transfer and selling of development rights and credits.

Willing landowners with farms, forests, and open spaces can be compensated tens of thousands of dollars an acre by voluntarily selling their development rights, which then generates development credits. In turn, these credits are used to incentivize desirable developments within the urban growth boundaries. Landowners and developers who voluntarily purchase these credits can pursue more lucrative developments than they would otherwise under current zoning regulations.

Walkable Communities for Clark County

By planning far into the future, we can map out visions for our communities that we want to create. These walkable communities might look like Battle Ground Village, where attractive townhomes and cottages on smaller lots are located within walking distance of the library, shopping, restaurants, entertainment, and jobs.

Under this plan everybody wins, including the rural landowner, the developer, the homeowner, the small business owner, and the taxpayer -- and we get to keep our rural charm.

This model is just one tool, but it has successfully worked in at least six other Washington counties and in more than 32 states, and it can work here in Clark County. We need to elect people who will think out-of-the-box and make solutions like these happen.

Other Values

I don’t believe in wasting your money. I believe in small, efficient government. We have all heard about government waste and overspending, and I have seen this firsthand when I worked for the federal government in Washington, DC.

The County provides many essential services that we take for granted in our everyday lives, including roads, bridges, law enforcement, public health, and parks and trails.

I have successfully managed large budgets and run nonprofit businesses. As a conservative fiscal manager, I will keep an eye out for inefficiencies and work hard to prioritize our resources for your benefit.

Click here to watch the Oct.2 CVTV INTERVIEW/DEBATE with Columbian reporter Shari Phiel

Click here to listen to a RADIO INTERVIEW with Filibusters, where we covered many issues

Click here to watch the DEBATE for Clark County Council Dist 4

Click here to watch a VIDEO INTERVIEW with Questions from CVTV

Click here to watch the COLUMBIAN INTERVIEW and read the COLUMBIAN ENDORSEMENT