Key Priorities
Effective and Actionable
We are incredibly fortunate to call Overland Park our home. As I’ve had the opportunity to speak with my neighbors, I’ve found that we all share the same sentiment: the more we travel for business and leisure, the more we appreciate the unique qualities that make Overland Park such a special place to live. We are proud of our city’s excellent schools, its unwavering commitment to safety, its vast array of local activities, its outstanding employment opportunities, and the relative ease of moving around the community.
But to continue our forward progress, we must be mindful of the preferences of our residents while maintaining a prudent, balanced budget. As a candidate for city council, I have outlined my priorities below, and I am committed to working tirelessly to ensure that Overland Park continues to thrive and flourish as a community.
Strong, Safe Neighborhoods
As Overland Park residents, we all want to feel safe and secure in our own neighborhoods. We often take this for granted until we have a family member that experiences a crisis or when a thief makes us a victim. That’s why we need highly trained police and fire professionals who are dedicated to serving and protecting our community. We need to support the innovative programs that bring the best services to all of our citizens in their time of need, such as the co-responder program and crisis action team. Our city is seeing an increase in drug-related crimes and thefts to personal property. We need to be diligent and support our public safety resources.
Quality of Life
Our happiest memories are watching local sports and exploring the outdoors. Overland Park is known for its amazing quality of life, and we need to continue to support the recreation offerings that make our community so great. Our parks, trails, Scheels Soccer Park, Farmer’s Market, Arboretum, and Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead are all first-class amenities that help make our city such an amazing place to live. These amenities require careful planning and expert budget management to maintain their viability. Furthermore, we need to develop a housing strategy that better drives the availability of home options, including starter homes and refurbing aging homes, that can be used as a springboard in proper balance with our apartments and retail development as we forecast growth to 236,000 people by 2036, a 23.2% increase over our 2018 population.
Jobs & Economic Growth
We want our family to have the option to prosper close to home and compelling reasons to come back to the area when they’re ready for their next chapter in life. It’s important that we grow and develop in a thoughtful way that considers what’s best for our community. With our amazing local talent, nationally recognized schools, and low cost of operations, we have the potential to attract quality jobs that will provide more opportunities for us and our children to live, work, and raise a family right here in Overland Park. Attracting businesses to Overland Park helps keep our taxes affordable. Incentives should be carefully scrutinized and rejected if they do not provide great value to you as a taxpayer and the city.
Enhanced Infrastructure
As an outdoor enthusiast, I get to see our infrastructure up close during my time in the community. As our city continues to expand, we need to be good stewards of our resources and carefully consider how we develop and maintain our infrastructure, housing, and transportation. This means addressing our street surfaces, aging sidewalks, trails, and bikeways that connect our parks and other gathering places. By investing in our infrastructure, we can ensure that our city remains a great place to live for years to come. We need to be very mindful of the tax burden as well. Overland Park voters narrowly passed the 3/8-cent special sales tax that will fund infrastructure and reduce reliance on chip seal road surfacing. The new tax is an increase from the city’s current 1/8-cent sales tax, which is set to expire in March 2024. Many are questioning recent increases in valuations. And, although already approved, I am getting a lot of questions about the toll lanes and expansion of 69 Express.
As I knock on doors and visit with voters in Ward 4, I seek to understand what is most important to them. I often hear about strong neighborhoods, great amenities and fair taxation. But what are YOUR priorities for Overland Park? Please take a moment and complete this short survey so that we can stay in tune with your priorities here in Ward 4. Complete our Ward 4 Survey –>
