Why I’m Running
I’ve spent most of my career influencing policy from outside government, including the last more than seven years as an environmental advocate. But I can’t shake the feeling that, in this critical moment for our country, our state, and our town, I could be doing more to help people.
So I’m stepping up to offer my vision, my skills, and my relationships with elected officials and policy experts across the state and country to serve Wendell and shape the next several years of its future for the better. I want those who live here now and those who will live here later to live out their dreams in a hometown they brag about to everyone they know.
The big issue is growth.
We’re one of the fastest-growing towns in North Carolina. With that growth comes both challenges and opportunities. Wendell is one of the few places in Wake County where there is still undeveloped land, and we don’t get a do-over on the land use choices we make now, so we have to get it right. We can’t give in to the suburban sprawl patterns which defined places like Raleigh and Cary in the past. If instead we continue to grow responsibly, our town will go down a path toward prosperity.
I love that people want to be a part of our still relatively affordable corner of the world. More people means more friends and neighbors. It means progress. It means more businesses and amenities, like WakeMed, Wake Tech, the coming commerce center, or even Chick-fil-A, Carver’s, and Chipotle. Their tax dollars support more services like our new parks and rec facilities.
Our challenge is to find room for our new neighbors without sacrificing their or current residents’ quality of life. That means smart planning and representative community input. That means housing density, so we don’t eat up more farmland and forests than we have to. That means more mixed-use developments that include combinations of housing, commerce, and green space in close proximity, so people can get to more places on foot and by bike and golf cart without driving our major roads.
And it means preservation of what makes our town so great to begin with, including downtown. A big part of what attracted me to Wendell was its history and character. My house was built in 1941, and the day I toured it, I ate lunch a few blocks away in downtown Wendell. I was struck that there were no chains occupying any of the historic buildings – just local businesses. I knew this was a place I wanted to be. The year after moving to Wendell, I was appointed to the town’s downtown development citizens advisory committee, where I’ve been a part of recommending upfit grants for new and existing downtown businesses to preserve and renovate those buildings for higher and longer-term uses like coffee shops, entertainment venues, and restaurants, something our citizens consistently note we need more of. I want to grow the town’s budget for these grants so we can activate more of these historic structures and make downtown even more vibrant.
I also want to make sure we preserve our tree canopy and sensitive areas like floodplains, knowing their value to our town’s beauty, air quality, and ability to absorb stormwater.
