There’s no shortage of work to be done. With two year terms and limited city resources, prioritizing work is necessary to do the job well. Here are my current top problems and the roadmap for how I will address each of them.
Our local economy and wallets are hurting.
With a rising cost of living and growing wealth inequality, we must look for ways to save people money and develop our local job market to become more resilient against any disaster coming our way. I will aim to:
- Plant and grow small-business boosting programs, prioritizing local and employee-owned structures. Locally-owned businesses create local jobs and keep our money local, making us all better off compared to businesses owned by distant, uncaring investors. This can be done at little to no cost to us by creating a New Market Tax Credit program and crowd-sourced business loan programs.
- Investigate pricing transparency at grocery stores. Surveillance pricing extracts money without any real benefit to consumers. Requiring stores to disclose how and when prices change can protect us from this invisible price gouging.
- Re-prioritize public transit. Cars represent one of the largest necessary household expenses between growing gas prices and routine maintenance. But what if they weren’t needed as often? Our public transit can be shifted to prioritize the trips we take most often. That would mean less cars bogging down the road, less dollars spent, and less greenhouse gasses over the long term.
Homelessness and housing affordability are policy failures that can be fixed.
Homelessness is deeply connected with many other issues, especially home affordability. A whole-spectrum approach is necessary to begin ending homelessness. I will aim to:
- Develop community land trusts as a powerful tool for affordability, first-time home-ownership, and generational wealth building. By separating land values from house values, families and individuals can afford their own homes.
- Support and continue to fund evidence-based, housing first approaches to homelessness. In particular, this would include grace period payments for renters who miss a paycheck and need time to get on their feet. Every $1.00 spent preventing homelessness results in about $1.50 in savings.
- Explore enacting a tenant/landlord bill of rights intended to protect both tenants and landlords. Everyone should know what their rights are under the law and how to use them, and going to court should be a last resort.
Our environment depends on us, and us on our environment. Corvallis is the most beautiful and nature-filled place I’ve ever lived. Let’s keep it that way! I will aim to:
- Prioritize making city services more sustainable by electrifying our vehicle fleet, ground maintenance equipment (like leaf blowers), and supporting solar installation wherever possible.
- Prioritize walking, biking and transit as healthy, eco-friendly ways to travel. Cars are great, but we can’t rely on them forever. We must carefully and considerately begin to tip the balance away from them, and we must do so without hurting our quality of life.
- Explore reasonable, common-sense zoning reform. A 700-page land development code serves no one. We can make life in Corvallis much better for everyone, preserve nature and neighborhoods, and move toward more sustainable transport options with smarter zoning.
Questions? Concerns? Email me at <my firstname>forcorvallis@gmail.com and let me know, or use the contact form below! (Email obscured to confuse spam bots.)
