FAQ:
Since launching my campaign for Mayor, I have had the privilege of speaking face-to-face with residents across every part of Prairie Village. During these conversations, several recurring questions have come up regarding my voting record on the City Council, my current stances on pressing local issues, and my vision for the future of our city.
I believe that true leadership starts with absolute transparency and direct communication. You deserve to know exactly where your Mayor stands. That is why I created this section of my website: to provide clear, straightforward answers to the most common questions I hear from you at the doors, at community events, and in my inbox.
Whether the topic is lowering property taxes, managing teardowns and rebuilds, the future of our city facilities, or protecting your right to be heard at City Hall, I want my positions to be completely accessible to everyone. I hope this resource serves as a helpful guide, and as always, I invite you to reach out to me directly if you have further questions or simply want to share your thoughts on how we can strengthen our community together.
Political Polarization
While political polarization has grown at the state and national levels, I believe Prairie Village has the character and resilience to rise above it. We have a wonderful opportunity to reject outside division and actively champion the shared sense of community that makes our city so special.
No matter our differing viewpoints, we are always neighbors first. We serve on the same committees, gather at the same neighborhood functions, and our children attend the same schools, play at the same parks, and compete on the same teams. Prairie Village is our shared home.
Over the past few years, I have made it my mission to be a bridge builder. I routinely sit down with residents who hold perspectives different from my own, but who share a deep, abiding love for our city. It is incredibly rewarding because when you sit down and talk to someone face-to-face with an open heart and mind, you find out that there is really a lot more that unites us than divides us. In every one of those meetings, my goal is to focus on where we align and can work together to make our community stronger.
These conversations have been some of the most meaningful and rewarding conversations I've had since being on the Council. Through respectful, honest dialogue, we can consistently find practical, everyday solutions for our neighborhoods.
This is exactly how I will lead as your Mayor. I will ensure that City Hall remains focused on what unites us, fostering a welcoming environment where residents can share ideas and debate respectfully, knowing they will always be heard and valued by their elected body. By deliberately choosing to find common ground, we will actively work together to protect, preserve, and strengthen the community we all care so much about.
Lowering Property Taxes
When looking to deliver meaningful property tax relief, we must start by identifying sensible efficiencies right within City Hall. Over the past few years, our city budget has grown substantially, and while we rightfully increased pay for our hard-working city employees, we also expanded our footprint by adding several new personnel—including a part-time events coordinator, a full-time public information officer, and a year-round pool director.
Prior to the expansion of these new positions, an additional assistant city administrator position was created because our core management team was stretched thin by their administrative demands and of staffing our various volunteer committees. Now that these newer, specialized staff positions are fully established and can successfully manage a number of these duties as part of their operational workloads, the burden on senior leadership can be effectively decentralized.
Out of absolute respect for our municipal workforce, my plan protects our frontline services and avoids traditional cuts; instead, it looks at this administrative 'low-hanging fruit' and returns our senior leadership structure back to a lean, single assistant city administrator model, capturing an immediate efficiency that will reduce the general fund budget annually and provide direct relief to our taxpayers.
Transient Guest Tax (TGT) Allocation
To further lower the property tax burden on our residents, we must ensure we are maximizing alternative revenue streams like the Transient Guest Tax, or TGT, which is a dedicated tax paid entirely by visitors staying at the Meadowbrook Inn.
These specific funds brought in $424,000 last year and are projected to bring in $442,000 this year. By law, they can only be used to fund local tourism. Events such as JazzFest, Juneteenth, and VillageFest are current examples of how we use these funds.
Right now, the personnel costs to run these events—including the salary of our events coordinator and the necessary overtime accrued by our police officers and public works employees during these community functions—are being paid out of the city's General Fund, which means they are funded directly by your property taxes.
By properly shifting these eligible tourism-related personnel expenditures away from the General Fund and covering them entirely with the visitor-paid Transient Guest Tax instead, we could capture an immediate efficiency that reduces the property tax-funded budget annually.
Volunteer Committees
Our volunteer committees serve Prairie Village incredibly well, but I firmly believe they should be more community-driven rather than administratively heavy. Several years ago, our core city administrative team was stretched thin largely because of the extensive hours they were required to spend staffing and directing these groups.
Since then, we have successfully added a part-time events coordinator position to our staff. By expanding this existing role into a full-time position, this employee could seamlessly serve as the dedicated, central City liaison for our the Arts Council, the Diversity and Environmental committees, Jazz Fest, Village Fest, and the Tree Board.
This operational shift would free up our high-level administrative staff to step back from committee management and focus 100% of their time on core municipal services and fiscal oversight.
The New City Hall
A cornerstone of my public service is a deep, unshakeable respect for the democratic process, which relies entirely on open debate, thorough exploration of alternatives, and ultimate accountability to the people.
For a project as significant as the new City Hall—the single largest expenditure in our city’s history—I firmly believed that true democratic engagement meant sending the decision to a public vote so that every resident of Prairie Village could participate directly in the outcome. I also advocated for more time to examine community partnerships and preservation options of the church, because a healthy democracy requires exhausting all avenues before finalizing historic choices.
However, true leadership also means recognizing that once a vote is legally and democratically cast by the governing body, the debate ends and the work begins. Disagreement is a vital part of the process, but gridlock is not.
Once the council made its final determination to move forward with construction, I accepted that outcome and transitioned immediately to ensuring the project's success, because respecting the democratic process means honoring the final decision and working collaboratively to deliver the best possible result for our community.
Teardown/Rebuilds
The impact of teardowns and rebuilds on our traditional neighborhoods has been a topic of continuous discussion for nearly a decade, yet very little concrete action has been taken to address it.
Right now, Prairie Village has over 100 active residential building permits, with a mere handful of commercial building companies holding many of them, creating a massive footprint of concurrent construction across our streets.
As Mayor, I am committed to moving past talk and implementing a proactive management plan that prioritizes established neighborhood character.
First, we must establish clear, enforceable Design Guidelines to ensure that new construction maintains structural and visual cohesion with existing homes.
Second, we must institute sensible pacing mechanisms so that an overwhelming number of teardown and rebuild projects are not clustered in the same neighborhoods all at once.
Finally, City Hall must do a significantly better job of enforcing and tightening our existing municipal codes, ensuring we protect property values while drastically minimizing the disruptive, daily negative impacts of active construction sites on surrounding neighbors.
Public Participation
Public participation is the absolute bedrock of transparent local government; it is the vital moment where the dais steps back and the community takes center stage to exercise their fundamental First Amendment rights. True civic engagement requires a sacred space where residents can speak freely, share their lived experiences, and hold their government accountable on matters of their choosing.
This dedicated time belongs entirely to the people of Prairie Village, and protecting it is essential to a healthy, functioning democracy.
That is precisely why it is entirely inappropriate for the City Council to offer immediate rebuttals, critiques, or counter-arguments to public comments. Unfortunately, we have recently seen a concerning, unprecedented practice where council members use the power of the microphone to immediately challenge residents under the guise of 'correcting misinformation.' This reactionary behavior suppresses open dialogue, intimidates citizens who wish to speak, and creates deep community confusion when an individual official's opinion is mistaken for the stance of the entire council.
As Mayor, I will strictly enforce our meeting guidelines to ensure that public participation remains a safe, unhindered forum where residents are truly listened to, not cross-examined.
I will continue to add to this section throughout my campaign!