League of Women Voters
Experience: (Maximum 50 words)
As a citizen activist these last 7 years, I used my skills as a successful technology entrepreneur to take on some of the toughest issues before our community.
Member: Sustainability and Downtown Parking task forces, Technology and Carolina North advisory boards.
Founding member: Save Lincoln Arts Center.
Please limit each answer to 50 words or less.
1. Do you support the current ordinance which provides the option for candidates to use public financing of elections? Explain your position.
I not only support opening up public participation in governance, I have been successful in broadening community access, increasing transparency and creating more opportunities for public input. While supporting VOE in concept, the current program has structural barriers impeding the recruitment of new voices into our political process.
2. Should the heavy reliance on residential property taxes be reduced? If so, how can this be achieved??
We must move the inequitable tax burden off homeowners’ shoulders by better recruitment and retention of commercial opportunities. The economic development office, of which I successfully lobbied for, needs to improve its outreach activities and strengthen the links between our short/long term strategic and tactical economic planning.
3. What is your position on encouraging high density along major transit corridors?
Clustering development along transit corridors makes sense. Creating a strip of East54-style developments hoping for Federal light-rail dollars doesn’t. I joined the Sustainability Task Force to help identify opportunity zones that align with fiscally, socially and environmentally sustainable growth policies. We need a balance between developer rewards and community benefits.
4. Should the Chapel Hill Public Library be funded in a different way? Explain your position.
Our Library is not only one of the cornerstones of many Chapel Hill citizens’ intellectual lives but that of our wider community. Understandably, fiscally strapped Orange County is hesitant in shouldering its fair-share of the operational budget but it must. Raising fees limiting access, though, must be avoided.
