Community at Heart

The creation of a new position, focused on ensuring that internal and external processes, policies, procedures, ordinances, and communications are viewed with equity to all in the community as a first step to improving communications 

It's not about how many times or places we communicate, but whether those communications are being received & heard. 

Ensuring communications are where and when people are is just as important as the information being communicated.

As in any business, measuring your communications and marketing is standard practice. The same should be for the government communications team to ensure we're spending resources in the most effective and successful manner.

I'm proud to have championed the shift to accountability in communications

Listening to the community, safety on our roads was a growing concern. I strongly supported, through staffing increases, the creation and implementation of emphasized traffic enforcement teams.

A challenge for a new command staff in each of the 3 areas (Police, Fire, EMS), was to address retention, improve recruitment, and to immediately staff to levels that address response time and workload concerns. In 2024/2025, new contracts & new staffing models coupled with continued support from the community led to historic recruit classes, and a FULLY staffed Police division. 

I championed a challenge to the command staff, to pre-staff based on call volumes, to stay AHEAD of calls for service 

The shift from a paid-on-call program to a full-time 24hr fire & EMS model involved new contracts, new models, and capital investment in the satellite fire stations. I supported these costs, recognizing that the investments in our safety are worth every bit. 

Growing the tax base by supporting growth across both residential and commercial development ensures even application of the tax levy. I'm proud to have been part of the strategic growth of commercial and business new development, and maintaining a strong business climate for existing businesses. A diverse business and commercial sector allows for job growth across entry-level and professional-level opportunities. 

With a growing community, comes growing needs.  I'm proud of our work to not be too far ahead, or behind in the infrastructure needs for the community.  Parks and trails, water storage (amidst a complicated 3M settlement and PFAS process),  & public safety just to name a few:

-Temporary Water Treatment Facilities

-Central Park remodel & addition

-Colby Lake hockey/pickleball courts

-Ojibway Park shelter and playground

-Fox Run / Afton Rd Fire Station expansion for 24hr model

-Permanent Water Treatment

A key element of the 2040 comprehensive plan, along withe the Housing & Redevelopment Authority board, is a commitment to housing diversity.  No matter where you are in your life, we want to have housing stock to meet your needs.  Starting out, to growing your family, to reducing your footprint and exterior maintenance requirements, we want you to always be able to call Woodbury home 

Water quality is equally important as availability. For most of the 2000's, despite the development growth, we maintained a ZERO increase in net water usage. Through water conservation programs, technology improvements, and others, protecting our access to water ensures that our temporary treatment facilities are able to process efficiently, ensuring the best quality possible for our community. I'm proud of our policies and steps taken to ensure these resources are prioritized. 

We needed treatment fast, and we need it right. These are not two generally complementary things when building infrastructure. I'm extremely proud of the city staff and the council's direction on getting several temporary facilities up and running, managing development to ensure we were able to provide treated water adequately, and engineering and building one of the largest PFOA/PFAS treatment facilities in North America, capable of treating 32million gallons of water per day

Learn more here: https://3msettlement.state.mn.us/

Navigating the requirements from the 3M PFAS/PFOS settlement and the state agencies tasked with overseeing it, we've maintained a "Woodbury-centric" approach with our unique needs and challenges with our system, and our desire to not simply treat the water, but treat it to the lowest possible detectible rates as technology and systems change. 

We had a solid operational understanding of what parks and trails we had, but when I entered the council, we didn't have a financial asset understanding. 

What condition were things in? How much life did they have left before they needed repair or replacement? Those were questions we didn't fully understand, and without that information, how can we plan financially for our future?

This was a big topic for me during my first campaign, and I'm glad we tackled it

After determining what we had, what we want, and what we need? Certain assets, such as Lookout Ridge and Central Park all had reached the end of their useful life, and in order to be used and covered by insurance, we needed to repair and replace. Working with the new community engagement team, along with Parks and Rec, a year-long community engagement process to envision the new central park that provides spaces and recreation for all ages, now and for the next 20 years.

Ensuring that we had a stable source of revenue for our parks and trails was a priority for the council. We hear all the time that these resources are a top reason that people call Woodbury home, and we respect that investment and share that commitment to maintaining these amenities for today and tomorrow. The parks & trails replacement fund worked through a very public process with our volunteer audit & investment commission and parks & rec commission before we approved it. A joint effort!