Throughout my career I have brought together key business leaders, legislators, and educational professionals to provide their insights, build consensus, and generate fresh ideas to address key issues. Advocating for strong communities and businesses takes collaboration.
Working together I believe we can address these key issues.
Improve Communication
It all starts with Open – Accurate – and Honest – communication
I believe in investing in communication to improve the way we share important information and gather resident input. We must find new, more effective ways to better tell our story to residents, visitors, and business owners. We need to utilize technology to keep our residents better informed and to provide convenient new ways to gather citizen input.
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Economic Development
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Attract business and retail stores providing the goods and services residents want and need. Support the growth and development of our existing businesses.
- Encourage local businesses and developers to invest in our community. Creating a shared common interest in Franklin’s success and economic health.
- Invest in expanding public/private partnerships, reducing the tax burden on residents while fostering investment from local businesses – creating more local buy-in!
- Invest in Smart Growth and Sustainable initiatives, buildings, and operations
- Invest in attracting family-supporting jobs and promoting the growth of existing local businesses.
- Invest in Balanced housing opportunities, meeting the needs of residents in all stages of life.
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Financial Stability
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Maintaining conservative fiscal practices and standards. Protecting our Bond Credit Rating to reduce borrowing costs.
- Invest in partnerships / Cost-sharing opportunities. Seek out new and better ways to work with neighboring communities, schools, county, business and nonprofits.
- Explore and implement new cost savings initiatives
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Critical Services: Police, Fire, Health
- Invest in Public Safety and Health. Constantly striving for new ways and new partners to improve how we deliver these critical services and make Franklin a safer and healthier city. Maintain adequate staffing, and provide up-to-date training and equipment.
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Invest in Infrastructure
We must invest in clean water and air, roads, buildings and grounds, parks, water, sewer, and more. Clean water and air, good roads, and general beautification efforts are important indicators of a vibrant, well-run community.- Invest in Technology and increase efficiency to ensure residents receive high-quality services in the most efficient manner
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Challenges and Opportunities
There are a number of challenges that haven’t received enough discussion during this campaign.
- Meeting the needs and wants of a growing community without over-taxing residents and/or hurting the city’s bond rating.
- Better long-term financial planning to account for major future capital needs.
- The ability to find, hire and maintain an adequate workforce to provide city services. Like many businesses, the city is having a difficult time finding enough people to fill our existing positions let alone future openings. The extremely competitive job market has driven pay rates to rise, in some cases dramatically. We have already experienced employees leave to accept positions elsewhere at pay rates that we simply can’t come close to matching. In many cases, we not only lose the employee but the local knowledge and experience they gained while here. New hires lacking that knowledge and experience require a longer learning curve and are less productive than the experienced person that moved on.
The city will need to be very creative to address this issue in terms of how we recruit, the minimum standards and qualifications we set, starting pay levels, creative training programs, and implementing career pathways.
A plan is being formulated (and funded) to bring pay rates closer to current market rates.