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Personal (please list occupation, education and family):
Current Occupations: New Ulm City Council President and Executive Director for New Ulm Turner Hall
Education: Attended Kutztown University of PA (99-00); Attended Harvard Kennedy School’s program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government (2024)
Family: I have two children, one in college and one in New Ulm Public Schools. I reside in New Ulm with my partner, Joshua.
Summarize why you are running for office. What are your priorities?
Through my time on the City Council I have had the opportunity to visit many of our rural communities and have been hearing we’re all facing similar challenges when it comes to available child care and housing. Our businesses want to grow, our families want to grow, and our rural quality of life is being hurt by over regulation and policies that restrict our economic growth. Communities have developed creative approaches to these issues and more needs to be done to support the good work already taking place.
Families are feeling the pinch of inflation outpacing wages, and now we need to worry about astronomical vehicle tab fees, extra taxes, inflated insurance programs, and for over 300,000 Minnesotans, the need to find a new plan because their medical coverage Advantage plan is going to disappear.
I am running because our citizens deserve better. We need our lead pipes replaced. Our water treatment facilities are in need of tens of millions of dollars of repairs and updates. As your Senator, I will be a strong voice in St. Paul to make sure our rural communities get the support we need to keep our infrastructure from failing. I will be the voice of experience who will propose solutions that will help our rural communities add housing and childcare. I’ve already been doing this work in my own community, and I’d be honored to represent our district to do this on a larger scale.
What can be done to protect the state from fraud?
The fraud that has come to light is a serious problem. Three steps I would take to protect our taxpayers from squandered dollars:
1. Ensure swift prosecution of those who took advantage of the system and stole taxpayer dollars. They broke the law and need to be held accountable.
2. Invest in overdue and necessary upgrades to the technology and programs used to process program payments. The systems are so old in some cases they are still using green screen programs. This is simply not acceptable and opens a lot of doors for misuse. The technology needs to be updated to eliminate future opportunities.
3. Independent oversight committees have been formed. This check and balance is necessary and should have been actively monitoring this in the first place.
What can be done to support agriculture?
Farming and Agriculture is the spine of our rural economy. They grow the food that feeds our communities and our world, yet affordable health care is out of reach for too many. Transitioning their farms from one family to another is a lengthy and cumbersome process. Why? While we’ve made strides with the Right to Repair laws, we need to make sure those stay in place so our farmers aren’t arm tied by corporate control.
I am endorsed by Minnesota Farm Bureau for my support and understanding of farming priorities and will advocate for legislation that protects our farmers, farms, and agricultural providers.
Do you support making changes to the state's paid family and medical leave program?
As someone who had to attend countless training sessions to understand the program and all its ins and outs, I wholeheartedly support changes to what exists today. It is overly complex and has done little more than leave many small businesses feeling confused and unsupported. The amount of staff time I have had to dedicate to simply making sure I understand this program was excessive, and I know I’m not alone. While it sounds wonderful on paper, and that I do believe we need to offer our workers time off for when big family life changes happen, the program needs work. I have spoken with several who have used the program properly and were in appreciation it was available. That said, exemptions need to be considered for some businesses, and the language needs to be clearer for both the benefit of the employer and employee. This is another unfunded mandate and rapidly rolled out program that ran out of money before it really got started. Now that we’ve seen what has worked and what hasn’t, we need to take a good look at MPFL and what can be done to protect both our employees and employers who will all eventually be affected by this program.