I’m excited for the opportunity to be a candidate for the La Plata Town Council. I’ve lived in La Plata for almost 20 years, and I am fortunate to have reached a point in life where I can give back to the place that has been home to me and my family for so long.
In my life, I’ve called several states home and even spent several years living overseas, but by choice Maryland is where I’ve lived most of my life. I bought my first house in Charles County back in 1997, and I’ve been proud to call La Plata home since 2006.
My background is in national defense. I served nine years in the Air Force, worked for the federal government for six more years, and spent the last 20 years working as a defense contractor. I have years of experience managing operations, large projects, contracts, and proposals, which all helped me develop many skills I can now use to make a difference here where I live, in our Town of La Plata.
I’m running for the La Plata Town Council, because I care about our town’s future, and I care about service to community. La Plata has grown and is growing. I believe we need to plan more carefully for things like water capacity, traffic congestion, and public safety. We also need to manage how current growth affects La Plata’s long term financial outlook and taxes. Residential growth alone does not generate the revenue needed to cover the cost growth places on La Plata’s infrastructure. I want to make sure, for all of us, La Plata is a great place to live and operate a business.
La Plata is home to thousands of good people with an abundance of talents and skills. We have residents with backgrounds as Artists, Business Owners, Civil Servants (Town, County, and Federal), Military Members, Professionals (accountants, doctors, engineers, and lawyers), Service Industry Specialists & Tradespeople. To make La Plata even better, we need to do more to engage and use our abundance of skills and ideas. We need to work together to figure out the best ways to handle the changes in La Plata that come with the growth we are now experiencing in our town, county, and region.
I believe it’s important for more of La Plata’s residents to have the opportunity to get involved in local planning and government. That’s why, as a town councilman, I’ll focus on four main areas of resident engagement.
I think it should be our goal to make La Plata have the highest municipal voter turnout in the state! Imagine how it would look to businesses considering investments for jobs and services in our town…Imagine how it would impact the state legislature to know La Plata has the highest percentage of people voting and participating in local issues than anyplace else in the state… I want that for us, and I hope you also see the benefit of high resident engagement for La Plata’s future.
