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Keego FORWARD
Protecting what we love. Building what comes next.
Connected Communication
Government should be easy to understand and easy to reach.
Residents shouldn't have to attend every meeting, search through pages of documents, or hear something through word of mouth to understand what is happening in their city.
I believe communication between the City and its residents should be clear, consistent, accessible, and two-way. That means doing a better job of explaining not only what decisions are being made, but also why they are being considered and how residents can participate before those decisions are final.
My background in Communication Studies has shaped how I think about this. Communication isn't simply putting information online or sending out a notice. Effective communication requires thinking about the person receiving the information: Is it understandable? Is it easy to find? Does it answer the questions people are actually asking? And is there an opportunity for people to respond?
I also believe listening is one of the most important responsibilities of an elected official. Residents will not always agree with one another, or with me, and that's okay. Good local government should make room for respectful disagreement, questions, and new ideas.
My goal is simple: residents should feel informed, involved, and heard.
A Future-Ready Keego Harbor
Small cities can still think BIG.
Technology is changing the way people interact with nearly every part of their lives, and local government should be willing to evolve too.
Being “future-ready” doesn't mean chasing every new technology or spending money simply because something is new. It means looking for practical tools that can save time, reduce administrative burdens, improve city services, and make interacting with local government easier for residents.
My professional and educational background has taught me to look at organizations strategically: understand the problem first, evaluate the available tools, consider cost and risk, and then determine whether a change actually improves the way an organization operates. That's the approach I would bring to Keego Harbor.
Technology should never replace personal service or make government harder to access. Used thoughtfully, however, it can give residents more options while helping a small city make the most of limited staff and resources.
I also think it's important to recognize that not everyone wants, or is able, to interact with government digitally. Modernization should create more ways to access City Hall, not eliminate traditional ones.
Keego Harbor doesn't need to become a “smart city” filled with unnecessary technology. It needs to be a smartly managed city that uses the right tools when they genuinely make life better for residents.
Protecting Our Lakes & Environment
Our lakes aren't just part of Keego Harbor's scenery. They're part of our identity.
Keego Harbor's relationship with the water is one of the things that makes our community distinctive. Protecting our lakes, waterways, green spaces, and neighborhood environment isn't simply an environmental issue, it's a quality-of-life issue, a property-value issue, and an investment in what future generations will inherit.
This priority is also personal for me.
I lost my mother to lymphoma when I was a teenager. Years later, I found myself on the other side of cancer again, this time helping care for my husband while he underwent treatment for lymphoma. Experiences like those change the way you think about health and about the environment people live in every day.
We don't control every factor that contributes to cancer, and no single environmental exposure explains most cases. But research has identified associations between certain environmental and occupational exposures and an increased risk of some cancers, including certain lymphomas. For me, that is another reason to take environmental stewardship seriously, not with fear, but with responsibility.
At the local level, we have an obligation to protect the things that are within our control. For Keego Harbor, that begins with water.
Protecting Keego Harbor doesn't mean resisting every change. It means making sure that as our community moves forward, we don't sacrifice the natural resources and lake-town character that made people want to live here in the first place.
For me, environmental stewardship comes down to something very basic: we should leave Keego Harbor healthier than we found it.
Local Business & Economic Vitality
A strong community needs places to gather, shop, eat, work, and invest.
Keego Harbor’s small size is one of its strengths. Local businesses aren’t just storefronts, they become part of the personality of the community. They create places where neighbors run into one another, provide jobs and services close to home, contribute to the city’s tax base, and help shape how residents and visitors experience Keego Harbor.
Having grown up in a small town myself, I understand how much local businesses contribute to a community’s identity. In a city our size, the success of a business district can have an outsized impact on the entire community.
I want Keego Harbor to be a place where existing businesses feel supported and new businesses see an opportunity to invest. That doesn't mean city government should choose which businesses succeed or spend recklessly chasing development. It means creating an environment that is welcoming, predictable, responsive, and easy to navigate.
Economic development should also be thoughtful. Growth for the sake of growth isn't the goal. I want to see development that complements our neighborhoods, strengthens our tax base, makes productive use of underused properties, and adds something meaningful to the community while preserving the small-town and lake-town character residents value.
I also believe economic development is intrinsically connected to the other three issues I've outlined above. People are more likely to invest in a community that feels cared for, communicates well, protects its natural resources, and has a clear vision for its future. The same things that make Keego Harbor a great place to live can make it a great place to do business.
My goal isn't to turn Keego Harbor into somewhere else. It's to help our city build on what we already have, welcome new opportunities, and create a stronger local economy without losing the character that makes Keego Harbor feel like Keego Harbor.
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