When developers ask, City Hall finds a way. Watch a Council meeting: variance after variance, routinely granted — while your tax dollars are steered into the roads and pipes that serve their projects. As Mayor, I'll flip the burden: anyone seeking an exception to our zoning rules will have to show it benefits residents, not just their project. And I'll review the City's narrow rules for notifying neighbors about projects proposed near their homes. Woodbury doesn't need development for its own sake — it needs development residents actually want.

You deserve elected officials who know your neighborhood — and answer to it. Woodbury is one of Minnesota's largest cities, yet one of very few that elect every official at-large: just four Councilors for 80,000 residents. Most large cities give each area its own representative. Here, our officials have long come from a handful of neighborhoods — leaving most residents with no one at the table who knows their streets. As Mayor, I'll lead the effort to put a ward system on the ballot, and let residents decide.

Public records, public meetings, public decisions. Too many residents have learned that Woodbury's meetings are where decisions get announced — not made. Ask to put an issue on the Council's agenda, and nothing requires them to consider it. Speak at a meeting, and nothing requires them to respond. As Mayor, I'll change that: a guaranteed process for resident issues to reach the Council agenda, real dialogue at public meetings, and regular neighborhood meetings across Woodbury — so City Hall works with you, not around you.

Woodbury draws water from a strained aquifer already burdened by PFAS contamination. Residents do their part — paying higher rates the more they use. Commercial users don't: one flat rate, set at the lowest residential tier. While neighboring Eagan paused data centers to protect its water, two opened here on Bielenberg Drive in 2025 — and not a single Woodbury ordinance governs them. Water we've spent a fortune treating shouldn't be cheapest for those who use the most. As Mayor, conservation will apply to everyone: tiered commercial rates, and strong rules for high-water-use projects — before we get more.

Property taxes are residents' #1 concern — and the City's own budget shows why: the levy jumped 8.3%, then 9.7%, in back-to-back years. That's roughly triple inflation, and double the City's own 15-year average. I spent my career building the controls that keep organizations honest with other people's money, and City Hall is missing basic ones. As Mayor, I'll require competitive bidding on contracts — even where state law lets the City skip it. I'll restrict out-of-state travel on your dime. And the budget will justify itself in public, line by line, before the City asks you for more. You don't wait for waste to prove itself. You build the controls that prevent it.

Woodbury residents pay a lot in taxes — and deserve proof of what those taxes deliver. Right now, the City reports its performance results to you once a year, and some department goals have no measures behind them at all. I built performance systems for global operations at 3M, and the lesson is simple: what gets measured regularly gets managed; what gets reviewed once a year gets explained after it's gone wrong. As Mayor, every department will have real measures tied to real goals, reviewed in public throughout the year — so you can see what your money delivers, not just what it costs.