Housing people can afford
Rochester can't keep talking about growth while the people who work here struggle to live here.
The region's housing need is real and measurable. I'll fight for a clear public production target tied to the area's 2035 housing need, faster and clearer permitting, more starter-home and missing-middle options, and real visibility for renters.
- What I can do with the office
- Set a public target and report progress, convene builders and partners, publish a housing dashboard, and publicly press for pro-housing appointments and decisions. (Note: the City Council appoints the Planning & Zoning Commission — so I'll use the mayor's platform to push for the right appointments and votes, not pretend I make them alone.)
- Where you come in
- Advocate for council votes the mayor cannot cast.
Spending residents can see
No more surprise price tags.
Every major capital project should have a public page: original budget, revised budget, timeline, change orders, contingency use, who's responsible, and current status. Link BRT is the example. Its budget now surpasses $196M. Residents shouldn't have to dig through scattered documents to understand how a project moved from one number to another. I raised that gap as a private citizen — as mayor, you shouldn't have to catch it after the fact. It should already be on the screen.
- What I can do with the office
- Stand up the public dashboard, demand project pages, and call for targeted independent audits on major capital work.
- Where you come in
- Tell us which projects in your ward you want looked at closely.
Taxes that don't outrun your paycheck
Every homeowner and renter pays for this city.
I'll fight for a budget-discipline standard that brings levy growth closer to inflation by the end of my term — with any exception justified publicly, in plain language. If government asks for more, residents should see what the last dollar actually bought.
The pattern is what worries people, and they're right to be worried: marquee projects get funded while the basics wait. The Peace Plaza pavers. The Civic Center. The sports complex. Each one had a case — the question nobody answered in public was what it displaced. As mayor, I'll put that question on the record before the vote, every time: here's the project, here's what it costs, here's what waits if we do it.
- What I can do with the office
- Hold levy growth toward inflation, publish the tradeoffs of every major project before the vote, and justify any exception in plain language.
- Where you come in
- Tell us when a bill outruns your paycheck — and which project you'd have paused.
Show the work
Every decision, every dollar, on the record before it's final — not after.
Trust follows proof. So the standard is simple: the work is visible before a decision lands, not explained once it's too late to change.
- What I can do with the office
- Stand up a real-time spending dashboard; a major-project cost and change-order tracker; public contract logs after execution and legal review; a weekly log of my own meetings; ward-by-ward issue reports; quarterly public performance reviews; and independent audits for major capital projects.
- Where you come in
- Check the record — and tell me where it's still too hard to see.
