Council District 2

I am a proud native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky and I am a 1997 graduate of Hopkinsville High School. I am a 2001 graduate of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky where I earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Government. I am also a 2004 graduate of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville where I earned a Juris Doctorate degree.

For 15 years, I fought for housing equality for all Kentuckians working at the Lexington Fair Housing Council, Inc. (now the Kentucky Fair Housing Council, Inc.). I advocated for victims of housing discrimination, educated the public regarding Fair Housing laws and was a valuable resource for housing best practices in Kentucky.

Thereafter I proudly served as the Executive Director of Ampersand Sexual Violence Resource Center of the Bluegrass, Incorporated. During my tenure Ampersand received an innovative program award, began telehealth services and launched a mobile medical unit to serve survivors residing in rural counties.

Most recently, I served as the Executive Director of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and empowered people to explore and express their voices through imaginative learning and the literary arts.

I am the most qualified candidate for the 2nd District City Council position because of my service, advocacy and partnerships.

I bring to City Council my 20+ years of nonprofit and community service experience that is unmatched and impactful. I have faithfully served Lexington by working to create equitable and inclusive communities for all. I take pride in the work I accomplished as the Housing and Gentrification Sub-Committee Chair of the Mayor’s Racial Justice and Equality Commission. Since being a part of the City Council I have been able to personally ensure the implementation of the recommendations, including adding language to the Goals and Objectives of the city’s Comprehensive Plan that will increase equity in housing for all.

I bring to the City Council my years of dedicated advocacy regarding issues that affect us all every day. The second ordinance I passed during my first term in office provides source of income protections for all to prevent housing discrimination. I strongly advocated on the local and state level regarding the importance of this ordinance, an ordinance that would remove housing barriers that many of my neighbors in Lexington are facing every day and create more affordable housing opportunities.

I bring to the City Council all of the many partnerships and collaborative relationships I have garnered over the years through my nonprofit work. It was my partnership with the Frankfort/Lexington L.I.N.K.S. Chapter that assisted me in passing my very first ordinance–the C.R.O.W.N. (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural hair) Act. Ending hair discrimination, something I and many others have experienced, is an important issue that affects us all. Within my first six months of being on City Council the C.R.O.W.N. Act was passed unanimously by City Council. I am truly humbled and proud of this achievement.

The 2nd District is currently the fastest growing council district in Lexington. Because of our tremendous, rapid growth, we are facing natural growing pains. Traffic is increasing every day on the three heavily traveled state roads in the district–Leestown Road, Georgetown Road, and Newtown Pike. Since being elected I have consistently advocated to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet regarding needed road improvements for not only vehicles but also pedestrians in the 2nd District. I am also proud to have partnered with many of my neighbors in the 2nd District to advocate for needed changes, and it was this advocacy that moved the needle toward progress. Improvements to our main thoroughfares are currently taking place and more are to come.

As a public servant, government accessibility for all is a very high priority for me. We serve the people at the will of the people; thus, the people are the priority. Since becoming the 2nd District’s councilmember, I actively began working on ease of government access after being in office only a few short months. I currently serve on the Public Input Sub-Committee, and our goal is to remove barriers of access to government and intentionally engage our neighbors regarding city council’s work. Through this work it is now easier to give public comment at city council’s meetings, my neighbors can give me their feedback on issues before the city council makes a decision by participating on Engage Lexington, city council now has a public information officer who regularly and consistently shares council-related information, and we are currently planning to roll out a new public engagement initiative in the Fall. I am proud of the work I have accomplished on the Public Input Sub-Committee, and the work is not complete. I will continue to work to remove barriers of access to local government because I highly value the voices of my neighbors!

I want Lexington to be an inclusive community where everyone feels comfortable to unapologetically be themselves, live where they want to live without reservations, freely love who they want to love, work at places that bring them joy and comfort, and feel safe to walk down any sidewalk in the city at any time of day or night.

I served on the Urban County Council as the Second District councilmember for three terms.  Within that time, my two children were born.  My focus shifted and interest waned.  I was severely tested and torn.  In my last race, I faced a candidate I had previously defeated by a landslide. However, in the rematch I did not campaign as before.  I did not even walk the district’s largest precincts.  I lost those precincts and the race choosing not to seek a re-election.  Choosing to stay on the political sidelines proved to be the right decision.  Soon after I became a single parent of two kids that needed me to be fully present.  Parenting and pastoring became my focus and remained so over the next 18 years.  Today, there is no one alive that has more experience serving as the Second District’s Councilmember than I.  With my youngest now having successfully completed her freshman year away at college, the time is now to offer the citizens of the Second District an option they have not had in two decades: Experience.  Tried and true, caring and compassionate, grassroots grown, community-driven experience.

In my first press conference as Second District Councilman, I boldly declared that the Second District would be the safest district in the city within my tenure.  The claim was so brash that the local newspaper refused to print it as a promise, only as a goal.  According to the police chief, police records verified that the Second District indeed had the lowest crime rate in Lexington-Fayette County while I was in office.  #1. Organically created neighborhood watches were in place and effective.  Dedicated neighborhood police officers were introduced in targeted areas. The University of Kentucky was brought in to study and give recommendations on how to make our most challenging neighborhood safe and secure.  Historically, the Second District had  neighborhood parks strategically placed throughout, park supervisors servicing latch-key kids,  parks personnel focused programming, informal mentoring done by volunteer coaches, and formal mentoring programs sponsored by the likes of Urban League, Community Action, and the Pleasant Green Optimist Club. Even to the casual observer, those days seem long gone.

Today, gunshots ring out regularly with shootings happening in broad daylight.  Gang markings can be seen from the Second District’s most urban to its suburban areas.  With over 20, 000 Lexington kids on free and reduced lunch, working families who cannot pay $3 for lunch are expected to pay $5 for their kids to go to public pools and even more to pay in sports leagues. It was not always that way.  The American Dream of homeownership seems no longer a priority being pushed.  It was not always that way.  Neighborhoods are influx with theft becoming commonplace. Drug addictions, domestic violence, big city gangs and unacceptable disparities are becoming common place and accepted.  It was not always this way.

Problems will come, but there must be plans to address them.  Hoping, wishing, and ignoring are  inadequate responses to pressing dire dilemmas.  After five, 10 and 20 years, there should be  visible evidence of a vision, a strategy, and a plan.  None seem apparent or working.   The suffering cannot be left to endure their condition without hope. There must be a plan to comprehensively address citizens’ concerns about personal safety, property security, and the ability enjoy those  God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.   Where there is no working plan in place, I suggest at least a return to the past plans, programs and ways that worked.  Our past proven plans and programs provides us as a community a default setting – a way to get back to basics.  Call it “Bring Back Better.” People as well as programs and plans that have worked in the past provide experience along with action steps that are doable, legal, feasible and familiar.   Bring Back Better is about more than bringing one person to Council, but is about bringing back a way of life.  As for me, it is about bringing back experience that knows the history, the people, the trials, the plans, and the ways that have proven successful as well as those that did not.  What’s the “better” in Bring Back Better?  It’s an acknowledging of the need to tweak the past to make it palatable and applicable today.  It is about retrofitting what worked to ensure it takes of advantage of and confronts the disadvantages that come with modern technology.  I suggest we “Bring Back Better.”

It is often presumed that easier access will foster more participation, and that all participation is created equal.  A healthy democracy requires more than voting once every two years.  A healthy democracy depends upon an informed, participatory, and vested electorate.  We are living in a time in which we must be and groom defenders of democracy.  Every effort must be made to bring as many citizens into the democratic decision-making process as possible.  “Bring Back Better” suggests a return to days of activism as well as advocacy.  It lauds a day when leaders had followers, and followers had interest.  Given today’s technology, finding new, easier ways to allow all to participate in democracy on a more frequent and regular basis is critically important.  We do well to make sure that all are heard using more than suggestion box and “stuff the ballot box” kinds of ways to determine the will of the people.   We must augment these ways so subject to bias with scientific polling having results with small margins of error.  Those with the loudest, most passionate, and most organized voices motivated by special interests must not be allowed to simply supplant all other voices.  The power of democracy is found in the will of the people, all the people.  Bring Back Better here means being willing to pay for and use focus groups, conduct scientific polls, and provide multiple ways over time to all the will of the people to be known. Bring Back Better also means doing the hard work of re-establishing street captains, precinct chairs, and truly representative neighborhood associations, and working committees to get information to and from all citizens all the time, and not just during the election seasons.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s The Beloved Community.   Lexington as The Beloved Community is a city where the measure of success for city government is gauged by the quality of life of all its citizens.  It is a place where people not only love their God with all their heart and soul, but love their neighbors as themselves seeing all fellow Lexingtonians as neighbors.  Lexington as The Beloved Community is a place where we do what makes sense in the long as well as the short term.  We all take responsibility for the development of children, embrace investment budgeting, work to help all reach their greatest potential, and take care of our “LOT” – “the least of these” which includes the widows, orphans, hungry, thirsty, naked, incarcerated, and foreigners. It is a city where we include all, consider all, and work for the good of all knowing we have the talents, creativity, passion, drive, and yes, resources to promote the well-being of all of our citizens. It is a city where we plan a future that adequately addresses our needs for good neighborhoods, good schools, and good commerce while solving the pressing issues of the day: traffic congestion, under-employment, lopsided growth patterns, housing issues, juvenile depression, over incarceration, theft, and hostility.  In its planning process is included all kinds of formal and informal parks, neighborhood, corridor, and area master plans inviting and encouraging all to not only be engaged but to become well acquainted with working with each other.  The Beloved Community comes from a point of unity that is powered by logic and fueled by love.  In short, my answer is Lexington’s version of The Beloved Community.