People have asked me what my platform is.
I understand the question, but I have never been entirely comfortable with the word platform. To me, a platform can become a political soapbox—a place where candidates stand, make promises and then quietly move on from them after the election.
I am not running to give Norfolk another list of promises.
I am running to implement a standard.
My approach to work and leadership began early. At 10 years old, I started working on our family farm, driving a priming machine. Farm work teaches you quickly that results matter. The job still has to get done, the equipment has to work, and excuses do not finish the field.
A few years later, when I was 13, I started programming computers. I loved figuring out how things worked, what made them break, and how to make them work better.
At DeVry, the program operated on a trimester schedule. During the second of six trimesters, I was recruited as the lead programmer for a financial-accounting software startup.
By the time I was 20, I had moved to a large manufacturing company to help implement an enterprise resource planning system. An ERP system connects the financial, production, inventory and operational sides of a business. Installing one is not just a technology project. It requires understanding how every department works, how information moves through the organization and where processes break down.
Later, I started my own business and continued helping companies work through complicated systems and large volumes of information, including databases containing terabytes of data.
My job was never simply to produce more data.
It was to turn complicated information into something people could understand and use to make better decisions.
That experience shaped the way I look at municipal government.
What Council Taught Me
When I was first elected to Norfolk County Council, I went in thinking the same way I suspect most new councillors do.
I wanted to get things done for my community.
Then budget time came.
We were looking at large increases or making painful cuts, and I began to understand how difficult it is to move a municipality forward when everything is treated as a priority.
When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
What struck me most during my time on Council was how often we seemed to be reacting.
A problem would emerge and we would deal with it. Another issue would come along and we would deal with that. A project would get into trouble and we would respond.
Of course municipal government will always face unexpected problems. But I had never worked in an environment where being reactive seemed to happen so consistently.
Coming from business and systems work, I kept asking myself the same question:
Why aren’t we getting ahead of these problems?
Norfolk County does not suffer from a shortage of studies, reports, plans or data. The challenge is connecting the information, setting clear priorities, holding people accountable and making sure approved work is actually delivered.
A report is not an accomplishment.
A budget is not an accomplishment.
A motion of Council is not an accomplishment.
The accomplishment is the result.
A Lesson From the LPRCA
My time as Chair of the Long Point Region Conservation Authority reinforced that lesson in a different way.
The Authority was burning through its reserves at a rate that could not continue. At that pace, there wasn’t enough money to keep doing the same thing for another year.
We had some difficult decisions to make.
We went through a tough budget process and had to ask our member municipalities for a significant increase.
Nobody enjoys doing that.
But asking for more money could not simply be about filling a hole and continuing as before.
We invested in our parks and began dealing with infrastructure that had been neglected. We spent time improving policies so customers had clearer expectations about what was required. We worked on the underlying problems instead of simply continuing to react to them.
And in the end, that work paid off.
That experience reinforced something I still believe today:
Fiscal responsibility does not always mean spending less. It means spending wisely, planning ahead and making sure taxpayers can see a result from the money being spent.
Be frugal, not cheap.
Why I’m Running
Those experiences are a big part of why I decided to run for Mayor.
I’ve seen Norfolk government from different sides. I’ve served on Council. I’ve chaired a public organization. I’ve operated a business. I’ve dealt with complicated financial and operating systems, and I’ve dealt with municipal government as a resident and property owner.
I know government is complicated.
But complicated does not mean it cannot work better.
I’m not running because I think I have all the answers. I’m running because I know how to find problems, ask the right questions, bring the right people together and work toward solutions.
And I’m prepared to take responsibility for the results.
I don’t want to spend the next four years pointing out what Norfolk should have done differently.
I want to take responsibility for helping do it differently.
And I want to be clear about something else.
Fiscal restraint is not the destination.
I’m not interested in balancing the books just so we can point at a spreadsheet and celebrate.
I want Norfolk to build things.
I want better recreational facilities. Better infrastructure. Stronger communities. More opportunities for our businesses and our residents.
But experience has taught me that we don’t get there simply by adding more projects to a capital plan or spending more money.
Norfolk needs to get its finances, priorities and delivery capacity under control so we can afford to build the recreation facilities, infrastructure and community improvements people actually want.
That takes fiscal restraint.
It takes planning.
It takes priorities.
And most importantly, it takes execution.
The Norfolk Standard
That is why I do not want my campaign built around a traditional political platform.
I want it built around The Norfolk Standard—a clear expectation for how our County should operate.
Financial reporting should be clear enough for residents to understand. Budgets and capital plans should be realistic. Goals should be measurable. Staff should know the direction, Council should know what it is measuring, and taxpayers should be able to see what was approved, what it cost, when it will be completed and whether it delivered the intended result.
When something is not working, leadership should not hide behind the system.
Leadership should fix it.
My background has always been about taking complicated systems, understanding how all the parts connect and making them work better.
That is what Norfolk needs now.
I am not running on a platform. I am running on a standard.
A standard of transparency, accountability, disciplined financial management and delivery.
The Norfolk Standard.
Because a better Norfolk starts with better government.