I have grown up in Caledonia and am now raising my children here as well. Caledonia to me means family, friends, and community. It is the place that I call "Home".
As much as I love Caledonia, it is not without its challenges. This year staff positions had to be cut to maintain our budget. If we do not aggressively pursue commercial development to help ease the burden on the taxpayers, I fear that we may be facing not only cuts in staff, but services as well; or an increase in our taxes to maintain the services that we do have. It's time to be proactive before we are forced to be reactive.
I firmly believe Caledonia should be an affordable community in which to raise a family! As a fiscal conservative, I will never raise taxes simply for the sake of raising taxes, but will work to keep taxes low. To achieve that end, my focus will be an aggressive campaign to attract responsible commercial development as designated in the Land Use Plan which will not only add to the taxbase, but provide jobs. It is also essential that sewer and water services are extended to the I-94 corridor - sooner, rather than later.
I will work diligently to communicate and connect with the community. Since most of our Park and Recreation programs are financially self-sustaining, I would like to see us enhance and expand those programs to serve as an avenue to community involvement.
I will work very hard to do my homework so that I can bring a fair, balanced, common sense approach to make the best decisions that benefit ALL Caledonians.
I am very excited at the prospect of serving the Village and working hard for its residents to make Caledonia a great place to LIVE, WORK and PLAY!
In closing, I would like to let you know that I will be expanding on these ideas in a series of posts yet to come, so check back often and feel free to leave comments or questions. In the meantime, I would like to say, "Thank You" to all readers and I'm asking you for your vote on Tuesday, April 1st.
