Big Ideas, Real Results
Bartlesville has been good to my family, and serving on the City Council has been a great privilege.
Over the past two years, I’ve worked alongside city staff, volunteers, nonprofit leaders, business owners, and neighbors who care deeply about our community. Together, we have taken on difficult problems, invested in Bartlesville’s future, and made real progress.
There is still plenty of work to do, but I believe the people who trusted me with their votes deserve to know how I have been working for them.
Here are some of the things we’ve accomplished together.
Helping our Neighbors:
Building the Highway Out of Homelessness
When I ran for City Council, Bartlesville was facing growing challenges related to unsheltered homelessness. People were struggling, helping organizations were often working independently, and residents were increasingly concerned about the condition and safety of public spaces.
I chaired the Unsheltered Homeless Task Force for 18 months as we worked to build a response that balanced dignity, compassion, personal agency, and responsibility. Together, we built a connected system designed to help people move toward stability while protecting the entire community.
The results
The number of chronically homeless men and women living outside in Bartlesville dropped by approximately 30% in one year.
Nearly 50 individuals and families were approved for housing assistance.
Calls involving unsheltered people in crisis declined by over 50%.
City crews went from having to clean up dozens of homeless encampments in past years to NONE this year.
Parks and trails became cleaner and safer without the city issuing a single fine to an unsheltered neighbor.
The number of homeless neighbors appearing in court for any reason dropped to almost zero!
What we built
We connected local helping organizations through a stronger service network, introduced tools that help them coordinate care, created an interactive online resource directory, and established a charitable fund to support innovative local programs.
The Highway Out of Homelessness is helping our unsheltered neighbors while making Bartlesville safer and cleaner at the same time.
Strengthening City Government
Local government has to do the basics well. That means maintaining infrastructure, supporting employees, planning for future needs, and spending taxpayer dollars responsibly.
Over the past two years, we have passed two healthy, fiscally conservative budgets that continue investing in the people who live, work, and play in Bartlesville.
In 2026, we rallied support for a bond issuance and sales tax continuation that will fund essential services and quality of life improvements for the next five years.
We are also providing better healthcare for city employees while saving taxpayers’ money. That is the kind of outcome I want us to keep pursuing: better service, responsible stewardship, and decisions that strengthen the city over the long term.
Bartlesville also successfully navigated a boil order that could have become a much larger disruption. That response reflected the preparation and professionalism of city employees who work every day, often outside the public spotlight, to keep our community operating.
Protecting Safety and Privacy
Public safety matters, but so does individual privacy. Those goals do not have to be enemies.
When questions arose about the city’s license plate camera program, I led the effort to write first-of-their-kind regulations designed to thread the needle between effective law enforcement and reasonable privacy protections. Our regulations now allow us to benefit from ALPR cameras while ensuring Bartians can go about their daily lives without worrying about being surveilled. We maximize the benefit and minimize the possibility of harm.
On top of that, I met with representatives from our camera vendor and suggested a program that would allow them to monitor how their system was being used by police officers all over the country. They shared this idea with their product team, and the resulting software has helped multiple police departments identify, catch, and prosecute officers who were using the cameras illegally. To be perfectly clear, none of those officers were in Bartlesville.
This technology is helping the police catch criminals, even if those criminals wear a badge. Our local regulations and ideas are making communities safer across the country!
Technology can serve the public good, but it should be governed by clear expectations, public accountability, and sensible limits. I will continue asking hard questions about how new technology is used and how residents’ rights are protected.
Improving Recreation
Not every important decision is popular when it is made.
I led the charge to change the leadership of Bartlesville’s baseball and softball programs after concluding that a different direction was necessary. It was a firestorm. It was difficult. And I believe it has paid off.
Good leadership is not about avoiding conflict or pleasing everyone. Sometimes there are no perfect solutions, only tradeoffs. The responsibility of a council member is to listen carefully, examine the facts, and make the decision that offers the best long-term outcome for the community.
Fostering Civic Pride
Strong communities are not built through government alone. They grow when people take ownership, volunteer, participate, and care about the places they share. For the past two years, we have been intentional about encouraging and celebrating the people who are going out of their way to make Bartlesville better.
Through Keep Bartlesville Beautiful, I have worked alongside volunteers planting trees, native plants, and wildflowers. If you have sat on the new benches downtown, enjoyed the planters, or seen butterflies in the wildflower patches, you have seen the results of their hands-on work.
I have also helped develop the Hometown Heroes Land Run into something larger and more ambitious. That project is still evolving, and I look forward to sharing more as it develops.
These efforts may look small compared with budgets, ordinances, and infrastructure projects. But they matter. Communities become stronger when people feel proud of where they live and believe they can help make it better.
I love spending time with people who invest their energy, money, elbow grease, time, and heart in making Bartlesville better.
Open and Transparent Government
One of my priorities has been making city government easier to understand, even as I have been learning about it myself!
I regularly use social media to explain upcoming decisions, provide context for difficult issues, answer questions, and report back after meetings. Sometimes the issues are complicated. Sometimes reasonable people reach different conclusions. But neighbors deserve more than a final vote with no explanation.
I have done my best to communicate honestly, even when the situation is messy, the answer is unpopular, or there is no easy solution.
Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, shared, questioned, corrected, encouraged, and participated along the way. Your involvement makes local government better.
The Little Things Often Matter Most
Much of the work of a council member never appears on an agenda.
It is answering a question about a city process. Connecting someone with the right department. Listening to a concern about a street, property, park, or neighborhood. It is helping residents understand what the city can do, what it cannot do, and where they can find assistance.
I have met thousands of people during my time on the council, and getting to know my neighbors has been my favorite part of the job.
We have an excellent city staff, and they make it possible to respond quickly and advocate effectively for the people we serve. I am grateful for their professionalism and for the opportunity to help residents navigate their local government.
The Work Continues
I am proud of what we have accomplished, but there is still a lot of work to do.
There are still people struggling to find housing. There are roads and infrastructure that need attention. Bartlesville needs continued economic growth, secure long-term water resources, strong public services, and more opportunities for families and young people.
I have new ideas and goals I want to pursue over the next two years, and I will share more about those priorities throughout the campaign.
For now, I simply want to say thank you.
Thank you to the city employees who keep Bartlesville running. Thank you to the volunteers who give their time. Thank you to the residents who ask good questions and hold us accountable. And thank you to my Ward 4 neighbors for trusting me with this opportunity.
Bartlesville has been good to my family. If you’ll have me, I’d be honored to keep serving.