Monterey CountyCandidate for Supervisor, Supervisorial District 4

As a fourth-generation Monterey County resident who is raising my family in Marina, I have been committed to working on behalf of our community for decades. I am a mother to a young child, wife to an architect, and daughter to both a parent educator and retired Army Colonel.    For the past decade, I have been serving the residents of Sand City, Del Rey Oaks, Marina, East Garrison, CSUMB, Salinas, Seaside, and Ft. Ord as a top Legislative Aide to outgoing  Supervisor Jane Parker, with a particular focus on healthcare, homeless services, and public safety in our neighborhoods and schools and as an elected representative on the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District since 2015. I am uniquely qualified and ready to hit the ground running as your next supervisor to keep our communities safe, spur living-wage job creation, protect our rich ecosystems, and address the housing needs of current residents and future generations.    Prior to working for the County, I built and sold an industrial food brokerage business and worked as a non-profit fundraiser. With experience in the non-profit, private, and government sectors, I am known as a highly motivated self-starter with a strong reputation for principled action: getting things done that make life better for regular hard-working people.    I offer experienced County leadership on a wide range of issues, including responsible land use and water policy, climate change, compassionate responses to the homelessness and regional housing crises, and strong fiscal stewardship.  My broad grassroots support is evidenced by the 800 unique contributions made in support of my campaign and a growing list of endorsements from in-district, County, and Regional leaders. 

 

Much of my work has been focused on expanding opportunities for working families now and into the future, increasing transparency, accountability and civic engagement, improving quality and access to healthcare, reducing and preventing violence and crime, and protecting our natural resources and economic vitality. 

I fully support values of excellence in education from pre-school through college; universal, affordable health care; gun violence prevention; protecting California’s natural resources, air, and water through the use of renewable sources of energy; and continually developing innovative measures to counter climate change  and pollution.

I will always seek to uphold values of social and economic equality, support for organized labor, and social policy that ensures a strong and effective safety net with a focus on health in all policies. I am a strong proponent of fiscal responsibility, and take seriously my responsibility as a steward of the trust that tax-payers place in government.

I am a firm advocate for addressing systemic disparities via policy that is rooted in racial and social equity. This awareness and commitment to equity must be embedded at every level of County Government with leadership from the Board. I worked to build public and political will necessary to have the County join the Government Alliance for Race and Equity and participated in the initial training cohort. 

I am passionate women’s rights and women’s health: Access to family planning and pre-conception health care; prenatal care that follows best evidence and is delivered with informed consent and cultural respect that recognizes the significance of the birth experience in addition to the importance of a healthy baby; and cohesive mental health services for parents in the peri-natal years. 

As Supervisor I will fight to expand the array of reproductive health services that are offered at our County-run clinics to make it easier for patients to access the care they need, when they need, at a location they are familiar and comfortable, with a provider who they know and trust. 

The County has tremendous responsibility for the provision of social safety net services for low-income families. I have personally navigated the complex web necessary to access these services and am fully committed to system-wide improvements that better coordinate access.