Your neighbor
I live here in District 2, the same stretch of New Castle County I’m asking to represent. Pennsylvania line down to the Wilmington city line, Red Clay Creek across to Concord Pike. When the reassessment notices went out, one came to my address too. When the county raised property taxes and sewer rates this May, that vote reached into my household budget the same way it reached into yours.
I’m not a career politician, and I’m younger than most people who run for this seat. I’ve decided to treat both as qualifications. The council has plenty of experience, and that experience gave us a botched reassessment rollout, a $42 million hole, and a tax increase. What is missing at that table is not another long résumé. It’s somebody with a long stake. I’ll be living with the county’s decisions, and paying its bills, for the next fifty years. Nobody sitting on that council has more riding on getting this right.
Why I’m running again
In 2022 I ran for this seat and I lost. My opponent ran a good race and the voters made their choice. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
But here is what I said back then, printed on the literature I handed to neighbors across this district:
From my 2022 campaign literature
“I will strengthen controls over County spending to prevent future property and sewer tax increases. This will be done by establishing an independent group to analyze the budget and forecast our County’s financial health.”
Read that again. Property and sewer. I named both.
Four years later, on one night in May, county council raised property taxes 17 percent and sewer rates 5 percent in the same budget. Along the way we got the reassessment mess, the emergency session in Dover, the lawsuits, the revised bills, and a payment deadline pushed to New Year’s Eve. One of the two council members who voted no, a Democrat, called it part of a charade that has to stop.
I take no pleasure in being right about this. Being right and losing got this district nothing. I’d rather fix it, and this time the case doesn’t rest on my prediction. It rests on your bill.
What I believe about this job
County council isn’t Washington, and it shouldn’t sound like it. Nobody in Talleyville is looking for a culture war. People here want somebody who reads the budget before voting on it, returns the phone call, shows up at the civic association meeting, and votes a clear yes or no so you always know where he stood.
We don’t have Republican taxpayers and Democratic taxpayers here. We have taxpayers. Eleven to two isn’t oversight, and you don’t have to change parties to think one independent set of eyes on the money would be healthy.
You may not agree with everything on this website. Good. I’m not asking you to agree with all of it. I’m asking for oversight. Those are two different jobs, and the second one is what’s on the ballot.
How I will operate
Some commitments don’t need a plan document. They need a habit. Here are mine.
- Every vote explained. I’ll publish how I voted and why, in plain English, after every council meeting. Including the votes you will disagree with.
- A clear yes or no. You’ll never have to guess where I stood.
- Show up. Civic association meetings are not a campaign season courtesy. They are where this district actually talks to itself, and I’ll be in the room after the election, not just before it.
- Return the call. Constituent service is the job. If the county owes you an answer about a permit, an assessment, or a sewer bill, my office chases it until you have one.