10/15/2025
Thank you Yelm Chamber for hosting the candidate forum!
What an experience!
Thank you Sheriff Sanders for moderating, you did a great job! Also reminding everyone yelm has a holding cell, that should NOT be anyone's favorite place in Yelm. 😅😂 and distinguishing the difference between city CBD and the CBD you deal with in the police world. 😂😂
We were given an outline of what topics we might be asked about, however we were not given the questions. Some candidates chose to bring notes, and some didn't. I chose not to. I made this choice for many reasons, one because I think authentic answers are the best answers, we are all real people with real questions and concerns, being able to have authentic conversations is such a valuable connection piece to our community. I also made this choice because I didn't know what the questions were going to be (I do not believe any of us did!) How do you prepare an answer if you don't know the question 😅 while I know quite a bit about the city and operations I do not know everything! I personally love this!! It gives me the opportunity to grow and learn with an open mind amd a drive to dig deeper to find the real issues and find solutions, for me that's an asset.
Two of my favorite questions were:
1) what is your roll as a city council member:
It's an easy question! We could talk about policy, budgets, ordnance, which are the roll of council, MY real roll though is to listen to the community! I WORK FOR YOU not the other way around. YOUR voice is what I represent, not my personal ideas or feelings. This is why having conversations is so important to me, the really good ones and the really hard ones. Tell me all the things and let's find a solution. So many community members do not feel heard or seen, we HAVE to fix that! The average citizens voice and ideas are just as important as city staff, the mayor and the council.
2) what is your favorite place in Yelm
As a sports family, we spend a whole lot of time at Longmire and vets field. I'm currently an assistant coach for machine pitch (even been an assistant for 3 years now to the amazing coach Buxton who has also coached my oldest son since he was 6 he's now 16) there is NOTHING better than watching these little ones grow and learn! Being able to be on that field and help them work through the tough moments, and celebrate their successes is the best feeling. These kids are the future of not only our city, but our country. Getting to teach them skills they can use on and off the field is something I can't even describe. I'm so thankful to their parents for allowing me to be apart of their children's lives. Our second favorite place is the city park! I'm proud to admit I was WRONG about the city park. When the city first decided to do the splash pad, I was against it. 100% against it. To me it only fit a certain age demographic and wouldn't benefit everyone. Again WRONG. Even single one of my children lobe the city park. The toys, the splash pad, the open space, the activities ALL OF IT. The park brings so many visitors in who shop at our stores. Eat at our restaurants amd really make people notice Yelm.
A promise I can make right now, is that if I don't know an answer.... I WILL find it, amd get it to you. And the second is, if I am wrong I will happily admit it. There are times I want to be wrong!
