Priorities

As a physician, I understand that treating symptoms will not result in durable cure of diseases.

We can do better.

We can:

Improve safety and security in our neighborhoods
Put our state on a road to sustainably end homelessness
Create mental health and addiction systems which support not only those suffering, but the families that support them.
Invest in our schools to assure all students a sustainable road to a productive future
Invest in our planet: Every policy, from education and jobs to zoning, farming and forestry must take into account it’s impact on our climate and the health of our planet.

Sustainably Ending Homelessness

No one in our community believes people should live without shelter. There are numerous examples internationally and domestically of countries, cities and towns that have eliminated homelessness. We must, using a data driven approach, sustainably house everyone living unhoused.

We need to assure, by a combination of permanent supportive housing, affordable housing and rent subsidies for qualified renters for market rate housing that there is enough safe housing for everyone in our community. In addition to assuring enough housing, we must create a workforce and sustainable pipeline of community health workers, social workers and professional mediators to prevent homelessness.

Improving The Safety And Security Of Our Neighborhoods

No matter where we come from or what we look like most of us believe everyone deserves to live in a community or neighborhood where we don’t have to worry for our safety and the safety of our loved ones. Where we can walk the streets without fear, where our children can play freely and safely and where people feel connected through a shared sense of responsibility.

For decades, an inequitable criminal-legal system has eroded the public trust in law enforcement. By coming together and electing leaders who understand and empathize with every one of us, we can create a restorative justice system that emphasizes rehabilitation over punitive incarceration.

We need to pivot to a restorative justice system emphasizing rehabilitation. Vandalism, shoplifting and violent crime are absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped. These are also often symptoms of early life trauma, disconnection from work and community, and decades of failed drug policy with resultant organized criminal elements that we systematically fail to address. Our current strategy is not only inhumane and immoral, it isn’t working. We can do better.

Investing In Our Schools

Every child deserves a quality education that prepares them for the future including competing in our global economy. We need to invest in our families and future workforce by assuring everyone an excellent education from pre-K through community college, vocational training or internships. Investing in teachers, counselors and community health workers based in schools can assure that every student has their needs met. No one should leave high school without a definitive plan for their next step and no one should leave community college, trade school or internships weighed down by debt.

Improving Mental Health And Addiction Services

We must assure that the services we pay for are of good quality while demanding outcomes that achieve improvement and stability both for both people afflicted with mental illness and the friends and families that support them. Our services currently exist in islands with little connection.

Community health workers with durable relationships could assure that everyone who needs support has access to those services that help them remain integral members of our community without creating a burden too big for any one family to bear.

Investing In Our Planet

Without a healthy environment, we cannot be healthy. Every policy passed must take into account it’s impact on the planet. Policies regarding farming, forestry, transportation, housing and schools to name just a few, impact our planet.

Every policy must equitably, taking into account our current workforce and their need to sustainably transition, move us toward, rather than away from, more sustainable and even restorative energy policies.