Experience

12 years ago I was running with no government experience, but with a lot of management experience;

In charge of a $200 million dollar department at Target
Worked in the E-commerce division at Best Buy
Assisted over 700 small businesses at Play It Again Corporate Office

…and a love of Dayton;

Sixth generation Dayton family
Member of the Dayton Lions
Member of the Knights of Columbus
Founding member of the Dayton Historical Society
Member of the Parks Commission

When I became a council member, things in Dayton were not looking quite as good as they are now. The council only did one year budgets (now we do ten years) and we borrowed for everything. There was no visibility to future costs of roads, buildings, or personnel. All that changed when I became Mayor.

I’ve been on the council for nearly 12 years, almost six as Mayor. I ran unopposed in my prior two elections. I like to believe it is because things are going the right direction in Dayton. Taxes have been lowered, roads are improved, parks and trails have been upgraded, and property values are increasing. Dayton has become an attractive place to raise a family.

The past six years have been the “heavy lifting” years. We right-sized the staff. We put in place fiscal constraints that will allow us to grow AND reduce taxes over time. We created an environment where growth can happen, because, lets face it…..we fiscally needed it. I refer to this as the “heavy lifting” time because we did the things that are not “fun.” We reduced staff. We only modestly reduced taxes. We put in a LOT of infrastructure….but most of that was under ground.

Our next few years are where the “fun” things can begin. We can look at improving trails and parks substantially (funded by developers). We can begin to REALLY lower taxes as debt gets paid off….and we don’t issue new debt. We can add an interchange to improve our traffic flow in and out of our City, while becoming more attractive to business.

This can be our next few years…..if we make the right choices today.