Issues

Fixing our streets means addressing everything from traffic to potholes, from homeless issues to public transportation, and above all, safety.

• Nevada’s roads: Our growing population is straining our aging infrastructure, and funding has not kept pace. We must make sure that funding for roads and highways is indexed to inflation and tied to usage.
• Traffic safety: Roads managed by the state are the most dangerous to drive on, particularly in our urban areas. We need to provide the funding and oversight to prevent these issues from becoming the problem of our local governments.
• Homelessness: It is not fiscally nor morally responsible to address homelessness solely through our criminal justice system and hospitals; most of our homeless population have mental health issues, are senior citizens with low incomes, or are youth who aged out of our foster care system. We need to structure support systems that provide them with the tools to succeed. We also need to build more housing, both low-income and at all levels of affordability for workers, seniors, and veterans.
• Green space: Accessible open spaces are critical to the high quality of life that exists for Nevadans. We not only need to preserve open spaces, parks, flat fields, and trail access – we must structure long-term funding to support the development and maintenance of these treasures.

I am proud to have addressed issues such as infrastructure improvements and homelessness at the local level. I served as chair of the Washoe Regional Transportation Commission and the Tahoe Transportation District, where we made large investments in public transportation and road improvements. We also tackled homelessness in Washoe County head on, consolidating services to address the root causes of homelessness instead of triaging the symptoms. I plan to build upon this experience to take on these challenges across the state.

The biggest problem facing our schools is funding, and that’s where I’ll start. I’m sick of lip service, piecemeal approaches, and "accountability" measures which punish kids and teachers for the failures of politicians.

• Education funding reform: We need a clear commitment from state leaders to close Nevada’s education funding gap and get to the national average, which will require $2.5 billion in additional annual spending over the next 10 years. We need property tax reform to sustainably increase school funding and ensure that all families have access to the best public education no matter their zip code.
• Universal pre-K: Studies show universal pre-kindergarten improves academic outcomes and leads to health and economic benefits for enrolled families. We must ensure permanent funding of universal pre-K for all Nevada children.
• School breakfast and lunch: Children cannot be expected to learn on an empty stomach. We must offer free school lunch and breakfast programs to all Nevada children.
• Teacher pay: Our critical education staff should not have to moonlight in the gig economy just to make ends meet. We must pay teachers and support staff livable wages.
• Continuing education and workforce development: There are a variety of ways to prepare students and workers for the economy of the future – from career, technical, and apprenticeship programs for high school students to higher education at our community colleges and universities to comprehensive adult workforce education programs. We must ensure all Nevadans who want it have access to continuing education and workforce training that supports skill and wage growth.

Watching local politicians who objected to desperately needed funding for school construction – and knowing that we could do better for our students – was one of the first reasons that I decided to run for Washoe County Commission years ago. I am proud to have supported competent governance for collection of tax revenue to support our schools and prevent those funds from being held hostage due to political infighting.

Supporting our families means everything from childcare and housing costs to our healthcare system. I am a mother caring for her daughter and a daughter caring for her mother. I understand firsthand the issues facing working families, from limited access to affordable housing and childcare to support for our aging and disabled populations and their caregivers. Public safety has also been central to my mission as Washoe County Commissioner, and I remain committed to ensuring that our police, firefighters, and other first responders have the resources they need to keep our communities safe.

• Affordable housing: While Nevada has been lucky to receive federal funding for affordable housing for several years, it is not enough. We need to dedicate funding from state and local governments to support housing trust funds, permanent supportive housing, and toolkits for affordable construction on a continuing basis.
• Affordable childcare: Nevada has the most expensive childcare in the nation. We need to streamline permitting processes and remove excessive red tape for childcare providers.
• Senior and disabled housing: Seniors make up a majority of the homeless population in our communities. We must support subsidized housing to allow people to age and live with dignity and provide in-home elder care for indigent seniors (also known as the homemaker program) to enable a higher quality of life for all residents.
• Public safety: Nevada’s broken tax structure has led most local governments to freeze new hires and eliminate positions in our police and fire departments. We need sustainable funding to keep our homes and neighborhoods safe.
• Nevada’s startup ecosystem: We need to invest in our local businesses to create more opportunities for the next big economic boom in sustainability and conservation, medical, advanced finance, drones and unmanned vehicles, hospitality, fintech, medtech, and other industries of the future.
• Park facilities: Families desperately need access to flat fields and other park facilities, but much of the land set aside for these purposes goes undeveloped due to lack of consistent funding to make improvements or maintain new spaces. We must prioritize funding these public spaces to keep pace with our growing population and enhance Nevadans’ quality of life.

I won’t give huge amounts of taxpayer money to Elon Musk, unlike my opponent in the Democratic Primary and our current Republican Governor. I won’t support giving taxpayer funding to Hollywood billionaires either. This type of economic development has been the Republican and Democratic establishment’s go-to for a decade, and it hasn’t worked. This is a longer-term fix to budget problems, but an important step we need to start taking today if our tomorrow is not going to be underfunded as well.

This is one of the big ways we can increase funding for our schools. Resetting depreciation every time a property sells and tying it to the market will ensure properties will be assessed on their actual value. Working families are often pushed further away from city centers into more “affordable” newer developments, forcing them to pay a higher share of property taxes.

This is another big way we can increase funding for our schools. Wall Street has gobbled up a huge portion of our housing supply, jacking up rents and avoiding paying their fair share of taxes. We need to treat these as investments, assessing and taxing them as such. Corporate landlords should not be benefitting from a tax structure intended to protect owner-occupied houses. This would mean we can afford enough firefighters, teachers, police, road construction, parks, and everything else (beyond giving our schools a lot more funding).

“But how do you grow the economy if you don’t give billionaires a handout to move their factories here?” Simple: invest in our workforce. Invest in our existing businesses. This is how we grow a stable future for the people who live here and stop chasing and begging for table scraps from multinational oligarchs like Elon Musk.

Unions are the backbone of Nevada’s workforce and critical to ensuring livable wages and fair benefits. You may have heard the phrase for this law that rhymes with “Right to Smirk.” I think it’s more accurately called “Right to Freeload.” This law means that some workers pay for things that benefit all workers – like if only some people paid HOA dues, but they still got access to all the benefits. This is wrong.

(To be clear, I do not think that anyone should be required to make political contributions to union PACs against their will. But people who benefit from a union’s advocacy for salary, safety, and benefits should have to chip in, and not be allowed to freeload off others).

Property tax increases are capped. While an overall cap on rent increases is not a long-term fix or solution to our housing crisis, it is a good short-term measure to give families peace of mind, until we can build housing people can afford and stop predatory Wall Street investors from taking advantage of us.

State politicians have been giving Amazon and Tesla a free ride on the roads we paid for. Our road taxes are out of date, leaving road funds unable to address basic needs in every community. Road funds also need to be indexed to inflation and cost needs to be tied to actual impacts by users.