Commentary by Julia Church Kozicki
While some candidates for Noblesville mayor may be looking in the rearview mirror to yesterday while others are focused on tomorrow, I believe what is happening today plays an equally important role.
That is why “Strengthening Today” has been a focal point of my campaign, along with “Respecting Yesterday” and “Leading Tomorrow.” With a collaborative approach to the office of mayor, I promise to reinvigorate a community-based benchmarking process. In addition, I will seek out best practices of like-sized cities and model their success factors.
When we use city dollars, we need to have a plan on where to spend them and how to get the best return on our investment, and I believe this is the best way to transparently and proactively accomplish that.
I believe one of the biggest challenges facing cities are the tax caps that were imposed by the state legislatures on municipalities several years ago. An important part of leadership is being clear about the hard decisions. In an era of tax caps, there are hard decisions in determining both funding and priorities that will have to be addressed by the next mayor of Noblesville.
As we look to the immediate projects like infrastructure, we must have an intentional plan for roads, bridges and sewers that include not only the aesthetics of architectural and streetscape renderings, but how we are going to pay for it. Likewise, we need an intentional plan to support our first responders with both compensation and facilities, and a plan for how to pay for that.
Julia Church Kozicki is a candidate in the May 7 Republican primary election. Learn more at juliachurchkozicki.com.
