About Me
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I am originally from Massachusetts, graduated from the University of Texas in Austin, and subsequently lived in Massachusetts, New York, Florida, and again in Massachusetts before moving to Mint Hill in 2006. My husband Dave and I have two sons; Ben, a senior in college, and Aaron, a junior in high school.
After a very varied work background, I became a stay at home mom when my oldest was born. I ran a small home-based engraving business until 2010, when we bought our first ice cream truck and opened our business, Sticks and Cones Ice Cream. That first truck (Sticks) was followed in about a year by truck number two (Cones); last year we added our third truck (Andee) to the fleet. Dave and I ran the popular Food Truck Friday, Charlotte's first food truck rally, in the SouthEnd until we lost the location to development. After that, we operated food truck rallies in towns and locations across the Charlotte area. I also created and ran the event Eat From a Truck's Carolinas' Largest Food Truck Rally with my partners Creative Loafing and The Music Factory, which saw over 80 trucks from both of the Carolinas and Georgia at one highly successful event. In addition to my food truck booking agency, EatFromATruck.com, I also run CharlotteFoodTrucks.org. I have placed trucks at events ranging from corporate parking lots to the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. Just for fun, after ice cream season ends, we own a booth at the Carolina Renaissance Festival, where we make and sell small leather goods. We've been there 11 years now, and it's been an experience I'm deeply grateful to have stumbled into and wouldn't miss for the world. |
My First Foray Into Politics
We were members of the first wave of Charlotte's gourmet food truck industry. If you're unfamiliar with the history of food trucks in Charlotte, you may not know that when the country's food truck craze swept into the city, the city saw the need to update the laws. The laws they tried to enact were so restrictive that they would have effectively destroyed the fledgling industry. Even though we owned ice cream trucks, which have slightly different regulations and different needs than food trucks, Dave and I felt that the city regulating an industry out of business was unfair.
I was one of the food truck owners at the forefront of the fight against the city's regulations. I published a website, CharlotteFoodTrucks.org, to gather all the trucks in one place to show we were a legitimate industry. I brought in a lawyer to help present our case. I gave interviews to the media and spoke before the Charlotte City Council. I started a petition in favor of the trucks that received over 4,000 signatures over a weekend, crashing my site.
In the end, the laws put into place were even more favorable than we had requested, and the industry has grown to more than 100 trucks in business today due to the efforts of myself and a small group of pioneers.
I was one of the food truck owners at the forefront of the fight against the city's regulations. I published a website, CharlotteFoodTrucks.org, to gather all the trucks in one place to show we were a legitimate industry. I brought in a lawyer to help present our case. I gave interviews to the media and spoke before the Charlotte City Council. I started a petition in favor of the trucks that received over 4,000 signatures over a weekend, crashing my site.
In the end, the laws put into place were even more favorable than we had requested, and the industry has grown to more than 100 trucks in business today due to the efforts of myself and a small group of pioneers.
Why I'm Running For Mayor
Like most people, I never gave local politics a second thought. My life was running smoothly, there were no major complaints with Mint Hill, things were rolling along just fine.
Until...
It's always the 'until' that drags people into local politics.
My 'until' was when the land behind my neighborhood was sold to a developer, who was given a variance to build 240+ small houses on tiny lots between 485 and the Jefferson Colony neighborhood.
The developer's plan was (and is) to build one main entrance on Bartlett, and use the Jefferson Colony neighborhood for two other entrances/exits from his development. For a number of reasons, this is a terrible idea. And although most of the neighbors went to speak against this portion of the plan at a BOC meeting (not the development, just the connectivity), it was clear our pleas fell on deaf ears. The BOC just didn't care to find out why they should have required the plan to be redesigned. And it passed as written, and our neighborhood will suffer for it.
The BOC had the right to deny the connectivity--even though connectivity is usually required, exceptions can be made. They had the right not to approve the variance. They had the right to demand that the developer redesign the neighborhood to provide a second entrance elsewhere, even if it involved purchasing additional land. They did none of these things. They didn't put one foot in our neighborhood to see the situation for themselves. They gave the developer everything he wanted.
This is wrong. This is wrong, and it should not be the way our government operates.
In the wake of this decision, I started attending BOC meetings. I decided that if I had been unable to stop this disaster, I was at least going to become more aware of how things were run in my town.
I attended the meetings, and read through the Minutes. Wow, were those Minutes boring! So much unnecessary stuff to wade through before the important points...
So I decided to start the Facebook page Clearly Mint Hill, where I post abbreviated, easy to read summaries, in plain English, of the Minutes. My hope was that people who couldn't get to a meeting, and had no interest in reading pages of 'legaleeze' Minutes, would find the site useful. And I'm happy to say that many residents have. In fact, one post drew over 4,000 views. During the Public Comments portion of a BOC meeting, I informed the BOC of the Clearly Mint Hill page, and invited them to read it to check for accuracy, and comment on it if they desired.
Had I not been reading the Minutes so intently, I would never have found out what the Town had planned for last year's Parks and Recreation Bond, hidden away in the middle of 90 pages of Minutes...
This was the next 'until' moment for me.
Had I not been reading the Minutes, I would never have known that the original plans for the recreational fields on Brief Road had been changed, and now included a 3,000 seat baseball stadium at Veterans Park instead of the 750 seat kids' stadium on Brief.
I won't go into all the details here; they were all said before the vote last year. If you're interested, I'll be happy to discuss them with you privately. Suffice it to say, my belief is that the Town was totally unprepared to build and operate this unnecessary Stadium while we, the taxpayers, paid the bill for years and years and years. The Town wasn't even planning on it being a self-supporting venture once it was up and running...in other words, more money would pour into it for operating costs and maintenance, with no expectation of a return on investment. They were giving away the naming rights and the concession income. There is no Parks and Rec Dept in Mint Hill to run events. The events they dangled enticingly before us could have been done at any time in the Park; there was no need for a stadium to hold food truck rallies, movie nights, fireworks, concerts...I could go on and on...
But the very worst thing was, that the parents and others who had worked so hard to fund much-needed new facilities for the youth in this swiftly growing town...these people who spent years researching and proposing and finally getting a Bond on the ballot...most if not all of these people weren't even aware that at the 11th hour, the kids stadium from Brief Road had been moved to the Park and turned into something else entirely. And that the building of the playing fields was now dependent upon the approval of Bond money paying for this new Stadium.
The Stadium hadn't even been a twinkle in the town's eye until March of 2018, when it was presented to them at the BOC retreat. Four months later, with no discussion or information regarding the new design provided to the residents at all, the town approved placing the Bond on the ballot, essentially asking us to take on $15 million of debt (not including the over $7 million of additional interest) for something we didn't want, didn't need, wouldn't be able to use to 'have a catch' with the kids, and hadn't even been told was part of the Bond package.
This is why I made every attempt to publicize exactly what was going on, by relentlessly posting the truth on social media. I never posted one thing that was not thoroughly researched or was false. I even called the very lawyers who had written the bonds to ask them questions and make sure I understood the facts correctly. The town, however, consistently misrepresented the truth, including publishing in the FAQs a statement regarding whether or not a public vote was necessary before approving a General Obligation Bond...they said it wasn't, that the Town was 'allowing' the citizens to vote on it to get their input. In fact, it is REQUIRED BY LAW that for a Town to assess a GO Bond, it MUST be voted on and approved by the residents.
I went to a BOC meeting and asked them to hold a public meeting to tell the community what exactly the Bond would be used for, as it was substantially different from the original proposal first presented in 2015. The Mayor yelled at me in public, to the extent that it was actually reported in the local newspaper.
https://www.minthilltimes.com/featured/recent-mint-hill-town-hall-meeting-gets-contentious/
They refused to hold a meeting...let me repeat that: they REFUSED TO HOLD A MEETING TO EXPLAIN WHAT WE WOULD BE VOTING ON, even though it would raise our taxes, cost us over $22 million (principal and interest), and affect the town in a huge way. They didn't agree to hold informational meetings until the public outcry on social media became too loud to ignore.
Are these the people you want managing your town? I think they've had free rein long enough.
So that's why I'm running for Mayor.
I haven't held political office before...but then again, I never ran ice cream trucks, booked food truck rallies, made leather items and sold them at a Renaissance Festival, or conceived of and organized a highly successful food truck festival before I did those things (and very successfully, I might add) either.
I get up to speed quickly and am good at finding solutions. I think 'out of the box' and am very detail-oriented. I feel that I am up to this challenge.
I'd be honored to have your vote for Mayor this November.
Thank you so much for visiting this page and reading my information.
Until...
It's always the 'until' that drags people into local politics.
My 'until' was when the land behind my neighborhood was sold to a developer, who was given a variance to build 240+ small houses on tiny lots between 485 and the Jefferson Colony neighborhood.
The developer's plan was (and is) to build one main entrance on Bartlett, and use the Jefferson Colony neighborhood for two other entrances/exits from his development. For a number of reasons, this is a terrible idea. And although most of the neighbors went to speak against this portion of the plan at a BOC meeting (not the development, just the connectivity), it was clear our pleas fell on deaf ears. The BOC just didn't care to find out why they should have required the plan to be redesigned. And it passed as written, and our neighborhood will suffer for it.
The BOC had the right to deny the connectivity--even though connectivity is usually required, exceptions can be made. They had the right not to approve the variance. They had the right to demand that the developer redesign the neighborhood to provide a second entrance elsewhere, even if it involved purchasing additional land. They did none of these things. They didn't put one foot in our neighborhood to see the situation for themselves. They gave the developer everything he wanted.
This is wrong. This is wrong, and it should not be the way our government operates.
In the wake of this decision, I started attending BOC meetings. I decided that if I had been unable to stop this disaster, I was at least going to become more aware of how things were run in my town.
I attended the meetings, and read through the Minutes. Wow, were those Minutes boring! So much unnecessary stuff to wade through before the important points...
So I decided to start the Facebook page Clearly Mint Hill, where I post abbreviated, easy to read summaries, in plain English, of the Minutes. My hope was that people who couldn't get to a meeting, and had no interest in reading pages of 'legaleeze' Minutes, would find the site useful. And I'm happy to say that many residents have. In fact, one post drew over 4,000 views. During the Public Comments portion of a BOC meeting, I informed the BOC of the Clearly Mint Hill page, and invited them to read it to check for accuracy, and comment on it if they desired.
Had I not been reading the Minutes so intently, I would never have found out what the Town had planned for last year's Parks and Recreation Bond, hidden away in the middle of 90 pages of Minutes...
This was the next 'until' moment for me.
Had I not been reading the Minutes, I would never have known that the original plans for the recreational fields on Brief Road had been changed, and now included a 3,000 seat baseball stadium at Veterans Park instead of the 750 seat kids' stadium on Brief.
I won't go into all the details here; they were all said before the vote last year. If you're interested, I'll be happy to discuss them with you privately. Suffice it to say, my belief is that the Town was totally unprepared to build and operate this unnecessary Stadium while we, the taxpayers, paid the bill for years and years and years. The Town wasn't even planning on it being a self-supporting venture once it was up and running...in other words, more money would pour into it for operating costs and maintenance, with no expectation of a return on investment. They were giving away the naming rights and the concession income. There is no Parks and Rec Dept in Mint Hill to run events. The events they dangled enticingly before us could have been done at any time in the Park; there was no need for a stadium to hold food truck rallies, movie nights, fireworks, concerts...I could go on and on...
But the very worst thing was, that the parents and others who had worked so hard to fund much-needed new facilities for the youth in this swiftly growing town...these people who spent years researching and proposing and finally getting a Bond on the ballot...most if not all of these people weren't even aware that at the 11th hour, the kids stadium from Brief Road had been moved to the Park and turned into something else entirely. And that the building of the playing fields was now dependent upon the approval of Bond money paying for this new Stadium.
The Stadium hadn't even been a twinkle in the town's eye until March of 2018, when it was presented to them at the BOC retreat. Four months later, with no discussion or information regarding the new design provided to the residents at all, the town approved placing the Bond on the ballot, essentially asking us to take on $15 million of debt (not including the over $7 million of additional interest) for something we didn't want, didn't need, wouldn't be able to use to 'have a catch' with the kids, and hadn't even been told was part of the Bond package.
This is why I made every attempt to publicize exactly what was going on, by relentlessly posting the truth on social media. I never posted one thing that was not thoroughly researched or was false. I even called the very lawyers who had written the bonds to ask them questions and make sure I understood the facts correctly. The town, however, consistently misrepresented the truth, including publishing in the FAQs a statement regarding whether or not a public vote was necessary before approving a General Obligation Bond...they said it wasn't, that the Town was 'allowing' the citizens to vote on it to get their input. In fact, it is REQUIRED BY LAW that for a Town to assess a GO Bond, it MUST be voted on and approved by the residents.
I went to a BOC meeting and asked them to hold a public meeting to tell the community what exactly the Bond would be used for, as it was substantially different from the original proposal first presented in 2015. The Mayor yelled at me in public, to the extent that it was actually reported in the local newspaper.
https://www.minthilltimes.com/featured/recent-mint-hill-town-hall-meeting-gets-contentious/
They refused to hold a meeting...let me repeat that: they REFUSED TO HOLD A MEETING TO EXPLAIN WHAT WE WOULD BE VOTING ON, even though it would raise our taxes, cost us over $22 million (principal and interest), and affect the town in a huge way. They didn't agree to hold informational meetings until the public outcry on social media became too loud to ignore.
Are these the people you want managing your town? I think they've had free rein long enough.
So that's why I'm running for Mayor.
I haven't held political office before...but then again, I never ran ice cream trucks, booked food truck rallies, made leather items and sold them at a Renaissance Festival, or conceived of and organized a highly successful food truck festival before I did those things (and very successfully, I might add) either.
I get up to speed quickly and am good at finding solutions. I think 'out of the box' and am very detail-oriented. I feel that I am up to this challenge.
I'd be honored to have your vote for Mayor this November.
Thank you so much for visiting this page and reading my information.