Policies & Issues

Public Safety

Police and Fire - We should make sure our police department is fully staffed. As we grow in population, our department should grow to meet the needs of the residents. We should advocate for our fire department so that they have the equipment they need. It took 24 years to add a rescue ambulance until recently, this is too long. We should not rely on other cities and their equipment. Our daytime population has grown substantially, along with our residential growth. As it grows we need to adjust our residents needs.

City Services

Streets, Parks and Libraries – Our taxes should be used wisely and invested in repaving our roads, maintaining our parks, and ensuring our libraries safe and accessible. We need to look at our forestry department to make sure our trees are maintained and trimmed on a regular basis. I will advocate to enhance our senior services and bring back Burbank on Parade. These public assets are the heart and soul of Burbank, contributing to what makes our city truly exceptional. Let’s prioritize what keeps Burbank vibrant and thriving!

Housing and Economic Development for All

I envision a Burbank where everyone can thrive, ensuring that as our city grows, we all benefit and have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. We need to actively pursue responsible development that lowers rental and home prices, making Burbank a more affordable and livable city for all residents.

We must keep Burbank an affordable, livable city where businesses can thrive and you don’t need to be a millionaire to own a home. We must maintain LOCAL CONTROL over our housing policies and community planning while also ensuring we are a place for all!
Protect our residential neighborhoods. The character and feel of our community is important, and while there are some areas of Burbank that can sustain and support denser and taller development, our single family neighborhoods are not one of them.
Tenants- I support AB1482 to give tenants protections. Further, I believe we should protect our seniors at all costs. No one should be forced to choose between rent or their groceries.
Housing for All- Low income housing, for-sale housing and senior housing. We can solve the housing crisis and many other issues through housing with thoughtful planning. Our mandate is 12,000 units of housing. Rather than creating impacts on existing neighborhoods, we should be very focused on identifying parcels to build neighborhoods and communities. We should give incentives for projects that provide home ownership in order to give young families a chance to purchase a home, stay in Burbank, and send their children to Burbank Schools.
Strong Business Retention and Development Plan- We should work to be the most business-friendly city, and streamline the permit process so that businesses are not spending tens of thousands of dollars waiting on permits or arbitrary forms.

Homelessness

Homelessness in Southern California is rampant and out of control and we must do more to get people off the streets and into the help and treatment they need.

Homeless programs and outreach – Burbank residents contribute $10 million to Measure H each year and we receive back ONLY $200,000 in services and programs! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! I will work to secure a larger share of these funds come back to Burbank to fund programs like Street Plus, and the hiring of more mental health professionals as staff within our City departments and programs.
I will work with all of the faith organizations and neighborhood groups to make sure that the truly disadvantaged and less fortunate receive the proper care they need so they can get a 2nd chance at life.

Sustainability
and Protecting Our Environment

Our natural resources in Burbank must be maintained and protected, whether it is the beautiful Foothills to our North, or our beautiful public parks and tree canopy. We must also work to ensure our carbon footprint is reduced or eliminated as a city

Wind, Solar, Geothermal Energy Sources for BWP - Finding the right balance to meet the state mandates so that we can maintain rates and reliability for our residents. We want to be sustainable and responsible.
Water Preservation & Recycling - We must enhance our recycled water program to residential homes. As we resurface city streets, we should have a comprehensive plan to lay down "purple pipe” to deliver recycled water to residential homes for yard irrigation. This will reduce our need for water while at the same time bringing down water rates for residents. Our city sends 50 percent of the recycled water that we produce to the ocean. During severe drought we must have a plan to keep our parkway trees heathy.
We must encourage the use of reflective paint technology to cool potential heat islands. Anytime we build a project or resurface a project we should look at reflective paint as a tool to cut down heat islands and reduce temperatures. These methods have been tested and proven.

Traffic Safety and Congestion

The more desirable Burbank becomes, the more traffic congestion and safety problems we will have. Which is why we must plan for these problems now and build infrastructure to enhance these efforts.

As properties are redeveloped and reimagined, we must ensure that modern traffic safety standards are employed in and around these properties as part of the entitlement process.
We need to ensure residential neighborhoods are not flooded with cars trying to avoid major arteries AND we must ensure there is enough parking. The latest state mandates have tied our hands and are permitting extremely under parked projects to proceed. These will damage our present-day residential neighborhoods.
While alternative transportation methods such as biking should be encouraged, we should not sacrifice our roads to under utilized efforts around bike lanes and other projects that are not supported by usage.

Schools

One of the top reasons people move to Burbank is for our fantastic schools. We should continue to foster our cross over relationship through joint use agreements for fields, pools and facilities. Provide SRO officers and work with parents on their complete understanding of what the SRO program entails. We should improve our student driver safety with enhanced programs on traffic and driver education. As a city, we should help champion our school budget by executing comprehensive programs to create new neighborhoods in Burbank, and to give young families a chance to purchase a home so they can stay in Burbank and send their children to Burbank schools. Increasing the school enrollment will help the school budget. Many young families struggle with low cost childcare. We need to focus on a way to bring high quality affordable daycare to young families, via grants, private funding, etc.

Land Use

Regain our local control by meeting our state mandates so that our community has a say in its future. As a city we need to make sure projects have the right use for the area as it relates to our General Plan and protect our residential neighborhoods. As a city, we need to recognize how special our various communities are, such as the Rancho, the Hillside, Magnolia Park, Rancho Adjacent and the Airport District. We need to understand these communities, and provide proper protections for their way of life. For the Rancho, protections come in the form of dedicated horse trails through the Rancho community, protecting horse-keeping stables, and keeping dense development away from the Rancho community.

Our city should have a very, very strong focus to give incentives to developers and landowners to build For Sale housing, and identify locations where communities can be built. Driving our inventory levels of for sale housing up will cause prices to come down to affordable levels. There are many city owned properties that we could potentially leverage to meet the needs of our city, our mandates and provide much needed housing.

Senior Services

Our seniors feel disenfranchised because of the electronic age, we need to bring them into the fold with specific outreach.

Create a Senior Summit every year, so that our seniors can navigate today’s times. Show them opportunities on how to save money on cable by cutting the cord, cell service, how to best utilize food drives and home deliveries, how to better manage their healthcare, and more.
Have a sponsored event once a quarter to pick up our Seniors in the Burbank bus, bring them to the mall for lunch, and a day for them to get their necessities.
Support a senior and me program where residents, high school students and students at Woodbury can adopt a senior and provide assistance when needed.