PRIORITIES
Transportation
- Improve Public, Local and Regional Issues
Public Safety
- Keep our Kids, Families and Communities Safe
Jobs & The Economy
- Encourage & Manage Smart Growth and Local Job Creation
Quality of Life
- Increase Open Spaces, Support Recreation Partnerships and continue to Protect our Environment
Civility
- Encourage Respectful Dialouge and Bring our Community Together
ISSUES
Bring Civility Back to Civil Service
Bring Civility Back to Civil Service
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The discourse in our politics today is horrendous and it is unacceptable. The root cause for this is simple: people can’t simply disagree on policy issues anymore without believing those who disagree with them are bad people who need to be “stopped” at all costs, including the use of awful personal attacks filled with lies. Social media helps drive this behavior because it makes the behavior easy to fulfill.
This discourse is driving a deep divide among friends and neighbors in our communities. So many times people attack candidates or public servants harshly simple because of these disagreements, while forgetting that those candidates and elected officials are human beings and forgetting that they are fellow community members.
This type of negative civil discourse IS hurting our communities and hurting good people. And it has to improve, now.
We see this terrible public discourse all the time at the national and state level, including from our President. However, I never thought I would see this type of discourse at the local level, I always thought our local City Council races would be immune from it. I was wrong.
Like a terrible disease, this awful discourse is starting to infect these most local races. We first saw it in 2017, where people running for City Councils, including myself, were personally attacked with lies, many times by groups outside of the community and in most cases outside of our state.
This has to stop and we all need to stand up against this type of behavior and discourse. We have to reject it now. Let’s take a stand at the local level where we do have more control over it. I plan to do just that. Will you join me?
Public safety was a high concern during the latest citizen survey and we are committed to address this issue.
Police: As our City grows, so does the need to focus additional attention on public safety. In 2016, the Council approved a proposal to add up to 52 police officers and we are seeing these benefits now with reduced response times throughout our City. At a Ward 4 community meeting in March of 2017, Thornton's police chief thanked the members of City Council for authorizing money to allow these hirings and stated this will significantly help with public safety. I am proud of this action taken by City Council.
Fire: The Council is reviewing the Fire Department strategic plan to proactively address this need as our community's grow. Plans for improving fire and medical response are being implemented now and I’m proud of the work we have done on City Council to address these needs.
Strong schools make for strong cities! All families in Thornton deserve to know their leaders are working to ensure the best possible education for their kids. I know this because I expect that for my two kids. I also know this through my direct experience leading a public charter school and my over five years on City Council.
My experience as the President of a local public charter school will help develop key partnerships with our school districts to help ensure all Thornton families have that opportunity for a quality education.
Economic Growth and Development
Thornton is planning on significantly growing its population by 2030. Now is the time to plan to ensure we take full advantage of this opportunity and do it right. With more than 20 years of business experience working in both the utility and oil & gas industries, Jan has a unique understanding of how our community can responsibly take advantage of this growth opportunity to better our economy and our lives. As your Mayor, Jan will:
- Continue to work to bring new businesses and opportunities into Thornton, just like Amazon, Google, and Intrex Aerospace
- Demonstrate that economic growth and associated infrastructure is an important priority
- Show leadership and make the tough decisions to further advance Thornton
- Respect all individuals and ideas and bring people together
- Plan to ensure Thornton is prepared to compete regionally
Oil & Gas Development in and Around Thornton
Yes, I’m bringing this up as a top issue even though Thornton has not seen a new oil and gas well drilled within it’s boundaries in over a decade and have no pending proposals.
I bring this up because there is a small, but very vocal, group of residents who have made this their top priority and are doing whatever it takes to ban oil and gas. When the state had a chance to effectively ban any new oil and gas development in November 2018 with proposition 112, our community rejected it 59% to 41%. Rejected it by almost 4% more than the state average. Bottom line … this shows that our community does not want to ban responsible oil and gas development.
Currently, there are no permits by any operator to drill new oil and gas wells within the City of Thornton. However, there are plans to drill close to Thornton in unincorporated Adams County.
The City of Thornton has limited jurisdiction when oil and gas development is in unincorporated Adams County but close to Thornton. However, I already have, and will continue to, use my expertise as an engineer working in the process safety and environmental protection areas of oil and gas to understand proposals from operators and ensure their proposals are safe while working with the operators to make needed changes that will lessen the impact to our community from this development.
With all of that said, I do have the technical expertise and knowledge to help ensure any oil and gas development is done safely and with the lowest possible level of impact to our communities.
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