Priorities

Four priorities, and the reasoning behind them.

Short enough to remember, specific enough to be held to. Each one is about outcomes Avon can actually measure.

Affordable housing

Measure results. Make feasible housing possible. Keep affordability durable.

Avon already invests significantly in community housing — money, land, and staff time. The question in front of the next Council is not whether to care about housing. It is whether the tools we are using are producing the homes we intended, for the people we intended, at a cost we can defend.

I would focus on four things:

Measure what our investments deliver. How many homes, at what price points, for which households, at what public cost per home — reported plainly and updated over time.
Make feasible housing easier to create. Look honestly at whether our standards, review steps, and requirements add up to projects that can actually be financed and built, and adjust the ones that do not earn their cost.
Protect long-term affordability. Homes the public helped create should stay attainable through the next sale and the one after that. That means paying attention to how restrictions are written, monitored, and enforced.
Apply public resources carefully. Public participation in a housing project should be sized to the gap it is closing, with the assumptions written down and revisited.

I have read a lot of these applications from the Planning and Zoning dais. The most useful thing a Council member can bring to housing is not enthusiasm — it is follow-through.

Fiscal discipline

Transparent assumptions. Project-level diligence. Measurable results.

Avon’s budget is not abstract. It is a set of commitments — some of them for decades — funded by people who work here, own here, and visit here. Careful stewardship is not the same as saying no to everything. It means knowing what each commitment is expected to cost and deliver, and checking later whether it did.

Show the assumptions. Every significant decision rests on projections. Those projections should be stated in public, in language a resident can follow, along with what happens if they are wrong.
Do the diligence project by project. Scope, contingency, operating cost after completion, and who carries the risk if conditions change. This is contract work, and I have spent a career doing it.
Report results, not just intentions. A short, consistent look back at major projects and programs — what we spent, what we got, what we would do differently.
Respect the long view. Maintenance, reserves, and replacement costs are less exciting than new projects and more important to the town’s stability.

None of this presumes anything is being handled badly. It is simply the standard I would want applied to my own money, and it is the standard I would apply to the town’s.

A wide view across the valley above Avon, with ski runs on the far ridgeline.

Livable community

Getting around safely. Growing thoughtfully. Caring for the setting.

Livability is the sum of a lot of ordinary decisions: whether you can walk your kid somewhere without crossing traffic, whether the town core works on a busy weekend, whether a new building fits the street it sits on, whether the river and the open space around us stay healthy.

Safe walking and biking connections. Continuous, well-lit routes between where people live and where they actually need to go, with the gaps and crossings prioritized honestly.
Thoughtful growth and land-use decisions. Predictable, well-reasoned review that respects the code, the neighbors, and the applicant’s time.
A town core that functions. Parking, circulation, transit, and public space that work together on ordinary days and on the busiest ones.
Stewardship of the natural setting. Water, wildlife habitat, trails, and open space are part of what makes Avon a place people want to stay — and they are easier to protect than to restore.

These are practical questions with practical answers, and most of them get decided in the details.

End Flock cameras

Respect privacy. Honor the Town’s obligations. Avoid unnecessary taxpayer costs.

I have serious concerns about the Flock license-plate reader system, particularly the potential for information collected in Avon to be accessed or misused by law-enforcement agencies outside the Avon Police Department. My concern is not with the professionalism of our police department. It is with the reach and use of a broader information-sharing system.

Review the contracts and safeguards. The Council should understand who can access the information, how it may be used, how long it is retained, and what protections are enforceable.
End the Flock contracts. I support terminating Avon’s Flock license-plate reader contracts.
Evaluate different systems separately. Flock license-plate readers and Dacra speed-enforcement cameras serve different purposes and should not be treated as one and the same.
Listen to Avon’s voters. Residents should understand those differences and have the final say on automated enforcement systems used in town.

Public safety and personal privacy are both legitimate concerns. The Town should address them with clear facts, transparent safeguards, and accountable decisions rather than treating every camera system as identical.

How I’ll approach the work

Evidence, accountability, and colleagues.

Evidence before position

Read the packet, check the numbers, and ask staff the uncomfortable question early rather than late.

Accountability after the vote

Set an expectation when a decision is made, then come back and compare it to what actually happened.

Collaboration with the Council

Nothing passes alone. Build decisions that the Council can defend for the right reasons.

Plain-language explanation

If a decision cannot be explained to a neighbor in two minutes, it has not been thought through yet.

Questions? Call or text the campaign.

Rick answers the campaign phone himself. If you have a question about the town, or want to talk through an issue, reach out.

Call 312-925-2831 Send a text