A healthy business environment creates job opportunities, spreads our tax base, and provides goods and services Forest Acres residents and visitors can enjoy.

During my tenure on City Council, more than three dozen storefront businesses have opened their doors in Forest Acres. Several existing businesses have expanded, and we continue to attract new businesses to our city. I am proud to represent a city with so many wonderful and unique dining and shopping attractions.

It’s no wonder Forest Acres is routinely named as a best place to live!

Many municipalities and counties in South Carolina collect a Hospitality Tax on prepared food and beverages in their jurisdiction. Forest Acres uses this revenue to reinvest and support community events in our city. I chaired the city’s Hospitality Tax Committee from 2023-2024. I have and will continue to be a supporter of using these funds in our city for local charity projects, sporting events, and fine arts performances.

An elected official should always be accountable for the decisions made regarding taxpayer dollars. During my time as a Capitol Hill staffer, I was fortunate to work on many federal budgets with a former House of Representatives Budget Committee member.

I have brought this experience to City Council and have worked with our city staff to find ways to reduce proposed spending and increase efficiency across all of our departments. At the same time, we have been able to invest wisely, fund new initiatives, and increase the salaries of our hard-working sanitation crews and city workers. I am proud to say our city continues to receive a clean audit declaration from an independent public accountant and has no debt.

Aging infrastructure is an issue across our country, and our city has its fair share of older water and sewer pipes and roads that have deteriorated. Deferred maintenance with our water system and continuous patching of potholes on our streets are not sustainable.

City Council has had several meetings with Columbia Water and the SCDOT, both publicly and privately, to express our concerns with the infrastructure in Forest Acres.

These meetings and conversations have been productive, and we are seeing more roads being resurfaced in Forest Acres and having a main water line along Trenholm Road replaced. There is still more work to be done, but maintaining these open lines of communications with our infrastructure partners –  and allowing our residents to talk directly with these officials as well – is a priority for me and should continue to be a part of Council’s agenda.

It is no secret that our city has some of the best parks in the Midlands. Any time of day you can find our citizens or visitors enjoying the parks.

In 2024 we opened Gills Creek Memorial Park, which was an initiative of City Council to repurpose space that was left unusable following the thousand-year flood. This park serves as a memorial to honor our two fallen FAPD police officers and offers a splash pad, stage, and boardwalk beside the creek for fishing and walking. In a short time, this has already become a top destination for families, concert goers, and weekly farmer’s market shoppers.

The city has also purchased property in the new mall redevelopment for a six-acre park that will become the center point for the annual Sweet Seasons event and a venue for other events our residents would like to see. At my suggestion, we also passed an ordinance to prohibit smoking in our parks.

If re-elected, I will continue supporting our park system and look for additional opportunities to enhance the park experience in Forest Acres.

Forest Acres has always been known as one of the safest cities in South Carolina. During my three-plus years of time on City Council, we hired a new police chief and have continued to see a reduction in crime across every major statistic. We have also seen a reduction in speeding in our neighborhoods through increased patrolling and traffic calming measures, and through partnership with SCDOT for additional stop signs in areas prone to speeding.

I am also proud to have consistently voted for pay raises for our hard-working employees in the FAPD and funding for new vehicles, the K-9 unit, body cameras, laptops in squad cars, and other equipment to provide FAPD with the appropriate resources needed to protect our citizens.

We also recognize our FAPD officers and dispatchers who go above and beyond their job responsibilities through quarterly and annual awards presented by the Forest Acres Public Safety Foundation. As the current chairman of this foundation, I have the privilege to work with our officers closely to publicly recognize their selfless work.

Public safety has always been and will continue to be a priority for me.

As a child growing up in Forest Acres, I have seen several iterations of Richland Mall. For many years, the mall became a concrete dinosaur and an eyesore for our community.

When I campaigned in 2021, a priority for me was the redevelopment of this relic of the past. I am proud of the work City Council has accomplished to secure a developer, develop and finalize a design plan, and begin demolition.

The new plan for the mall will become one of South Carolina’s largest infill redevelopment projects in generations. This public-private partnership will include residential space, retail spaces, and a new, six-acre park. The 32-acre site has the potential economic impact of $100 million for our city once it is fully developed. Residents and visitors alike will be able to enjoy all the amenities this site will offer at one of the entryways into our city.

Three of the busiest roads in Richland County run through the heart of Forest Acres. These three roads have sidewalks on either side of the street. However, we have several schools in the city surrounded by neighborhoods without sidewalks and some of our parks are lacking adjacent sidewalks.

We can enhance the safety of our streets and neighborhoods with additional sidewalks and better crosswalk and road surface markings.

I want to continue my work with the SCDOT, our local legislative delegation, and Richland County to not only continue installing traffic calming, but add sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly crosswalks at busy intersections.