How long have you lived in the town you're campaigning in?
Q2
What is your occupation?
Real estate sales. In addition, I own and run a real estate brokerage firm in Breckenridge. I also manage my own portfolio of long-term rentals.
Q3
What experience qualifies you for a town council position?
My qualifications and ability to add value to the Breckenridge Town council come from significant civic involvement on Open Space, Events and moving the troll, extensive small business knowledge, long-time involvement with local non-profits, and real estate knowledge including; sales, development, local workforce housing, short-term rentals and long-term rentals. Prior to moving to Summit County I was in the US Air Force for 6 years and worked in business development in the corporate world. Throughout my life I have lived on 3 continents and 5 states and experienced many different types of communities. We have chosen to live in Summit for the past 16 years and plan to call Breckenridge home for the rest of our lives, and I am invested in ensuring that Breckenridge remains a great place to live for the next 50 years. I have been very involved with many aspects of our community since moving here and running my business, and have a lot of experience managing and connecting people, and solving problems.
Q4
What changes would you like to see in Summit County? Your town?
I'd like to see the local governments working together on more housing opportunities like the Town of Breckenridge and County are doing at the Justice Center and a focus on getting outside funding to make our local funds go even further as we all work on housing solutions.In addition, in Breckenridge, I would like to see no unfilled jobs at the Town of Breckenridge, an increase in local workforce housing, ramped up childcare and a focus on quality of life for locals.
Q5
What is your experience with vacation rentals?
I have about 15 years of experience with short-term rentals. This includes managing my own short-term rental several years ago. I also have extensive experience working alongside property managers during the sale and purchase of hundreds of short-term rentals by my real estate clients. I have spent countless hours working with buyers and sellers to understand what is important to them about owning a property in Summit County, whether as a full time resident, second home owner who wants to rent their home or investors.
Q6
What impact do you feel the vacation rental industry has in Summit County? Your town?
We are a ski town that relies on our visitors and guests to thrive. We have been successful at driving tremendous visitation to our community. The future is about managing that visitation so we protect the Breck brand and the experience for our guests, second home owners and visitors, while still maintaining a quality of life for our full time residents who support them.
Q7
How do you feel about the current taxes in place for vacation rentals? Do you think more should be added? Do you think any should be reduced?
Housing is a top-tier priority for me as I look to leverage my 15 years of housing expertise to benefit the people of our community. The new short term rental license fees will dramatically increase funding for local workforce housing. Breckenridge has boldly committed to creating 970 units of local workforce housing in the next 5 years. If the market dictates that we need more funding to accomplish these goals then I am open to adding an excise tax for our short-term rental guests. In general, I am open to any solution that helps us achieve our goal of 50% of our workforce living in the Upper Blue Basin.
Q8
Do you believe we have a workforce housing problem in Summit County? And, if so: what are your suggestions to increase workforce housing?
Lack of housing security is our biggest challenge in our community. We have a severe shortage of local workforce housing and this is negatively impacting our people, families, businesses and our community. I am excited to try and work with major entities like Vail Resorts and BGV to creatively achieve the goal of 970 additional units in Breckenridge over 5 years. We need to leverage their expertise to solve this challenge. We also have an opportunity to get our many small businesses to invest in housing to address the shortage. It will be important to also work with the BOCC to obtain as many outside dollars as possible to leverage our precious resources to the maximum extent possible. One other challenge is that we need to increase the incentives to achieve the buy downs and housing helps goals outlined in the most recent housing update. The current incentive plan falls short. Finally, we need to continue to landbank to give ourselves flexibility for housing in the future. No one program or idea is going to solve this problem and we need to be working on this issue from every angle possible.
Q9
Are there any other key issues on your campaign platform that you would like to share with us?
My agenda is focused on the people in this amazing community. Housing security, childcare access, quality of life and thoughtfully managing the STR cap are the keys to success moving forward in the fantastic ski town we get to call home.
