Nice to Meet You

How Can We Do Better?

Government Transparency

Public access to information about processes, spending, and policies forces officials to act in the best interest of the community. The City Council and city staff should be seeking feedback and ideas to shape policy to ensure government is working for the community. Spending policy should be thoughtful, intentional, and transparent since every dollar spent is yours.
Responsible Spending

Budgeting should be transparent and easy to understand by anyone wanting to know how their tax dollars are being used. Projects directly affecting a limited number of people should have the input from those people. No one should be surprised by a construction project outside of their house or a special assessment applied to their property.
Opportunity for Everyone

Government should work for everyone living in Oshkosh, not just the affluent or well-connected. Navigating city processes is difficult, time consuming, and confusing. Permitting procedure, transportation services, road and infrastructure projects, and other city services should be easily understood by everyone. The city should solicit feedback from everyone and seek consistent improvement.

Why DJ?

I’d love to start this section off by saying I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, but as a kid my mom never dressed me in boots so it feels disingenuous. I grew up with one pair of shoes per school year, which I’d proudly wear out of the store ahead of the first day of school. My mom had me young and as our sole parent would sometimes work up to three jobs to make a better life for my brother and me.

As a child, thanks to my mom’s grit and determination, I never went hungry or had to worry about being able to afford school clothes. We were able to do what some may now consider a luxury: to live squarely within the middle class. I went to public school. I got my first job when I was 14 and I haven’t stopped working since—from horse tracks to retail and restaurants to an internship for a United States Senator. Now I am a Vice President and in-house lawyer for the Wisconsin-founded hotel and waterpark brand, Great Wolf Lodge.

When I wanted to be the first in my family to go to college, I relied on student loans, and then again when I was the first to go on to law school. I love that I get to say that I’m the first to go to college and law school, not because I’m proud to have been the first to achieve those things, but because my little brother (and best friend) was the second.

In addition to being an employment and compliance lawyer for all 19 Great Wolf Lodge properties, I get to serve as Secretary for the Great Wolf Scholarship charity (which awarded $250,000 of scholarships to Great Wolf employees in 2023) and sit on the Executive Committee for our DEI program. People (employees and guests) are what make our business (and communities) great. Ensuring that people have access to the opportunities they want, and need, is what I enjoy most about my job.

I met my now-husband, Lee, in 2015. Lee, the son of a school nurse and a roofer, is a general surgeon at Aurora, and his job is how we first came to live in Oshkosh. Lee is from Florida originally, so I think it’s safe to say he pulled himself up from his flip flops. We purchased a house in Oshkosh a few years back and have made it our forever home. Since then, I’ve joined the Oshkosh Plan Commission as an alternate, serve on the board and as a tutor for the Winnebago Area Literacy Council, and volunteer weekly at Christine Ann Domestic Abuse Services. From Packers games to Friday Fish Fries, from bar dice to lake life, we have fallen in love with Oshkosh and Wisconsin living.

Oshkosh is big enough to do really cool things and small enough that our government can pay attention to the impacts it has on each family and person. In our years in Oshkosh, we have heard our neighbors and friends complain about the failures of communication and lack of transparency in our government. We’ve witnessed first-hand the irresponsible and tone-deaf application of special assessments on retired, lower-income, and elderly communities. And, it’s no secret that we have to do something about the lack of affordable housing for first-time homebuyers and growing families. You can count on me to be your voice to address these issues and others.