Balancing growth with our quality of life

I believe that one of the biggest challenges facing Mt. Pleasant in the coming years will be balancing growth with the quality of life we all enjoy in our community.  The easy solution is often to create a new government service, but I would suggest this may actually be our biggest impediment to a sustainable and thriving community.

We cannot fall into the trap that far too many growing communities do when they believe that government is the first solution to the challenges presented by growth.  Our town government needs to effectively provide essential, core services to our community, but it does not need to penalize businesses and individual taxpayers in the process.  We all enjoy living in Mt. Pleasant because of the tremendous quality of life it affords us, but to allow unnecessary government overreach in the local marketplace is not the answer to maintaining our great quality of life or improving upon it.

The best way to help both our families, retirees and our businesses (small and large), is for the town to simply stay out of the way.  Lower taxes, less regulation and continuing to have strong municipal financial health are essential to our Town’s future success.  In addition, having a strong and healthy community (good access to health care, a well-educated workforce and a great quality of life) is extremely important.

If I should be so lucky as to be elected to the Mt. Pleasant Town Council, I will be committed to working with our new Mayor, my Town Council colleagues and with the community at large in finding solutions that are community-based, not government-based.  This means keeping our taxes low, reducing regulatory barriers, and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are used effectively and efficiently in providing necessary government services.