In early 2026, the Town was advancing a workforce housing project that was projected to cost $91.5 million in taxpayer-funded debt on-top of $14 million already spent. Two years of planning and over $100 million was been committed to this plan — all without an established budget as a starting point. The costs of the project, along with widespread community and business owner pushback over other elements (including parking concerns, density, unit size, lack of outreach, and lack of consumer research) was highly concerning.

Several community efforts and petitions were already at play, but after attending multiple meetings with the former town manager and town council members, my husband Eric and I felt that residents' valid concerns were not truly being heard and that “the train had left the station,” so to speak. That did not sit well with us, as we believed the entire community deserved to be heard before committing money we didn't have and changing the center of our town forever.

So we did our homework, read every document thoroughly, and we organized. Over just 4 days, we and volunteers across town went door to door collecting signatures for a referendum. We needed 175 (10% of the voting population). We got 235, and filed a day early.

It worked. The referendum was validated, and the zoning ordinance, which would have allowed this deeply flawed project to move forward, was suspended and subsequently repealed.

I continued to stay involved over these past several months by attending council meetings, correcting misinformation, and pushing for residents to be heard and our concerns rightfully taken into account.