Friends,
After a great deal of reflection over the past several months, I have made an important decision about my future. My current term will be my final term serving on the Tucson City Council.
I recognize that I am sharing this earlier than people typically share news like this. But I’m already getting a lot of questions about my future plans, and now that I’ve made my decision, I felt it was important to simply be transparent about it.
I also want to give the people of Ward 4 plenty of time to think about what comes next. I care deeply about ensuring our residents continue to have strong representation. Sharing this now gives people who may be interested in serving the opportunity to begin listening, having conversations, and doing the groundwork that comes before an election year in 2027.
As I think about the time remaining in my term, I am incredibly focused on making the most of it. My team and I have clear priorities for the work ahead, and I want to use this time to continue moving important work forward, finish what we can, and help set Ward 4 and the City up for continued success in the future.
When I first ran for office in 2019, I never intended to become a career politician. I had spent my entire adult life building a career in technology, beginning when I joined the Air Force at 17 years old. I saw elected office as an opportunity to continue my public service and bring a skill set to local government that is not always represented at the Mayor and Council table. My background in technology, cybersecurity, and business gave me a different lens that I believed could add value to the decisions we make as a city.
Stepping away from the day-to-day work of the technology profession was never something I envisioned doing permanently. I have worked hard to stay connected through my leadership on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and emerging technology issues here in Tucson, across Arizona, and nationally. But staying connected to technology from a policy and leadership perspective is different from working in the profession every day. Technology changes incredibly fast, and I knew that the longer I stayed away from that day-to-day work, the harder it would eventually become to return to a profession I have spent decades building.
But this decision is about much more than my career.
As an executive and leadership coach, I encourage people to think intentionally about where they are going, what they want their lives to look like, and whether the choices they are making today are moving them closer to that future or further away from it.
Eventually, I had to turn those same questions on myself.
Everything in life is a trade off. Every time we say yes to something, we are inevitably saying no to something else.
I thought deeply about what another term would require me to say yes to and, maybe more importantly, what it would require me to continue saying no to.
I thought about where I want to be five, ten, and twenty years from now. I thought about the professional goals I still want to pursue, the personal goals I want to accomplish, the experiences I want to have, and the time I want to spend with the people I love.
Once I looked at it through that lens, my answer became clear.
When my term concludes in December 2027, my family and I will be ready for the next chapter.
Between now and then, I am going to make the most of the opportunity I still have to serve Ward 4. There is important work ahead, and I am excited to spend the remainder of my term focused on the work that matters most and on finishing this chapter with the same sense of purpose that brought me to the Council in the first place.
There will be plenty of time to talk about what comes next. For now, I am grateful for the opportunity to continue doing this work, grateful to everyone who has trusted me to serve, and genuinely excited about the future.
With gratitude,
