So I'm supposed to tell you about me
And I'm supposed to tell you about my family even though they're about on the ballot
But that's what they say I'm supposed to do
My family came here overwhelmingly from the German-speaking part of Switzerland a century ago
Some people would say I'm still a hard-headed crowd and I guess I am but regardless
And I am the oldest of six and I have seven nieces and nephews and one foster son
I was went to engineering school and got a degree in environmental engineering
I practiced environmental engineering for the Kentucky division of water in Frankfurt
And you'd think that would have taught me I didn't want to go back to Frankfurt, but anyway
Also the the board of health
I was the chief water pollution enforcement officer in Jefferson county for several years
And then the metropolitan sewer district in the good old days when we really were
Internationally respected for being able to run a good and efficient utility and take good care of the environment
Um, I am a state certified teacher
I have been teaching generally what's called non-formally meeting
I'm the guest teacher for a day or an hour or a week or whatever
But I've also done some formal teaching and most recently I taught a semester long honors scholars seminar
At uofl on green designs last school year
Um, and again, I'm a foster mother
Foster children come with a lot of challenges
And the the child that I had the longest and it was the record that anybody ever had this kid
Was very badly abused when he was very young
They came to me because they thought I could be an advocate for this kid
That so many people wouldn't take because he had a reputation
And uh suffice it to say that I learned a lot
About parenting, but also the social services system
And so the reason I'm bringing these things up besides the fact that I'm told that's what the formula is
That that's what I'm supposed to do is to tell you that if you look at state government functions
And you line up the biggest kahunas they are
education and transportation
and um social services
And while most of my engineering career had to do with yes energy efficiency, which is like one of my first things
Uh water and sewer
You can't deal with water and sewer without also dealing with gas and electric and roads and bridges
The fact that I'm an engineer means that I can look at complicated budgets
And tax formula and not have my eyes glazed over
I can look at this this whole thing what what was the big thing that caused us to just have to have a special session
But the fact that they were arguing about how much extra infrastructure we're going to put in david williams district
This engineer is going to say no wait. This is over here. This is a real safety project
This is not and I would argue that I can probably make a more persuasive argument
It doesn't mean anybody would listen
But I think I can attack it as an engineer in a persuasive way
And again because I'm a teacher. I understand the education department and because I've been a foster parent understand social services
Now the other big area of course is prisons and no, I haven't been a prisoner
But I had been a prisoner of a state that keeps not measuring up to its potential
A state that I love and that I know you love too
And so while I'm on that topic
I want to bring up the reality that the whisper campaign appears to be
That I'm a one-issue candidate and that I'm an idealist
Here's what I submit to you all that you are an idealist as well
And that you think that it's not unreasonable
To want enough social workers on the ground to run interference for all the kids that need social workers
And that you don't think it's so inappropriate or unrealistic or overly idealistic
To have enough social workers to run interference for seniors
But you don't think it's inappropriate to expect to have teachers have a fighting chance and not have 38 kids in the class times five
Lots of people want to talk about teacher accountability
But that dog don't hunt in my book to use a kentucky
Rural phrase as long as you're overloading all these teachers with unrealistic class sizes
So if that's idealism, okay fine guilty
But anyway, I want to now shift to what we're facing right now today. The election is in 30 days
Four weeks from Tuesday
You've probably figured out I'm not the establishment's choice
And you've probably figured out that the establishment is lining up behind their guy
And I'm getting a lot of questions about why I don't have this endorsement or why I don't have that endorsement
The conventional wisdom is still that I can win this race if and only if we
Have a good ground campaign
And I I was told at the beginning people want to be asked for their vote
I couldn't understand that because people like us we choose candidates on their issues, right?
Nobody asked me about my issues
I can count on this hand the number of people who've asked me for my stand on an issue and clearly didn't like it
And it's not going to vote for me
Which does give me the opportunity to say I can tell you didn't like that answer
But I would rather tell you the truth and lose your vote than to patronize you with something
I don't really believe
That's pretty cool. But anyway, the point is this there are 49,000 registered democrats in this district
It's a primary election. There are no republicans running
And we are going to have to get people to understand they have to go out on the 22nd of May
And that we need them to vote for us if we can do that
We can win this race
So I've talked way past the proverbial three to five minutes. You're supposed to go but y'all've been a very good audience
Thank you very much
