The City’s many achievements in the past 2-3 years have come despite the significant economic and fiscal challenges facing Marquette. After many years of declining tax revenue, unsustainable infrastructure expansion, and the closure of K.I. Sawyer in 1995, the Empire Mine in 2016, and the Presque Isle Power Plant in 2019, it has become clear that the fiscal can that has been kicked down the road by previous Commissions has landed squarely in the current Commission’s lap.
I believe that the City Commission needs to work with City staff and residents to create an efficient, fiscally responsible plan to balance our City budget AND maintain our aging roads, water and sewer systems, and recreation facilities. We need to find new revenue to make our insolvent City infrastructure funds financially sound now and for generations to come, without placing an unmanageable financial burden on lower-income City residents or repeating the short-sighted thinking of the past. If re-elected, this will be one of my top priorities.