• Complete transparency is vital to ensure public trust.
• It is vital media and citizens have access to all public information.
• All meetings open to the public should be transmitted live and recorded for on-demand viewing. This includes all City Council Committee of the Whole and regular meetings.
• In a representative citizen government, it is essential that citizens are active in the process to be informed and provide various perspectives to their representatives.
• Committee of the Whole meetings should be actual work sessions. This is not the place to vote on issues. Instead, votes should take place in regularly advertised meetings.

• One of the main functions of local government is creating and maintaining infrastructure.
• We need to adequately fund the maintenance of our 291 miles of streets by supplementing our Powell Bill funding from the state.

• A tax rate is a balancing act, a friction between adequately funding city services and a tax rate our citizens feel offers proper value.
• A city budget can be complicated to follow, but our citizenry has to feel the budget is passed and administered transparently.
• While the budget must be balanced by statute and regulation, we need to balance the budget through prudent expenditures, not through raising tax rates.
• Our City budget is about providing the services the citizens need and require, with great respect for where those hard-earned tax dollars originate.
• City and emergency services need to be paid for by the government. Still, economic development should look first to the private sector, with government expenditures only as a piece or as a last resort.
• While the City does not have a direct primary responsibility for secondary education, the environment around our schools needs adequately funded law enforcement so our students know they are safe.
• There has been more than enough written about this issue, and now we must take action to prevent conflicts of interest, self-dealing by officials, and an environment where trust is paramount.

• Rocky Mount needs to create an environment that nurtures existing businesses and welcomes new businesses.
• Studies show that small business creates the bulk of jobs in the U.S. We need to make the environment for small business welcoming and efficient.

• A healthy, vibrant community has fewer incentives for crime. Well-supported law enforcement is a necessary disincentive.
• This is key to reducing crime by providing resources for our youth and ensuring our neighborhoods have things such as lighting to deter crime.

In a representative citizen government, it is vital that citizens are active in the process to be informed and provide various perspectives to their representatives.

• The health of our city government is mainly dependent upon the morale of its employees, requiring fair compensation and healthy work culture.
• Serving on the City Council should not be a career. Our government was designed for interested citizens to offer themselves for a time and return to private life.