Monticello Village Board Candidate - Palmer

Laura E. Palmer
Age: 40
Occupation: Medical Assistant at UW West Clinic, Pediatrics, Firefighter and EMR at Monticello Fire Department, and Advanced EMT at Green County EMS.
Years lived in village: 4 years
Incumbent? No
Have you been on the village board or held any other public office before? If so please describe: No, I have held positions in other organizations such as the Relay for Life, and The Mighty Keagen Foundation.
Why are you running for village board? I love to be involved in my community. My kids are being raised here, what better part can I do in raising them then to be an active part in the community they frequent. I am a strong, independent woman and feel I can bring many new ideas and help make our community an even greater place to live.
What issues do you find most important to the village board? List your top three priorities: My top three priorities, that is a hard question as I have so many. I guess if I have to narrow it down to three they would be:
Public Safety - I really feel a top priority of any community should be the safety and well-being of its citizens. As a local Firefighter and Emergency Responder, I really understand the challenges facing our public safety workers and how we can increase our ability to serve our community. Such things as keeping response times low so that our loved ones are taken care of and our community can trust that when they need help they can depend on us to get there. We have an amazing group of volunteers and law enforcement that work tirelessly to improve and keep our community safe. Thank you to all or your time and dedication.
Businesses - Who are we kidding, we have watched COVID cause extreme financial stress and even closure of many of our downtown businesses. I think that it is important to support small businesses and startups in our community. Not only do they provide employment for some of our community, they also bring people into our town. We can do better supporting these businesses, we need to. Supporting and creating events along with helping these businesses work together is important in building the business part of our community back up. I myself have been a small business owner, owning a bakery and repurposing business in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. I have a lot of ideas from my experience on how to have events in town to help our businesses prosper and create a support system for them to survive. Not only does this help our small businesses it also helps our community come together.
This brings me to number three. Community, although we have several community events in the summer, I would love to see more family and community oriented events for our local community. I really feel this would help us grow together and build a strong foundation for this beautiful village. I realize we have a large array of ages in our community. I would love to see our youth interacting with our elderly households to create those relationships and help each other out. I really feel the base of a strong Community lies in those that govern it and how we progress and grow together.
If you could reverse one village action, what would that be? I feel that we need to work on the communication between the board and the Community. There was an instance where the dogs were pooping and not being cleaned up after in the park. Signs were put up and dogs were banned from the park and many of the community members were not aware of this change. Many were also not aware of the issues we were having with people neglecting to pick up after their animals. I know this rule was reversed and many people in our community had voices when it came to this matter. I also know that we continue to have issues with people cleaning up after their pets. I think we could have just managed this matter and communication with the public in a better way. I also have ideas to help with this issue such as a few more garbage cans and possibly some bags at the two entrances of the park for picking up animal waste. These are inexpensive things that I feel will really clean up and offer some easy solutions for those enjoying our public parks. This is just one example.
Any additional comments? I want to thank you for taking the time to read about me and the reasons that I want to be a more active part of our community and the decisions that directly affect our Community. I promise to do my best to continue improving our small village and give new ideas to bring life back into our downtown. I really love the Village of Monticello and feel it is a great community to raise a family.