I am writing to urge my fellow Crawfordsville residents in Ward 5 to vote for Joyce Burnette for city council. Joyce was a colleague of mine for 20 years at Wabash College. She is highly qualified, hard working and a natural leader who knows how to get things done. I believe she will make an immediate and positive contribution to our city government.
Joyce already has experience in city government, having served on the Crawfordsville Plan Commission since 2013. As an economist by profession, she is extremely experienced with numbers and finance. A member of the Christ Lutheran Church, she has been an active community member and a volunteer for various causes. And as a mother, with a son who graduated Crawfordsville High School in 2017, she knows our schools and the needs of parents in our community.
Her two major proposals for the city reflect her knowledge of our needs. First, she is committed to improving our totally inadequate early childcare situation. Montgomery County is currently the eighth worst in the state for providing child care, which is negatively affecting worker productivity, the willingness of people to move here, and, most important, the welfare of our children. Burnette has ideas for how to address this critical problem.
Second, she strongly believes we need a public transportation system in the county that will help people from within Crawfordsville and in the surrounding towns to get to work and to local businesses to shop. Greencastle has such a small van transportation program, and it has been successful. Joyce believes the city must take leadership on this vital issue.
Finally, in this 100th anniversary year of women gaining the right to vote, I hope you will also think about how few women we have elected to office in our town and county. When we have a highly qualified and hard working candidate like Burnette, we should use the opportunity to correct this imbalance. She can bring new perspectives and ways of addressing problems to our city government.
Warren Rosenberg
Crawfordsville
