Mascoutah is my hometown. I am newly retired from the Air Force with the last 18 years served right here at Scott AFB. Now I am working in Mascoutah at our family tax business of 41 years on Main Street. My heart is in serving my community and I have extensive experience that I feel will be an asset to the City Council.

High utility rates, primarily high electricity costs to the citizens of Mascoutah. Ask any of you neighbors that live in New Baden, Belleville, Shiloh, and O’Fallon about their electric bills. I talked recently with a citizen who has researched this for years and pointed out that we pay $0.12 a kilowatt hour and many of our neighboring communities pay anywhere from $0.07 to $0.08 a kilowatt hour. And, to make things even harder for business, they are charged a commercial rate. This crushes economic growth. How many small businesses have started and closed up within a short time in business in this town? Many have struggled to have a business in this town last few years. The city needs to reevaluate how it charges the citizens of this town for electricity to make this town competitive to bring new development to the city, both residential and commercial.