Issues

Norfolk has the hardest working public sector working employees in the nation and they should be compensated and have their working conditions protected through the right to collectively bargain.  The current council has neglected  our public sector workers in this regard, while they have increased their pay and I commend them for that they have not allowed them to collectively bargain.  I will work with Mayor Alexander, and our Norfolk Delegation to fix the current legislation to make sure the legislation actually allows true collective bargaining for our city employees.  I will also will meet monthly with our public sector employees to hear their concerns and have an open dialogue about how as a member of council I can better serve them better.

Our young adults need to know that we care about their educational needs, and our teachers need to know that we will provide them all the tools that they need to to educate our young adults and for too long that has not happened in our school system.  Every year we lose teachers to districts neighboring Norfolk because we refuse to pay them what they are worth which then sadly makes out students suffer in the end.  We need to make sure we increase out teachers pay, make sure that our schools are up to date and not crumbling beneath our students and staff.  This means as my political  hero Senator Yvonne Miller said "a students education should not be based on their zip code"  and that is something that we need to focus on as members of city council.  

Mike believes that we need to increase funding for community corrections so that we can decrease the population of our city jail.  Too many individuals are incarcerated that should be considered for alternative sentencing and we can accomplish that by properly funding community corrections.   This allows individuals to keep stay with their loved ones, keep their jobs, and maintain their responsibilities as opposed to funding the jail industrial complex, through canteen and phone calls.  Mike will push for more funding for funding for community corrections in the City Budget to make this  a possibility.  

Police have to be held accountable for their actions in Norfolk and here in Norfolk their actions are reviewed by Norfolk's Commonwealth's Attorney, which Mike thinks is a clear conflict of interest.  Mike wants to add to the City budget a Civilian Review Board that would review any and all allegations of Police Misconduct.  Police should be held to the highest standards and unfortunately our Commonwealth Attorney has never held any Officer accountable for their actions.  This Civilian Review Board would be an independent body selected by City Council and review allegations of police misconduct and then make a recommendation to the Commonwealth Attorney on whether or not to bring charges.   This way at least resident feel that their voices have been heard in the decision making process when police have been accused of police misconduct.