My promise to western Prince William and greater Manassas

Focus on serving my lifelong home community.

When I was a kid, my grandfather told me, "The basis of my knowledge comes from reading the newspaper every day."

After a while, mine did too. In fact, I ended up majoring in journalism and spent the last 10.5 years reporting the news, including nine years in Prince William County.

I started working for the Gainesville Times a month after graduating college and reported for the Prince William Times too once our paper expanded to the eastern side of the county.

If you're from here, you might have seen me at high school sports games, debates, hearings or events, or at least recognized my hideous car in the parking lot.

I covered games at every public high school in the county. I saw the best in people tackling poverty and homelessness and the worst in people killing each other.

I wrote stories about schools, business, development, and, of course, transportation. Lots and lots and lots of transportation. Bi-County Parkway. Tri-County Parkway. Sudley Manor. Vint Hill. Linton Hall. That little bridge in Nokesville (Aden Road). VRE. 15. 28. 29. 55. 66. 234.

If you ran for office in western Prince William, we talked about transportation. My job was to know enough about the issues to hold elected officials accountable for what they did or didn't do, about them.

As a reporter, I had to listen to what people were saying and understand their reasoning, regardless of my own opinions. It's a lot easier to judge people than understand them.

What makes journalism special is you have to actually pay attention, vet your facts, receive an earful from your editor and improve your work while reporting the news as a neutral, disinterested, third-party observer.

And that didn’t change when I earned my election to the Virginia General Assembly. I continue to bring a reporter's sensibility to everything I do as a legislator.

My number one job as your elected representative isn't to speak. It's to listen. To listen to residents, write down their concerns, ideas, and questions, follow up with them, and ensure what they tell me is part of my policy platform. That's how I took notes and wrote news stories, and that's how I craft public policy: Research. Question. Listen. Report. That is how we make real change.

I make it my priority every day, in everything I do to strive to be a consensus builder and a changemaker to best serve you, my friends and neighbors, in western Prince William and Greater Manassas.