Candidate Q&A Parker Town Council - Anne Barrington

I am an incumbent seeking reelection because I’ve only just begun to accomplish what I set out to do on council. As I stated in the past election, I believe anyone seeking public office should be a longstanding member of the community, understand desires of both residents and local business, and have a track record of community involvement. It would be an honor and a privilege to continue serving the Parker community. We have a lot more to accomplish in the next four years!

Growth and traffic are always “hot topics.” I stand behind the Town of Parker’s Balanced Growth Vision, and feel we need the “right” growth in the “right” places both residentially and commercially. What most don’t realize is that the Town of Parker is almost completely built out, and the active residential development has been in the works since the mid 1980s. The growth is inevitable, and we need the infrastructure to support it. I will ensure Chambers Road is completed before the middle of my next term to help alleviate the congestion in our town.

If we want a thriving business community, we need to provide affordable housing for the employees of those businesses. Parker’s public transportation is challenging, so getting a work force here is tough. This extends to our fixed income Senior population as well as millennials. We need some affordable housing, even though no one wants “it” in their own backyard. As a current board member of the Douglas County Housing Partnership, I will continue to work towards finding the “right” locations for affordable housing.

We need to protect the quality of life we all moved here for and initiate/ move forward with The My Mainstreet project and implementation, protect our parks and rec and culture, public safety and maintain public works … We are stronger together, so I will keep Parker united while we continue to initiate this.

Parker has been voted one of the top places to live in several publications over the years …You can’t have a reputation like this and not expect people to want to move here! So, again, growth has been coming since the mid 1980s and is inevitable. Having said that, we do need to grow responsibly and that includes providing the necessary infrastructure to handle this growth. I love the character Parker offers, and I am a huge advocate for maintaining this. I believe we can maintain Parker’s hometown feel while keeping our growth balanced.

As I mentioned before, you cannot have a thriving business community without employees. You also need more than local students to fill those vacancies, so how do we get people to Parker to work here? We need reliable transportation or affordable housing (or both). The council needs to continue working towards solutions for RTD's lack of services to meet our communities specific needs (and that does not include a bunch of empty buses going to and from downtown Denver!) We need ride share vouchers for Lyft/Uber in place of buses, or a Link system like Lone Tree offers.

In 20 years, I see the town’s vision and mission coming alive. Becoming “the pre-eminent destination community with innovative services with a hometown feel. We will be leaders in economic and community development, and at the forefront for services, civic engagement, and quality of life.” We will continue “to enrich the lives of residents by providing exceptional services, engaging community resources, and furthering an authentic hometown feel. We’ll continue promoting transparent government, support sustainable development, and foster a strong, local economy." I can’t say it better than it’s already written … and I will continue fighting for Parkers vision and mission.