I am running for municipal and county office in Turku and Southwest Finland on the Green Party list!
I am a United States-born nonbinary immigrant, who came to live in Turku more than eight years ago and now considers Turku home. My educational background is in linguistics and computer science, of which the latter has over the years become my "official" profession.
As you may have guessed, the rights and needs of gender minorities form a central part of my own life, and I will keep them in mind as part of any decision making that I am involved in. I am also an immigrant, and while decisions relating to the actual residence permit and citizenship process are not made at the municipal or county level, there is room for antiracist and integration-promoting work at all levels of the political system.
We need to ensure that the Southwest Finland public healthcare system can guarantee quality service well into the future. As I have a habit of repeating at political events, I as an American have a rather clear picture of how a healthcare system should not be run, and I will do my best to keep the numerous problems created by that model from being imported to Southwest Finland.
Due to the current government's cuts, the wellbeing services counties unfortunately have limited resources. Our job is to use them in such a way that as many people as possible receive the best possible care. The availability of healthcare is a life and death question, and lives must not be endangered in service of cost-saving goals.
Both municipal and county digital services are an important and oft forgotten part of all our lives, and their significance continues to grow. All digital services must as a rule be usable from a public computer (such as a library computer) without a smartphone or a Finnish bank account. They must also be accessible for all categories of users.
Greater attention must also be paid to users' privacy. Although not directly related to a municipal or county service, the recent decision to allow the police to use biometric data collected for passports makes me very concerned. Surveillance must not be enabled or made easier.
I believe strongly that generative AI has no place in politics, and I will not be using it in my campaign or elsewhere in my life. All public entities and service providers should avoid the use of generative AI in general, and a citizen should be able to speak to a living representative instead of a chatbot without unreasonable effort.
I also speak English natively, and in addition to Finnish know several other languages. I intend to campaign in languages other than Finnish as well — primarily in English — because otherwise, my message may not reach everybody's ears. This post can also be read in Finnish.
You can find me on Mastodon and BlueSky, where I will do my best to answer all questions from voters. I don't really use traditional social media anymore, and I think that a transition towards federated social media is a good and important thing.
Here are a few more general issues on which I want my stance to be clear:
These issues are not decided at the municipal or county level. However, I am taking a position on them here to give voters a better picture of my values as a politician and as a person.
I have a support group on Signal that you can join. Joining the group does not constitute an agreement, nor does it commit you to any action beyond what you want to give. You may also join other candidates' support groups, and I will not make any attempt to determine who you ultimately voted for.
If you want to and can afford it, you can also donate to my municipal campaign or my county campaign. In municipal and county campaigns, every euro helps.
I will be at the Turku Greens Election Start event at Saaristobaari on 15.2. at 19:00, as well as doing street campaigning in various other places on the same day. I will also be doing street campaigning at other times — the best way to get information about when and where is to join my support group or follow me on social media.
Welcome on board!
