Clara knows that AI usage is going to expand as the technology is developed and she wants to make sure that people and the environment can be protected by implementing clear and effective regulation. Clara will make sure that harmful AI use in the private sector is overseen and controlled. She will leverage land use authority to prevent environmental harms and will ensure policies and transparency exist in local governance as well.

Regulating AI in the private sector will help prevent increased surveillance and will reduce landlords’ abilities to write predatory leases using discriminatory pricing.

Clara is committed to expanding our definition of public safety to include public health initiatives as a critical factor in community safety. This can be done through facilitating conversations about the systemic harms of the current model of policing and incarceration, along with supporting existing community-led safety initiatives and engaging in opportunities to invest in additional diversion and intervention practices.

Through shifting our perception of public safety, we will more easily be able to secure funding and community support for initiatives that include permanent supportive housing, bike lanes, bus shelters, and more!

Clara believes in creating opportunities for permanent supportive housing to be expanded exponentially through partnerships, education, and action. Housing is a basic human right, and having access to a safe place to call home each night shouldn’t even be a question. Everyone in the Iowa City community deserves to be taken care and feel like they belong and this cannot be done without supporting the basic human dignity inherent in everyone.

Clara stands for ensuring community members know what resources are available to them and that they feel empowered to access them. Every community member should know they have the ability to come to council meetings and voice concerns with elected officials through various forms of engagement in the meetings. She is dedicated to bolstering education initiatives available to community members.

As a librarian, whenever she helps patrons find resources she knows that is only half the mission. Educating community members about how to go about searching out resources and further opportunities is another critical step.

Clara believes in an Iowa City that is accessible for all community members. She know that when we invest in making public resources and spaces easier to get to and use, everyone benefits. The tools we put in place to make buildings easier to navigate for people with mobility needs, like elevators, support every community member’s ease. When we create options for lower sensory stimulation, community members without sensory disabilities benefit just as much as those who are disabled.

Through conversations with those who are falling through the cracks in current city infrastructure, she has realized the city still has a ways to go in making public life accessible for everyone. Prioritizing improving public infrastructure such as bus shelters and accessibility buttons being moved to accessible heights is one of the projects she would like to tackle first if elected.

Clara knows that the only way for us to truly build a world where people are equal, is to first address systemic inequities. It is not enough to just open the door to everyone in the same way; we must be intentional to dismantle barriers and invite in communities who have been systemically marginalized. Clara is excited to expand the already amazing work of the City of Iowa City including the Human Rights Commission to continue this vital, lifelong work of repair and justice.

Clara stands for intellectual freedom and privacy, especially as the federal government continues to become more authoritarian. Clara will ensure Iowa City remains a community where people are free to move, assemble, work, and live without the fear of constant surveillance.

Despite Iowa City’s ordinance passed in 2013 prohibiting automatic license plate readers, the University of Iowa Police Department currently has permission to place these cameras in Iowa City’s right-of-way. This needs to change and would be one of the first problems Clara tackles in office.

Clara is prepared to continue the community-sustaining work already in motion with Iowa City’s 2023-2028 Strategic Plan and enact new measures to ensure Iowa City is resilient in the climate crisis we face. She is dedicated to seeing Iowa City prepared for disasters, changing weather patterns, and supporting those in our city most vulnerable to climate crisis. Clara knows that one of the core steps to creating this resilience is to restore right relationship with the land and follow the leadership of the indigenous peoples of Iowa.

Clara is steadfast to ensuring transgender and gender expansive youth in Iowa City can have access to life- and gender-affirming healthcare and support. As the LGBTQ+ community is under attack from the federal and state governments, she will always stand up for her queer community’s rights, dignity, and safety in Iowa City. We will not disappear.

Preventing surveillance from increasing and ensuring there are safe passageways to bring trans youth to other states to receive healthcare without being surveilled and tracked is a short-term way to minimize harm while long-term solutions are being researched, investigated, and implemented.

Clara believes in supporting bodily autonomy for every person in Iowa City. She is a strong supporter of the incredible healthcare and reproductive rights work being done already in the community and is committed to ensuring their longevity. Clara knows that no government should make decisions for individuals about their own bodies.

Clara is a member of COGS, the University of Iowa graduate student labor union, and is committed to protecting labor unions and worker rights. Clara will be a voice for everyday working people on City Council. She will advocate for protecting workers from the abuses of billionaires and the owning class.

She was part of the bargaining team that secured a public sector union their first raise above legal minimum since Chapter 20 was stripped in 2017. Encouraging all management, private and public, to engage in the full range of permissive bargaining topics is a necessity.

Clara stands with the immigrant community of Iowa City and will not comply with ICE being a threat of violence on our community. She will work with City Council to determine the power and means available to protect all immigrants and migrants of our community from unlawful detaining, violence, and terror.

While she works with other councilors to implement creative and innovative ways to protect community members long-term, she is committed to maintaining her activist and organizer attitude toward protesting, taking cues from groups most effected to find the way forward.