Why I’m running

Jess’s letter

Hello Neighbours,

My family moved here in 2016, just in time for our oldest child to begin public school. We arrived in this gorgeous little mountain town hoping we had found a good place to raise our family. A bit more than a decade later, I can say with enormous gratitude that Nelson has given us even more than we had ever hoped for.

It has given us a home, community, friendships, arts, culture, and sports opportunities for our kids, beautiful public spaces, enduring events, and meaningful inclusion in our chosen communities. Basically, the feeling that we really belong somewhere.

Nelson has been a wonderful place for our family to thrive.

2016

2026

That is at the heart of why I am running for City Council.

I want the families who have already made Nelson home to be able to stay here. I want people who grew up here to have a realistic opportunity to return. I want our children to be able to imagine a future here if they choose one. And I want families looking for their own place to put down roots to have the opportunity we had in 2016.

That won’t happen by accident. We have to plan for it.

For me, that means looking at municipal decisions through a simple but important lens: are we helping Nelson remain a place where families and all residents can create a good home?

That question belongs in conversations about housing and development, infrastructure, roads, water and sewer, public safety, transportation, parks and public spaces, emergency preparedness and climate resilience, support for a healthy local economy, arts and culture, heritage, taxation and the responsible use of public money.

It doesn’t mean every decision will be simple. They won’t be. But it gives us something important to keep coming back to: who are we building this community for, and what kind of Nelson are we leaving behind?

Who I am

I am a mom, a wife, a friend, a business owner, a neighbour, an arts supporter, an advocate for equity-deserving people, and an active member of this community.

With my partner in life and business, we own Transform Your Org, where our work involves helping organizations improve how they operate, from relationships and communications to data, technology, and organizational systems. Some of our local clients have been Nelson and District Arts Council, the Nelson Civic Theatre Society, Columbia Basin Trust, Elephant Mountain Literary Festival, The Capitol Theatre, Kootenay Lake Tourism, and the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce.

Much of my professional life has centred on people and community.

After moving here, I founded Nelson Kids, a website and accompanying Facebook page designed to help local families find activities, information, resources and ways to connect with one another. I also created the Nelson BC Parents Facebook group, which has grown to more than 1,500 local parents and caregivers.

The website and public Facebook page have since been retired, but the parent group continues to be a resource for Nelson families today.

That experience gave me an unusually close view of what families in this community talk about, worry about, need help finding, and value about living here. It also reinforced something I already believed: strong communities don’t simply happen. They are built through connection, information-sharing, and people being willing to help one another.

Inclusion isn’t simply inviting someone into a room. It is making sure their voice actually matters once they get there.

Earlier in my career, I spent years working alongside people with developmental disabilities and their families. I supported families navigating complex systems, promoted inclusion and community capacity-building, and facilitated hundreds of meetings and workshops supporting individuals with disabilities to envision what they want in their lives and what support they need to work towards that. I worked closely with individuals, families, staff, and community organizations to help people participate more fully in their communities.

That work shaped me. It taught me to listen carefully. It taught me that people closest to a problem often understand it in ways institutions don’t. It taught me that inclusion isn’t simply inviting someone into a room. It is making sure their voice actually matters once they get there.

Those lessons have stayed with me.

Here in Nelson, I have served on the boards of Kootenay Kids and the Nelson & District Arts Council, and I am actively committed to supporting Sláva Doval’s Dance Fusion throughout the year, and the Capitol Theatre during the Summer Youth program, taking their dress rehearsal photos.

These aren’t simply organizations I support, things I do or people I know. They are part of the network of people, volunteers, artists, educators, parents, and community builders that makes Nelson feel like Nelson.

What public service means to me

I love people. I care about people. And I believe public service should be exactly that: service.

If you don’t genuinely want to serve the public, elected office probably isn’t the right place to be.

If I am fortunate enough to be elected, I will treat the responsibility of being a councillor very seriously and will always be willing to hear concerns of families and all constituents.

Public service should be exactly that: service.

I won’t arrive believing I have all the answers. I will listen. I will learn. I will ask questions. I will do my homework. I will be willing to change my mind when the facts warrant it. I will work with people I agree with and people I don’t. And I will remember that the loudest person in the room isn’t necessarily the person most affected by the decision being made.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I have always been a champion for people who are equity-deserving, vulnerable or struggling to be heard. Compassion will be the biggest part of how I approach decisions.

But compassion and practicality aren’t opposites. Good government requires both.

Making City Hall easier to understand

I also want to help close the gap between City Hall and the people it serves.

I would love to see school-age children visit City Hall more often, learning about the running of our city on a day-to-day basis or becoming involved in city initiatives somehow.

Residents deserve to understand what their local government is doing, why decisions are being made, what those decisions cost, and what alternatives were considered.

They also deserve clarity about something that can become frustrating in municipal politics: what the City of Nelson can actually do, and what it cannot.

Some of the biggest challenges affecting our community involve other levels of government, regional bodies, health authorities, school systems, nonprofits, businesses and community organizations.

Nelson’s council can’t solve those challenges on its own. It can advocate for Nelson and its people wherever those decisions get made, and it can tell residents plainly who is responsible for what. I’ll do both.

Thank you for reading, and for everything you already do to make Nelson feel like home. I would be honoured to have your vote on October 17.

Jess Phillips