Trustees / Advisory Board Candidates

Happy Campaign Season!

My name is Julie Patterson and I am excited to be on the November ballot for Madison Township Advisory Board.

Some of you know me through my dad, Tom Patterson, who attended, graduated from, and then taught at Southwestern from roughly 1956-1990 before working at and retiring as Madison’s Superintendent from 2002-2012. And you may know that I followed in his educator footsteps and taught in New Orleans from 2001-2018. Yes, I am a Hurricane Katrina survivor and that multiple year experience of living in a community recovering from not only a natural but manmade disaster taught me that education is one of the main drivers of upward mobility AND lacking connections to resources despite working incredibly hard day after day can be devastating to low-income or otherwise marginalized communities.

Some of you know me through my mom, Sue (Sauley) Patterson, the current Party Treasurer for the Democratic Party of Jefferson County, Indiana and G Sue to Madalyn, Trent, and Kelly, and anyone else I bring home, human or animal, who need a Grandma. I have also volunteered for many years for the local Democratic Party as a precinct committee member (Madison 2-1). I also helped found the Jefferson County Democratic Alliance with Treva Goodman, Cami Keltch, Sue Patteron and Jennifer ScottBuy and served with Cami as co-chair for two years before passing the torch to Mary Distel and others. I ran the Party’s Facebook page with various other people and increased followers enough to help us break the 1K mark. I also served as a volunteer on Dan Dattilo’s Mayoral Campaign Team and enjoyed learning the ins and outs of running a campaign.

Some of you know me as ‘Kelly’s mom!’ and that has certainly been my greatest title to date. Kelly is my 6.5 year old son who is growing up to be empathetic, firm but kind, and so funny and such a good dancer he was awarded best dancer in both PK 3 and PK4 and is currently practicing his DJing and breakdancing skills in preparation for first grade. I truly never imagined that I would have children of my own, not from any infertility issues, simply because I worked in foster care and have a heart for kiddos separated from their families. And, a few months after my father passed away from ALS/Parkinson’s Disease in 2019, and right as my now ex-husband Harry and I decided to take a chance on our first foster kiddo, we also found out we were expecting. Those next 9 months were some of the most intense ever trying to navigate helping to heal a traumatized preteen while also working with other foster kiddos and their families and preparing to welcome our child into a world without my father, who was always my closest confidante. My two years as a Treatment Coordinator for NYAP in Scottsburg also opened my eyes to the world of foster care and helped me understand the additional trauma that even the most secure and comfortable foster placements can add to a child already. We were proud foster parents to two children over 4 years and learned a lot, however, the stress of having providers and DCS in and out of our lives was too much for us to juggle in addition to our duties to our biological families.

Some of you know me as the Head (or Craziest) Cat Lady with the Cat Lady Krewe of Jefferson County, Indiana. Since 2001, I have been traveling 75 minutes at least twice a week to get cats fixed at a low cost spay/neuter clinic. That partnership with UCAN in Cincinnati has led to so many amazing friendships and rescue partnerships and I will be forever grateful to them and all the families and kitties I’ve met along the way. I started out mostly solo post COVID while being a stay at home mom who was used to staying busy. I worked on getting cats in my Georgetown neighborhood fixed and then commenting on FB posts about my work and meeting other people like Elizabeth McMahan and Brandi Yocum and Brittney Sizemore and Ruth Turner and then more recently Melissa Gheith, McKenzie Brown, Taylor McLaughlin, and Haylee Rhoades who have helped increase the number of kitties and families helped. We do this work all on our time, after our full time jobs and sometimes second and third jobs for some of us, and this work lead me to meeting with Mike Sims, chairman of the Kindness Group of Jefferson County who introduced me to the world of Township Trustees and their boards.

All of these experiences and more lead me to pursue this position on the Madison Township Advisory Board. I am already a person with many connections, whether those are to people, knowledge, or resources. I truly believe that helping our friends and neighbors on the margins, those struggling to meet their daily needs for whatever reasons are deserving of our love, compassion, and to be treated with dignity. I also believe in communicating clearly and setting high expectations and firm boundaries so that once families have gotten help from the Township Trustee they are able to take that help and knowledge and connection to resources to live their lives to the fullest and pay it forward to someone else one day.

I also know that being on the Madison Township Advisory Board is more than just advising the Township Trustee, that we oversee fire departments and cemeteries, two additional community resources that are worthy of our time, tax money, and consideration.

If elected I will work collaboratively with other board members and the Township Trustee to be good stewards of our tax dollars while at the same time helping raise awareness to the resources available to all community members. I would like to get the Township Trustee a Facebook Page that is informative and interactive and updated weekly.

Thanks for your time and consideration and for exercising your right to vote!