Hey Reader,

When I was 21, I was working my ass off at a coffee shop, trying to keep up with my environmental economics coursework, and doing it all with a baby on my hip.

While my classmates were going to parties and stressing about internships, I was reliant on family for babysitting help, and on programs like SNAP, WIC, and Pell Grants to make it work. I was determined to make a better life for myself and my baby, so I kept at it.

I think about that baby, now 17 years old and a junior in high school, and as we’re talking about the future and them stepping into adulthood, I can’t help but think about how much harder they have it than I did back then.

This isn’t me remembering “the good old days.” (Trust me, they weren’t.) This is me acknowledging how much the system has stacked itself against us, thanks to lobbyists and billionaire interests. The limited social safety net that we have in the United States is slowly but surely being eroded, stolen from us dollar by dollar to line the pockets of developers, lobbyists, and the billionaire class, just like our taxes.

So what do we do?

We’re being pummeled daily with a news cycle that never stops. Our neighbors are being kidnapped. Families are going hungry. We’re being shot at protests. We all feel so stretched thin that it is entirely understandable that so many people are frozen in place, uncertain of what they can do that will actually make a difference.

So I’ve got a question for you. Aren’t you fucking sick of that?

Because I sure am - and I’m ready to do something about it.

If you're on this list, you've heard from me about book launches, plant starts, Hearth & Hollow, and the reinvention co.

This email is a little different than that.

Because on May 1st, I filed to run for office.

A few weeks ago my county council voted to hand over more than 1,000 acres of farmland to development, against public testimony, against their own studies, with a councilor who has direct ties to the building industry casting the deciding votes.

Our county council controls land use policy: who profits, what gets built, what disappears. Right now in Clark County it’s developers with organized BIG PAC money on one side and residents who want to keep their county livable on the other. The special interests are already organized and already funded.

What they don’t have is you.

If you’re on this list, you’ve heard from me about books, about launches, about building businesses. But I don’t think those things and this are not as far apart as they might seem.

I’ve spent most of my adult life believing I could have a bigger impact and make more change happen from outside of the system.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Local government is where the decisions that shape daily life get made, and right now, those rooms are full of people who are prioritizing what makes developers and corporations happy, not the folks who show up for their neighbors and want to live somewhere that still has farmland and clean water and housing that regular people can afford.

The decisions being made right now in Clark County will be permanent. There is no undoing a thousand acres of paved-over farmland. There is no taking back a plan that locks in sprawl at the expense of everything else.

So I’m running, in a four-candidate primary, August 4th. A county of half a million people that doesn’t have a local news station and has historically had terrible voter turnout in midterms.

And I need your help.

I need to raise roughly $20,000 to reach enough people to win this primary.

I need resources to canvass, to build name recognition, to show up at every community event and farmers market and county council meeting between now and August 4th. The campaign is me and volunteers and a lot of ground to cover in not a lot of time.

If you’ve been part of what I’ve built over the years, through the reinvention co, through Hearth & Hollow, through anything I’ve written or taught or strategized alongside you, I’m asking you to consider a contribution. No amount is too small, and no one should stretch for this if they’re stretched thin.

But if you’re in a position to put $25, $50, or $100 toward something that will make a real difference in holding the line at the local level, this is it.

​​Donate to Dusti for Clark County Council​​

I won’t pretend that I don’t know exactly what I’m walking into with this race. I’m going to get pushback for my progressive views, for my public stance against the BIA, for being willing to fight MAGA. There are organized Proud Boys in Clark County, and running as an openly progressive candidate who is willing to call them out publicly puts a target on my back. I’m doing it anyway, because someone has to.

It’s time to take a stand.

Talk soon,