A resident who moved to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic is making a run for local office.
Local video game developer Tyler Jaggers, 44, is running for the District 1 seat of the Topeka City Council.
“The reason why I want to serve on the City Council of Topeka District 1 is because I feel like I have a lot to offer,” Jaggers said. “I have a wide range of experience, of business management — I’ve dealt with large businesses, had to liquidate locations. I have an engineering background where I’ve done software engineering work locally, and I have a vested interest in Topeka being successful.”
Jaggers was one of the thousands of people who moved to Topeka and Shawnee County during the pandemic. As part of the pandemic-related relocation program, he moved from Palo Alto, California, and bought a home to restore.
Since living here, he has maintained and developed multiple video games, including Control Flow, a puzzle simulation app and filmed his home farming experience on YouTube.
Jaggers said his biggest strengths are his unique business and coding background. He said his weakness is that he’s not yet on the council making changes he wants to see in the community.
Tyler Jaggers wants to improve roads and public safety
When asked what the top three issues Topeka faces, Jaggers said road conditions, public safety — especially for women — and the high cost of food.
While Jaggers said there are things he thinks the city is doing well to address roads, such as the SeeClickFix app, he would like to ensure all areas are getting road needs addressed in a timely fashion.
“I just want to do whatever I can in order to keep that happening and then done in a timely manner,” Jaggers said. “Also, there’s been a little bit where some locations in the city have not been getting addressed as other locations. I’m not sure if it’s due to property tax value or things happening under the hood, but I want to make sure that the roads are distributed fairly and everybody gets clean roads. Everybody gets safe roads.”
Jaggers said road improvements would help Topeka’s economic growth.
“I want to make sure our alleyways are safe,” he said. “And so, that will increase actually our city efficiency, because even though you might look at a house and be like: ‘Well, that’s in a part of town or that’s a different property value. So you don’t get the same tax revenue.’
“But that house and its people are still doing things in the city that — what I call — are dealing with aggregate business.”
He said he’s heard many complaints that downtown Topeka and other areas aren’t properly lit and therefore feel unsafe.
“Did you know that some people aren’t even utilizing the parking structures because they’re afraid to walk at night and getting to the parking structures?” Jaggers asked. “So, what they’re doing is they’re adding to the congestion indirectly by re-parking their cars during shifts.
“Instead of taking their break and relaxing. they’re having to re-park their cars to deal with like feeding the meter maid kind of thing. We really need to make it so people feel safe using the structures.”
He said helping women feel safe in their own city will help the community thrive.
“We need to think about women’s safety No. 1, because if women feel comfortable shopping and living and owning businesses in Topeka, especially in District 1, we’re going to be more successful,” Jaggers said.
Tyler Jaggers says Topeka could lead organic food industry
While exploring home growing, Jaggers said he began to realize the positive implications that home and urban gardening would have on the overall Topeka community. He said most organic produce is brought in from out of state but could easily be grown here through community efforts.
“So, when I ask of the people of Topeka is a call to action to grow your own food,” Jaggers said. “Utilize your own land. We need to encourage people to actually take the land that they have, doesn’t matter how small it is, and start developing it.”
He said that effort won’t be solved by politicians but by community members working together to improve the produce production in Topeka.
“We have the best farming territory on the planet,” Jaggers said. “Nobody comes close to Kansas. We are the central hub of the United States of America and North America. Nothing gets more central to the United States than Topeka, Kansas.
“We have a rail central corridor, roads and freeway central corridor. There’s nothing stopping Topeka, Kansas, from being one of the most successful cities in the United States and the world.”
Who else is running for the District 1 seat on the Topeka City Council?
The only other registered candidate for District 1 is Jolie Lippitt.
Karen Hiller currently holds the seat and has yet to announce whether she will run for reelection.
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