I'm Betty Ruther from the League of Women Voters of the New Brighton Area co-sponsoring The Forum this evening with the League of Women Voters of Anoka Blain and Rapids this is a new joint adventure for both our leagues and we hope you in the audience find the evening informational and motivating to vote in our important upcoming election the League of Women Voters is 104 year old organization nonprofit and nonpartisan we do not support or oppose any political party or any candidate whether they're running in either a partisan or nonpartisan race the league does promote citizen voting and participation in our Democratic process at local state and National levels thank you to the city of Columbia Heights for the use of this new lovely facility and providing us with cable coverage now I would like to introduce our moderator for the evening Mr Wes venant a member of ABC League of Women Voters and to the audience please silence your phones for the benefit of our live and video audiences thank you Betty and welcome everybody to the members in the room and to those of you that will be watching this over the uh the cable connection and any other device that we'll be having it recorded on um Welcome to our meet the candidates a joint League of Women Voters New Brighton and Blain a no cocoon Rapids uh forum for candidates who are running for Columbia Heights city council the top two vote Getters will be taking office in January 2025 thank you to the candidates who are present this evening Connie biskin Laurel Denine and Ali Farah and to the city of Columbia Heights for making this event possible this is a beautiful facility to be working in Welcome to our audience at home and and to our audience here in attendance I am Wes vinet I am a member of ABC League of Women Voters and I'm a resident of Andover I do not have a vote for this city council position the League of Women Voters does not support or oppose any political parties or candidates for office the league does help citizens become informed voters and and advocates for important issues that's what this forum is about informing voters if you're interested in the league visit our ABC web page at lwv ABC mn.org persons of all genders persons age 16 and older are invited to join our organization we will open this evening with two questions which we sent out to each candidate I will direct those two introductory questions to the candidates before moving on to questions that we received from the public and those that we prepared for this forum we're going to be rotating the order of answering the questions first second and third just for all of your sake the very first question Connie biskin will be the first answerer I'll leave Farah will be second and Laurel Denine will be third and you can kind of keep rotating as we'll keep moving around with the three of them taking turns first second and third we're going to be finishing tonight after we ask questions with the closing statements from the candidates answers to the submitted questions as well as the closing statements are limited to one minute except as noted and it's possible we may give an extra few half a minute to a couple of the questions if they're a little more involved and complicated all right candidates let's get started our first introductory question which will be going to Connie biskin is what is your motivation to run for this office and what experience or knowledge would help you to serve effectively thank you Wes um first of all I want to thank the League of Women Voters for hosting this forum and I thank everyone here in the audience and those at home that are watching for being here uh motivation uh very strong I would love to cons continue serving the residents of Columbia Heights I care deeply about Columbia Heights and I'm very passionate about improving the quality of a of the life of your life the residence um I have been a strong advocate for our residents and would continue doing so with your vote um my experience I've been served I served on the Planning Commission for the first two years about N9 10 years ago and for the last seven and a half years I've been your city council member and I've also continued to volunteer in many events with different organizations in our city I continue to do so today um and I know this city better than the one I grew up in I've been here for 25 years now and it's a great City very eclectic mix of people it's wonderful and um the many experiences I've learned a lot having been on the Council now for 7 and a half years it's a it's still a learning curve there's so many new things that come up and so many new challenges and that um you're always learning so um but with the experiences I've had in the past um I feel that I would be a strong candidate to continue um on as your city council member for the next four years and I humbly ask for your vote thank you thank you Ali Farah again the opening question is what is your motivation to run for this office and what experience or knowledge would help you to serve effectively for and the audience I I'm running I'm running because uh Colombia height is my home this city and this country have given me so much and I need to step up and give back I deeply connected with this community I I am one of the teachers in Columbia Heights Public Schools I teach in nor park right now my children go to this school uh in Columbia has public school is high school middle school and Elementary I understand the needs of money of the under repented uh people who lives in Colombia Heights because I to come to here as an immigrant and I to to learn the language and the government systems and I enroll a college I founded a job I know how hard how hard how hard and confusing it can be starting from scratch in a new country life and I bring a unique uh perspective to the consult table that will help our under representative citizens have a voice I also I also speak the language of money uh our uh I speak the language of people in our community that no one no one else at this table speaks I can communicate Somali little bit of Arabic and English so people people who lives in this city that currently have no way to communicate with this Council will now have someone they can come to I am a listener Al I'm just going to let you know your time has expired thank you our third our third person answering the question is Laurel Denine Laurel what is your motivation to run for this office and what experience or knowledge would help you to serve effectively thank you s and thank you to the League of Women Voters for putting this on for helping our community be informed and engaged voters um and thank you for the opportunity to speak in front of you guys tonight uh my name is Laurel Denine for those of you who don't know me and the last few years I have been engaged with our community Through volunteering as part of local events such as Columbia Heights pride and every meal which is a program that passes out meals to underserve students in our area uh I have also had the privilege to serve as a city planning commissioner and during that um I have leveraged my professional experience in government planning and contracts to advise City Council on various issues along with my fellow Commissioners my background as both an Engaged citizen within our community Through My volunteer efforts and my background uh in Practical experience in government operations combined with a deep F passion for our community and Outreach um I'm just committed to ensuring that all Community Voices are heard represented and that we move forward on important issues facing our city together thank you Laura our second introductory question will begin with Mr fra and that question reads what goals would you have as a Columbia Heights council member through the community engagement helping our citizens finding the resolutions to the issues that matters to them around the public safe Public Safety affordable housing education parks and any other challenge that they are facing I will responsive and will collaborate in my Approach so that the people can feel comfortable to come to me and know they will he uh know that will help connect with them with the right of people to solve their issues they race I truly represented the citizens of this city and be your voice at the table through the inclusions helping our citizens we do not currently have a a voice who do not currently have a voice our city a government because the language and the cultural barriers I founded the resources that opportunities that they need and bring it to their ideas and strength to the table to make our city government a more representative of all this citizens thank you thank you and then Ms Denine again the second question is what goals would you have as a Columbia Heights council member thank you uh well the city of heights is growing rapidly all you have to do is take a drive down Central to see several places that are being redeveloped that will look different in the future um this is an exciting time for our city but it's also a critical moment for us um as we move forward we need to ensure that new develop in the city development in the city supports both Environ Al uh sustainability and socially and that they're socially Equitable it's important for the future of our city that new buildings are designed efficiently and designed with features that allow for storm water treatment and retention it also it's also important that buildings themselves are built to be as carbon neutral as possible by making efforts to reduce energy consumption from non-renewable sources and improve efficiency um in addition to environmental sustainability though we need to ensure that development remains Equitable for our local residents and businesses so our entire Community should have the opportunity to thrive and improve their homes and businesses and not be pushed out by Rising costs that come with development that's a real thing that we're going to have to deal with in the future and um Columbia Heights has just long been a really welcoming place for firsttime home buyers and our diverse and closeit Community has to remain a priority as we move forward and I think that's one of the things I would love to bring forward as a city council member thank you and sec second question going to Connie biscans uh what goals would you have as a Columbia Heights council member oh so many you guys there's so many exciting things going on in this city first off the number one priority for our city is to we are planning and funding um looking for funds and then build our new Public Works building it's a 60-year old building the rebar is disintegrating in the support columns in the first floor so it has to be replaced that's a huge project second we have their Redevelopment and um I support Redevelopment to increase our tax base to lessen the burden on our residents Redevelopment buildings is what brings taxes in not businesses as others have often said it's just it's buildings the rainbow site right now with the second concept that they brought before the council is going to be worth over $200 million and so even if we do help them with financing for Tiff once that's ended it'll be a huge taxing tax input into our general eneral fund that will help ease the tax burdens of our citizens same thing with the metronic site that's coming up there's nothing planned there yet but we've also we've updated the comp plan and uh we're looking at ideas and we'll be asking the the community for input but again that's another opportunity for our city to increase our tax Spas so we need to be wise about how we develop that land um also a new con new thing has come up mwo who is Mississippi watershed management organization has approached the city about cleaning up Sullivan Lake that has never come up in the last 25 years that I've lived here as a c as a per as a resident and we are the currently the council is exploring that and I would be a huge advocate and support and push to find ways with this new partner to clean up that Lake because that Lake feeds into the Mississippi it has trash in it it has high phosphorus levels in it and so those are my top three that I would go for thank you thank you now before we move on uh City staff gave me a little heads up and I was just as guilty the four of us with mics we have our little buttons and they just want us to make sure we press our button when we're not talking so we should be seeing only a green one when we're talking and a red one we don't and I was messing up that way too so all right for everybody we're moving into the unknown for the candidates they got those first two questions now we start to move into the questions that were submitted by the public to our legal women voter ABC website uh we received 20 questions some of which we were able to combine to use both questions in this forum and that includes this next question and it will be going first to Laurel Denine what issue would you consider a top priority if you were elected what would you like to see the Columbia Heights Council take up first after the new Council gets organized at the beginning of 2025 thank you for that question that's a great question it's multifaceted so I'll try to address as many parts of that as I can um so one of the most urgent challenges I think that Columbia Heights today is really facing is the balance between sustainable energy planning infrastructure improvements and responsible development so when we're looking ahead to projects like the Reconstruction of Central Avenue or 40th as as well as overall City growth that we're experiencing here um it's crucial that we prioritize environmental sustainability and ensure that development benefits our entire Community um energy planning is essential when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint new developments need to incorporate uh renewable energy and efficiency measures uh infrastructure projects like Central and 40th uh need to address both functionality and environmental impact and so ultimately all this growth needs to ensure that Columbia Heights remains affordable and accessible to current residents and I think what I would like to see really addressed first is something that's already in the works that I'm super excited about many of you have probably been to meetings that we're discussing Central and 40th and I really encourage um sorry okay I just really encourage you guys to to visit those uh meetings where you can see what plans are on the docket for those thank you Laurel we'll turn to Connie biscans it was a long question again I'll repeat what issue would you consider a top priority if you were elected what would you like to see the Columbia Heights Council take up first after the new Council gets organized at the beginning of 2025 sorry turn on the green button um as far as top prior my issues there's so many like I listed before Public Works building um Redevelopment Sullivan Lake we got some major projects coming up however what I would really like to start out with our first year is a goal setting session with the council and the staff did that two years ago and because we're a team I have my ideas but we work together as a team so I'd really like to have that set up so then we together focus on the issues that we all feel is important and work forward from there um but I'd still support the Public Works building um really push hard for Sullivan and I will push hard for those during the goal setting session but again it's a teamwork between us and the staff to set our goals um for the future work that we will be doing thank you Connie and we turn the same question to Ali Farah again what issue would you consider a top priority if you were elected what would you like to see the Columbia Heights Council take up first after the new Council gets organized at the beginning of 2025 thank you uh my top uh priority is the community engagement uh Public Safety affordable housing and when it comes to community engagement I would like to bring uh Community together uh police police and families and there are issues when I was door knocking I noticed that so I would like to bring the first thing I'm going to do I'm going to bring the community together and the police that when it comes to uh affordable housing I would like to see more uh apartments in our community also the when it comes to education I would like to work with uh the school board and the I would like to do I would like to invest the quality of education for all students and I would like to as a teacher since I teach columia Heights Public Schools I support also the school boards to provide the quality education for all students thank you do that with your button thank you thank you my my goof this time all right once again this is going to Connie Connie the question has sent into US reads there is a noticeable lack of proactive code enforcement throughout the city what are your thoughts about the perception the city has become lacks on proactively enforcing code violations this is a big topic right now I drive around the city a lot and there's lots of things I find um code enforcement yes has been difficult to enforce because we had no teeth recently the council I believe just passed the first hearing um we worked on this for a while because staff has been sending letters and letters and letters to people and what often happens is then once they don't comply it goes to the courts and the courts don't want these cases anymore and they've asked us to find a different alternative so we've looked at what other cities do so now with this new code enforcement it will have teeth it will have Hefty fines first hit second hit third hit and then it goes then they can lose their license they can lose their cup if they have like for instance an auto business has to have a conditional use permit if they don't comply and fix whatever they need to fix they could jeopardize the using that so we are in the process of of tightening that up and making sure people follow the rules so yes it's a very important situation and I'm so happy that it's been worked on and I will keep pushing for that and enforcing once I get back on for a third term thank you thank you alif far ra the same question to you there is a noticeable lack of proactive code enforcement throughout the city what are your thoughts about the perception the city has become LAX on proactively enforcing code violations oh thank you I don't know a lot about uh code valuations uh so I would like to find out more information about this and uh I'm big believer that if the person did not follow the uh rules then they have to have they have to be the they have to they have to have a consequence for that so I'm going to leave with that that question thank you uh Laurel Denine same question to you there's a noticeable lack of proactive code enforcement throughout the city what are your thoughts about the perception the city has become lack on proactively enforcing code violations sure thanks you that's a really good question I know that that's been on a lot of people's minds lately um I will say as a person who works in contracts and looks at language all day um these policy changes that Connie mentioned earlier are really what's going to allow us to take a more proactive approach to that so I'm very much uh looking forward to taking a look at more of those changes seeing uh how effective they are in the future and if we need to tighten anything up anywhere um I think it's really easy to do things uh that are against code on your personal property without even realizing that you're doing it so having the ability to go out there give you a warning and then you know there will be consequences you know everybody hates to have to pay a fine but it's part of keeping our city um beautiful and strong so I think that the code uh the policy change within the city is going to help a lot to uh address that but I look forward to to taking a further look at it and seeing how it goes thank you uh timers and candidates on the next one I'm going to give up to 90 seconds if you need it this question is actually a combination of two that were of a similar vein and you might need the extra time potentially uh it goes to alifer ra first what will you do to make our city and our city government more inclusive and additionally what step will you take to ensure City information is accessible to all residents regardless of language or physical barriers they may face thank you uh inclusive anity I believe that and I would like to CH I would like to see more about uh engage uh Community engagement I would like to talk to the police making a connections with public as safety talking with our people their uh concerns I would like to know what their uh concern is and resolve the issues that they may have they may raise uh because every challenge or every problem has a solution the I would like to talk to the families uh when I I noticed that when I was talking KN knocking on doors last time I noticed that uh there are there were some issu issues about the people were talking about so I would like to get a solution for that also as well so I would like to late thank you thank you uh Laurel Denine I'm going to again repeat this one uh 90 seconds if you need it what will you do to make our city and our city government more inclusive and additionally what steps will you take to ensure City information is accessible to all residents regardless of language or physical barriers they may face sure um well one of the things I would love to do is it's very Niche I'm part of the pride planning board here in Columbia Heights and what I would like to do is to start to see uh maybe City uh booths happen at our community events to make sure that people are aware of what's going on in the community how they can get involved with government whether it's through a commission or whether it's through uh city government um we want to make sure that people know of those opportunities and that no matter who you are what your background is we want you and we want your voice heard and also we do have a city newsletter I'd loved more people to know about it it comes in several languages and I think that um our mayor has actually done a lot of work to make sure that that's inclusive as possible and to get it into several different languages so that people can have access to information about what's going on in their community in their own native language so I think a lot of it is about education it's about getting out there as part of the city and making sure that the community knows that your city government is not someplace that sits on high it's someplace that's accessible and wants to hear your voice so that's what I would uh strive to do thank you and then Connie bisin the same question to you again to combined two questions what will you do to make our city and our city government more inclusive and additionally what steps will you take to ensure City information is accessible to all residents regardless of language or physical barriers they may face thank you for that question um accessibility and inclusiveness um are police department has done a wonderful job in hiring people from all different backgrounds women um and they've done a great job and they're getting they're working really well with the schools and meeting the students there and that's kind of how they're pulling in the new candidates with kids that graduate we also through our mayor and also our Communications Department have provided the website in multiple languages um the mayor pushed to make sure that we have no gender biased in our policies and our ordinances and there's we're still working on it because we still find things that kind of they bias so they need to change um let's see I also as as far as accessibility the Communications Department our event planner does a wonderful job in providing multiple events throughout the city that are welcoming to everybody our police department has coffee with a cup tonight they're having I'm going to mispronounce this but I believe it's kifa with a cop over at Golden nuts which is a phenomenal restaurant they go to many different parts of our city to talk to people and then the third thing are um it Improvement went it 8 years ago I could not even do my email at midnight Midnight it was shut down we have hired an IT director and they have did A Five-Year Plan and there's multiple things that they're doing to make sure communication gets out to our restaurants using lots of different models and Medias thank you thank you this next question is kind of in sort of the same vein but a little different take on things uh goes first to Laurel Denine how will you be accessible to citizens who have City concerns let me press that button that would probably be the first step is to make sure you can hear me it's a great question because everybody wants to know how they can make a difference and the great thing is that you can have conversations of one thing about me is you can check out my website Laurel for heights.com I have an email on there I check every day I will get back to you I have a phone number you can call me you can leave a message if I'm at work and I will call you back um but that's one way that I look to make sure that I have uh different ways for people to contact me no matter what their working hours are no matter what their abilities are that they can email me they can they can uh send me a phone call they can leave me a message but my goal is to be open as transparent as possible and then additionally I attend a lot of community events I help plan a lot of community events so I'm always out there and I encourage you if you see me to come and say hi to me and uh ask me any questions you have and then also if elected I would love to hold office hours where people could drop in and discuss the things that are important to them and I could bring that forward as part of city council thank you very much thank you Connie bisin to you how will you be accessible to citizant who have City concerns right now um people can call me they can email me I attend many events as um Laurel Denine does but I attend lots of events I'm accessible throughout the day most of the time and I will get back to you as soon as I can as soon as possible usually within that day I get back to people with some type of response and part of my part of the role of a city council member is your liaison between the city residents and the staff so my job is to hear your concerns and then to bring it to the appropriate staff who hopefully can solve the issue it's no guarantee that we can always fix everything but at least your voice has been heard the issue has been addressed and it's staff that usually does the jobs of fixing things I can't plow a driveway I can't plow an alley so the staff does that so um I'm I try to be as very accessible and I I miss door knocking right now I had a serious injury a couple years ago that I can't door knock now but I miss talking to people and being out there because there's so many things I could promote for our city out there and so I apologize for that but again thank you thank you and alif Farah how will you be accessible to citizens who have City concerns yes the people uh Community can call me they can uh email me they I have a website right now uh the WW far for City Columbia heights.com I provided my flyers and I talk I was door knocking I provided more than 5 thou uh uh about 6,000 Flyers there my information is there my email my email my websites my contact information people can contact me and if you visit my website you will see right away on the corner right there you're going to see uh my phone I believe it's my phone U my email so that's the how people will contact thank you and moving on this question will go to Connie biskin first um how would you improve services to Youth and seniors in Columbia Heights number one for Youth and and adults not maybe seniors soccer fields I've been trying to push for soccer fields for the last eight years we've been waiting for the master plan and also money to do that um we're hoping in the next uh year or two that I would strongly promote is revamping our park and Rex program um so that we meet more needs and the the high school kids the teenagers are the ones that need more activities we do well with the young folks with the little ones but we need some really strong programming um for our youth and then the seniors I've been uh attending a lot of the senior events they just hired a wonderful um senior director and she used to be a travel agent and she does a phenomenal job right now for our seniors for activities and outings and programs so anything that can help her do her job even better I would support thank you alif Farah same question to you how would you improve services to Youth and seniors in Columbia Heights we like to do more programs for after school uh activities um I we already have a lot of activity after schools and in our schools so I will enforce that I will support that I will support that uh for for of educations and to do more about that the when it comes to senors I I know we don't have more spaces in our Columbia Heights I would like to build small houses for seniors and help me with that way that's what thank you uh Laurel Denine same question to you how would you improve services to Youth and seniors in Columbia Heights uh well as a huge Minnesota United fan I'm really on board with the new soccer field um we have a plethora of baseball diamonds here and while I love baseball as well there are definitely uh diversity of sports that we need within our uh programs as far as parks and wck and I'd love to work on expanding those I also want to put in a plug for our youth Commission uh it's a really exciting program that High School youth can uh enter into to serve on all of our commissions in the city and they can get a lot of experience about city government about how their City around them works it's really nebulous when you're a kid you don't think about how things get done and you get to learn so much and I've really seen some kids really flourish and just have a great time so I'd really like to put that out there as some ideas if you guys have high school kids at home um for seniors I want to make sure that we are providing uh some information on what GR they could get to like have more programming in their uh places that they're living or just in general I know that Connie knows a lot about our senior programming um I know a little bit less but I would love to see that uh get more expanded as well thank you we're going to switch gears a little bit to uh economic questions and the first one of those uh I believe goes to Ali for what will you do to help small businesses and promote commercial development in Columbia Heights oh thank you I the way I see our uh our city is that I believe that we need more commercials we need more commercials we see our our property taxes we need more uh commercials that's why and then we can reduce the our property tax that we and I don't see we have more commercial uh we don't have businesses in here I have seen people coming to you to me and saying that we will like to open uh business in our city so I would like to get more commercial uh buiness in our city thank you Mr ferah and we turn to Laurel Denine with the same question what will you do to help small businesses and promote commercial development in Columbia Heights that's a great question again U we have so many good ones today I would say that one of the big things about small businesses that we a need to uh help them we have programs and just letting them know about their programs like the facade uh Improvement program for small businesses and we also can uh promote and try to uh get more funding for programs that help with infrastructure within a small business if you are a small restaurant who need a new hood or who needs a new oven or who needs to have some money to make sure that you can um make city code and make sure that you are a healthy place to be then that's something that we should promote also uh for big development that we have a lot of here I think a lot of I think we have a lot of attention right now on some spots within the city just making sure that people who come here are coming here for the right reasons they coming to provide a variety of housing they're coming here to provide uh businesses that will really serve our community so just making sure that you're working in Partnership and letting them know how to how the city expects business to be done is a great part of what the city council does thank you misss Denine and we turn to Connie biskin with the same question what will you do to help small businesses and promote commercial development in Columbia Heights um first off when I first came on the council one of the ideas that I had was when I asked the city managers can we have a facade grant program for small businesses to clean up the look along Central Avenue and I was only asking for five grand at the time thinking it was you know a big idea might cost money the staff came back huge they put in 50,000 to help our businesses fix up their doors their Windows their signage um paint the front so that went really well we've done well over a dozen businesses at this point so I'm very proud of that in addition to that the businesses have access to security cameras that the the police department is in charge of to put into their buildings to help the front and the back of their buildings be more secure um I would love it if we could get the county if we could put pressure on the county to do more with their small business programs to go door too to meet with our businesses often times small business owners are very busy they can't go to the county they can't get to the library we need s resources to go to them find out what they need for computers financing all that type of stuff the second thing that I just spoke with recently it was an idea I had where we have uh a welcoming package for the city for the new businesses that come into our city thank you and we'll have to end it there m b um but we're coming to another economic question and maybe you can continue in that one uh the next question will begin actually with Laurel Denine uh everything in life is expensive can you share your philosophy on Taxation and spending sure um well I can talk specifically about property tax I know that that's the biggest thing that's on everybody's mind at all times what is our property tax going to do this year um I think it's important to remember that our taxes contribute to a lot of local funding for initiatives like safety Parks libraries Public Works however I really understand as a homeowner the frustration associated with increasing taxes uh the unfortunate reality is that the Met Council subsidy is going down by 11% this year because our home values are rising we are becoming more popular and um that leaves a bigger burden on us as taxpayers I'm thrilled about the opportunity to join a city council and a mayor though who really are proactive in seeking external funding for uh large projects such as the new City Works uh Public Works building and who are trying their best to make sure that we're partnering with major infrastructure projects so that those uh costs don't automatically reflect in your taxes each year and I would really love to be part of a council that's looking for and lobbying for increased funding from alternate sources other than just the tax base thank you Laura and we turn to Connie biscan same question uh everything in life is expensive yes can you share your philosophy on Taxation and spending yes it's very expensive our Public Works building initially was planned to be a $15 million project and because after after covid after a few years um it's now a $25 million project plus and that's in today's money it's not when we start building it um unfortunately our city only has 5% commercial property so therefore the taxes fall the bulk of taxes fall on our residents and it's very hard making decisions about what we need and what we can afford as a council member um I support um large buildings that way a lot of people that's unpopular but those large buildings $200 million Redevelopment is going to bring in a ton of tax money to help our residents um deal with taxes and hopefully lower them in the time um the other thing is sometimes we have to put things on hold we can afford to do the Public Works building right now but Park and reck and the P meran hall desperately needed 90-year-old building that's going to be a few years down the road now because we can't ask the taxpayers to pay for another anywhere from 10 to 50 million for the parks and what they decide to do with wreck building so um it's very tough to decide what to do thank you and same question to Mr Ali faran that is everything in life is expensive can you share your philosophy on Taxation and spending yes I I would like to reduce the proper property tax and to do that we need to get more commercial businesses in our city more business that's what we need so we can take of the burden of the our property uh taxes so that is what I would like to see and that's what I'm coming thank you this will be our final question and of course closing statements will follow uh the final question we'll start with Connie biscans and that is Columbia Heights has changed a lot in recent years where do you see Heights in 10 years and how would you help to achieve that Vision I see a wonderful City in 10 years we're doing reconstruction on uh Central Avenue um one to increase the safety because there's a 500 accidents in the last 10 years serious accidents on that streets but the other is to bring it the city to life to allow people to feel safe walking down the streets walking their dogs walking to the theater I see active new resident or new restaurants and businesses coming in and seeing our downtown just full of life where people feel comfortable walking down and feel safe that's what I see I don't see a lot of you know we'll have a few big buildings but I also want to keep our small town feel I want to still feel see people well connected like they are today we've had over a 60% turnover in population in the last 10 years and the people the new people are still connecting with each other we still have that feel so that's what I see thank you uh Le Farah Columbia Heights has changed a lot in recent years where do you see Heights in 10 years and how would you help to achieve that Vision oh that's fantastic question and thank you we are a diversity community and we speak 39 languages in our city so where I see and I think that in 10 years from now our uh future I would like to see more business in coming to our community I would like to see more Apartments we need to build because more and more and more uh people are coming to our community uh and we need to get the resources that are a lot of i as a immigrant I come to this country without knowing a lot of language so now this year and last year and this year we see more and more immigrant coming to our community our our city and I would like to get more resources for them and that is how our city will be prosper thank you and Laurel Denine Columbia he has changed a lot in recent years where do you see Heights in 10 years and how would you help to achieve that Vision well it's certainly an exciting time we have a lot of uh new projects going on I think the redesign of university is going to have a big impact when you look out here you can see this is a thoroughfare from downtown to the highway and we want to make sure that that's not what Columbia Heights is we want to make sure this is a place where people want to spend time where people want to have families where people want to walk down the street to Dairy Queen and then stop at the movie theater you know we want to make sure that our diverse we have 39 is that you said 39 Lang languages in this city that's amazing I want to have cultural touchstones that really um bring out the beauty of this close-knit amazingly diverse community and I can't wait to see that happen I think with its development and with our focus on small businesses we can absolutely do that and as part of city council I want to be part of bringing policy forward that will really put our City front and center as well as our diverse Community thank you well if you all look close you can probably get that beautiful sunset right in my glasses here all right um we're going to do the closing statements Ali for ra you get to get us started with your closing statement okay thank you uh so my name is alif far I well I my name is Ali far thank you all for coming to this meeting tonight my name is Ali far I was knocking on doors for probably last three months last three months last three months and people uh and I'm probably I'm going to knock doors until the end of the uh this election I will work for you very very hard I will try my best to serve for you I work for you so I'm asking your votes and that is my closest statement thank you will you go with your statement now Laurel Den thank you very much I want to thank the League of Women Voters again for having us this is such a great uh experience to just be here and answer questions with all my fellow candidates and with everybody here um my name is Laurel Denine again Laurel for heights.com is my website you can learn more about the platforms that I would like to bring forward as your city council member uh at that time also plug there is a Pride Celebration this weekend at cordak Park and I'd love to see you all there I'd love to have conversations with all of you and have that opportunity to get to meet all of you um I hope that you've learned a little bit about me tonight and that what you saw you liked and I hope that I can have your vote in November but um I just wanted to say that I appreciate that you all took your time out to either be here watch this um not everybody loves listening to city council politicians talk about this stuff but it's really important so I appreciate you all being here thank you and finally Connie biskin your closing statement please I want to thank everyone that came here tonight to attend the Forum and for the league of cities again for putting this on um I love the city I love serving the residents of this city it's been a great Challenge and privilege to have done it in the last seven and a half years and I would like to continue again for the next four so I would love to have your vote um I know um I would be a strong Advocate I am always available I try my hardest to help with issues that come up with residents and I also enjoy working with the challenges of Redevelopment can we save Sullivan Lake can we build a proper um building um down it or the rainbow site to make it one so that it's brings in a ton of tax money but also that people will learn to love there's all different ways and site uh creations and designs that they're putting in there I think people will be very pleased with um again if you want to get a hold of me the best is to go to my website Connie bisons.com it has connected to my Facebook page my Instagram page it has my phone number on there my email if you have any questions or challenges for me or questions please contact me I would love to talk to you thank you well thank you to our candidates this evening for sharing their views with the public through your participation in this meet the candidates Forum thank you to those of you that are in attendance here tonight uh at the Columbia height city council chambers we appreciate your participation as well and thank you to the New Brighton uh league and the ABC League volunteers who helped to make this evening a success as Betty Ruther noted to those of us that were here in person at the beginning the League of Women Voters has supported informed voting for over 100 years in the year 2024 we have many options for how we vote please exercise your right to vote for more election information visit the Minnesota Secretary of State's website at min votes.org or go to the League of Women Voters Minnesota website vote411 thank you all and good evening