[Music] Thanks for joining us. You're on Local Decision 2025 on North Metro TV. And we're going to talk now to Chris Stowe running for Lino Lake City Council. And Chris, uh, so happy you could stop by and let the viewers know about yourself. And we always like to start by, uh, asking the candidate, why are you running? And uh who is Chris Stowe? >> Hi, thanks for having me. Uh Chris Stowe is a guy who lives on 426 Pine Street in Lino Lakes. Uh I own an equin boarding facility and I have cattle there and animals and stuff. Um that's about me. I'm I'm Minnesota boy. I wasn't born here. We moved here when I was seven. Um I'm from Los Angeles. Um, I've seen what urban sprawl and all that stuff does and uh my parents moved us out to the to God's country. So, uh, that's about me. Why am I running for city council? I think our taxes have gone up exponentially every year. We've got a water treatment facility coming in. We're hiring a lot of staff and personnel. We've got maintenance buildings going in. We've got roads. We've got explosive development. And our taxes just keep shooting up. Um the city keeps using the excuse that we have massive inflation. Um but with massive inflation, our property values have also increased a lot. So the inflation argument doesn't really jive. It's basically they're spending other people's monies to uh help the developers turn us into blame. And the city council, which you hope to be a part of here soon, uh approved a preliminary tax levy of 16%. That's a huge bump. H how could you counter that if you get on the council and and get it going the other direction? >> Well, one thing is I'm I'm a trained uh Minnesota licensed plumber. Um and I've run projects as a as a foreman and plumber and I pride myself on when I run a project. Um it always came out on time or I'd get dumped somebody else's project that was behind and I always managed to make the contractors that I was working for money. Um so you you need to do time-sensitive things. the cost of materials and labor and everything constantly goes up, but we need to strategically plan what we're doing right now. Just last um last Monday at city council, they were trying to approve and I think they did uh buying eight um treadmills for the rookery at a cost of $90,000. How many memberships do you need to recoup $90,000? We could have taken that $90,000 and built some trails outside. Uh, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars we've been losing on that since what, 2013, I think. So, yeah, we we've got to change some things and we got to have smart growth and not high density growth. Yeah. And and I guess that's the challenge for Lino Lakes. Met Council says the city's projected growth is 30% between now and 2050. You don't want to become another, as you put it, Los Angeles, SoCal, where there's just explosive growth everywhere, not much open space. How do you keep the open space in a city like Lino Lakes and yet allow some growth, smart growth to come in? That's really easy. Um, what you do is you restrict your utilities. Don't drag power there. Don't drag city sewer and water there. If you don't have water and power, you're not modern living. The other thing is the Met Council, if they want to push this high density and that's why our taxes continue to rise, are they going to pay our tax bill? I don't think they should have the authority to do to tell us what to do. The other thing I would say is don't change the zoning. If the property zoned at, for example, uh Nature's Refuge North, they said that the uh property was zoned rural executive. That's one house for every 10 acres. They had 60 acres out there. 30 of it was actually developable roughly. 30 of it was a wetlands. Um, and right now it's a complete uh strip mine. The entire thing is destroyed and they're packing like 96 houses in there on 30 developable acres when it was zoned for six homes. Now, those would have been high quality expensive houses like what you have in North Oaks, but this high density stuff's going to kill us. Um, so we need to re-evaluate our plans. If our 2040 plan, our 2050 plan, whatever the plan is, let's change the plan because the plan's not working. >> Can Lino Lakes coexist with Met Council? >> No. >> Why? >> Because they're cramming stuff down our throat that's not healthy for us. And what the what what inevitably that's doing is just expanding the urban area. And then the project is literally called Nature's Refuge. And it's really nature's slaughter. >> Yeah. So, you're losing wildlife, you're losing wetlands, things like that. >> I can show you a short video if you'd like to see it right now. >> Yeah. Well, I saw part of it before our interview. So, so is that one of your main concerns that the charm of Lo is going to go away? >> Our charm is that we're rural yet we're close enough to the city for we're 35 minutes from downtown St. Paul or downtown Minneapolis, depending on what MDOT's doing with our freeways. um or the snowstorms or whatnot. What's our charm though is our charm is having the houses so they're not so packed in that the deer and the squirrels and the coyotes and I mean nothing can grow and then you just pack them in and all you have is chem or you know and sprinkler systems and one tree in between you and your neighbors and you better trim it because at the next storm it's hitting somebody's house. >> Yeah. So high density high density in in a in a rural area like we are doesn't work. If you want to push high density that's fine. There's plenty of skyscrapers in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul that are vacant. So Lino Lakes though for being a you know a town that kind of has that up north vibe but being in the Twin Cities metro isn't a unique location. I35W I35E you're right between those major interstates right? Can can you utilize some growth off those freeways which have, you know, a lot of traffic, the volume is high every >> Absolutely. And I think that the the the model to go with is to put the business or industrial complexes up against the back of the freeway because people don't want to have a quality house and hear freeway noise 247. Um, I think it makes sense to put the to put the commercial properties along the freeway routes. As far as the wooded areas and stuff, we need to spread out the buildings, if you will, so that nature can live in between them. Otherwise, we just we're turning it into a desert and it's just a lawn desert. >> All right. Northwest Maine, that's that's coveted turf, if you will. Uh there is a uh master plan approved by the current city council. Do you agree with their vision of of what that's going to possibly be? No. And I think it's a disaster waiting to happen. And I've been involved with talking with Rice Creek wershed district about it. Right now um branch it's watershed district ditch 102232 which is a combination of historic ditch 10 with 22 with 32. I'm off of branch four of that. They have at my property they have lowered and increased in size I believe some of them but they've lowered seven culverts north of me and nothing south of me. So it's flooding out my property currently. That branch four doesn't flow properly currently right now. The main branch that cuts through there literally cuts through fence lines and stuff and it it literally does right angle turns. >> It's not natural at all. And they need to correct that and lower that before they do this development. They just lowered the pipe on West Pine Street this week. They were supposed to lower it two feet. They lowered it, I believe, three feet when I checked it out. Uh, and when Rice Creek Wershed District's on the hook for paying for the wetlands credits, they sharpened their pencil. They went from 10 acres to 4 acres to this is going to affect anything and it's absolutely going to dry out some some significant amount of land. But they need to they need to correct the drainage system in that area because it's the flood plane before they develop anything. Right now when it rains hard that the sod farms literally flood out. >> Yeah. >> And once they develop that they'll dig their ponds deep and they take the spoils to build it up so it's hilly terrain. Uh but that's going to become a disaster for for some people as far as the flooding goes. The other thing is the density on that is is in my opinion ridiculous. Right now it's currently zoned agricultural and the city shouldn't change the zoning. Everybody that went down there just like the nature's refuge north. Everybody that went to the meeting said the density is too high and the city just went along with whatever the builders or the contractors want to do and that's not longterm that's not good. It's great for the developers. They'll make millions. >> Would you like to see Northwest Maine just stay the way it is? Sod farms very rural field. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. But that I don't think is a realistic uh we have to have progress. But when the city shrugs their shoulders and goes I guess this is progress. we're going to just take Paradise and put up a parking lot. I'm not for that. And and the growth that they want to put in there. I mean, I just looked at some of the preliminaries. They want to put in half a dozen roundabouts, you know, and then they say, "Well, we get reimbured for some of that money from Anoka County for the, you know, for the travel on the main thoroughares and whatnot. They're a million bucks a piece, though. and we yeah they're getting some subsidies or whatever it is from noa county but at the end of the day that's still our money being wasted on a bunch of roundabouts that we don't need. They put the one on Sunset and and and Maine and it was a million dollars and then oh hey we need to pay a guy like me a plumber to go in there and put an RPZ in or you know a water supply because we want to plant plants out there but at the end of the day we spend a million bucks for a roundabout which is 20 mph zone in a 55 zone and if we put roundabouts through a whole city it's just they're ridiculous in certain areas great but one after the next after the next after the next no that's too much building too much density >> and I totally get the charm and the appeal of Limeo Lakes as you said. I mean, you're close to both the major downtowns, but you don't feel like you live in a major city. But how do you how do you not look like a town that's saying not in my backyard? Is there a how do you allow for some growth for some people to come in and enjoy what you've been enjoying without spoiling the city? Well, I worked my butt off my whole life to get to where I'm at. So for me to say not in my backyard, I'm not afraid to say not in my backyard. I don't want that here. I don't want a big data center here. I don't want a nuclear reactor in my backyard either. I think it's okay to say no. In fact, I would say if you want to slow the growth, vote for Stow. I'll vote no. >> Fair enough. >> So the the >> Do you think Do you think most people in Lo would go along with that thought? They do because a 16% tax increase after our properties already went up in value is a ridiculous waste. Other people, it's easy to spend other people's money, >> you know. >> Yeah. >> If your if your daughter or son needed a new car and you said, "Hey, I'm going to get you a car. Here's a Toyota." Or, "Hey, get whatever car you want. You're a millionaire. Bust out the checkbook. You're buying a Lamborghini." You know, it's that kind of deal. They people will spend your money for you. And that's how why I got involved. I had some problems with the city. Ended up being fine for me. I had to spend money on lawyers and we'll see what happens with that. But uh when I went down there, I went to work and then I'd work on my farm at night. And I realized when I was going down there like we've got some problems and I was just assuming that these problems would be taken care of and they're not being taken care of. And some of the people on that board have been on that board for a while. Hey, I've been I've been the mayor for 16 years. Well, how's our taxes looked in the last 16 years? Looks like they've been getting worse and worse and worse. It's time for change. >> So, if you get elected to the Lo City Council, would you go in there with a mindset of of shaking up the status quo? >> Absolutely. I think you need a cowboy on that board. I'm not running for mayor for a reason. I don't think I'd be a good mayor. I would be a good a good guy to fight for the the underdog, if you will. Well, I'd also like to say that I I endorse if I was to pick two of the candidates right now, I would pick me and Randy Raner for for city council. I know they're pushing the uh Julia. Uh but when you look at when she what she said at the Minnesota League of Voters, and I like her, but every single issue she was she wanted to spend money on. She wanted to spend money on she wanted to spend money on she wanted to spend money on. And that's not how you get to not have a 16% increase in your taxes. Can a cowboy, a renegade get on the council and work collaboratively with your peers and cohorts? >> Um, I think absolutely. >> Okay. >> Um, yeah. Um, I think it'll be it'll be jeez. Um, my grandfather was raised as a cowboy kind of and he was a plastic injection mold maker and we all know about plastics nowadays and we all know about the toxicities of that. Um, my dad was a project manager and he wor he did a lot of projects for like 3M and stuff. We all know about PASES. Um, but can I be a cowboy and still do a good job? Yeah. Cuz one of my grandfather's friends is a guy named Roy Rogers. And I just think, yeah, I get a little hot. I get a little bit this, that, or the other. Our our current mayor does, too. Uh, I I'm passionate about it. But at the same time, if in the back of your head you think, "What would Roy do?" You're going to win in life. All right. Before we wrap up, look the viewers in their eyes and tell them why they should vote for Chris Stowe. Well, you should vote for me because uh I don't know what I can do on the the current proposed tax increase because I think that money is already spent and we're buying bonding for the uh water treatment plant. Uh but I will try to tie the purse strings up and I will try to slow down the development and I will and I will encourage commercial development along the the interstates if you will, but I we need to protect Lino which is actually Lando Lakes. That's another story. We need to protect our community or we will see it become a place that we want to move out of. >> All right. If you get on, can I call you a cowboy Chris Stowe if you get elected? >> Oh, I don't think uh Wrangler. >> Okay. Wrangler. Very good. >> You can call me whatever you want. Stay in touch, too. I want to hear from people and you know, >> and I'll tell you if I'm doing something wrong, but >> we're, you know, we're spending some money on some serious stuff and I think I'm running over on your time. So, we're all good. Well, thank you for uh sharing your thoughts. >> Absolutely. Thanks for having me again. >> All right. He's Chris Stowe running for Lino Lake City Council and this is Local Decision 2025. [Music]