good evening I am Rebecca Hawthorne president of the League of Women Voters of the Wayzata Plymouth area and I would like to welcome our candidates our audience and our viewers on behalf of our hosts the League of Women Voters of the Wayzata Plymouth area the League of Women Voters is a 103 year old volunteer nonpartisan organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens and government we work to increase understanding of major public policy issues and we influence public policy through education and advocacy the league does not support or oppose any political party or candidate the views expressed in this forum are those of the candidates not those of the League of Women Voters it is our purpose in sponsoring forums such as these to provide you the public with the opportunity to hear candidates discuss face-to-face the issues that are important to you this is a non-partisan forum we ask that campaign buttons and campaign t-shirts not be worn or signs or literature be distributed in this room at this point please silence your electronic devices and now I would like to introduce this evening's moderator Bill Johnson a member of the League of Women Voters of the Wayzata Plymouth area thank you foreign good evening tonight's forum is provided to give you the opportunity to learn about the candidates running for mound mayor and city council there's never enough time to cover all of the issues in a setting such as this if your questions were not addressed feel free to contact the candidates directly the legal Women Voters post complete unedited recordings of the four of forums editing is authorized only for official media reporting excerpts or edited clips of candidate forums may not be used for partisan political purposes the rules for this evening Forum are this evening's Forum are as follows candidates will be allowed an opening statement with a maximum of one minute to State their experience platform and objectives a question and answer period will follow the opening statements the answers will be confined to one minute unless designated otherwise opening statements will be given in alphabetical order by uh by office being sought and questions will be answered in a rotating order a 15 second warning will be given to each candidate the candidates will also be given a two-minute closing statement candidates please finish your sentence quickly when you see the stop sign or you will be interrupted no references of a personal nature will be tolerated a person's public record may be examined but not their character this forum is made available to encourage the voting public to focus on the issues and not on personalities we ask that there be no demonstrations and support our opposition to the candidates or their positions and that the candidates be allowed their full-time to get their points across [Applause] the public has been encouraged to submit questions online in advance for those in the audience if you have a question write it on a three by five card available from our volunteers and raise your hand and they will pick it up questions that are unclear hostile or of a personal nature will not be new used those that fall into the same general area may be Consolidated the candidates running for Mount mayor are Kim believer nicked Jason Holt and Ray Salazar the candidates running for two seats on the Mound City Council are Michelle Herrick Kathy mcineny Sherry Pugh and Michael Tesmer all candidates were invited to participate in the forum tonight city council candidate Kathy mcineny declined to attend as stated in our candidate participation policy we will proceed with the mayor oral candidates uh Kim believer Nick Jason Holden Ray Salazar and with city council candidates Michelle Pugh and Michael Tesmer we will now begin with candidates for mayor to give their opening remarks beginning with him believer Nick I've lived in lived alone for 37 years with my husband Barry my passion for this community and the people that I call my neighbors along with my business Acumen makes me ideally qualified as mayor of Mound one of my favorite presidents John F Kennedy said one person can make a difference and everyone should try I will lead with Integrity work with citizens to Define and agree upon our common economic and Community goals we need to establish a climate of trust and openness and mutual respect for all citizens and our council members I'm going to foster a healthy robust and strong sense of community and Mound I'll be the people's mayor who will clearly communicate the plans to transform Mount to its full potential I just don't seek this office I seek to make a positive change amount thank you next Jason Holt hey my name is Jason Holt I want to be your next mayor bound uh I moved to Mound six years ago we found that we liked the small town feel that Mom provides love the Lakes West Tonka School District where both my kids attend one of them out there in the audience there as well as my lovely wife of 17 years I'm a financial advisor I've been a financial advisor as well 17 years and um with when I work with my clients I I see situations where we got a plan for short-term and long-term goals the city is no different we got to make sure that we're on budget to plan for long-term and short term um I'm also on the planning committee and uh I'm running out of time here so I'll continue later all right thank you Ray Salazar good evening uh thank you to the League of Women Voters I'm Ray Salazar your mayor I've served as your mayor for the past four years prior to that I served as your city councilman for 10 years I am a small business owner I own two Subway restaurants I've lived in Mound for 30 years I'm married to my wife Debbie 28 years and we have a 16 year old daughter some of my accomplishments include I've addressed the city budget through cost sharing and created a two percent Levy over the past 12 years I've developed a long-term financial plan for our city and creating reserves so as to preclude heavy assessments uh for Street reconstruction I prevented the Commerce shop shopping center from being developed into apartments and now it is fully leased and new tenants are moving in in fact a new restaurant all right thank you now we'll hear from the candidates for city council beginning with Michelle Herrick good evening thank you to the League of Women Voters to uh for sponsoring this my name is Michelle Herrick and I have lived in Minnesota since 1998 and I've moved to mound in the year of 2005. I have enjoyed the small town feel and I would hope that we could keep it that way I currently my role as a senior project manager in the financial industry I think affords me a lot of knowledge and information working with regulatory issues and other types of problems and issues that we have to resolve in a very quick manner so I think that would lend itself well to serving as a city council member I have three things that I would like to work on creative ideas to benefit the community communication plan and an economic development committee thank you for your time all right thank you next we'll hear from Sherry Pugh [Music] and I want to thank the League of Women Voters for this opportunity this evening my family moved here and heard someone in the audience say they remembered when we moved here in 1966. so I've seen this town this was a small village at the time grow and I've seen it change and it prosper and I've seen it not prosper but during that time of my growing up here and during my younger adult life I worked in many places I worked in the City of Minneapolis I worked in Ohio California Mississippi um actually even Louisiana and Arkansas so I've seen a lot of Community Development which is where my work is focused on building communities building Economic Development building housing helping the community become whole and prosperous and build wealth and I think that that's still the case in Mound we're a small town but we have so much more to still grow we're not buildable I mean we don't have much more buildable slides but all right okay I'm sorry I can't thank you your voice is a little soft so if you could move your mic a little closer um and now I'll hear from um Michael Tesmer good evening and thank you I'm the new guy in town I've only been here for a little over a year it's here for about a month and I learned about the water stained a bunch of clothes I couldn't drink it a couple months later so really got me motivated to start participating in the city council learn a little bit about the city always known I was going to be in politics I just didn't know when it was going to start so just a little bit about me I'm a dad I'm a husband I'm a veteran I'm a college grad and currently I'm an I.T executive 30 years experience working in Corporate America I deal with corporate politics every day I manage a billion dollar budget I have 2 700 people on my team and I'm responsible for 10 000 applications in the availability so I think that background gives me some experience and some diverse thinking that I haven't seen in the council lately thank you thank you all right I'll now start the questions and you will be answering in a rotating order you have one minute first question and if you need me to repeat these at any point let me know first question what is your top priority for mound as the mayor or a city council member and how would you address it and that question goes first to Michelle Herrick thank you Bill I think one of the top priorities in the city of Mound is to establish a long-term financial plan and as some of the other candidates have mentioned there's some concern around various issues such as the water quality housing availability and a lot of infrastructure issues that we need to address all right Michael Tesmer I already gave you some insight on the water I'll share a little bit more um I have a two-year-old son and I was filling his bottles with our tap water when I got the message that we had manganese and I was petrified my son the manganese in the water actually causes nerve damage to young kids in elderly so it's a big issue I've heard what we've done in the city what we've attempted to do I think people are working hard we just didn't get it done and so I feel like I I live in a first world community and I got third world water it's just unacceptable I'm going to focus as hard as I can on trying to fix it all right thank you Sherry Pugh okay so for me the number one issue issue is the water it was when it was identified as a council we immediately took action to have research done so we could understand the impact on to identify what were the options to address it we picked a plan that's an expensive plan but it's one that will take care of the issue and getting us the proper filtration systems installed but the hard part is raising the money for it and I know that I constantly because that's what my life looking for Grant monies and looking constantly for monies to help us achieve that goal but even we achieved the goal of raising the money it's still going to take us years to get that water system installed and developed so that's a solution but it's not immediate and so what we have to be thinking about is what are the things we're going to do to help all of our families be safe with the water that we have now and we've got to be more proactive on that case thank you all right Jason Holt uh absolutely the number one issue is water I go door to door talking to people exactly that's the number one issue 100 hands down first of all part of the reason why I got in actually Michael a couple years ago is because first of all our quality was not the best I'd fill up my kids bathtub and it was not great looking uh that's one thing the second thing is I couldn't believe the price it was we came from St Michael and I think it was either two or three times what we were paying up there it was insane so the problem is and I have all the numbers but we we don't have a lot of money you know we're actually in in a negative situation with our water budget so um we are working on a plan we have a 24 million dollar uh bill it did not go through bonding this year so it did not get passed um we're working with our elected officials above us that can kind of help us on the state side uh we're hoping next year that that's going to take place and we're going to get the money thank you Ray Salazar first item water quality you've heard that already many times tonight we earlier in 21 we were made aware of a manganese levels elevated manganese levels in our water and I was immediately on it with our staff we came up with a plan we presented the plan to staff or rather to our city council it came to 24 million dollars from there we took it I took it to our Congressman Dean Phillips to try to get some money there through the infrastructure Bill he brought 680 million dollars to the state of Minnesota then I took it to our state representative and our state senator it made all the way through to the senate floor they ran out of time so it wasn't seen I'm working on it this year to try to continue with that and get the money uh the next item is infrastructure we have 30 lift stations that need uh 24 of them have been replaced we have six more to do they cost six hundred thousand or four hundred thousand dollars a piece and finally Redevelopment we have a great plan thank you all right Kim believer Nick agreed water's their biggest problem but let me tell you what I'm going to say is a little bit different than the rest of the participants have said I think we need to Rally our citizens we have a bill at the state but they need to know how important this is to us and we need to get on a bus and go down to the state and rally rally and talk about this need Express how important this is to our citizens we cannot live with manganese it's going to take four years to fix those Wells once we get the money and some people cannot afford to pay for bottled water or a filter in their home and we need to have a contingency plan to help those people um provide them with water I've met with we can I've met with the food shelf I've met with the with the um uh Brian Borg here the um all right thank you all right this next question also deals with water there's concern about Lake water quality and stormwater runoff how do you propose dealing with and funding this issue beginning with Jason Holt well this is a timely question we just talked about this last night at our council meeting um if some of us are a little tired up here we were it was a late night I think we got out of their 11-ish we came up with a one of our council members is going to be on a somewhat of a committee to deal with our city staff as well as our kind of water engineers and then today we just got an email from one of our residents that would like to join that as well this is the problem over on on Harrison's it's coming downhill this way downhill this way and downhill this way and it's all flooding right into their kind of Lagoon it's going into Lake Minnetonka we want to make sure that we have good water for our uh residents as well as we got to be careful what we're putting into the water it's all everything we do on the street level goes eventually into the water so we want to make sure we're doing that at the same point we also got to figure out funding and you know how we're going to do that big term so all right Kim believer Nick um I'm on the parks and Open Spaces commission and I was an active participant at the Overland Lane Harrison's Bay rain garden and there's a group of citizens that are taking action taking it in their own hands building these green Gardens I visited it today with my husband and it's a beautiful representation of how we can do some actions today before we get the funding before we get um all of the positions in place to help the runoff we can take action as Citizens and I was part of that team and I'm proud of the action that we took thank you Michelle Herrick so as someone else mentioned we were up late last night discussing this at the city council meeting I have to agree with some of the discussion topics that were made this is a huge issue it's very costly for the residents they're paying tax dollars that are elevated because they are on the lake so I think what first of all we need to fix the problem find out where this silt and some of the chemicals that are getting into the lake are coming through that drainage system it was discussed that I guess some of the equipment that we've installed isn't actually performing to our expectations so I think first fix the problem and then work towards coming up with some sort of funding either through I know a grant was mentioned last night there are various options and resources available to us such as the Minnehaha Watershed District so there's a lot of things we can still do thank you Sherry Pugh you know to solve a lot of problems in our community we have to do collaborative work and that means we have to bring the county the city Minnetrista Mound because we are bordering cities and um in Hennepin County and our city and our other government entities together to see what their role is in that but you know we're also citizens who say that we love this this city we live in we love living on the lake and we have a responsibility to be good stewards of this Lake create our own water God water rainwater Gardens in our yards both those who live on the lake as well as those of us who don't so we can retain some of this on our own properties so I think it's it's a shared responsibility but we all have to come together collaboratively to work together to resolve it thank you Michael Tesmer I would plus one what Sherry just said um my in my career when I listened to the city council last night I didn't hear some of the right questions I didn't see some of the right direction and at the end of the day I know we were up late I think we could have gotten there quicker and I say this because I don't feel that everyone is involved at the level that they need to be before the meeting getting prepped and at the meeting participating and asking the right questions so there's a lot of time spent rehashing the same thing over and over where I think I could have helped last night is in my corporate life and in my personal life I have brought people together on very complex problems and I think last night as Sherry noted this is one of these situations where you have five entities involved it's not one it's not the citizens it's not Mound it's not Ministry it's not Hennepin it's all of us need to come together and come with a solution thank you thank you Ray Salazar yes we had a long meeting last night we were not anticipating that many questions with regards to this issue and that is is uh the infiltration of silt and whatever getting into the lake and uh making a mess out of a certain Bay and also a lagoon I determined at that time that there are four governmental agencies involved there's minitrista Minnehaha Creek Watershed District Hennepin County the city of Mound and then finally also the citizens that live in that community and what we determined was that we're going to give it to staff give it to our Engineers come up with some sort of a solution some sort of an idea and then bring it back this will obviously go into a workshop where we need to spend a little more time on this and really drill down and get all of the right information so that we can kind of help and guide with this all right thank you we now move from water to fire uh the Mountain Fire Department receives calls to assist from surrounding communities and does not receive compensation what solution do you propose Ray Salazar yeah I'm sorry the Mountain Fire Department receives calls to assist from surrounding communities and does not receive compensation what solution do you propose that is actually on more on a state level we it's called Mutual Aid and because we have probably one of the finest if not the finest Fire Department here in Mound we have a tremendous amount of spree decor we have a full complement of firefighters and unfortunately some of the surrounding cities don't have that so when they have a an alarm quite often we also are called at the same time because they don't have enough people simply those other cities don't have enough people this is something that we cannot bill for we give help free of charge and if in the Advent that we need help we get help so it's not something that we can charge for like I just said this is uh something that goes to a higher level and actually goes to the state level and this is part of the state legislature all right thank you Sherry Pugh well Ray has stated the correctly sometimes you have to change clearly established now is an eye correct and the cities that are not that are not paying for this fire service are some of our more wealthier cities so I'm just going to call it out for what it is and so when a wealthier community cannot they could contract with us for the service but they chose not to contract with us and so therefore put themselves in vulnerability so maybe we should go to the local residence of that community and say do you really want to put yourself in this vulnerability of not having a responsive fire department and relying on us to always do our mutual Aid benefit now our fire department is wonderful and they've done great service for these other communities and so I would never put down our fire department they're the best and everyone else should want them but they need to be paying for them and they need to stand up and take on their responsibility all right thank you Jason Holt so here's the problem we're using all of our equipment brand new great equipment and we're the first to show up and other places show up oh the fire is already out great thank you we use all of our money all your money to do that is this was called out in one of our Council meetings a little bit uh early this spring I think the problem that we have though is that we never follow up on things so as mayor I want to make sure that we are getting compensated if there's a reason just like Sherry was saying let's follow the chain up and let's make sure that we're going to get paid I want to make sure that we're helping out other communities as well but we can't do it on our own we can't even afford our own water thank you all right Michael tessmer I'm not intimately familiar with this challenge so just sitting here thinking about it for a couple seconds um it seems to me that obviously for providing a service we need to get compensated because we're not a wealthy community so compensation can come in the form of many things not always just dollars so I don't know the swap that happens between the cities but obviously if we're providing services to them there needs to be a conversation multiple conversations and in escalation probably with their citizens just notification about their lack of ability to support this I also don't know the legality so I'm not going to comment on when when we should stop providing the service all right thank you Kim believer Nick well I think it all starts with leadership from the mayor um is that this is an important issue it's on the minds of the citizens and we need to be collaborative with our neighborhoods with other cities that are close by and determine what's the best solution if we're the best fire department do you want to partner with us to partner with us means that there's a responsibility behind that whether that be Financial or some other way of benefiting Mount but to not deal with the subject that's been brought up numerous times I've gone to every council meeting since this last April and I've heard this subject more than once yeah and I haven't heard of any solutions or any movement forward with it it takes a strong mirror thank you Michelle Herrick as Mike said I'm not intimately involved in the facts so one thing that I would say I understand regulations quite clearly and if there is a mutual Aid benefit requirement um I would think that there would be some sort of recourse or our we should have some sort of ability to negotiate those services with the surrounding communities if they're not providing their part of the deal such as reciprocation of benefit all right thank you this next question will go first to Michelle Herrick we'll shift gears here the city council previously denied the rezoning request for the Northland project at Commerce and shoreline what is your vision for the revitalization of that part of downtown Mound well I'm actually very intimately informed on this issue and many of you may recognize me but I've been to several City Council meetings and working with various Community organizations and people within the community to deal with this particular situation Northland which was a plan to build a large apartment complex on the shores of Lake Minnetonka I mean excuse me of Lake Langdon um the DNR was strongly against this they wrote three letters and there were several um requests for variances that were being made this is also an area of town that is part of our 2040 plan to be developed there were several issues with it such as the main road coming down the middle of the property was needed access to citizens of Linwood Boulevard preventing the building of this large apartment building all right thank you Ray Salazar thank you the project at hand was uh 80 some units of apartments and simply put was not in the best interest for the city it was too big the Ingress in egress was very difficult there was a vacation of right-of-way it was not going to be suitable it was not in all fairness to the residents on Linwood which are part of a Housing Development dating back to some 1909 or 1918 that have a an easement to that Lake it was just bottom line it was too big and and too cumbersome and uh there was anyway it was decided against not to do it thank you that's it all right Michael tessmer so when I heard about the project and I heard it got shot down um I was elated I didn't want to move into my community and see another apartment building going up I drive from here to to Eden Prairie for work every day and I feel like we've littered uh the countryside with buildings and it's prosperity for very wealthy people are invested in housing right now and this felt like another one of those projects around the asset you know the assets Associated what are we going to do the land you know my question would be what do we do we need to do anything right now anyway you know again we have a shortage of 24 to 26 million dollars on this water project so why don't we put this one on the back burner and focus on what we need to get the resources focused on figuring out how to partner with the right grant the right people to get the grants we're looking for figure out how to raise the money and put this thing on the back burner all right thank you Kim believer nicked well I agree that we need to prioritize what we're focusing our attention on and there's multiple projects that we can work on as a community every meeting and this particular one took up a tremendous amount of time effort attention of our Council and I believe that if this was not a project that the Council was behind if the mayor wasn't behind that should have been stated long before we got into all these meetings and rallied the citizens there were I would I was at those meetings where citizen after citizens stood up and shared the message that they didn't want this and it was over and over again all right thank you Jason Holt so this we first got I guess our first email back in December of 21. saying that this is going to be coming it showed up in January we just voted it down uh last uh Tuesday or the Tuesday before that I'm glad it failed I voted against it uh actually the last how many times a couple times um it was always too big the problem I have again with this is that we wasted nine months of our time we wasted nine months of our staff's time our Planning Commission our residents it's it's a buzz it's out there complete waste of time if I was on the development committee which I'm not then I would have said here's the deal 100 unit is not going to pass in this town nor nor is the 80 unit you want to bring a 30 unit or something let's talk but we need leadership on the beginning part and not waste nine months of our city staff all right thank you Sherry Pugh on this development process I consistently have said that I feel that the big flaw is in the process in which the city takes in a development there is a committee of two that meets with the developer talks about the project and gives some level of input that is because it's only two Council people involved it is not an open meeting and then the developer proceeds on their own decision after that to bring it before the Planning Commission and then to the city I had proposed at a work session and still believe that our process should mimic more that of what other cities do and that is when a developer is coming with a proposal they do a concept presentation to the community as a whole to get feedback before they move to the next level I think some of our development status problems can be resolved by doing a different process all right thank you this next question will go first to Mr tessmer there has been public concern about the safety around the Dakota Trail Crossing for years and it says which has increased if the Northland project were to go through which apparently it didn't what action if any would you support to deal with this public safety concern around the Dakota Trail Crossing Michael tessmer I mean I I can't I personally have almost hit two or three people this summer alone um I don't understand why we don't have it marked better I don't understand why it isn't currently painted as a Crossing it seems like the crossing is 100 yards down the road those are questions I have as a citizen what I would do is I'd figure out exactly why we're almost killing people instead of putting up the right signage I don't know if it's too close to the intersection the other one is there's a blind Corner the trail comes to a head on a corner where I see people run out and almost get hit so obviously we need to address that we're going to kill somebody if we don't thank you Sherry Pugh well we are taking action on that trail but you're right and one of our challenges is that Shoreline and commerce are not City roads they're roads that are owned by the county so once again collaboration with the county with Three Rivers the trail system and the city we have to bring those three entities together but we have come up with a solution which there will be new signage there'll be new road markings unfortunately it's not coming fast enough but that will happen very soon as the county gets ready to do work on on a shoreline all right thank you Kim believer Nick um if you go onto the mound website there's a study that was delivered to the Mound City Council in 2021. that stated that we should put it was the number one priority is to put overhead flashing lights in an oasis in the middle of the road now that study was done and Mound paid for it even though it's a county road because there was concern back then but again no action was taken there's also a problem at Commerce and the Dakota Trail and how people across the road right by the restaurant and so there's more than one spot within Mound that I'm concerned about and if I was mayor it would again become a priority all right thank you Ray Salazar will that um that report we paid for and we as a council decided to design redesign County Road 15 for Hennepin County there are three particular government agencies involved Hennepin County Three Rivers Park district and the City of Mound we took it onto our own it cost us nine thousand dollars to put the report together that is to have our Engineers do so we presented it to Hennepin County we just recently two months ago got the approval from Hennepin County it's going to be shared three ways Hennepin County Three Rivers Park District in the city of Mound it's going to cost in excess of two hundred thousand dollars there will be an rrfb which is a flashing light and crosswalks and we will share it equally a third a third and a third it should be done by Spring of 23. all right thank you Michelle Herrick yeah I guess I'm kind of Lucky to come up last here um most of what has been said as something that I would have contributed to the conversation which was I know the analysis has been done I know it's in the works it does take time especially when you're collaborating with multiple public entities so I think that's one that's already been addressed and is in progress so all right thank you Jason Holt so when I ran uh two years ago to join Council this is the first thing I ever thought of I mean my daughter right up there who's now 10. she was what eight at the time and she's like Dad I don't want to cross this crosswalk to go to the to the drive-in I mean I'd have to run her bike across now I rollerblade I I run I bike I do all the things across there that was my number one priority of getting up here he is right we do have a plan we that's good we're getting there my problem is the slow pace of government it's insanely small slow we just had our County Commissioner come before our Council a couple weeks ago and he said in his slide that it wouldn't be 2023 it'd be now 2024 and I lost my stuff um and tell us Don it's not done but we do have a plan I'm glad that we're going the right way we just need to get this thing done I want to see it all right apparently continuing with safety concerns there are safety concerns regarding the mid-block intersection at tuxedo Boulevard and Brighton what ideas would you support for making this intersection safer for pedestrians beginning with Kim believer Nick well I think we need to look at all of our roads to make to make friendly I think that's part of economic development is that people want to move here people want to shop here people want want to participate in our environment that they want to go up and down our streets I'm not familiar with that specific Crossroad but I do believe that it's it's time that um we see this city as one that people want to shop in and that they want to walk in and they want to participate in thank you Jason Holt we just uh passed this the other day uh we were put in a three-way stop sign at Brighton and uh tuxedo one of my buddies who's on my Thursday night basketball group uh that's actually one of the first things he told me when we were running last time he said hey my kids and I we want to walk across the road and yet it's going to be a problem because there's no stop sign I mean I just was over there today and you just go straight through we do have the polls up we don't have the stop sign on there yet it takes time we got to let the cement settle and then we are going to do a painted crosswalk so that is should be mission complete on that hopefully that works and every everybody's happy with that all right thank you Ray Salazar that idea three-way stop sign was brought up by Mr belsor who is a member of our city council he lives in the neighborhood he brought it to our attention we gave it to our Engineers Mr Brian Simmons from Bolton and mank he came up with a plan he came up with a cost presented at the city council it was approved we're just waiting for the installation that's it thank you safe thank you Michelle Herrick once again it sounds like the problem has been resolved one thing that I would say about this situation and many others that have occurred at city council is that we don't do a really good job of communicating to our community and our citizens to keep them informed and keep them updated on what's going on in the city and what kind of issues and problems that the city council is tackling on a you know rapid basis it sends it tends to be very stagnant we currently I know they've had some discussions it's currently a quarterly newsletter I would like to see us leverage technology and Communications a little bit more effectively and um basically creating you know newsletter that is available both in the mail format and on the internet in some format thank you Sherry Pugh I think Michelle is a screening of a good point here and that is that as Council we now granted we've been sort of quarantined for the last two and a half years but we need to and it is our responsibility to be out in the community meeting with residents talking to to folks and finding out what the issues are because I know that there are probably many other places where crosswalks are needed or stop signs and we don't know that if if it's not in our immediate neighborhood but we should be taking that responsibility one of the things I love about being on the Park Board is once a year the park board members go to all the parks and we write up little reports about the conditions of the parks and so when you're there you get to talk to people about the park maybe we need to use the park board to help us get more input but we need to hear from you all and we need to reach out to all of you to hear what are the issues that are going on in your neighborhood that we need to be addressing thank you Michael tessmer so it sounds like this issue has been addressed you know a couple thoughts on it we were talking about the apartment building being built and you look at the plan for the city I just want to I just as a citizen here and somebody that's running to represent everybody the strategy of where we're going with this town I think is in question how do we generate I mean we know we're not the wealthiest Community that's out there we pay our bills we have a lot of great things about this town but how do we increase the revenues without raising taxes how do we make Mound a destination part of that is a plan partisan is managing you know the intersections in these crosswalks it's interesting when other people in other towns know about a crosswalk that's inadequate or an intersection that doesn't work for them and they avoid it and my whole thing is we need to we need to take a look at what we are as a community and try to figure out how to address these simple things like this I'd really like to understand personally better why it takes so long to get things done all right thank you now we can move to death to taxes Mountain tax revenues come primarily from residential owners given the rising City operating and infrastructure costs what action do you support to cover these Rising costs Michael tessmer so I I'll be honest as far as the revenues and how they get generated for the city is something I'm learning this is my first time running for any office uh I'll give you my my background again I managed big I was a CFO uh of a nine billion dollar business I'm pretty familiar with money and how it moves I'd love to learn more about the city and the plan so we can figure out how do we create like I said the destination and not just tax the people that are here but keep the community of Mound feeling like the community allowed all right thank you Sherry Pugh well I've skated many times that one of our challenges is that less than about two percent of our tax base is from commercial development meaning that the rest of it's all coming for residential 75 percent of the tax base comes from almost all of the Lakeshore owners in the city and then the rest of the town which represents 75 percent of the houses but only 24 percent of the tax base so you can see our our formula is kind of mixed up it's um it's not the best proportionate representation or diversification of sources so how do we deal with that we don't have a lot to do in many respects but we can try and generate more businesses but if we generate more businesses we may need more people and how do you put more people when there isn't land to build housing for more people so we we do have a quandary before us and how we create Extra Value taxes to cover the cost and we are a city that is expensive we have a lot of pump stations we have what is it 47 all right sorry to have to cut you off all right Michelle Herrick as part of my platform and was speaking with a lot of people in the community there is a strong desire to establish more businesses that provide both services and um you know shopping type things um I think it's a crucial thing I know during the um Schaefer Richardson project it was brought up that we wanted to maintain that commercial real estate in downtown in order to do that we have to help sustain those businesses so part of it is communication to the community about support but it's also about creating an economic development committee that can come up with a strategic plan to bring in new businesses and support our existing businesses I know it was discussed during the Schaefer Richardson project but I don't believe it's ever really come to fruition so I would like to see that developed out and a little bit more strategic planning around developing our cities business structure all right thank you Ray Salazar Redevelopment that's the answer specifically the Commerce Shopping Center in 2020 we were in the same room they wanted to convert it to Apartments I spearheaded the charge not to turn it into Apartments but to keep it as a shopping center a few short months later it sold at auction Mr realmi now owns it and he has redone the entire shopping center new roof new windows new air conditioning New Heating new tenants he is now fully leased in that that he has a new shopping or excuse me a new restaurant it'll be a full-service restaurant moving in probably this next winter or early spring besides that our Harbor District our Tessa is a new building project there where we have 52 units of senior Co-op that's going to bring in new lifeblood we also have some new town homes at The Villages of Island Park and we also have new town Mason Hall so we just lost uh basically half of our local government Aid was uh 300 000 uh we're losing about half of that so we basically all of us have to make that up uh it's I guess a trend that's happening um so again yes how do we how do we make that up besides just taxi more now the city wanted I think a seven percent Levy this year uh I was pretty adamant about uh cap at five um I do agree with the Redevelopment we do need I'd say smart growth in our town um again we've heard the last uh what two or three years that we don't want massive apartment buildings but maybe open to other things that can develop create some tax revenue coming in and uh go from there all right thank you Kim believer Nick well I think that we need to support not only the businesses that we have but the new businesses that come into town and one of the things that I don't see in Mound is that sense of community support um ribbon cutting ceremonies uh pictures in the paper uh you know promoting those people that are spending their livelihoods to start a new business and we need to Rally our citizens to support those businesses to support the community I don't want us to be a drive through to Watertown I want us to be Mount strong and I think that it's possible it's going to take some energy it's going to take some concerns um and I think that we can do it together if you'll join me thank you all right this next question relates to garbage Mound residents are frustrated with various garbage services from which they are asked to choose what do you believe would best serve the residents of mound in terms of garbage service Michelle Herrick so this is an ongoing problem I have to admit we've had the same issue unfortunately our past carrier and Community member decided to get out of the business and so we've been forced to seek services from other entities um I'm not really sure that I have a solution at this point because I really don't know all the details and I haven't done the analysis but I know currently there's three or four different garbage companies that are coming in and removing our refuge so I would say that maybe the city might need to be a little bit proactive and maybe take a look at these options and come up with specific criteria and provide the citizens with some recommendations and or only provide permits to certain carriers all right Michael tessmer so part of my job is negotiating for a living and I think this would need to go to RFP and have people bid and put them against each other and negotiate with them and make sure that they know they need to deliver the service at a level that's acceptable or to lose the contract so I mean when I hear this problem we need our garbage to be picked up we all know that so let's get the carriers fighting for our business all right Jason Holt so I got an email from a resident uh a few months ago and what their comment was why are they coming so early and so actually we ended up changing the hours for what which they can come uh sorry in the in the summer you're not coming at six in the morning that's maybe not answering the question but that's you know a good thing when people email us we we listen um I just changed garbage services uh from whatever we were to this new company and I think I told my wife I think we saved four or five hundred bucks a year it was crazy so first of all make sure you're looking the other thing is when I was talking to another guy in his driveway the other day he said that whatever day his garbage comes Monday or whatever he's like you have eight different garbage companies coming through there constantly and he's like is there any thing that we can do that one day a week we just all we hear is garbage come back and forth back and forth back and forth we'll have to look into that all right thank you Kim believer Nick Sarah with the garbage service because my garbage is picked up and and we don't have a problem with my family so I what I want to know is what are the standards of service and I don't think that the question really gave us any insight as to what the problems were so I really don't have any further comments on this one until I know really what the issues are all right thank you Ray Salazar garbage collection we have an open market competition is good for us as customers competition is good for business they compete openly anybody in the garbage hauling business can come to City Hall and fill out an application there there are no chosen haulers I pay thirty dollars a month and I'm using Republic Services it hasn't gone up in years I don't know if other folks are paying too much I'm so sorry to hear that check around price shop okay but the thing is it's an open market competition there you go you can shop for it there is no exclusivity in Mound all right thank you and Sherry Pugh well that's true um I we were very happy with our garbage service except for they went out of business and they've been with my family for 50 years or we had been with them I guess for 50 years but it is an open market but in that open market I do have to admit that it means that there are five different garbage trucks they go down my street because five different companies are servicing the street and that's wear and tear on the street but I suspect if the city were to offer to contract specific Services people would feel that their rights were taken away so I guess it's one for the citizens if if you want to give up your free market and have us contract for the best service and minimal trucks you'd need to vote on that put it on the ballot all right thank you this probably be the next little last question affordable housing and we'll go first to Michelle Herrick what measures would you support if any to address affordable housing needs for Mao Michelle Herrick so I think that's a nationwide problem um based on my knowledge what's going on with the interest rates and a lot of other factors that impact the selection of your home the rent that you're willing to pay um those are all things that are out of control for the city and for myself personally so I would say that we could possibly look into I know we already have adequate um or we meet the minimum requirements for the federal guidelines and the state guidelines for lower income housing so I don't know what we could do to make that more affordable um I would hope that we could continue to find resources any other grants or anything that might be helpful to sustain that all right Michael tessmer I'm not familiar enough with this topic I'd love to learn more and participate but I don't have an opinion all right Sherry Pugh well I think that um you know door knocked the city of Mound three times so I feel like I know everybody's front steps and there are a lot of front steps that need some help and there are a lot of houses that need some help so I think that within our community we have a lot of people who are living in affordable homes but they haven't been able to keep up the pace with the maintenance on them and at some point in time I would like for us as a city to figure out if there was some way we could help people maintain the housing stock you know 50 percent of the houses in this town were built after 1985. so you know we've got we've got a good new stock but we also have a significant older stock and if we had programs that could help people fix up their front Stoops put rails on their staircases maybe help with painting I think we could benefit the entire Community if we could figure out something to help with that all right thank you Jason Holt um yeah again I think the the city meets their you know basic requirements that we have to uh there's not a lot of places around here that you'll find multi-million dollar houses on the lake and then very you know low income housing on the other side of it um what I would be concerned about is save my daughter or son go off to college they come back and they say you know they want to live by Mom and Dad I want to make sure that they have you know an apartment or a condo or some kind of uh an attractable option there is none um now again we're not saying we want big apartments in our in our towns um but what what options do they have so they're going to go to Plymouth or you know anywhere else which is fine um but then the next phase the next phase and then retirement so right now we just passed our Tessa which is you know I think a good option uh for for our downtown area 62 plus so all right thank you Ray Salazar affordable housing if you're talking about rent there are two things affordable housing Mound has organically affordable housing we have an aging inventory of rental houses hence they tend to be a little bit less expensive as far as new housing for rental we now have a new townhouse project that was built at Island Park townhouses of Island Park they are very Posh they are very high end we all did a tour all of us on the city council we did a ribbon cutting ceremony there as a matter of fact a few weeks ago and it's very very nice and they're all so expensive as far as owned homes if you have a problem keeping up with your home there are block grants that are available and the city has assisted with that in particular cases all right thank you Kim believer Nick 95 percent of Mounds land is built on so there isn't a lot of options unless we start converting things um to gain more affordable housing so I don't know what the Strategic plan is to address this issue but certainly it would be something that I would investigate if I would become mayor all right thank you um this will be your final question and it'll go first to Jason Holt are there any issues questions concerns that we've missed tonight in the Forum that you feel need to be addressed yeah um we covered water when I talked to people that's their main issue obviously we want to we want to tackle that that's literally the number one thing I would be working on um that I am working on on Console as well um number two we we have talked about growth in our town and and kind of the growth that we want the smart type of growth um the third thing I guess would be communication we do have a new website is better than the last one could be better but it's it's better um we need a social media presence we need to get the word out I like it or not people are on social media that's how they get their news um this room may be more full if we're if we had that on there um I want to record planning commissions on video you know people think oh what do we talk about in there you read the minutes you miss the concept of what we actually talked about all right Kim believer Nick well I'm going to completely agree with Jason um communication is key we need to do a better job we need to get emails from our own citizens and start sending out messages messages updates Communications and what's happening how citizens can become involved um we need a marketing plan we need communication and we need consistent communication to our citizens thank you Michelle Herrick I'm going to say it again communication as a project manager I often work with large groups of personnel on very very large projects and so one of the critical things that we've found or at least that I've experienced is that we need a strong communication plan both to the end client as well as to say the programming group The it group so I think that's a very important thing that we should do you know first of all and try to you know it would be a major thing that I would like to work on initially um some of the other things as I've mentioned has been the economic development committee I think we need to support our local businesses I'm not really sure of all the options but I know after speaking with some of them they don't feel supported um those are probably the two topics that I would try to hone in on all right thank you Sherry Pugh I'd say Economic Development one of the things that I sort of observed and we saw is during our two and a half year covid lockdown because we were home people were shopping utilizing our businesses now I've always operated that way where I was trying use the businesses where I live or use the businesses where I was working because I did a lot of community work and I really would like for us to think about having a program like a by Mound that people keep buying a mound now that we're back in cars again let's not start driving to Costco to the liquor store to the wine shop in Minnetonka use our liquor store use our grocery stores use our hardware stores and because for every dollar we circulate in our town we can circulate those dollars seven times and those local businesses all give philanthropy to our community and we know that we know that that when we need an event they're always there helping us so we need to be more strategic in how we spend our dollars thank you Michael tessmer yeah I'd say there's two um so I shared I worked in technology I I think our website's interesting for the city I just think it there's a lot of digital things that can happen in the world that we can communicate quicker communicate ideas get feedback I mean information exchange is immediate and creating a sense of community digitally is equally as important for our youth as it is to have the physical Community presence to really connect with people the other thing has been mentioned a couple times is like my desire and in getting involved is just the economic development in the city like what is our path what is the best way to generate revenue and not increase taxes to get more money into the city to help address some of the challenges that we're facing thank you Ray Salazar well we've heard a lot about Economic Development tonight did you know how many vacancies we have for retail Frontage in our town right now one one vacancy the Commerce Place Shopping Center is fully leased with a new restaurant that's coming in one vacancy that's it do you know how many restaurants we have 14. places by which Dubai readily prepared food and with the new restaurant opening up at Commerce Place it'll be 15. so what do I think that we didn't cover tonight Public Safety we have a great police force in 2013 we merged our police force with Orno they do a fantastic job they are omnipresent how can we improve on this be like it was when we were kids if you messed up down the street your mom knew before you hit before you hit your doorstep that you made a mistake all right thank you gather your thoughts here and I'll Now call on each of you for your closing statement in order beginning with Ray Salazar thank you um as you know I am your existing mayor I love doing this job I've served it for four years we've quite accomplished quite a number of things we have addressed or are in the process of addressing the manganese water problem for our city I've been on top of that project since the beginning since I was first made aware by our city manager and our Engineers I have pursued dollars from the federal government they brought 680 million dollars to the state of Minnesota through the infrastructure plan uh through the federal government I'm working have worked with our state representatives and our state senator by which to try to Garner money to pay for our financial get a financial grant for our Water Filtration plant it is 24 million dollars this year next year we're already applying it's going to go to 26 million dollars that equates to eight thousand dollars per household okay if we were to bear that entire cost to ourselves we're looking at doubling our water bills that's why I'm working so hard to get that for you we have a lot of new infrastructure we have new lift stations we have 30 lift stations these aren't really fun things to talk about but it's part of infrastructure we've built we've done 24 of them we have six more to finish we have a new park that's coming I worked on part of this Sherry Pugh as a matter of fact and I worked on this with our new park it's a City Center Park part of the harbor District Improvement plan we have roughly five acres of land there and we've sold off two acres to a senior Co-op that's part of new Redevelopment and we have a brand new park that we're working on and that will be breaking ground next spring hopefully and that will have an art walk go ahead finish your sentence okay we will have an art walk and um uh performance center uh and uh we will also be closing off Auditors Road in order to make the park safer no traffic passing through it and uh to make the park even larger so you'll have probably about five to six acres of park there which doesn't sound like a lot but it really is quite a bit there's far more things and you know what you can call me anytime and I'll tell you more about what I'm doing all right thank you Kim believer Nick well I am running for mayor because I want to see a long-term City strategy put into place not just talked about but realized I'm going to lead the city council to create that long-range plan we need to fix the manganese problem found in our wells and until we can secure the funding to fix it Mound needs to provide Safe Drinking Water to those who can't afford to buy bottled water or install a household water treatment unit there are people in our city that can't afford these items and I want to help support them we need to Rally our citizens and communicate this to as a priority to the state Congressman Dean Phillips Chief of Staff recommended that as Mount citizens we rally we bring attention to this issue at the state capitol to ensure that we are noticed and that the bill now passes at 24 million dollars to upgrade our wells from there we need pedestrian safety in downtown Mound we need to in put in place the recommendations on the study that we received in 2021 we need to encourage our citizens to to use the businesses amount to fill the storefronts with consumers while improving the exterior facades on some of the buildings so that we have a sense of community and it reflects the Aesthetics that we want in downtown Mound my long-term vision is a safe city of Mound with New Economic potential and Partnerships with our churches our schools our citizens our businesses we need to establish a climate of trust and openness and mutual respect for all citizens and council members so that we have a strong sense of community this is important I want you to know that I've been in I've been endorsed by one of the current council members who support me thank you all right Sherry Pugh thank you for being here this evening um I think that we know that we live in a great little town and that this town has so many opportunities before it we there's the middle of the bike trail that goes from wyzetta to Mayor we have a great Farmers Market matter of fact we really had the only real farmer's market on the Lake Cities and we have parks and we have walkways we can make this town our special little Haven of Joy but we need to work together we need to be Visionaries about how we move to make our environment safe clean and a healthy place for our kids to raise and also I'm the chair of Minnesota age friendly and I want to put in a push for an environment where people can age well thank you thank you Michael tessmer first off I want to thank the league Women Voters for hosting the event tonight um I have a lot to learn I'm new to politics new to this town I have a quick study in most things and I really been leaning in my wife and I talk about you know the topics probably too often for her liking if my answers resonated with you to evening I'd appreciate your vote on November 8th if you know you're going to vote for me tell your friends and family I just moved here I don't have extensive networks so I'd appreciate it um my promise to the community is I will listen I'll be involved I'll be prepared and I'll make things happen I have a track record of getting things done I didn't get to my position in my professional career because I wait for things to happen I push I drive I'm a person that takes null is is an obstacle to yes we need to we need to solve some of the issues in our town they're not easy issues to to address as I said earlier my my primary focus out of the gate would be really making this Council and in our in our community focus on addressing our water issue again I said it earlier I'll say it again it's ridiculous that we have third world water in a first world country and we live in an area that the water we cannot drink it today unacceptable so thanks for your time I appreciate your vote on the eighth all right Michelle Herrick um what I would say is I moved to mount in 2005. I've been involved in several discussions about the apartment buildings I know that we have a strong sense of community here um I volunteer at the West Tonka Food Shelf where I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of volunteers as well as patrons and a lot of these issues that we're discussing tonight have been discussed in front of those people they ask questions they're curious so I have to go back to communication as a project manager my goal is to set an effective timeline and meet that goal so I think we need to work a little stronger a little harder on our processes and how we function as a city and how we discuss those issues and how they're handled in front of the city council I have to agree I've sat through a lot of meetings that I think a lot of the discussions could have been done beforehand and or could have been communicated better to the public we initially organized a large group of people from the community assigned petitions to stop the Schaefer Richardson project which was going to change our ordinances whatever their you know rules about how we can build and what we can build within that property so it was very effective um I'm proud to say that we I think we had a very strong effect on the outcome um so I know we have a strong sense of community and I think we should leverage that we have a lot of bright intelligent people that are very caring and considerate and I think getting them involved can be nothing but a plus and a good lead into our success moving forward thank you Jason Holt so one of the first things that we did on Council when I joined was plowing the Dakota Trail that was something that was talked about before I got there and the first meeting I said let's get this done I want let's start off strong let's plow it in the winter people want to use it sometimes you're at odds with the city on that and I was uh they didn't want to do that they said nah now let's let's keep it how it is you need strong leadership whether it's any of us on Council or the mayor um we we put our foot down I've put my foot down on um the Williams door they keep asking for extensions after extensions after extensions I said no we're not doing extensions anymore you're building is not inhabitable it basically should be condemned we need to move on we someone needs to start saying let's let's change this topic and we need to kind of start moving forward um going door to door the other day some of the things that I heard from residents nothing ever changes in this town we want growth things never change in this town and we can't keep electing the same people we don't feel heard it's time for a change you you guys are electing us we're here for you I don't Inspire to be some major politician or a mayor or elected official I want to give back to our community I love doing this if you elect me you won't regret it and uh you'll always have my phone number and I appreciate it vote thank you before concluding the mound mayor and city council candidate Forum I want to express our thanks to those who have made this forum possible first on behalf of the League of Women Voters I want to thank the candidates for being part of the democratic process by running for office and for being willing to serve the community audience please join me in thanking the candidates with your applause thank you also to the League of Women Voters volunteers our audience here and those viewing this event virtually for your participation in this forum thank you to the city of Mound and West Tonka School District staff for supporting this event and the Lake Minnetonka cable commission for broadcasting live live streaming and recording tonight's Forum on the on-demand viewing can be accessed at lwvwpa.org for additional election information we encourage you to visit vote411.org the legal Women Voters award-winning One-Stop shop where voters can register to vote find their polling place and learn how candidates stand on the issues please remember to vote in the November 8 election by absentee ballot or in person your vote is your voice legal Women Voters welcomes new members both women and men at lwv vwpa.org thank you and good night [Applause]