My focus is on the city and doing best for the people, listening to all the voices whether they agree with me or not.

it is impossible to separate fully the politics from the personal.

in the past several years, we've been challenged in four main ways. One, the loss of commercial real estate value, which is putting more pressure on the residential tax base. the inflation particularly as it relates to equipment and the costs of medical insurance and unfunded state and federal mandates which we do have to pass along through our tax levy. Finally, public safety...

Our taxes are rising more than the 5% we've been used to. uh that has been historical. Uh almost 8% in our 26 property taxes is just uh not uh something that I am happy about. It's time for the council to say no to increases.

I would audit the city and look at uh staff pay including those at the top. I would offer uh if the city manager was willing to take a pay cut, I as mayor would as well commenserate.

the high taxes in this city hurt poor families. They um horrible for single mothers, people in transition. And it's uh devastating.

our schools all had school resource officers. I would start by adding those back into our schools and I would also add school add school resource officers versus uh taking them away.

I applaud their efforts in getting serious about uh gun control and safety including an assault weapon ban which I think is a starting point... that means taking guns away, and I'm all for it.

our children deserve to be able to go to school and not worry if they are safe. Full stop.

terrorists from Coline to today, they look for the weak targets, places that are not defended. And what I will do is uh make sure the police are well funded and able to handle any situation where any terrorist is attacking our citizens.

our priorities are to enforce the law that we have here in Minnesota and to execute any warrants we have that are valid and for somebody who has an issue. But our job is not to do immigration immigration enforcement.

I think we need to do whatever it takes to help out our fellow brothers and sisters. Um and yes uh follow the law as well. And then sometimes uh you got to do the right thing regardless of what's on the books.

On this issue, I think the city needs to stay in their lane. uh immigration, immigration enforcement unless there is crime in the city that they are in uh pursuing is not our job.

human rights are sacred. We should uh be defending our our defending our our most vulnerable and the people that are struggling.

a budget is a moral document. So what are the priorities of the city? And I personally think and I hear consistently and uh my colleague uh Mike just mentioned, we're known for the parks and having a lot of green space and that's wonderful. And how are we going to ensure that that uh stays that way?

We've also got the strictest wetland ordinance and tree protection ordinance, and those are great... One of the things that I've been talking about and I'd like to see happen is to lean on our corporate partners to have them help us with restoration projects.

make sure that unused uh commercial properties that um offices are uh used uh to to make housing... So, we we need to um increase um the supply and do everything we can to uh protect our parks and uh and nature and wilderness and turtles and birds, everything.

Minnetonka had a leash leash ordinance that our courts found to be uninforceable. So, as an attorney, that's a problem... part of that include designating areas for where dogs could be off leash and start determining where those areas could be.

I believe in personal responsibility and um if if someone's irresponsible with a dog that can't uh control itself, that that that's just that's a no owner. That's um usually the owner's fault.

Giata, Victoria, Evergreen, Purgatory, where those parks could be dog only parks and a sign could be put up as you enter. This park is a leash free park.

No, I don't think that any uh encampments should essentially ever be uh removed unless absolutely necessary... If we are truly an excellent city with all the researches that we do, we can find housing for everyone if we really want to be be a human.

We partnered with a nonprofit called His House so that we can get in front of, um, helping unhoused people before they're at a crisis point... And our priorities with the policy that we developed is to give people resources.

My number one priority is the uh people of uh this great city of Minnotonka and uh that priority means um doing everything I can to make sure there uh no encampments.

I don't know that we necessarily have a short-term rental problem yet. We have established a um rental registry where we it allows us to take inventory as to what we have in the city... It is alarming that big corporations are buying up properties, renting them on a short-term basis, which is driving the rent up uh for other units, long-term rental units.

I want to echo the concerns just shared and that uh particularly around corporations or any large entity buying up properties. um we we should consider or be open to the idea of regulating that uh discouraging that uh as proactively as possible if we're at all serious about uh things addressing things like affordable housing.

I think um I think the free market can uh handle this better than any uh government in the world.

I think that we can streamline uh some of the uh project... The city council arguing about how tall and how big a sign could be in front of the Cheesecake Factory. And that is the kind of stuff that we should not do.

If you Google Elon Musk data center uh Tennessee, there's real talk about the disperate impact to people of color where they're building mega data centers. So, this might be what I worry about is NIMI on steroids... where does it go? and maybe we take a proactive measure as a community to say it shouldn't go anywhere or let's have a pause on it.

We are so lucky in Minnetonka. We have Richell Mall, which has 1.5 average million visitors per month... We also have Cargill, Carlson, Medica, UHG. We have some wonderful companies that give to our community and are a great resource.

If we want a good business climate, we need uh low crime and we need to fund our police department. And also, if we want a good business climate, uh we should uh be making it easier for uh for businesses, for the citizens of um Minnetonka to start their own business to uh lower taxes.