I hope, you know, to embrace those different ideas and not be, uh, fearful of them.

I mean I I don't know if Minnetonka, you know, could take any role in relieving some of this pressure that the hos are feeling.

Well, it would seem like there would need to be some balance, right? I mean, there's going to be people who see some immediate need today. And I mean we need to have the foresight to say wow that that is true and so um that's that can be you know a narrow path to find that to find that balance of satisfying people today and but also just having the wisdom to say we need to keep things these things in mind down the road right.

So I it was I mean I just remember driving in the car when I was like, 'Okay, I need to really step up.' And then I see this newsletter from the city that you're looking for for someone in my neighborhood. So yeah, I mean the timing was uh quite a coincidence, but uh so I see it as a very good place for me to start.

So I facilitate those discussions and I've been uh on the planning commission since uh 2020, so six years that I've been doing that um that role. I highly value that public input, the debate, um how it's nonpartisan and we're trying to make an objective decision to our laws um ordinances um requiring sometimes as I say at the beginning of the meeting um balancing individual rights with community responsibility.

We've also had um north of the highway there's there's the Burke, there's the Veil um multifamily complex where we took down a smaller kind of aging building and are building building it up. And those are examples um that I think have been important for the city and bring value to the city. Revitalizing um aging buildings, investing in our future.

Oh, that is such a good question because the residents of the future aren't here to speak for themselves and nobody knows what that that future holds. I we do need to have foresight when we are doing development. these buildings will be here for 20, 30 years. So, it would be shortsighted to think what does this one neighbor who lives in this one single family home today like to have them as a single voice impact um the next 20 30 years when they may be a transient uh voice in that conversation. So, it's important to hear their view. Yes. And to consider that view, but it cannot be the only consideration. So, if I had to pick one or the other, uh, to your question, Council Member Calbert, I would pick the longer term.

But the the more I contemplated it over the fall and the winter, um it seems like like I have a duty to to serve.

My background as a special education teacher equips me to be on the council. Um because as a teacher um we do um much work with stakeholder collaboration uh individ individualized policy making um budgeting resources um uh negotiations collaboration stakeholder collaboration.

Well, I think we want to be careful because we have like this affordability range and then some very exclusive range of housing. And I would like to see us really think of how we might get that middle ground and attract those single home families who are moving way out of the cities now to be able to afford, you know, that dream of the little single family home. Maybe there's things we can do like partner with developers or subdivide lots or or this kind of thing to build some of these smaller starter homes.

I think we'd really want to evaluate the um we'd really want to de uh evaluate how that's being not how that's being but what it's being allocated to and make sure that we're making the right priorities. I think we probably want to prioritize some of these um this aging infrastructure and maybe some of the development um and we could partner with our state and federal partners on that as well, but I think we want to make sure that we're not pricing people out of their homes, especially not our older members of the community. And then we want to just be uh very responsible with the money we are collecting.

Well, I just appreciate the opportunity um the way this was opened up um so that um that people could uh apply and and be welcome to um into the process. Um, I um I guess I would really like to uh express my enthusiasm um but also my openness to learning. If I were to uh to jump into this position, I would realize that I'm a new member and that I would want to be very open and learning as I'm participating.