I would say public safety and collaborating with our neighboring public safety agencies would be my top priority.

if I were to try to limit it to one, I would say long-term planning because I know we're going to hear a lot about water, water, water, whether it's our lake or our drinking water.

something unique that I can bring to the table, um, that I would love to bring to the city is the value of connecting residents to the city. It's not separate.

I've been very passionate about clean water ever since going up to the Boundary Waters when I was a kid, coming out here and enjoying the lake. You know, I I I just believe that when we're talking about, uh, clean water, we have to get some more money from the state.

I live in a mixeduse district and so I'm kind of partial to what I'm seeing there, which is we want a place where we can live. We want a place we can walk to shop and we have connections through our bike trail and county roads that need to be kind of built up.

I think residents are hungry not for more housing, but I think they're hungry to use that business space that we have and make it actual business space that we can walk to and um use to satisfy our daily needs and not have to leave the city in order to do all of our shopping.

I started talking to some folks u about building a new uh entertainment center right here in mound

I think each individual project needs to be evaluated on its own individually to see that what the benefit is to the community, but I certainly 100% believe we can do better in developing and making our city a better place.

the reality is there is not a lot of more space to be developed for housing in the city. Um, the city as a whole, the properties they own are 2 acres or less.

We do have some affordable housing that's happening right now. Um I I think you know there are some vacancies here again uh trying to find good homes for good people that are trying to move out of the city and move out here to a safe community.

I know one of the biggest problems that we had in retaining firefighters was they could not afford a nice home in Mound.

rather than looking at each individual property and getting into the details about maybe what type of shingles we want to allow as a city or what color paint we want to clarify matches our color, thinking more big term, long term about the districts that we're trying to increase and bring people in.

I think people respond really quick. uh my neighbors uh have have had issues in the past uh health issues and they respond very quick. So supporting that but also having a hotline to to actually you know reach out to folks if they need it

I think our public safety services are excellent out here. We can always and we continue to improve that make it better. Um the costs of public safety are going up uh dramatically

I kind of echo what uh Greg has said is that we just continue offering our support and making sure that those institutions continue to be able to serve our residents.

something that I do think the city could impact that I think people are bringing more attention to, especially with all the construction are street crossings.

flock cameras um definitely have been in the news and my knee-jerk reaction is not a fan. With that said, I don't have the visibility. We have that would be something as city council to collaborate with the Orino Police Department on.

I concur. I I do not think they're necessary and uh do not agree with them.

I trust the Orno police department to use these devices and they have been proven to um help with either crime or different police issues, but I don't trust people outside of this community and I don't trust people from around the United States who might have access to that database

I don't think we need people running up and throwing stones at these um cameras. Uh I I would not agree that we should have them here. I do think that it breaks the uh kind of the uh privacy issues that we have for this small town

part of my oversight that I'd like to bring is to say, what are we doing? Have a comprehensive review of that and make sure we are moving with the times.

the water is being filtered uh prior to going out to the homes. So not everybody can afford these filtration systems. Uh given the fact that we've got uh you know the manganesees levels at a point this level where 10 years of drinking this or taking showers in it uh provides uh possible permanent brain damage. Well, I've lived here six years so I'm looking at four years more of potentially uh having that in effect.

a larger point instead of being concerned about a cyber security attack on our drinking water system is what's more important is that we have water that's actually drinkable. So, what to be concerned about more in our town would more likely be actually building that water treatment plant with no further delays.

I think it's the city council and the mayor's job to make sure that we are addressing the issue and uh doing the best we can with implementing changes.

I know that the fire department long-term strategic plan and financial planning was the best in the city. And I think that through conservative spending, uh, donations, grants, uh, the fire department never went with what they didn't need because we got we approached finances differently and we bought things at the right time.

our interest that was acred from some of our investments was being incorrectly displayed as around $20,000 when I think in actuality it was around $200,000. So, I think some of that uh oversight is really important because as we start to look at how we spend that money and finances and budgets were a huge huge point of contention

by bringing more people into this community uh by making it more prosperous with uh with businesses that are being serviced here in our community, we're going to bring in more revenue and with those taxes, they go directly to our community.

over 90% of the city's revenue comes from property taxes. It's a tough economic time for a lot of people and it's hard to balance the budget on the backs of the people and we can't just keep getting asked to pay more and more. It's just not there at a certain point.

I would go directly back to the uh the state and try to get this money. We do have house representatives. I'm connected with them and I would like to ask the government for more money to help us take care of this water system and I would try to demand it.

Unfortunately, I do think this is going to be the responsibility of citizens at this point. However, in my family, I'm a stay-at-home mom. We have a one-inccome household. We can't h take a really big annual hit either.

I think in the end the residents are going to end up, you know, paying a search charge. That's probably what's going to end up happening. And um as far as the schools and the churches and I think the people that live here are going to have to step up and pay for it.

I agree with the city council currently, which is that we raised the money through utility fees and increasing water uh fees. Do I enjoy saying that? No. But as I've been door knockocking through the community, I think that's the fairest, most equitable way because we're charging by kilowatt and water ounce versus do you own a house or not?

What has been troubling me is over the past I would say two years, city council has been taking back a lot of power from the city commissions. The city commissions are full of volunteers who use their expertise and knowledge on behalf of the city and it's been really a shame to see power consolidation happening up at the city council level and not being shared with the residents.

we opened it up to public input. We changed our process so that before we got, you know, playgrounds, before we got plans, we wanted to hear what the neighbors, what the nearby businesses, what those people using that park wanted.

by having more like um uh community activities where we can we can kind of get together, get to know each other more. That's what I kind of missed when I came here is a disconnection to each other. So having something like a mountain city night out um having having our annual uh you know picnics or something having having something more to tie each other in

one of the complaints or issues is not using our commissions enough. And as uh others have said, the there's a lot of talented people here that could be in our commissions are probably more uh knowledgeable about particular topics than the council members. We need to use the commissions. We need to get the community engaged. We need to get their input.

the there are limits on, you know, with this the international state building codes and the Minnesota or the Minnesota State Fire Code or building codes and um they're pretty strict. There are very few um opportunities for a fire chief or fire marshal or or a building official to uh to allow a builder to get around those codes because they're there for a good reason and they're generally built because there's been a major problem.

I'd like to buy your house, and what we can do is put like a forplex on the corner there. How's that sound to you?' I said, 'Well, I don't think that's going to fly with the city.' So, we actually have people that are coming into our city right now as we speak trying to develop these small little rental properties and uh I will be trying to deflect some of those.

I think this is another opportunity to reiterate um instead of doing one-off solutions, doing more more proactive planning and policy based decisions. And so while it's easy to say um okay, developers coming in, they want to change this corner, can we just get a little variance? Can we just do a little thing different? I think we run into a problem as a city when we say, you know, let's do this for this street, but let's also do this on the other side of town.

I do think points out kind of that we need strength in all of our areas. Our city staff is very strong right now. Um, [clears throat] hopefully you're going to vote us in for a very strong city council and but we need that third piece which is also a strong planning commission. City council does not make these decisions in a vacuum and honestly it's not up to an individual city council member nor should it be. No, no one person should have that power even if it's the mayor.

I know my neighbor has actually asked for that and she was turned down. Uh, so but I do know uh that uh I think Eddie's um Ottawa has a whole bunch of chickens running around his lot. So I I'm not exactly sure what is or isn't allowed. I I do know that uh you know if you can if you can have a small amount of maybe chickens and have some eggs and uh you know I'd be up for it but on an individual basis and make sure that there's you know noise ordinances and cleanliness ordinances are are taken care of as well.

I have a sign that I had in my office and it said, 'What if?' And people would come in and they'd say, 'What does that mean?' And what that means is, you know, 'What if everybody did it?' You know, and if it's good for one, then it's good for the other. And I just don't think that I just don't think our community is uh one that has wants to have chickens in everybody's backyard. I I really don't. And so I say no.

I was out dropping off a campaign sign and I had a bunch of little boys come up to me and said, 'Why is it fair that just across the road at Minatrista we can have chickens, but I can't have chickens over here?' So I I feel for his plight first of all, but I think this is another time for me to go back to my, you know, larger policy versus individual decision-making type theme, which is if we do if we grant someone a chicken, everyone could get a chicken.

chickens is a tough topic here. I'm not going to take a position one way or the other. Uh, that's another one. I just don't have enough information without actually being on city council and hearing all the information. But what I do want to point out is it does bring up issues with our current code enforcement because I do think that's an issue that a lot of people have expressed a lot of big feelings about.

what they can do is again create this bigger vision for the city. Okay, we don't want to be Weisetta. Agreed. I didn't move to Weisetta. What do we want to be though? What kinds of businesses do we want here?

One of the one of my I guess pet peeves is the fact that we have so many vacant spaces currently that we're not using. And can is there a way for the city, the city of Mound or the council or us as a city to encourage uh other businesses to come into town and and take up these vacant spaces

I think there's a lot we can do in terms of perception. I think um we've all heard kind of some of the negative things people say about mound. Um I've had before I moved here and it had been about like six or seven years I never heard any of that stuff and then I feel like some of our leaders or some of our uh people in front of the camera sometimes repeat those things about mount that are not not true. And so I think as a as a council, what can we do to change the perception? Well, we can be more welcome to businesses.

I've gone into individual ones in this community and tried to start something and it was just it was very expensive to start something here. So, fostering the ability to start the businesses here, give them the little head start somehow financing that

I think can be difficult when we disagree about things to to remember we're all here for one reason is that we care about the city and we care about mound. So, one of the lines that I've used when I've come into disagreements with either council members or commissioner commissioners, there's been times Joanna and I haven't agreed is we're on the same team.

if I were to disagree with anybody I'd have a nice little sitdown conversation and listen. I may be hard of hearing but I'm a great listener. So, I would encourage folks to to come to me individually, ask questions, and I'd uh maybe have a little neighborhood um town hall and I mentioned that before.

I think what's important to to vote for is people operating who are going to operate in good faith. Um, and that's one thing that I've really appreciated with working with the parks commission is everyone there has great intentions. And we might disagree on a policy point, but I know that they're coming from a good place.

Strong communication skills. Uh, which means listening. Uh, over the years I've worked with six different cities and city council members. We often have differences of opinions, work with 40 firefighters. They're all type A personalities and they all have their opinion. And I think you know in the end collaboration, communication, listening, uh most reasonable people will uh it'll all work out.

if the if the parks are if we're not going to maintain the parks and keep the parks like we are and people are talking about selling them or whatever they're doing with them, my first question would be what are you going to do with the money? You know, um because once you sell a park or or or anything like that, you you're not going to get it back.

I've also spearheaded a couple efforts to look into policy for our parks and open spaces commission. So, when we are redoing a park and we're adding a playground or something else, something I'd like to propose is we consider whether it's tree coverage or uh water runoff remediation where we have those really lowline areas where kids can't play anyways where we where can we add not only benefits to our lake and the water that's going to run in there, but then also add an amenity.

making sure that they're absolutely the cleanest that they can be so that families can go and enjoy, uh, those areas and and we've got three pretty nice beaches. Um, it's just we can do a little bit better with that. So, I would I would recommend making those clean and uh, you know, u uh, just more attractive to families.

in our parks right now, what I think we need the most is Lost Lake Commons Park needs to be built out to completion. It's been only one out of three phases. Um, city council has paused any further development despite approving the plans in 2022. Um, and honestly, it's for more personal reasons. Um, so I really would like to see that finished so we as residents can fully enjoy that park.

I I think you didn't really ask too much about maybe um how we come together as a community. And I I've I've put things in uh you know sparingly throughout this session. But uh truly I think connecting the churches. We have a we have a quite a community of churches here. So um how do we how do we help the seniors stay in their homes? How do we have that hotline uh that we can uh you know help out seniors stay in their homes?

what's kind of wild is the city of Mound does not actually sponsor any of its own events. Spirit of the Lakes is run by the Spirit of the Lakes Committee. Even music in the park is actually run by community ed. It's just hosted in one of our parks. So, the city itself does not actually program anything. And I think that's a real missed opportunity. That could be a way to really support our businesses.

what should the residents want as a mayor and a city council? You know, what would be the ideal council and mayor? And I think that the answer to that is kind of become somewhat clear tonight. You have different skills with the different candidates that each bring to the council. And I think that's really really important.

we have a huge opportunity to show up at their office either as a council person, I'll be lobbying or working with our city staff to say, 'Hey, we want our bike trails in there and you guys are going to pay for it because it's in our plan and it's also in the Henipin County bike plan.' And when we do other stuff, other projects like that, the three rivers, I know the Spurs brought up to um different park connection. That's another kind of policy thing I'm looking at is how can we make an actual loop to make our parks a system, not just 38 neighborhood parks

The best thing about living in Mound is the people obviously. Um there are so many wonderful people here. There are so many people who have been welcoming and kind to my children, to myself, to my family. Um, it's been a true joy to be here and to establish our our lives here

People, parks, and community. I mean, it's it's going to, I'm sure, be a repeated answer up here, but I I got up on this stage and this podium because of the parks, but what I meant met the most at the parks was people. And so, when I'm out there with my son, that's one of my favorite things to do is within our 38 parks, I've had more conversations.

I dreamed of uh being on a lake uh when I was younger and uh have always loved the water. So, I absolutely love that we are a water and a rural community that is safe. Um I I can't value that enough.

The best thing about Mound is the fire department. [laughter] won't disagree with that. I have met so many people in this in this community. I mean, I know I know a lot of folks, great people. I think one of the really nice things and unique things about Mount is it's far enough out of the city where it's safe and and you know your neighbors and and uh it's it's a little it's a little bit rural, but you can also access. I was at Target Field yesterday or day before. I mean there there's so many things that you can reach and and do living here in a safe community and uh it's just great.