hello and welcome to the candidate forum for candidates for Forest Lake City Council I'm Mary Santi a member of League of Women Voters from outside of forest lake and I'll be your moderator League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan volunteer organization which encourages people to participate in government we support voter education and voter rights though the league studies and takes positions on issues we do not support or oppose any candidates or any political party our goal is to allow your citizens to learn about the positions of candidates who will be on the ballot November 5th all candidates who filed to run for this position were invited to participate and today we have Jeff Larson Hannah valento and Jesse Wagner uh Susan young was not able to be here but I have a statement that I'll read for her you'll be electing two members to the city council for our format candidates will have one minute to introduce themselves and this will be in alphabetical order that will be followed by questions where candidates have a minute for questions and the Order of speaking will rotate among you and I'll give you a cue when it's your turn questions were received in advance from the public and reviewed by a team of League of Women Voters members we will not use questions that are unclear hostile or of a personal nature and we have Consolidated questions that fall in the same topic area during questions candidates have one minute uh they have an opportunity for rebuttle three opportunities they each have three cards that will allow him after all the uh all the candidates have answered a question and you want to add something or rebut something hold up a card and you'll get 30 seconds extra for that you have three of those our timekeeper will show War sign of 30 and 15 seconds and then a stop and at that time you can complete your sentence and uh before you begin the uh opening statements I'll read the one I have from uh Susan young greetings thank you League of Women Voters for providing this forum I'm unable to attend the Forum as I am in Texas for the marriage of my daughter my parents and grandparents modeled Service as the duty and privilege of living in a community I have more than 30 years of volunteer in Civil Service in Forest Lake I was on the township Planning Commission and the City Planning Commission I was elected to the city council for 12 years I serve on the YMCA community board and the board of F laaa and president of the Forest Lake rotary and vice chairman of speak SPAC these and other volunteer efforts provide opportunities to learn from residents their needs and hopes for Forest Lake and provide my vision for office I will work to improve the financial stability of the city and the economic Vitality of the residents and businesses especially local businesses local businesses strongly support our community organizations and return almost $50 of every $100 spent to the community Through wages and the purchase of goods and services compared to less than $15 of a large chain I will work to improve the hard infrastructure of the city the water sewer and Street systems and the soft infrastructure of police fire and Emergency Operations my 45 years of professional engagement in public works and City operations proved to me that City operations can be efficient and effective when supported by knowledgeable council members I will work to build community among residents and businesses by modeling and encouraging volunteerism and Community Pride for example I am proud to be a member of the Forest Lake beautification group who have coordinated the downtown Planters triangle garden and the art in front of City Hall Forest Lake is my forever home and I hope to have your support to serve as your council person for more information my website is s young4 forest lake.com and my email is S Young 5236 gmail.com and so then we'll begin the opening statements with Jeff Larson who is here thank you uh my name is Jeff Larson and um I've been a resident of forest lake for about six years uh I've worked in this community throughout my uh career I'm a 34e veteran with the Washington County Sheriff's Department uh since then retiring and moving up here to my forever home with my wife Tracy of 13 years years um I worked for Home Depot and I'm part of the project Home Depot uh matter I'm currently working at O'Reilly Auto Parts I'm a a volunteer at the American Legion in town as a sons of American Legion we do lots of volunteer work uh my three points of interest are infrastructure uh Public Safety and the Health and Welfare of our lakes in the community uh my objective is to draw businesses for a higher tax base in this community I'm con conservative and Progressive and if you would uh check out my website uh Jeff Larsson for Forest Lake City Council on Facebook thank you you Hannah valento hi my name is Hannah valento I grew up in Hugo I now live in Forest Lake and I graduated from the Forest Lake uh school system I went to University of Minnesota Luth college for a major in human rights and Justice and eventually transferred to the Twin Cities and graduated after that um I went to law school graduated there and now I currently work for the maax ban VJ um a government system where they have a three branch government and I used to work in the legislative branch and now work for the executive branch I have experience at the state level City level and tribal level and I've worked for all three branches of government so from that background I love government um and I love to see how government operates currently I'm on the Forest Lake City Council and I've also volunteered within the community doing English as a second language and I am a rotarian on the board and I encourage others to join rotary as well thank you Jesse Wagner hi my name is Jesse Wagner I grew up in Forest Lake I was born here and uh lived here pretty much my whole life I've worked in Forest Lake had a couple different jobs in Forest Lake I currently work in uh uh Whitebear Township for specialy manufacturing company as a continuous Improvement technician and I've raised my son here in Forest Lake as a single dad and it's been an awesome Community to do so and I've recently taken interest in the local government and helping out the town that we live in and I'd like to see the town grow and offer more opportunities for people that live here to work here and also to try and help keep some of the uh aging population to be able to stay in their homes by having a fiscally responsible uh Forest Lake and I am I currently got a a web page on uh Facebook at Jesse Wagner for Forest Lake City Council uh thank you we'll turn to questions and the uh first one to answer the first question is Hannah Bento what skills and experience do you have that make you a qualified to be a city council member and Forest leag uh so as I mentioned my pre my experience and my background is government and I love government work again I've worked at the uh state level the city level and tribal level and I've also worked in all three branches of government um and I'll probably be in government my entire life because I just love it I find it extremely interesting to see how different governments interact with one another um and how they um how they can just collaborate and how it can be a very positive experience for everyone involved and that Ripple effects out into the community um and currently I'm on the Forest Lake City Council I'm currently serving as in my first term and so I'm running for my second term and um my other experience is just being in the community and this just being my community for I would say my entire life um I I love this community and there's so much that we can do for this community and progressing it but also um acknowledging the historical aspects of it and I'd like to continue serving the community thank Youk you Jeff Larson um I been involved in uh some city of functions here with uh I'm on the Planning Commission and also on the Economic Development Authority for the last two years I think my involvement through my employment I was a contract Deputy for several cities so I was involved in lots of local community government functions uh through them I think my commitment to community as far as being in the community uh going to arts in the park Park uh volunteer work with the American Legion uh we collect school supplies for for the kids we do uh Christmas stuff for the kids for the legion um I think you just need to be involved in the community to be part of the community um and I look forward to my maybe possibly having the position to further my progression with the city as a council member thank you thank you Jesse Wagner I believe that I've been part of this community for all my life and I believe that uh this community is progressing into the correct direction I've had a booth at arts in the park I have a small crafting business and I've been down there for a few years I also volunteer at my church and uh I've been uh helping on the uh Planning Commission for this year just started that and started kind of getting my interest in government and been watching all the old uh City Council meetings and trying to uh learn a little bit more about the great community of Forest Lake thank you all right next question Jesse you'll begin if elected what would be your top two priorities for the city and how would you move these priorities forward I guess my top two priorities would be first of all um trying to help small businesses move to This Town by uh trying to help go through some of the red tape and see what we can uh change and what we can uh make so that it's a little more business friendly for small businesses as well as larger businesses that we need and uh also I'd like to um work on trying to make the town a little more uh userfriendly downtown the downtown seems to be uh aging and it would be nice to kind of give it a revitalization and try and help get more uh people involved with arts in the park and other community activities that we have going on here thank you next Jeff lson um I think a lot of it belong our our strong point is with our community our downtown our 10e plan continue to work on our 10-year plan for downtown um our focus on uh securing more businesses in the community bringing new blood to the community um I guess whatever we can do to help draw and being in attending some of the City Council meetings seeing that our 10-year plan has been uh progressing well and we' we've drawn some good businesses here to our community and I hope we can move forward with that the other thing is our infrastructure in our town uh with our roadways uh it's a considerable topic um we're going to be doing some work with that I'd like to see that progress more hopefully I can get more involved in that and and move that down the the path for better for our community thank you thank you Hannah Valente my top I have three top priorities so I'll pick two um my top two priorities would be supporting our 10-year budget plan so some background on our 10year budget plan is being on the council for four years we didn't have a 10-year budget plan for the first two years and looking back I don't know how the city operated for so long without a budget plan in place because with a budget plan and with a 10-year budget plan you can PR proactively plan things that need to be fixed such as our Parks our roads um all of the maintenance like for example we just just started um fully funding roads last year and we just started looking at um the buildings that need to be maintained that are city-owned which is crazy that that just started to be considered um I could go on about that one so just continuing to follow that 10-year budget plan um the next one is um supporting Economic Development because as we all know downtown needs to be revitalized and in doing that I think we can bolster our Eda and just work with community members to get those business partners here thank you and the next go to the next question we begin with Jeff Larson as a city council member how would you solicit feedback from the community and engage with residents um I think uh promoting the the City Council meetings to our community uh be involved in community activities arts in the park our fourth of July uh celebration being out and available to to the community um other cultures have other functions and stuff is being available to go to some of those other functions and be a voice for them at their uh celebrations for the city and answer any questions they may have also through Facebook uh social media uh projects and things like that but uh just to make yourself available either by phone or email or uh other forms of communication but having yourself wholeheartedly available to the community so uh they feel comfortable with coming to you and asking you questions or being felt more involved in the community thank you thank you uh Jesse Wagner uh I have to agree with Jeff that we do need a little bit more um social media presence uh it's then I most people don't hear about City Council meetings when they are because a lot of people don't go to the force Lake website it would be nice to do some sort of a uh mailing at least once a year to people to allow them to know what our website is to allow them to know what our YouTube channel is and other places that it's easier to find information as well as it would be nice to set up in all kinds of different community events you know maybe even and have a booth at like homecoming games and stuff like that where the community is out and about and they can come and see you and uh taught you in person and uh having phone calls and emails available would be nice thank you thank you Hannah Bento I think pretty much what Jesse and um Jeff both said that um in order to solicit feedback I mean like government isn't and I hate using this word but government isn't sexy but um knowing and letting people know that their voices matter and what they say matters and we take it into consideration and so encouraging folks um to send us emails send us phone calls um and there are five of us up on city council so if you can't reach one I'm you you I hope you can reach at least someone else or multiple people um our city administrator should also be available for phone calls and emails and um answering those questions along with other folks um but then having that Facebook presence and being out in the community I think something that we can do is um be out in the community more at arts in the park at the um Hometown holidays at homecoming I love that idea and um just making sure that we are presence out there and that we are encouraging folks to let us know what your issues are and hopes of um helping with those issues and potentially fixing them thank you and Hannah you begin the next question some of you have touched on this topic already what do you believe the city council should do to ensure businesses Thrive so I think for businesses to thrive I think there's a lot of um aspects that are Community can do and then for our city council and what our city can do historically Forest Lake um hasn't been known as a pro business community and it makes me sad to say that and I'm hoping that we are moving in that right direction of being pro business and really working with our businesses who are here already but also encouraging other businesses to come to force like we have a great opportunity as I think we've all mentioned of our downtown and our citizens are wanting that and just Desiring that walkability that great um experience that you can have in the downtown and I think um as long as we continue to bolster our Eda and um and the Eda also works in collaboration with the for Lake chamber of commerce uh we can get there and we can have that great relationship with the businesses and I hope that if businesses have a hard time with um their experience within Forest Lake I hope they're reaching out to Eda to council members to City administrators or staff to to make that experience better you Jesse Wagner I've been uh friends with several business owners in Forest Lake over the years and a lot of them say that there's a lot of issues with dealing with the city and part of it is sign ordinances it'd be nice to allow for digital signs I've had several people tell me that they've tried to put up digital signs and they've been shot down from the city council and the from the uh City Administration as well as uh liquor stores that have sales on they used to be able to put up banners and then that was taken away from them without having to buy additional permits and I think that we need to start supporting these businesses when they're going to have sales and allow them to put signage up that's temporary without having to pay a large amount of fees and stuff and also to try and allow more Progressive digital signs the wave of the future is going to be digital signs and it would be nice to be able to have that available for our business owners thank you thank you Jeff Larson oh we've covered it pretty good our topic here so um I what my other two opponents have said already about it uh but being on the Eda board um I think we bring uh a Open Arms approach uh listening to the to the community to our business people we welcome new businesses um uh I know some of our city staff has been out soliciting to uh some groups looking to draw more businesses in the community we have a Headwaters 123 District which I know we're trying to pull some anchor uh business into that area as well but um uh working with our city with permitting and Order ordinances and Zoning to make that a little more easier process I know that's been a strong point for a lot of Builders and businesses they' struggle a little bit and hopefully we can also help push that and make that a lot easier uh for business people uh to come to our community and we open them with open arms thank you you and then uh Jeff you'll begin the next question in what ways do you see City zoning regulations and building codes getting in the way of more affordable housing aha as I kind of just touched a little bit here on the last question um I know when this before when the the township and the city were separate entities and now the township has become the city there's been uh zoning and ordinances and codes and things for the Township and also from the city uh the city has taking an approach here finally to sit down with our organization and fine-tune that to make it a a lot more U user friendly and not so redundant and things like that um I think that's probably a big topic for that but the businesses I think will uh benefit now in what we've improved with with that and I support that wholeheartedly through our action with the Eda and the Planning Commission thank you next is Hannah valento as Jeff mentions when Force like the city absorbed the township they essentially just mesh the two ordinances which creates problems um and from that they weren't really um amending the ordinances in an appropriate manner to be Progressive and keep up with the times and so now with our housing and um a shortage of housing we need to indust desperately need to look at our ordinances but that is a tall task and it takes a very long time cuz it's not only City council's Job to amend the ordinances but we also include the Planning Commission and the community within that process um and and we want to get it right um and a couple I think it was two years ago we did make an amendment because with Forest Lake we typically wanted bigger lots for houses but we knew that that was a struggle for the houses being built so we did take the time with the planning commiss um and other folks in the room to come together and to make an amendment to our zoning code and so we're getting there but we just need to keep working a little bit harder on that thank you Jesse Wagner I have to agree with both of them they uh we I'm on the Planning Commission and we have started the process which is going to be a long process of organizing the building codes making it easier to read making it easier to find information when you need it and so that the smaller builders that have never dealt with our process will be able to come into town and be able to build some of the new uh housing and make it a little more economical for people thank you okay Jesse you'll begin the next question what changes if any should be made to the current arrangements with the forest lake Lake Association I believe that the city I grew up on Clear Lake and the city uh the lakes are a great asset to everybody in the city I believe and I think we need to have the city have a little more role in making sure our uh Lakes are well known and easy accessible for everybody as well as uh to help control some of the uh Eurasian mil foil as well as some of the Zebra muscles that have been coming into our lakes and I think that uh us as a community should get together and try and protect our Lakes as they are a great asset and a great place to hang out in our warm Summers thank you Jeff lson uh I think the Water Association has been doing a phenomenal job um I've also I'm a donating member uh to their uh cause I live on the lake here in town um they've done a lot of work on it um testing they've been treating the water for phosphorus and uh as Jesse was saying uh they're paying attention to like zebra muscle issues we've got people at our boat launches checking boats that are coming in and out make sure they don't transport any uh hazardous or harmful uh species to into our Lake um we doing a lot of weed control they out and do a weed EXT EX extraction uh weed eating machine that they run around on the lake um it's it's a continual effort and I I I bolster and appreciate all the work that they've done and I'll do anything that on the council that we can do to help uh effectively add or uh dedicate our services to help them with our lakes and our community thank you you Hannah valento I didn't grow up on a lake and I don't live on a lake but I I think as motans we can all agree that um we all love our lakes and we appreciate our lakes and we want to protect our lakes and So currently being within the last four years on city council um I've really come to realize that we have a really good relationship with our Lake Associations um at least for my perspective and I hope that that's true and um if it's not I want us to get to that point um where we have that great relationship and we continue to work together to make sure that um our lakes are in great condition and we also work really well with the um with the Comfort Lake water the Comfort Lake Forest Lake Watershed district and we're always in collaboration and in trying to best maintain our lakes and get them to a really good place that we all want them to be and I think we can all share again that goal of protecting our Lakes you and Hannah valento you'll begin the next question uh Forest Lake currently operates under a 10-year Capital Improvement plan CIP what changes if any would would you want to make to that plan yes so as one of my top priorities is the 10year budget plan I think it's just again important to highlight that for the for the longest time we were operating without a 10-year budget plan so when people the people's biggest complaints were parks and Roads and so when someone would be like hey when are we going to redo this road we would I I as a council member would not be able to give them an answer because we were not proactively um planning any of that and so when we got our 10-year budget plan it was like an epiphany happened for all of us where we were like we can we can finally visually see what's happening here and so we can see the parks that need to be redone we can see the roads that need to be redone and strategically plan the years coming in the future for when those are going to get redone based on the um state that they're in currently and so we have fully funded our roads as of last year and one thing that we have left to fund is our parks and so we are slowly but surely getting there and it's just that Balancing Act of getting those amenities but then being fiscally responsible you Jesse Wagner I believe our 10-year budget plan right now is pretty robust but I'd like to also see a little more Community input in what we do with our funds that we get here you know maybe as a community we can put out a a survey to to the local populace and see what the everybody would like to do as improvements to this town and to see you know more of what everybody would be interested in and could help our community grow for families as well as for the retirees that live here and uh the general working population that lives here thank you Jeff lson um like Hannah was explaining here I think our 10-year plan is was a a phenomenal idea uh um I've been monitoring that over the last two years when I ran for Council two years ago they were working on that and adopting it I think they've been executing that uh rather well there's still plenty to do I think we still have a lot to work to do for the downtown area um and promoting businesses and housing Etc in the area here um our streets and Roads the uh they're going to be working on Northshore Trail next year that is something that's been something in the plans for quite a while but uh they're finally going to get moving on that and they're going to be redoing also Highway eight which will be a nice connect for our our community as well um affordable housing um we're working with that with grants and things like that uh we got some stuff coming through that we'll be working with with the county and hopefully we can uh adapt and draw more to the community thank you thank you and Jesse Wagner will begin the next question what would be your approach to working with the mayor and other council members who may not share your outlook on controversial issues I believe that in this town we all kind of want the same thing is to get the community to be uh more robust and friendlier place for the families and businesses and uh I believe that we can all sit down and discuss calmly and understand what each other's opinions are and work together to come up with a solution that is good not only for today but also for tomorrow's future of this town and I think that would be nice to work together and come up with good Solutions thank you anabo so I always say people never agree all the time so you never even agree with your spouse all the time and disagreements are bound to happen but I think as we'd all be adults up on city council we can do it in a mature fashion and have that conversation and I think when it comes to disagreements you always just have to remember um the other person's Viewpoint so getting to walk in their shoes a little bit and understand why it is that um um you may be disagreeing and I think you can still be respectful in that manner and as Jesse said I think we all have similar goals for the community and we all love this community and um with how politics have become so divisive lately I think it's just important to remain calm respectful and understanding of the person's um viewpoints and knowing that even though you might not disagree you we can all still get there in a positive fashion at the end of the day and even if it's a 4 to one vote and you might be that one just moving on and knowing that that might happen and that's okay thank you Jeff Larson I think it's good to have diversity uh on the council uh not everybody probably shares the same ideas and interests uh with each other but we do respect each other's uh opinions and voices and we are the voice of the community so uh hopefully we get feedback from other people and they can bring some inset to uh to what they would like and as being a member on the council then uh we should be able to share that with each other and agree to disagree but yet explain why our opinion is such uh why we believe in that it's not saying that we can't be swayed one way or another but I believe that uh we all should have an opinion and be able to work with each other in a respectful manner as like my other candidates has mentioned earlier thank you thank you and Jeff you'll begin the next question what concerns do you have if any about expansion of the Forest Lake Airport well I think the airport is uh has been a is a valuable asset here to the community I'm not I don't know too much about the airport um uh in in that function I do need to probably dig deeper into uh more of the the issues at hand with it I know they've done some extensive work out there in improving the runways and platforms and such uh there's a little bit of discussion on how some of the property uh hangers and stuff are being used I guess uh that probably needs to be looked into a little bit more and defined as far as uh it's its uses and such but um I don't I don't really have a deep dig into the airport at this time but I'm I will be looking into it further thank you Han valento so the airport with the airport expansion is coming and the airport commission works with an engineer from Boland mink um to create those plans and so they plan out years in advance the expansions that are coming and um and with that with the expansions as well the um the city Only funds 5% of it and um mot in the state funds 95% of it so it's usually it's a really good deal for the city and um I think the one issue that we have with the airport and going forward is um is policy and like the leases that we have at the airport are quite Antiquated and some of them are are different and varying so ensuring that moving forward where there are leases and there are new hangers that all the leases um have updated language and are all uniform along with um creating and drafting a new policy that is all encompassing for if there's issues within the airport let's look to the policy and let's have a strong policy to help us through the airport thank you Jesse Wagner I have to agree with Hannah on that that the uh airport is a great asset and it seems to be quite well I know several Pilots that have used the airport that don't live in our community that have flown into to you uh use our community and be around in here as well as I know a couple Pilots that how their planes there and I believe that uh like she had mentioned that there the policies are a little kind of different for different people and that we need to get it all straightened out and have something clear-cut that what you can and can't do there as well as have a little more uh Direction on so people know what the leases are thank you and the next question I'll go first to you Jesse Wagner with continued development in the city how will you work to ensure there are adequate resources available to maintain existing infrastructure I believe that our 10-year plan will continue to grow and uh change as we get more uh people in the uh Community as as well as businesses and we can continue to look into expanding our resources uh one that just came up recently is they're redoing Highway 8 and at which time we looked into the idea of possibly uh putting the water M and the sewer underneath highway to serve the um business uh development that's across the uh Highway eight there and I believe that uh if we continue to look for opportunities to save money and stuff like that as well as expand our infrastructure and uh keep it fully funed as our roads and such I think we will be able to keep up with the growth of Forest Lake thank you Jeff Larson I think we've done a a good job uh with kind of pre-planning with our population growth our business growth and and such in the community uh again the 10-year plan has been beneficial to that I know of the council current Council and city employees have uh worked their budgets quite heavily uh they plan for uh things like this like the fire department increasing staff uh increasing equipment the same with the police department they look at hiring new people making improvements uh to their agency with software uh police cars staff retention of our police officers that we currently have um I think is a is is the strongest point I think we've done a good job with that and I hope we continue to do so and uh I look forward to hopefully building on improving that thank you Hanna valento as Jesse and Jeff both mentioned already I think it comes down to the 10-year budget plan um and I think we've already seen that happen right now because with that 10year budget plan we can look at the population and really get an idea of where the population has been and where it's going and with that where um how many like police officers we have I know it was I think we were planning for the 2024 budget and or maybe it actually might have been the 2023 budget and we were looking at hiring more police officers because where we were with the amount of police officers that we had was actually in line with how many police officers we had like 10 years prior so the amount of population that we had to the amount of police officers we currently had were not aligning and so making sure we're looking at those those projections through the 10e plan so that we can proactively plan and ensure that those resources will be evenly spread throughout the Community um as it grows and as it develops you and you've all answered that one the next question I'll go first to Jeff Larson uh the city has had an interim City administrator for eight months what when that position is filled how would you define success for that individual at the end of their first year well I hope uh whom we choose uh we do with uh with open eyes and we do thorough background uh work with to obtain our our our candidate for a city administrator hopefully our candidate is uh comes in and has a good working uh relationship with all our departments uh within the city hall as well as our uh city council our Planning Commission our Eda and is out and about in the community to spend time I think you need to be involved in our community to be uh more involved and recognized uh an open an open communication I guess with the the city administrator uh make themselves available for us uh I think it'll be a value part I know we're we're struggling a little bit right now with our our city Administration and we're trying to get a candidate but we're doing I think the best we can with a the uh company that we're using for for qualifications thank you thank you Jesse Wagner I believe the city administrator definitely has to be involved with all aspects of the community and be out and about especially at community events they're kind of the front of the community and it would be nice to if we could all work together with the administ rator and have clear direction as all the Departments seem to uh rely on a good Administration to point us in the correct Direction Where We would like the city to go and I believe that if the um administrator does a really good job we should easily be able to move this community forward and have more uh cohesiveness between all departments as well as the uh volunteers and uh staff thank you Hanna balent I think if we can hire a city administrator and within the first year of that hire success would be um internal organization within the city staff um currently City staff has has struggled with the last City administrator and there has been struggles with the interm city administrator and so I think getting that morale and boosting that morale within our internal organization and making sure that we hire the appropriate staff that we need because they're open positions and so moving that internal organization just in a positive direction and encouraging staff as well so it's a place that they want to stay and a place that we can retain our workers the other one is community community involvement um our previous City administrator was not involved in our community at all and I and our community community members saw that and recognized that and it was one of the biggest um um red flags that we saw and so just getting someone out there and being a face for our internal um for for the city I could keep going but I'll stop thank you this next question you'll be the first what steps will you take to ensure transparency and accountability in city government and this is the last questions okay so transparency in city government I think I think this city does a good job with that already and I might be biased cuz I'm already on city council and I've worked in governments um at different capacities but we live stream we have open Communications whether it's uh email phone calls or in person um and again whether that is someone on a border commission city council or staff one place I think we are um we can go in a positive direction for transparency is similar to the last question our city administrator and that was what I wanted to touch on in my last answer was that if we get a success will look like for a city administrator after the first Year's communication and because of pre our previous City administrator communication was also lacking and so if we get a strong City administrator who wants to interact with our community I think they will help um Propel our transparency because they'll be a person who people can rely on and the city administrator might not always be able to give them an uh the answer they're looking for but they'll be able to give our community members an answer thank you Jeff Larson I think continuing to support the offerings of Open City fors and city meetings with cable access viewing and and uh recordings uh updates to our local uh newspaper and City websites are also great uh steps towards transparency and accountability uh being available via email uh phone call text um or just coming to a council meeting and and have a forum there uh for the community is also uh Clarity and input um I'd also support uh attending uh neighborhood meetings and as a representative also would create accountability in our community thank you you Jesse Wagner uh I have to agree with both Hannah and Jeff that we currently have a lot of uh ways people people can uh view the meeting minutes and uh the the live streams and the uh meetings that take place here the one thing that I would like to try and improve is when people do come to the meetings and ask their questions is have a way for them to get feedback on their questions uh so they know that they're being heard and rather than just I asked a question and it just disappears and you have to wait a year to hear back about it um I'd like to have some way of communicating back to the public that we can we heard your question and we're working on it and where we're at with it and uh other than that I guess a little more advertising of when the meetings are and uh how to access information thank you you and so now we'll turn to your closing statements you'll each have a minute to summarize your quality ifications and positions and it'll go in reverse of the opening so Jesse Wagner you begin uh I guess in closing I I am uh looking to forward if I'm U uh elected to work with this Administration and move the city forward into a positive growth as well as to help our community uh have more uh uh open communication with the public and advertising and uh a little more uh Community involvement would be nice and uh that's what my goal is for the uh working on the city council thanks Hannah valento in closing my name is Hannah Valenta I'm running for re-election for the Forest Lake City Council my top priorities are to continue following our 10-year budget plan to support our Economic Development and to support and get to a positive place for our internal organization um I believe I'll bring a unique voice to the city council and continue to bring a unique voice as a younger female um and someone whose background is in government work and will probably forever be in government work because I love it and um and so I hope you will vote for me and for more information about me my website is Hannah valant.com I also have a Facebook page and feel free to reach out thank you Jeff Larson thank you uh I'd like to thank the uh cable commission for recording our uh Forum today and I also like to thank the League of Women Voters for uh putting on this event today and our candidates for being involved in in our Forum here as well um I think this the event of with coming here to the city and being involved uh in the government form already of with the Planning Commission and the Eda uh being involved in the community uh through our arts in the park and uh just being with American Legion and my volunteerism in the community and stuff like that I I greatly enjoy it um I have a service for others uh attitude I think I have a strong voice and uh a open ear for our community and I hope we can bring this town back up around and get it back in shape uh I have a Facebook page uh Jeff Larson for Forest Lake City Council and if you have any questions uh please send me a message and I look forward to more meet and greet with our community thank you very much thank you and that concludes our forum for Forest Lake Council and I uh also want to thank the the other League of Women Voters volunteers the candidates for putting yourself forward for the community and the cable company for airing it for our website lwv w.org has listings for all our candidate forums and links where you can submit questions for them you can R viw the recording for this and all the other Forums on our YouTube channel League of Women Voters Whitebear Lake area and you can also look for it on the cable's uh channels YouTube to so thank you and make sure to vote early voting has already commenced and it will be open until November 4th the election is the next day November 5th be sure to vote thank you everyone thank you thank you [Music]