good evening and welcome to this league of women voter for candidates in the november election for same for ramsey county commissioners and badness heist consol and mayor those are the two groups that we're going to be meeting with today the four going to start with ramsey county commissioners and that will run from seven till eight o'clock and as i have mentioned we are going to be having primarily question an answer from the audience here women voters is a volunteer a nonpartisan organization which does not support or oppose political parties or candidates we are really interested in the issues and we expect that's probably why you are all here today to if you're more interested in finding out more about the legal limbo toure's we've got a web site so you can go out to bat and you'll learn a little bit more about what's going on there so questions will be collected from the audience and as i mentioned we will be having most of this will be focused on the questions that come from all of the audience we have a candidates up here and first let's see which order you are  decide who was going to go first and by the luck of the draw they're in the right order so that you know when you watch people singing they're just swallowing the mike i guess that's what you have to do here with that to sit down i know i could sit down but i don't want to sit down i'm too short so ok let's let's start with the are right up here we will be timing you well you may finish your sentence when you're in mid sentence that's perfectly legitimate so let's start with you mister thank you first of all let me check i can hear my mike is all right thank you first of all thanks to the league of women voters for holding these forms you know at this level in in today's age of presidential and senate and other media savvy races it's great to have a forum to talk about city and county type elections so i'm running in the phrase and the theme of my campaign is govern smarter and when i talk about government smarter it's simple it's talking about how do we do better with what we have it's not tearing the existing government structures down but it's doing better  today's society and when i think of governing smarter i really think of two different areas that we can grab onto and really kind of make my point of governing smarter i'm a sixteen year city councilman unsure of you and your views been blessed with a lot of good things in terms of  nonpartizan compare that with the federal government in the state government that's just one example and we'll talk more i'm sure throughout the night about other areas of governing smarter but look forward to the conversation tonight thanks mr maybe thank you my name is frank maybelline i'm here to ask for your vote in november for ramsey county commissioner in district one i'm an attorney been practicing in ramsey county for thirty some years prior to  going to law school i was a physicist for nasa at the man's face craft center in houston texas i've been active in my community here in in ramsey county i guess i've only been in this district for thirty eight years but been in ramsey county for seven for forty years and i have done a couple of things i was the chair ramsey county charter commission at the time that up but not lower i'm a charter member and president of the past president of the local rotary club that helps with student scholarships and other charitable things locally and internationally i hope that i will be able to be a contributing member of the council and i imagine that stops going to come up really soon for sixteen years or longer and during that time property taxes have increased eighty percent and their salaries have been doubled this out of control spending has been possible because most of the board members have similar political  idiology s we need some board members who will offer some opposition to the group think that ramsey county board has exhibited for so many years my highest priority would be to fight rising property taxes taxes on behalf of mostly middle class citizens of ramsey county a no could county has been able to do this successfully they've reduced their property tax level for two years in a row now and i believe ramsey county can accomplish the same i would lead by example working to repeal the sixteen thousand dollars pay raise the commissioners voted themselves in two thousand and seven i have a strong desire to serve and give something back to the community that i've lived in in my my entire life but i would not run for a fourth term under any circumstance i intend to serve and return to my private life to spend sixteen or more years in a local level office is not how our system was designed we were meant to be governed by citizens and i believe holding local public office should be a public service not a career please consider a vote for a new direction a brighter future for ramsey county citizens thank you reinhart thank you good evening and again thank you to the league of women voters i have a little bit of a cold here so i want to do my best to project think goodness for microphone's i am proud to be your county commissioner for the last sixteen years and i have really looked at the county commissioner job i mean we don't run on a partisan ballot nor do we run the county on a partisan way we really look at i look at collaboration it's ideas over ideology and that's how you get the job done you bring people together not trying to divide them and tear them apart i believe also that the sound fiscal management that we have that i have brought forward as chair of the budget committee  has been recognized and is a good solid way to move forward the fiscal management we have for the twelfth year in a role we have received the aaa bond rating that is better than the state government better than the federal government doesn't make headlines but it saves taxpayers money we are also the only county that has a aaa bond rating and the top three government finance officers awards for fiscal management it has drawn us wonderful accolades for the county but it has also gotten personal accolades for me from over four hundred county commissioners last year i received the twenty eleven association of minnesota counties express the president's award i have also been endorsed by the same paul area chamber of commerce back in numerous labor unions showing that i can reach across all parties and bring people together i would like to continue using my experience education and problem solving skills for you as your county commissioner thank you well thank you all for very much for your opening comments  and leaping right into a controversy we're going to start off with property tax property owners of ramsey county have been experiencing property tax increases every year for the past five years what is your position on this issue and we will start with you mr donnegan i'm a real estate appraiser by trade so i deal with this issues day in and day out how long we have to talk  minute and i hear it out the door knocking doors constantly my values falling and my property tax continues to rise and people are to be quite blunt about it a little b willard hall that keeps two continues on as i stated in my opening remarks that's one of my main reasons for being involved is is my work makes me very aware of property taxes and i don't believe that property taxes are they have nothing to do with your ability to pay him you can buy a house property taxes can go up and up and up to the point where you can afford to own that house but just in general i think the property taxes the county board needs to stop raising its budget and stop raising property taxes ok these are we're going to go in sort of  years we focused on priorities and sure if you we have four priorities and we're simple we keep we focus on public safety partnering with schools protecting our parks and trails and open spaces and keeping our taxes as low as possible and this priority system that we've had has led to great results we have the fifth lowest taxes of our peer cities we have the fourth lowest spending per capita of our peer cities and like the county sure because one of the few cities in minnesota one of twenty four cities to have a aaa credit rating and really one of the only cities in the country to get that triple credit aaa credit rating during this recession so we set our priorities and we focused on property taxes and that's the phone type of focus the priorities that we need to set at the county level as well  thank you well ramsey county is really unique in the state we're the only county that is considered fully developed so when you talk about geography making a difference it really makes a difference here we do not have an expanding tax capacity we have the state capital and nonprofits tend to cluster around state capitals that's all tax exempt property in st paul it's about a third of this tax exempt and st paul is half of ramsey county i think that one of the things to look at is the spending the fact of the matter is in the counties surrounding us their spending has gone up ours was cut by fifteen point eight million dollars in two thousand and twelve and because of the expanding tax capacity of these other counties there levee can potentially go down we dropped from thirty eighth in the state to forty second in the state which i am very pleased with and again the aaa bond rating the three g four way awards are all about excellent fiscal management and i continue i will continue to do that as if i am reelected thank you and mr maybe all right me next yes i you know we had forty years ago the minnesota miracle time magazine with the governor on the front with the fish of course i'm hoping my picture is never taken with a fish but anyway the minnesota miracle where we decided that we were going to take that burdens off of state off of local governments and school districts and put that on the the state the income tax a tax it's more fair then than the property tax well that's been eroded with the passage of time and people at the state legislature level want to reduce taxes and reduce expenses and when they crank down on the faucet of the  to counties and to cities they suffer actually the budget for ramsey county for year two thousand and twelve in two thousand and thirteen is lower than it was in two thousand  thank you we're going to turn to a different topic now parks and we will start with you mister parks one of our yes one of my favorite issues of libraries let me just give you the question here how will you protect ramsey county's parks trails and natural areas from being taken over by private interests very good question again parks and libraries are really some of my favorite things as far as the environmental side of this we really need to invest in trails when you talk about a multimedia transportation system we will probably get to that trails are part of that and recreational trails there are people that commute by bicycle or by walking every day using the gateway trail and other trails and i am working very hard also at getting the trail extended into white bear lake i think that as far as the services that we provide the public sector we provide parks and recreation at a reasonable cost anything that goes into our parks and our golf courses  ice arena is all goes right back into parks so that we can make sure that we maintain that environmental standard and the ease and convenience of using those parks and trails and mr mabel what would you like to say about  the quantity of its parts reduced it can change that is if somebody wants to take a particular piece of property and sell it or transferred into some other use we can do that as long as we trade it for equal value equal size park elsewhere and i'm very proud of the fact that i did that and i think ramsey county the quality of life that we enjoy in this county is enhance substantially by the parks and trails that we've had and those of us who have lived here for a while really appreciate the fact that they have been improved so much i just wish that they would like this when my kids were growing up  and mr hoffman is next thank you i've lived in ramsey county my entire life and i don't think i've ever lived more than a mile from a park whether it's a county park city park school playground except the parks are an integral part of our life and we know that i talked about short fuse priorities and parks and trails are certainly one of them when you talk about the ramsey county set of priorities certainly along with public safety and health and human services is protecting and maintaining the infrastructure which parks play a huge part of ensure view we want to wards because we're we've built trails from one end of the city to the other and we've we've focused on not just maintaining our parks but also trying to understand what is the park for the future look like you know parks are used differently now than they were before tennis courts are often becoming a pickle ball and soccer indoor soccer type things so we need to parks are important clearly trails are important we just need to make sure that we put the focus on them and make them as user friendly and as sensitive to a future needs as possible and mr donnegan i'm not aware of any concerted effort to convert public parks and trails to private use at this time i would you know i like parks and public use spaces and we should protect the park system and the trail system and those kinds of things that we have but we're in a different time right now and in tough economic times when people are struggling and people are unemployed and we need to change our thinking it's not time to grow things like that and find ways to spend more money on things like that it's time to protect them take good care of them and make sure that they're accessible and well cared for but it's not time to go looking for additional funds to spend on that kind of thing at this point in time proactive and not passive in general and i don't think it needs to be limited to this question but on the awkward for question there are two issues i guess one is getting water into the aqua for and the other is getting the causing you know significantly contributing the white bear lakes problem but also the problem of putting water in in the spaces that we have within our community for holding the rainwater not let it run off into the storm sewers or or into the rivers too so they can in soak into the soil is one of the things that we need to continue to use ok and mr  duncan having grown up in white girl lake and i thought i live in white bear lake one day as a kid i never got there but this is a an issue that's near and dear to anybody that lives in white bear lake there's a  lot of talk about different solutions to the issue of why white bear lake is low and in trouble couple of things they're talking about pumping water from bald eagle and filtering it like a pool system and then taking that water and instead of pumping it back into bald eagle lake pumping it into white bear lake having been filtered and wait there lake loses water to bald eagle every year anyway so that's one thing under consideration the other idea i've heard is to actually drill wells down past the first awkward to the lower one on an experimental basis and pump water up the thinking being that the water filters back down into the awkward for when we lose it anyway and these things are there and there's other ideas but things are being considered to help that issue and what would you like to say ms reinhart well i have been very active on this issue i am part of the small working group that has tried to put to gather some ideas on what can be done i'm also a member of the governor's clean water council and this isn't just a white bear lake issue this is a regional issue and a statewide issue but specifically to white bear lake we have now we're going to be working with the way a conservation district to try to get more people involved in this process but one of the things that is so critically important is conservation the other thing is balancing of the wells because it's all aqua firs are not created equal they are layered and there's like three or four different ones and depending on which aquifer you're well is drying from makes a difference on the lake level so balancing those aqua first the other thing with many other options are being looked at with the bald eagle lake option it's actually not pulling water out of bald eagle what it is is the excess run run off so it's not water pulling out but water that would have gone not into the lake filtering it and putting it back into white bear lake so it is not taking water out of bald eagle lake and i think that's important to note and mr hoffman thank you you know much of government is discipline discipline planning so in my sixteen years and sure of you city council we've had similar issues to what white bears are experiencing currently our turtle lake in the center of a shore view is that levels bear lake terribly low we've been actively working with this issue for the last several years working actively with both the watersheds as well as the homeowner associations on the lake and we're looking at things from pumping in water from a  the mississippi we're we're looking at all different avenues and in the message i guess the that i would deliver tonight is is there's nothing new here it's we need and we understand the issue and we just need to make some decisions sure who has been planning the last ten years for the day when the water is going to become polluted to a degree that we want to have a shelter before it gets to our citizens homes we're working on that right now plans to build up that filtration system  so it's not going to be a surprise to our citizens and that's the type of planning the government needs to have the forward looking we're going to switch to something a little bit different right now where do you stand on the voter i amendment and why that's quick and let's see if we can do this in a minute we'll start with you i am opposed to the voter id amendment and i will tell you why first of all i don't think using your constitution to pass laws is a good idea but generally with the voter id it's about restricting voter rights but most importantly to ramsey county and we're going to be taking a position on this tomorrow is that it's an unfunded mandate it will cost ramsey county taxpayers not for getting the i d s and so forth that to the individual but to ramsey county taxpayers approximately one point two five million dollars that is the cost for the purchasing and deploying of electronic poll books which is what you use to verify it will disenfranchise students seniors and armed forces that are overseas i know they say that they'll take care of that but it's a constitutional amendment it seems like they should have had that figured out before and instituting the provisional ballot system will also cost taxpayers because we have to have people that are there getting those return documents and and dealing with that finally it's a not that the reasons are not demonstrated felons and illegal immigrants can get driver's licenses it is an unfunded mandate i oppose that and why do you think mr mabel and i vigorously oppose it as an attorney you know mucking around with your constitution i think is something ought to be avoided avoided unless it's really necessary and then if it's really necessary that that's the only way you can do it and if that you meet both of those tests you should only do it in the narrowest possible and clearest possible language in this amendment fails on all of those tests in addition to what victoria indicated there is inadequate need additionally i think we have a society we have a presumption of innocence here we  we want we would rather have an it guilty person go free than an innocent person locked up i think we ought to have the same thing with respect to voting where democratic society we ought to err on the side of letting somebody vote that shouldn't rather than denying somebody the right to vote who should be able to vote and mr hoffman thank you let me first respond to this question by my opponent tonight said and perhaps accurately that we should only have amendments in the narrowest of circumstances but earlier we already heard talk about passing a charter meant which is ramsey county's constitution on not losing parkland that's a valid valid law but it certainly could have done done through a lot not through an amendment to the constitution that being said i've run for office sixteen years in a row or over sixteen years and i've knocked on thousands and thousands of doors and i've had questions ranging from my position on tort reform to foreign policy when should we bring the troops home from the middle east to state issues whom i voting for for president to you know what your position on roe v wade except those are great questions and i'm not diminishing those questions at all but they have nothing to do with ramsey county what we have to here in ramsey county we are largely an administrative body and we need to make sure that we're doing things as efficiently as we can and i'm not looking to too to weigh in on other issues that are really outside of our scope of business ok and donnegan what would you like to say well i would have to second what mr often talked about in that i don't believe that this is an issue that the county board is as a county commissioner this is not an issue that you get to decide it comes from the state level of government but i will say that i am a supporter of this amendment i do support it and we can argue about a lot of things that we spend money on from one level of government to the next and i don't think it's a valid argument to say that spending money on something to make our elections fairer and  unsure is something that the that's the reason not to do it but i do support this amendment i think it's a good idea ok we're going to start the next question with you mr hoffman and it relates to that one of the simple ones either relates to manufacturing and jobs so ramsey county is losing manufacturing jobs what can you do to improve the business climate and create jobs in ramsey county let me tell you what we're doing in shore view where i have the experience i'm also in the long with being a council member on the economic development authority president and what we have done and shore view is in the last month we have brought five hundred manufacturing jobs into shore view not by giving out money to manufacturers to come here but by creatively partnering with them we had a company par systems a great company that's in the southern part of sure if you come to us two months ago saying we're probably going to leave shore because we have rapid growth coming in and we're not sure that you can accommodate us that was two months ago last friday i was at the groundbreaking ceremony we fast tracked this thing we did not give them any money but we fast tracked it we helped get approvals really quickly and now they have one hundred eighty jobs that are coming to shore view because of that it's that type of thinking and i'm gonna run out of time but that's that's hype of thinking that we need to bring up to the county level because it's the question is  reading we have competition from other counties both nearby and out of state and we need to be much more proactive partnering with businesses to get jobs mr donnegan this should be a huge priority for the ramsey county board to make ramsey county friendly to business by making it simple and easy to start a business here by streamlining and fast tracking the process that you need to get through to open a business and get past the regulation simplifying the regulations we talk about door knocking and meeting people i've talked to several business owners that express great frustration at the several levels of government that they have to deal with not only when they're starting up a business but as they run their business and how intrusive it can be and pointed out to me some pretty  silly standards that they have to meet and it gets expensive and time consuming and the other thing i think i hear from them is that it's they're afraid that they're going to put their foot in the wrong place and and suffer provided by ramsey county it is something that we are very involved in and in fact when i earned the same poll area chamber of commerce political action committee endorsement they specifically cited the fact that i work very hard to improve the business climate to make it easier for businesses to not only survive but thrive and come to ramsey county while we have work for solutions obviously for jobs greater m s p is a regional program that we are involved with in ramsey county again trying to market our region to to the world actually we have what's called the environmental response fund that is specifically designed to help clean up polluted property as i said we are fully developed which means we are redeveloping whenever there is something new coming in and finally i will say that i really do think that once we get the state and federal government to pay for the clean up of teach app that we can have green manufacturing it's a wonderful opportunity to bring jobs into ramsey county ok and mr may billy i think the example that mr hoffman presented is an example that apparently ramsey county is not doing things that were it would inhibit the development of business at least with respect to the par systems example and i imagine that most cities if part systems came to them and said we're thinking of leaving but we might stay if we got some tax increment financing and some thoughtful partnership that would happen i don't know what that shows as far as recruitment of businesses certainly short of use got  another business that you have most of you have seen in the paper recently that's been added going to be doing some substantial building in charge of you but certainly i think we there's nobody up here that wants to frustrate  the growth of business and the opportunities that at the brings both for the commercial and for the family life in the ramsey county the continuing on a little bit with economic development the county has a tentative deal with g s a to buy t cap which is which i didn't know quite what it was but it's a twin city army ammunition plant if the county completes this purchase what are your thoughts as to the type of development that  could occur there and let's see we will start with you mr may billy if if the county ends up is feeling the owner of this property i suppose the one advantage that it would have would be that now we don't need to worry about selling the entire property or finding a developer for the entire property but we can sort of break it up and sell it which makes development easier however  the extent to which we can control what happens we have to obviously make in the end be looking for possible developers to use this property but there's only so much that the county can do that's why we have development authorities for cities that can help us pursue that property and clearly everybody wants that it's the biggest piece of property left in the county that hasn't already been built on so it's a jewel we ought not to let it be wasted and mr rinehart well i kind of already alluded to one of the things that i think would be a good idea to teach our property is green manufacturing but we have four hundred forty acres there and it really does need to be mixed use and i think there's there's a lot of opportunity there however i do not believe and i am strongly opposed to this being cleaned up and purchased on the ramsey county dime i was opposed to the half percent sales tax in ramsey county only for the viking stadium and clearly i mean when you've got the largest superfund site in the state of minnesota this is not just a ramsey county issue and i believe that the state and federal government need to step up to the plate and m pick up the cost of the cleanup of that and then we can go ahead and it can be developed i really believe i am an environmentalist i really believe that we need to clean this up need to get it back on the property tax rolls there are great job opportunities the economic development i mean this is something that has to be done but how you pay for it is incredibly important to me ok the tax rolls we should leave it in the hands of the state and federal government to clean it up because although we might think we know what it's going to cost i'd hate to have ramsey county be on the hook for it if it if it runs over becomes more than we anticipate but ramsey county could certainly play a role in promoting it marketing it trying to draw business uses or mixed use to that site and making it incenting people to to be part of the development of that property i don't want to see ramsey county take possession of that property though i don't think that's a good idea for ramsey county taxpayers  what would you like to say thank you first of all you know i was indorsed by the chamber of commerce along with the commissioner rinehart because i understand how we need the importance of growing business i was also endorsed by the st paul area association of realtors because i understand the value of housing in in a community that is what we did just north of the t cap property and sure if you we had a two hundred acre so about half the size of the arsenal property two hundred acres and what we did there is working with developers and not buying the land but working with developers we now have about two hundred homes that are right on rice creek they're a wonderful walking path a job commercial center of wells fargo and other businesses there that have bought four thousand employees and in the middle of a girl softball field is one of the most highly used girls softball fields in ramsey county that was done without any public funding other than building of streets which is what government should do that's the same same type of mixed use efforts that we need done at the t cap property the vento plan was created twenty thirty years ago that's the type of problem the type of use of that property needs you know i think this next question fits and kind of well with several comments that you all made over this course of  our conversation so what is what is the responsibility of a county commissioner and what is the responsibility of the county itself and we will start with  as i see it the colony is is administered by a large colony bureaucracy with an expensive group of people that are professionals that administering in putting the budget together and running the county i see the role of the county board as oversight on behalf of taxpayers and citizens of ramsey county looking over the shoulder of what the co administration is doing i don't see them as the body that is actually running the company day to day and i think that that needs to be  a limit a limiting factor in their in their salary the time they spend doing this job and their involvement in the issues ok and mr hoffman you know the county government has three core functions it has the administrative part of the health and human services all the federal and state money that comes down and is distributed it certainly has the public safety working with the county sheriff and the counties attorneys offices and certainly infrastructure county roads county parks county bridges etc the county boards role is simple it is to how do we do those things as efficiently as possible and efficient does not mean as cheaply as possible but how do we do it as efficiently as possible my campaign talks a lot about accountability how do we hold people accountable for doing the best job they can be how do we in sent them for being creative well how do we encourage people to be collaborative and the county has done a fair job of being collaborative how do we push that even further how do we push it even outside of just county how do we make it counties collaborating with each other and also once again prioritization we've talked about your views priorities and we've not talked about ramsey county priorities it's not rocket science we need to be focused on a handful of things and do them very well and be efficient as possible while doing it so you don't need to be a rocket scientist but it wouldn't hurt count it as with all counties we manage the systems that with state mandates federal mandates and those things that aren't really mandates but are sort of opt in opt out that come down but health and human services in a public safety are certainly high very high on that list of public safety forty five percent of the budget or rather the health and human services is forty five percent of the budget and public safety is twenty eight percent of the budget but there are the other things that we do because we want them we as members of the communities want libraries and trails we want lifeguards at our beaches and we like sand some of them too  and so those kinds of things that we have for ourselves and all of that has to be managed as efficiently as possible that's their job and miss reinhart thank you well i look at this question is kind of like county government want to one county government does have a wide range of services nearly half again as human services the next biggest part is public safety and human services you're talking about people that are developmentally disabled children who need protection seniors really the most vulnerable in our society public health the environment parks libraries our roads just to name a few eighty five percent of what we do is mandated and either the level of service level of the level of service the method of service or both but what we have to do and what i do as a county commissioner is i seek out partners we have a lot of collaboration's i serve on about twenty over twenty boards in committees and a lot of them are joint powers boards where we're trying to do the best job in meeting the mandates at the lowest possible cost and i think that i want to be proactive i am proactive i go to the state and federal government i talk to them about what needs to be done and what needs to be changed to reform property taxes and how services are provided i will continue to be a tireless advocate and i will be very proactive several of you have mentioned libraries in the last few minutes and this question very specific about that where do libraries fit in your list of county priorities and will start with you mr off certainly when we talk about core services in the infrastructure certainly libraries fall under that conversation  we've all used our local libraries see their for us use the shore view on the white bear one from time to time or even the roseville library the good thing about libraries right now is they're proactive approach to trying to how do they meet future needs certainly they brought in lots of technology and right now i know there's a meeting next week i'm going to that talks about how our go how can libraries meet the needs of the future and as a great example is if you could make the library scan of like the barnes and noble except where you can check out the book versus versus buy the book you just have a great success on your hands and you see libraries shifting to that process so libraries are important they're not going anywhere but they certainly need to shift and morph as the environment changes technology changes and  the customer's taste changes mr may billy yes i think the libraries are a significant part of what makes the quality of life in this county what it  is the roseville library is built under budget and you know within that time limits that were set is the most used library in the state and libraries are not for books of course as mr hoffman indicated with technology with help there for kids doing their homework for reading for little kids for programs for people looking for work or trying to  get information so that they can start a small business the libraries are a resource center that speak to the quality of life and to the needs financial needs and other needs within our community and they deserve  bigger support it's amazing that they come out of that portion of the budget that's less than ten percent and is rinehart yes well libraries as far as i'm concerned they're the heart and soul of the communities and i am i'm really proud of the fact that the ramsey county suburban library system is award winning nationwide it is award winning we do have we are changing with the times technology is very important and many people you want to be able to read books electronically you now have that option through the libraries there are other things as well for technology that improve the bottom line we have radio frequency id in all of our  library materials and that means ease of check in and moving those things back out to the shelves is incredibly easy and convenient and it saves money so we need to make sure that we are doing things that continue to bring the circulation up we are up thirty eight percent when you think about the fact that p said libraries are going to go away that's not the case here but you need to change with the times i think whether it's the large libraries like in maplewood small in north st paul or in between in white  people's needs are and the uses that people expect when they go to the library i know that we've updated libraries in the in rand in the ramsey county system and again i think that this is an issue that  you know we all did this whether you're an individual a government agency a business when times were fat we spent money on we all did it looking to get  more and bigger and better and i think that at this time while we need to maintain our library system it's not the time to be looking to increase that budget or find ways to spend funds on something like that  tough economic times we're going to have two more questions and are going to let you relax one of them relates to taxes and i guess people like me there when you finally get to be my age  you're kind of interested in this particular and you get thank you get interested in this particular kind of question so this is would you support a change to city county tax code to freeze retiree property taxes at the level at which they retire so when the person retires says he or many cities already do this and we will start with you mr made well it sounds interesting and i only heard of this before you don't know that i mean i think it was north dakota had on its ballot for them in the middle of the summer constitutional amendment to eliminate all property tax which makes you wonder there needs to in order to do that you've got to find some other source of money and i recognize i think everybody here is recognized as mentioned the property tax is one of the worst ways to try to collect funds to run the government but until there's some other source like the old minnesota miracle you know where it was on the property tax or not the property the income tax and other taxes where the state has greater options  we can't limit a property tax that's reinhart well first of all the way the county administers property taxes it's about where right now it's gone up it's about forty percent or forty six percent i think of the budget  but the way that we do that is we figure out the budget in the state formulas is attached to it so if you freeze property taxes and we've tried that in the past on different things that means that somebody else is paying more and so i don't think that that's really the answer the answer is really looking at reform and the magic act that representative carroll macfarlane and i worked on together she was the author in the house provides flexibility to counties to meet the mandates but to do it in more cost effective ways and basically it says you know what works in rosa county doesn't necessarily work in ramsey county so i think what we need to look at is reform just shifting things around really isn't going to get to reform and we need to figure out better ways to do things more cost effective ways to do things and have the flexibility to reduce property taxes for every one day mr donnegan yes i support this idea lot of examples out the door  door knocked the couple times i ran for ramsey county commissioner of people at the door telling me you're raising my property taxes much more and i'm not going to you know i'm on social security or a fixed income of some sort retirement i can afford more property taxes  i actually had somebody come up to me in a way when i ran and talked to me about his mother who's talking to him you know i i've lived in white bear my entire life i've built these roads and schools and sidewalks and parks  libraries i've been paying property taxes for forty years in white bear lake and they keep raising my property taxes even in a time when my property value is falling and we're going to the point we're keep doing it and i'm not going to be able to afford to live in white bear lake and you know if i felt bad here and somebody talk like that and i do support this idea ok and mr hoffman thank you you know at first blush it sounds good at least something to explore simply from the fact of of in this environment today you have people who their income might be fixed so perhaps an elderly couple their income is fixed their property taxes keep going up inflation and gas and everything else keeps going up yet their property has gone down suppress haps they can even sell the their home at first blush that sounds attractive to look at it maybe it merits further looking i would rather as i've heard a commissioner rinehart say i would rather go and fix the bigger piece of the puzzle and that is is why are our taxes going up for everybody we've heard examples of an oak a county going down i don't know the details of why their taxes went down but it be great to understand how how can we fix the taxes for everybody because although certainly we have to have be sensitive to the elderly in this situation i'm sure there's young couples who whose income is now less than it used to be and are in that same type of situation so i would rather fix all the property taxes i think is how i would answer that ok and panel this will be your last question before your closing remarks the last question is once you have moved into your new office in st paul what are the first three things you will want to accomplish and we will start with you mr don egan the first three things i go over to this board with an ordinance or amendment in hand to rescind the two thousand and seven pay increase that the ramsey county board gave itself sixteen thousand dollars twenty five percent raise my my first priority as i've said before would be to hold the line on property taxes the county budget needs needs to stop going up and property taxes need to we need to stop raise and property taxes i think that those are my first two priorities i have a hard time thinking about  third ok you don't have to come up with three if you don't want you here thank you ok mr hoffman thank you what i would do on day one is sit down with all the people involved and make sure that ramsey county is as business friendly as it can be in short view we there's a new t c f building being built where an old sinclair gas station was that's gone t c f was about to buy the property and at the last minute they came to the city and said hey the county has just told us the right in right out off the lexington the county wants that to be removed i don't know exactly why but and it wasn't the commissioners deciding that it was some bureaucrat deciding that well that almost wrecked the entire purchase t c f said we  need people to come in and out we need that entrance and exit we were able to fix it the count the city council i'm sure if you called and made enough noise were we able to get that rescinded we need to make the county very focused on how do we create jobs how do we support private businesses to create jobs i would also then quickly have a conversation with the sheriff sheriff bostrom of the county attorney turny choi and make sure they're getting all the resources they need their critical function we all want public safety has to be there and thirdly i would just focus on our spending on making sure we understand exactly where our dollars are going ok and mr maybe what's on your short list well i was trying to make a short list i think that some of the programs that ramsey county runs a relating to intervention with the youth that may be getting off the track and going in a direction that society has a large would rather not have them go is really good they've got the program for truancy they've got the r i p program for runaway intervention and those kinds of programs that try to nip things in the bud early on i think are really a good idea they save a lot of energy a lot of tragedy both the individual involved in the larger society that may become victims of what gets involved later on those kind of programs ought to be promoted i think environmental concerns i think about number three we'll give you time ok would you like to say well i have trouble trouble limiting it to three so i will try to do my very best of the biggest challenge really  facing ramsey county and all of its people are balancing the needs with the limited resources because ultimately you need to be able to figure out not only what you need to do but how are you going to fund it in the in the best possible way so my top three priorities would be to maintain the aaa bond rating again it doesn't make headlines but it saves a lot of taxpayers money so that we can use it for the critical needs that we do need to provide a second we would be in the area of good roads trails transportation transit options we need to be able to get to and from work we need to be able to get our goods where they need to go no i mean we're we're competing in a global market so i think the good roads trails transportation are important and finally i'm just going to lump this all together and that is to deliver quality cost effective public services whether it be in public safety libraries parks public health whatever it is to make sure that we're doing it in the most cost effective way possible thank you panel and you now each have a minute and a half hour wrap up everything it in get a chance to say up till now and we're going to go in reverse order from when we started with the opening statements of the closing statements we will start you thank you all right along this way thank you very much i have been as i said a county commissioner for sixteen years i am a tireless advocate if you talk to my family  more people around me you know that i put in fifty to sixty hours a week in this job and it's because i believe so much in what i am doing i am passionate about making sure that ramsey cronie is a great place to live work play and raise a family i have reduced county spending as i stated earlier by fifteen point eight million dollars in two thousand and twelve i am a fiscal conservative i have worked on fiscal management i have a doctorate in public administration a masters in business administration because i really believe that you need to balance those things as well business goals for the bottom line the profit government we need to go for cost efficiency i have brought people private and public sector partners together so that we can not just look at what government can do but what can we do as a whole community to make our area better and then finally i would like to continue to use as i said before my experience my education my problem solving skills bringing people together finding solutions that work thank you  expecting more efficient and effective government is not anti government it's pro taxpayer holding the line on property taxes does not have to lead to a reduction in services or the reduction in the quality of the services you already provide i think that's a cop out and we can do better than that i looked like to offer some simple thoughts about my candidacy we need greater transparency at this level of government it should be easier for the public to see where their money is spent meeting should be held in the evenings and at suburban locations with ample free parking to encourage greater import from the public the county board needs to stop raising its budget and stop raising property taxes i do not support the expansion of county government services should be provided by the private sector whenever possible history shows us that they can do it cheaper and more effectively i don't believe political office should be a career politicians become insulated and lose touch with their constituents and the board's twenty five percent pay increase in two thousand and seven is a perfect example of that the county board needs to may make growing business a top priority by simplifying the process of starting and running a business in ramsey county we need jobs in ramsey county again i'd like to thank everybody for being here tonight i hope you found the event informative and useful in your voting decision and i would definitely appreciate your vote in november thank you very much i am running for office not for the purpose of fixing ramsey county or are necessarily changing ramsey county i think we have a good county here the aaa bond rating alone puts us in the i think the top one percent of the country we've got the the g f i way awards the misery and heart referred to by the way one of them being specifically that the budget is presented so well to the public and so all of a level that and that's with those awards in the aaa bond rating we're the only county in the state of minnesota that has that i think the county has done a good job on helping with health and human services to make sure that those that have multiple problems don't have to go to multiple places to  has a lot of room for improvement thank you first of all thank you for your time tonight if you stay here the whole hour you've you've learned a lot about all four of us let me tell you as as a leave tonight i'd ask for your vote and i didn't talk about my background in the earlier comment so let me do that quickly now i have a unique skill set of experience i'm a bank executive i'm a vice president at wells fargo i run a strategy department i think about how we can help people more i've talked about my city council where i'm a city councilman in shoreview in that role i'm also the president of the economic development authority so i understand how working with businesses happens i was the chairman of the lake of fire department i crew i was there at the the leadership chair when we hired tim bulky to become our first fulltime chief as well as i my wife and i and some friends we've actually started a nonprofit called the shore area housing initiative where we actually go back and  the northern suburbs we buy homes fix them up and rent them out at subsidized rates to low income single moms so i've got a broad skill set of experiences that i would bring to this job i'd ask for your vote because i've talked about governing smarter you know we need to collaborate more shoreview has the has a public safety rating of ninety five percent of our citizens love it yet we have we pay fifty cents on the dollar versus other cities because we use ramsey county we collaborate really well and think of that so so we're spending fifty percent less than most other cities on that we need to hold people accountable and we need to be separate dorothy's and we need to encourage communication thank you have been thank you very much i want to mention just before we close here that this case you missed something or you want to hear this again or your friends were unable to be here there will be a repeat performance of channel eleven october channel eighteen how about that at nine o'clock in the morning and eight fifteen at night and then also october twelfth october thirteenth fact over fourteenth and these are all at ten in the morning or eight fifteen it night and i guess also there will be some playbacks in the c t v area to the west of here so there's plenty a chance to just hear all of your great words one more time well thank you very much candidates we appreciate you being here thank you very much audience you have great questions and let's give him