good evening everybody and welcome on behalf of the o b p a and the city of oak to i want to welcome you to the candidate forum for city council for two thousand and fourteen we're glad to have everybody here we're glad to have our viewing audience as well as the audience that is here in person several of us are helping put this event on tonight two of us sitting here mr ted billy and myself i'm mark old with platinum bank and also on the board of directors fiocco business association tonight is a continuation of our series put on just about every election cycle to help voters get to know their candidates and understand who and what to possibly vote for issues and people we did have a mayor form on september eighteenth and if you go to the o p l business association website which is w w w dot au b p a hyphen m and dot com on that there is a member center select political engagement and you will see all three mayoral candidates questionnaires and get informed on that shortly after this form all the questionnaires from the six of our council candidates will also be up we do have five of our six candidates here today mr mas is unable to join us he had a last minute commitment that came up today that prevented him from being here but his information will also be posted online shortly after the debates are concluded we have drawn numbers as far order that orders a little different than sitting here that's going to start with mark landis number one second in that order is kristen c c third in that order is mr bill rasmussen fourth is lori polk a back and f wessels so that will be the order for closing statements as far as the rules tonight it is to be about issues and about ideas and not about personal nature items so questions will not be asked that bring about anything about family or anything that slanders we're here to hear about the candidates visions and ideas for the city of oakdale each candidate will be given an opportunity to do a three minute opening  statement and then we're going to move on to questions which we tried to limit to a minute and a half per answer most questions are geared for all the candidates but there may be individual questions or questions geared for just a few of the people here so  immigrant from the netherlands moved twenty years ago to the united states and ever since i became a u s citizen in the year two thousand i've been pretty actively involved in you know local politics and doing things back for the country that i adopted as my home ever since my citizenship i have been workin as a election judge and election charge for washington county and about seven have years ago i got appointed to the planning commission and i have been there for like i said seven half years and about five years of that i've been in the chair and i'm currently still the chair of the planning commission unless i go on vacation i always at the meetings i really never skip any meetings and over the years that i've been a  chair i feel and the staff at the city feels that the planning commission actually is running a little bit smoother than it used to be the meetings are not as long as they used to be and  and then we have made our decisions either way since i live in since i live here i've been in manufacturing i've actually been a total of twenty six years in manufacturing and fifteen years of that i've been and management of venue factoring and therefore got a lot of experience you know in business i have a lot of experience dealing you know one of the things i want to do is maybe bake the regulations a little bit less restrictive for businesses and citizens of oakdale too so with that i'll give the word to the next person and that's it for now thank you very much peter just said also for the audience both here and at home we did discuss with the candidates that we're going to use first names to keep things simple an opening statement chris thank you very much i'd also like to thank the b p a for hosting this and all the other candidates for participate and my name is kristen c c i moved to oakdale a few years ago and i immediately applied to be in the planning commission i moved from minneapolis where i was serving as the vice chair of the housing board of appeals there and i had really enjoyed that city service and so right away i wanted to get involved here in oakdale how  my background is pretty much based in business i own three different businesses that i started from scratch i own a event rental company that services about three hundred what ins and events here i own a dog daycare and boarding facility and roseville and then i also own a spanish immersion preschool and daycare and so through those businesses i feel like i've really gained some valuable and useful experience particularly when it comes to the city council in terms of being able to manage a budget and develop creative solutions for different problems that may arise i just really i have a lot of experience working with constituents particular with businesses when problems do come up and having to work for a resolution that makes everyone happy i also through those businesses have worked with a lot of different cities to see what other cities have all three are based in different cities egan roseville and west same paul and i've seen a lot of different things that are done differently and that i would really like to see done in oakdale and i think a really great example of that is west st paul has a facade improvement grat which is the matching grant for businesses where businesses are able to improve their facade and blighted areas so that it improves property values of the area and attracts new businesses to the area and so i think that that's just one example of a really great program that we could consider in oakdale i'm particularly interested in running for city council and kind of going beyond the planning commission because i'm raising my family here i have a three and a four year old and i plan to live here pretty much forever i grew up on the east side and i really care a lot about what happens to oakdale and what the city will look like long term and making sure that everything doesn't prove that we continue to develop in a positive and i care a lot about what comes here and so i appreciate the time and thank you for having me here thank you very much laurie thank you mark i too would like to think the o b p a for this opportunity a little bit about myself i work in marketing and communications for the north suburban access corporation in roseville and i have had the honor of serving the oakdale city council for the past four terms and in that time we've accomplished a lot of great things i'll mention a couple in particular we redevelop to the former oakdale mall site now tartan crossing and i think that's a very exciting redevelopment project in our city and we recently opened our recently attended the grand opening for the waters senior living facility and heidi will be going in shortly so that is definitely a success story also in my time on city council we have improved our credit rating which means that these taxpayers pay less and i am always for that and i'm very involved in the community i serve on the ramsey washington counties suburban cable commission of which i'm the chair i am a rotary club member i serve on the tartan ice or in a joint powers board and i did serve for many years on the oak hill fire department relief association board and i'm just proud to have the opportunity to contribute to our community and it would be a privilege to continue serving on the city council thank you volunteer work for city tour for sixteen years my job when i was working was i'm as senior managing technician so i manage a lot of money a lot of big contracts for cities in the northern suburbs or the forty two years that i worked in the in the business i keep myself very busy ronald deal here i didn't take much time to go to the lake but i do a lot of work around here but i enjoy it and i enjoy helping the people in this city and i see in a future g with working in construction and they were multi million dollar jobs and so i think i can bring a lot to the consul for that in my expertise i had an engineering like that so that's what all i have to say i and the people in attendance here plus everyone that is viewing this and just real quick background about myself i've been a resident of oak hill for over twenty years i've had two careers in my lifetime one which was a system call professional in a private club and that was overseeing the day to day operations for three hundred and twenty five members plus family running events i am currently a  financial services advisor and i have that been that for twenty two years i am active in a number of different organizations such as the city of all kill here with the economic development i am an active board member a splitter golf club which i'm going to be the president there next month and so that's overseeing the budgets and operations of a semi private golf course i've been on the nin and faculty and i think that with the city of oakdale i'm really proud of the things that our economic development commission has been which is strictly you know acting as a liaison to attract businesses retain businesses been involved with the development redevelopment and i think just acting as good stewards to the city which is the most important thing from the standpoint that the revenue and so on that's brought in from the tax base of the businesses also affects everything and i think our big mission really is to and i said this before being active with the past levees is good schools good businesses and it builds a strong community and i think that's what the focus really needs to be going forward is continually working on improving the quality of life in the city of local so thank you very much thank you mark and that  and that is this give us a quality or two that may set you apart from your opponents and why do you feel you are best served suited to serve on the oakdale city council a quality that i have that sets me apart and i can't speak for other candidates but i feel like a strong quality that i bring to this position is the ability to have a long term goal or vision and really work hard to see  that achieve and i think that again the best example of that is with my businesses is having an idea and then having to figure out how to actually achieve that doing the hard work and making sure that actually comes to fruition question i would say with my background in marketing and communications i bring something different to the table i think a good city council has a diversity of views and i think that my perspective is beneficial to the group as a whole i'm also a good listener and i believe in meeting with people at their at their homes are at whatever site they have a concern about so that i can truly get a feel for what they're talking about and what their concerns are and i also do my homework i show up prepared to meetings i go through everything in my packet and as many of you know we get lots of paperwork to go through so i show up prepared to talk with staff prior to city council meetings to get all of my questions answered so that once i get there unless something new comes up i am fully informed and can make a good decision for the city thank you thank you lori bell same question yeah i had the expertise of doing things here with the city working on jobs when i was working and meeting with people and i listen to i'm a people person after time ten o'clock and i mean people make sure they were happy with what we're doing the construction project and so on and what managing the money i think i've got a good handle on for the money i'm a fiscal conservative i don't and get it done and there's a lot of little projects we had to get done her to keep our city growing thank you thank you bill mark ok thank you mark i think the main thing if you go in and anybody that knows me is that i'm predictable reliable and i've got experience being in the financial services industry were held is the highest of standards because we're dealing with people's money and i manage quite a bit of money and  the idea behind that is that it's a right look i excuse me reliable and trusted and i show up and i follow through with what i do and when i'm asked to go and do i'm very thorough and i think that you know one of the other skills that i possess is that i am a people person and i do sit and listen and resolve problems and i think that's most important thing when you go and look at it is that you have to find out what are the things that people need else i'm pretty sure is that i have lived in a different country with different regulations of an order and sense and different restrictions and i've seen what certain restrictions do to the community that  in one nice thing about america is that the restrictions are not as bad as for instance in europe but i want to make sure that it stays that way another quality i have is that  may or may not make me stand out as that too every issue are two sides and whether it's a business and residence or residence of residence i always listen to both sides  ample time to both sides still voice their concern opinions but at the same time i'm not afraid to stand up a lot of believe in so all i will listen to people i will take their concerns of consideration but if i believe that certain way then i was willing to stand up thank you peter now we are on to our second question we're starting with laurie in the center and that is you just answered what are some things that may set you apart from your counterparts in this race now the question is pretty close to that but more so why do you want to be a city council member and starting with laurie who is a city council member but we'll start with  gosh where to start i have a real passion for city government and truly enjoy serving on the city council and there's nothing better than being able to do positive things in your community you can affect the things that you see every day and that is so gratifying and in addition there are some projects that we've been working on at the city that are larger projects that i would like to see completed  from the parks and planning and then the tree board other things and i've always presented things of the consul and we hope that they would take a vote but no i feel it's time for me to sit up here and listen the somebody else com it i've learned my learned to do around here for the last sixteen years and i think i'd be very proud and dedicated to doing everything with the city that's the kid then will not miss any consul meetings i'm work hard at it so thank you thank you bill mark same question mark thank you for why the city council because i live here i'm very passionate about the city when i first got involved with the economic development so that was ninety five most of the area around here was still farmland pastures we had a great big video to go and tell people about old dale and where i have my home with my wife it was literally a farm field and i've seen the city grow i've seen words at and i believe that we have great things to go home to accomplish more redevelopment really focusing in on the neighborhoods safety police fire you know we've got a lot of things that are coming up and we need some some real good leadership obviously we've got a opening for the city administrator and i think that's going to be a top priority to hire the right person to come in here economic development is still in the forefront we have to be focused on it i am vis is in my blood to be involved with the city i do it because i want to do it not because i feel i have to do what i want to do want to do this and i think that you know over all the years of being around it i work with a lot of other cities school districts as part of my business practice so i have a very good grip on what goes on in the local government and we can affect what happens from a state on what's important to the citizens of a city it is the city that directs everything thank you thank you mark peter same question yes i have a passion for serving the country and the community and the public i believe there is power in working together but have different views at the same time so this is really a true representative representation of the population and i feel that with my experience that i accumulated over the last eight years or so and i feel that i represent a good portion of the old deal grew up in a political family my grandfather was on the city council of cottage grove and was mayor of cottage grove for for quite a while and i had got to experience kind of firsthand the impact that someone can make on a city and i remember  grove has had so much development some way to octo but that's how i really kind of got my first taste of politics and i've really enjoyed being on the planning commission and i feel like being on the city council i'd be able to be a representative of not only all residents but really for young family as i feel like there we really want to attract more young families soaked oh and so i feel like it's important to have someone on the city council that represents that portion of our population and i would just really appreciate the opportunity to serve so thank you chris and thank all you for that question i'm going to move on to another one for all in fact we're going to do two more questions for all you till we get through the five starting with the opening statement all the way through mark at the end next question  and we're starting with bell what do you feel is the most important task in front of the oakdale city council thank you mark that's a good question i think the big test now is we've got our development going but now as we need to read violation i talk to people all around tanner's lake and they talk about helping all the rebuilding their homes and getting built up and i think i've been in a workshop and talked about that but i think the city needs to keep the grade where people can afford to do it i mean a lot of my living in small houses and they don't have big incomes and i think the city should be able to help them out and get some of that sorted it they're decent living quarters for them that's my main point for great thank you both mark and thank you mark as i mentioned i think that we have three main things the first and foremost is that we have to hire a city administrator and i think we have to find the administrator that's going to have the same vision that the council is in direction which with that's first and foremost that we happening after the first of the year second i think we have to really focus again on the revitalization and that's going to focus on more of the neighborhood watch and also police fire safety that type of thing and i think it also we need to be really focused on the aging population within the city to make sure that they have safe environments that they can live in and most of them would like to continue to live in their homes as long as they can so i think that from the city side of it we need to focus on those couple issues and also continue to keep our parks and the bike ways and so on accessible and up to date as the bus transfer will be coming through we're going to have more options coming with that but i think it's more about just keeping the quality of life to were we wanted to be and keep in the city in an area that we have people that are watching us which they have been emulating what we've done so i think we've been successful but we've got to keep moving forward thank you thank you mark peter same question yes i think the most important task especially long term is that children the children grow up and the children move on to hope and the parents they know as the saying is you know the younger people the younger generation have to future while we have to make sure that we get the younger generation back to all dale or say in all dale so that oakdale has a future and i think that we have to work we hard on keeping the younger generation here or even attract them back to old dale so that we will stay a vibrant community twenty thirty forty years down the road thank you thank you kristen thank you i feel the most important task is really the development and really have a positive development in all talks i feel like that's going to feed everything else you know we can attract young families if we have you know revitalize neighborhoods attractive areas amenity is we can attract businesses if there is you know nice areas for businesses to come in and so and those things will in turn improve property values and so i feel like development is really the largest task that we need to focus on and part of the one thing that kind of plays into that is going to be that neighborhood revitalization planning that were doing that the city is going to be working on coming up over the next year and so i feel like that's really the most important task right now for the city kristen thank you and again the question is what's the most important task in front of the city council and the last one to answer this question lori all right well i'm going to answer similar to what some others have said even last this time around but as our housing stock ages it's important that we have a plan to ensure that our neighborhoods stay strong and safe and in the next four years we are planning to implement a new program called the neighborhood preservation and enhancement initiative and it basically involves examining the city's current housing stock and coming up with an action plan to address any issues that we find during that examination so it's especially important to be proactive so that we don't have problems that we've seen occur in some of the older communities so again just being proactive and and having issues off  thank you lori and going to go to one last question for all of us starting with mark at the end but before i do want to thank again our audience here and our audience at home we will skip after this question to about two or three questions that came via e mail while we've been live on t v here this afternoon and real quick i want to thank everybody else that's manning phones and e mail we've got dr rick tim from all family dental we've got larry ever heard from results realty and we've got amy brown from state farm insurance all manning the e mails and phone so thank you to everybody mark next question for everybody starting with you is that taxes are necessary to pay for important government services and programs please discuss your top budget concerns and what your thoughts are on addressing them thank you mark the top priority with that i believe is that we need to go and be fiscally responsible to continue to keep our two reading because that impacts everything from a funding standpoint that we get through the state i think that we need to go and focus on areas that make sense that show value to the residents of the l so just spending money is not the answer it's spending it wisely so that we show that there is a value to all the amenities that we provide and i think that just again it's just being fiscally responsible and making the right decisions not bone with the wind but just focus on the right areas of where we get the biggest bang for our money thank you thank you mark peter yes well this is kind of a unique opportunity as a lot of people retiring you neighbor a new mayor and so it's a perfect opportunity to get some fresh set of eyes and some new ideas into the city council city council have been doing a really good job but like everything when you do something for a long period of time you're doing it on the same way potentially  stuff and that therefore we can save some money and the taxes can be reduced an old salt thing that i think we should look at is can we combine certain services with neighboring cities soledad without affecting negatively the services provided so that cost can be shared and therefore cost to the job in the visual city will be lowered and therefore you i would approach the budget similar in a way that i approach my business as budgets i feel like while it's important to save as much money as possible i feel like there are worthwhile investments that can have a strong return and i give you a good example of that if we invested in something that attracted a lot of neighbors to a new area that's a lot of new property taxes that we would get and so we would see a return on that investment and so i feel that it is important to you know keep property taxes at the same rate or you know no more than a raise out of inflation but i would approach it somewhat to my businesses and i think that one thing that would be helpful for me in particular is my doctoral work w evaluation studies and i have done evaluations of programs and policies for dozens of nonprofit throughout the twin cities really looking at is something cost effective is it achieving its goals and so i really take that lens whenever i look at something to see if it would be a good fit for what we want to do so thank you chris and thank you question budget and taxes thank you mark well i am a fiscal conservative so having a responsible budget would be my top priority and that involves striking a balance between keeping property taxes low and providing the services and amenities that our residents expect thank can be probably say that i never went over budget so i've always been conservative and watch what gets spent for the cities because that's why representative of all these different cities and the suburbs and so i want to put that use here too and  budgets don't get a line or anything but i think it will help doing that so that's that's what i strive for thank you great thank you bill and now we've got a couple questions that have come first off from our e mail at home audience in a few from here as well and these are geared toward individuals are actually in each case two individuals and will invent something called the lightning round but i don't know what that means but we're going this this question is for  mentioned about the city administrator on several occasions in your answers about that the big decision facing this next council in this next mayor what do you feel is the single most important quality in selecting the next city administrator and i think the most important thing is it is someone that fits the city book deal and what i mean by that is what type of a vision does that person have in relationship to what the direction of the council has going forward are they focused on economic economic development and redevelopment their background there is a lot of great candidates i feel that are within the state but i think we just need to be selective to make sure that it's a person that fits who we represent and where we want to go and i think it's just going to be very very important that we go and find the right fit to come in here and  make a good decision with where we need to go and i think that rule is the cli it is extremely important to have the right leader we are very fortunate to have craig for over twenty years and he was the right person for the right time now we have to go and have what someone with the vision for where we're going to go in the future and it's the redevelopment of the city and revitalization and all the things that we need to go into their thinking thank you mark ok peter know in a way needs to be run as a business because of the budgets and all that kind of stuff so i'm i would say a successful businessman that has some self proven what a passion for the citizens he will serve great thank you peter ok next question this is going to be for bill and laurie and the question is most you brought this up in in some of your comments which i think is what prompted the question you spoke about residential redevelopment and revitalization and also being fiscally conservative please explain a specific plan that supports both your statements maybe the question is how does the city of oakdale manage redevelopment and rebut revitalization while have not yet gotten into the detail of funding however that is a question that i'll be honest i asked right away during a workshop is how are we going to pay for this and what we are going to look for specifically is there are a lot of grants out there and different organizations that can help with various applications so we would definitely look to leverage those and we don't know how we're really going to do it yet but that's one of our challenges ahead of us and i've talked to people and they've said that they would like help fixing their houses up they like to stay where they're at they don't want to see him toward on  continue to do that and there's other neighborhoods to it we can move into it that might need it as after we move into it but it's a it's a good good plan for next year four years a get that done and work it all out and that's what i'm looking forward to doing thank you great things dawn i should mention that any other candidate they want to chime in when they're next up to the microphone can feel free to go back to another question we still have time limits of when you can eat in your time to maybe answer the next question but and there's a fine line between property values and keeping your property up i e junk in your yards more when you're in lawns not letting things get to a point of disrepair where you need a facade lift so how do you balance the need of the business community the taxpayers while at the same time staying tough to make sure that values stay up and that instances of regulation versus no regulation in areas of law in moline keeping your sidewalk shoveled things that that impact residents from one end of the city to the other so again maybe start with kristen and go to mark thank you for this you know i think that one of the things that we can look at is consistent enforcement i think a good example of this is particularly with businesses i've personally experienced issues where you've applied for an application and inspector comes out says you need to do a b and c if you come up for the final and find out you know d e n f wasn't even brought up the first time and now you have a bunch more stuff you have to do another example is with like temporary science a lot of cities have you know very short time frames in which you can have a temporary sign as a business yet the turnaround to create a permanent sighing can be over a month in a lot of cases and so it's just creates mark spence for a business and limits their opportunity to really promote themselves when they come into an area and so i think that really looking at a streamlining and being consistent and thorough with all of our within the city specifically for talking about businesses if you go out of the city website there are programs out there for smaller businesses to go and be able to redo a parking lot if that's heating air conditioning that type of thing for their facility are low cost loans so i would encourage anybody to go on the city website those have been in place for many many years with respect to regulating and so a lot of people's own personal property it's a mixed it's their own property and if they you know want to keep their home values obviously they need to go into some upkeep i think the biggest challenge with some of those things are that people go and look at disrepair or buy some homes and wonder you know i need to go  citing i need a new ruff i need to put in my driveway and if i get neighbors that are not taking care of their own property they're looking at it and saying why should i put more into it one thing that i have seen because we started the neighborhood watch in our neighborhood  back in the february because we were having issues were our younger folks were going around and slashing tires and i have gotten phone calls from people saying what do we do where do i go how do i get this taken care of i just have four tires a god slapstick cetera so the neighborhood watch is a huge piece that comes into play because it's building unity with the people that live in the neighborhood thank you thank you mark ok one last question on this is go be for both peter and bill and this question is this and we'll start with peter ok some citizens would say oakdale has no significant issues to deal with and that the city is developed and for the most part on autopilot do you agree or disagree and why or why not i disagree even though the city has developed doesn't mean that the city council or any of the commission can be an autopilot be one thing that's to help on his reno is a building inspection he their property their rented they go on inspect them so they make the owners of the owners keep the buildings up or they're not going to be able to rent them so that you know whatever help they can give up the other thing is i don't want to see is give them free things i think low rent early low interest loans to help them do this would be the most feeble thing they can put on her taxes but we don't want to start freebies with them because then it will spread like wildfire and the city can budget so i think that we need to give them some some low interest loans so they can they can do it and cover because they need to have responsibility to it homes and i think the debil in department is doing really good making sure that a lot of homes are kept up with them there's other things there's also vultures if you have people to wall that really do anything there's old boys culture some heated churches to do volunteer work to help paint or something like that helps for thank you thank you bill i would like to add something to it is a low interest loans have been brought up a few times and i think there is a very good place for the city to to do that because banks are not lending as much as they used to anymore on this hard to get money from banks and maybe it'll be something that's going to spread all over the united states but we're going to go back to all of our questions the last one was started with mark so we're going to start with peter and move all the way down and as you know this form is brought to you not only by the city of oakland but by the oakdale business professional so sation so there's going to be a question or two that might pop about business shockingly so what role first off i guess the best one is it's two parts what will you do to enhance commerce and economic development here in oakdale and the second part of the question is what role do you think business place in a successful city and as helping you be successful as a council member peter ok i brought it up before regulations place for them but sometimes a so restrictive that you know it's not even funny people generally don't know how restrictive you know all of the regulations are unless they want to build a not a shed in their property or whatever but  think we should revisit some of the regulations one of the regulations that i like to revisit is and it comes up over and over in a planning commission is electronic signage we don't go with the our regulations and something that is new electronic sign it's they have to come all the time for four permits and all that to get that done and it shouldn't be that hard it's part of life nowadays look at some stuff you know they'll make it too hard and based on businesses to develop their business and electronics i'm just one of those things as it's have in oakdale this is a very important i got to stop sorry thank you yeah more time to come back to the president thank you i can repeat the question if anybody wants me to repeat it it was a lot of them i think business is an economic development play is really a fundamental role in the development of oakville on the future of oka and i feel like a great example of this is like the  if all of the different commercial districts of kind of looked like the broken plaza area it might not be as easy to attract people to the city and so i feel like the long term development and redevelopment of our different commercial districts support the city's continued efforts in specifically economic development and business retention one of my favorite programs offered through the city is our business retention visits and basically what that involves is members of our business association and often city council members or city staff visit current businesses to see if they have any questions or concerns or anything that the city can help them with and i think it's so important that you know not only do we work in economic development to attract new businesses but that we keep our current businesses and often we'll hear about an y that they have that is fairly easy for the city to address so again i think that's one of the most important programs that the city does for the business community and then your other question was regarding the importance of the business community and i'm on the side of time it plays a vital role in our community as a whole obviously they  add to our tax base which makes for a well rounded community thank you thank you laurie they'll be a place i think we need to develop more business but i really feel bad when i see small businesses clos they get in there and they think they've got a good business going and i just collapses on them because the taxes at the ranch is pushing them out i mean to find something with some way we can keep these small businesses and want if that means jobs for these jobs for younger children because get not a high school for a starter form and you're good on even down geneva and you see businesses closing up they wonder for a short time and then they're close up and i just hate to see that and that's what happened to them all up here that was economic development is the key to making the engine work and that i've said it already from the standpoint that the economic development of bringing in good paying jobs good companies providing some areas where they can actually grow  i know if we go and look at i mean in is an example that building has got a lot of open space that could be potentially some type of an incubator for small business that want to go and be having a business space by giving them places to grow the role in the site from the city is to provide what they can from a legal standpoint and you know heidi is a great example from the old mall you know when everything's all said and done there  will look at it and say that was too much of a risk from the city but i disagree in the whole time that i've been on the economic development commission that mall was pretty much on its way out and it took a long time to get that put into place the city did their due diligence and got it going so in retrospect hive you will have anywhere between three to four hundred employees that property was empty really for a good ten years so the partnership between businesses that are existing and new businesses coming in are what we need to do excuse me thank you mark next question i want to i want to follow up a little bit to this discussion and it started with peter and he brought up something that as a banker and a long time member of this business community and that is signage i like that point i want to give all you a chance to talk about sign regulation and maybe things like how it impacts like w peter said about electronic timing is the is the ordinance good do we need to get better do we need to allow things to be bigger is there problems old signage we hear this a lot i hear that one issue over and over again so i'd like everybody just a chance to take a minute and talk about what you feel about signage and how you can balance that with not looking like you're on tropicana boulevard in las vegas so my question start with you sure i think that having some regulation of signage is important just to maintain a certain level of tastefulness for the city but what i had touched on before too is i think there is i think important is coming back to the temporary signs in the  ordinances or policies about that specifically because i feel like in my experience not allowing you know a decent amount of time to have a temporary sign to give you time to get it because a new sign can cost anywhere from three to thirty thousand dollars and for us my business just coming in a space that's a huge investment and so i feel like the temporary sign policy is definitely something in particular that should be looked at in terms of lengthening it to give been says more of an opportunity to have a temporary sign for a longer time i mean not years but at least enough time that they could invest in a permanent sign that meets our policies lori well i agree that regulation is important and i think over the years as we've become more familiar with dynamic signs those that you refer to is kind of like vegas  think we've gotten better about fine tuning our regulations to address issues as they arise and with signage in general i would say some of the signage that you see here and there that perhaps you have issues with wouldn't be something that would be allowed under current regulations however it was allowed at the time it was installed many years ago that's appropriate to our code were they list the stores that are there a lot of don't have that and you have to drive in the find them you know that and years ago when the plane commission we started all revising our codes and trying to come up to date it was supposed to be a six month deal we ended up doing a two and a half years work in a committee of five of us so it was a lot of revising to be done on our codes and i think that's needed to keep up with the time  yellows and it's really hard to see what that site is doing when they get to right and i think that's some of the code we have to look into thank you thank you bill mark thank you mark i think in with respect to signage i think it needs to be tasteful  but in but really it needs to be something from a safety standpoint to what's already been addressed and that's where the code component comes in from the city side and i think it should be just a you know standard but i think it needs to be updated i would agree on that i just think that it's important to go and be able to have the business owners advertise but not just any way they need to go and follow the codes that we've done and i think the city's been doing a pretty good job with all of it it could be needing some updating there's for sure thanks mark peter last one ok well like i said you know i think the regulations should be revised i think you know if somebody wants a big sign you know i'll still go home for you know there are permits and all that but you know the has to be some kind of stand up that we're going to set that allows for these kind of science and that  that unless you go above a certain size or want to move moving pictures or whatever it shouldn't be that hard to do which you should be able to do a great thank  you liberty to the moderator i want to ask one more follow up to that question two questions ago on business and commerce it was a long question but just one thing from all five you i didn't pick up in the question i think there was a lot in that question and i'm to kind of just role play of first second or going to start with laurie pretend you're a council of one what would you do what is the one thing you would do to enhance business just one thing what's the main thing you would do to enhance business here and  were counsel one with the ultimate decision authority and anything were possible  o have a budget of a million dollars what would i do i would honestly i actually think we have the current staffing to accomplish our economic development goals we are blessed to have the people that we do in our community development department so i would give them a task in terms of what we would like to see and i'm just to throw out k mart just recently closed so we have a large vacant building i would like to see the city work with the property owner in possibly demolishing that building and putting something in that would be more appropriate for the times so i'd like to be more active in situations like that where there's clearly an issue and again at the work with the property owner you know with their consent and hopefully their funding for the betterment of the community and i don't know if it's one one person job i think after staffers brought back your ideas and that it's the call over with the one person on the consulate to see of which is right and which is wrong in their minds if you're going to do is one one council person v i'm even seeing that's three m is doing development for he took some of the stores all out and three i'm going to use it and so that's a good company to come in and start doing that too so we're looking up at things but it's too hard for one person make a and you know what is the role of the city from the standpoint of financially putting things into it and how we're going to go and market to these businesses are all there part of it also i think is that we have to identify you know which types of businesses do want to focus on  pace analytical is a great company with that right there the guy at you know great opportunities are going to continue to expand in the property next to him that they've purchased but i think it's really going to be worth is a city want to go how much  the financial component are we going to go and put from an emphasis on attracting businesses the best part about it is the business retention visits i can honestly say that i've been very tremendous number of in just communicating it's a way to keep a business in the old b p a brought to the attention that there's a business it would like to want to expand and they came to us and they're going to communicate we're going to try to find a spot to go and so it's all about you know the city taking a role in there to be proactive and continuing to nurture and work with businesses we have plus attracting new ones thank you mark peter same question well it's a very interesting question you know  a what is your biggest concern we will discuss that business and citizens together and we will find the solution to do that now granted i can scrap taxes because  but you know there are other ways that we can do that and you know when you work together nothing is impossible so that's what i would do great peter thank you christiane last one for this question thank think that the first step would be developing in a plan for the all of the different vacant commercial and industrial properties in oakdale and then working with staff to identify potential fit for those properties and really working hand in hand with the property owner as to attract the type of businesses that would fill our long term goals and add to the positive growth of the city and so i think that's what i would think of my approach great person thank you all right next question for everybody and we're off that one we've got another one here and then if you could but i appreciate the follow up it was so i think very good dialogue and this one's going to start with bill and the question is this the city council position is part time and requires numerous commitments often during daytime hours and evening hours some of which might conflict with full time responsibilities as well as full time positions how will you accommodate this time commitment and please use examples of your previous volunteer positions or obligations showing how you manage such time commitments thanks mark well i wouldn't have any trouble see and i'm retired so i've been retired for quite a few years i got a cabin up there and we've had a cabin for fifty years but trouble with it it's a it's i consider it a job that i'm doing what i can love to do and that's what i've been doing i've been on the parks commissioner all the other projects i've done around here for the city i wouldn't have any trouble meeting well for starters i'm self employed so that makes it easy and we have to answer to one boss besides my wife and my kids are grown up the commitments that i have for the washington and tony h or e is once a week or excuse me once a month for basically a three hour period my commitment to school or golf course is once a month for a meeting i was there last night until seven thirty and came home so that entails a bit of time there with it but i enjoy it because it gives me an opportunity to do the things that i'm a passion about with respect to the council i'm involved with everything that's possible and it's dealing with economic development so i you know go to every one of them of the groundbreaking cuttings to whatever they need and again i think that it's important to show the face and be there representing my role within the economic development and would continue to do the same thing with the council thank you thank you peter yes well i have excellent track record of showing up to meetings so i was on vacation i'm at the meeting already talked to my employer and it's already clear twenty years so no problem there peter kristen thank you i also am self employed i have very experienced and knowledgeable directors and managers there run my three businesses that i place on my trust and i am fortunate to own a preschool that my children go to so i have plenty of time during the day i have never had an issue attending daytime meetings in the past i've served on several boards and committees including pat havens board of directors of the charities review council committee a great plains institute board and i've never had any issues attending daytime commitments and so i don't feel like this would be any issue for me i'd be able to attend anything that came up chris and thank you and find it more you are the last to answer this question harass track thank you i think this is a great question because being on the city council does involve a lot of time and effort of course but for me personally i have a very understanding employer and in fact they let me make up time if i need to be at a ribbon cutting in the morning i can just stay later in the evening to make up that time  they know it's a priority for me and as others have mentioned i am not a state i'm there at every ribbon cutting every grand opening every council meeting and committee meetings so it's again a priority for me thank and thank you all for answering that question one of the other things as i read into this question is i've been around for a long time to multiple decades and seen multiple groups and crops of council candidates and mayoral candidates come in front of us i don't remember ever an election season where all of them had such unique qualities and characteristics to bring to the job that's that's unique i mean we've all seen you know eight nine people in some cases i remember a city council race with eleven in there and  the eleven you never heard of and and but they still had interesting stories but this one is that the vast experience that leads into this question is that is only one of six candidates here are fairly new to the city which means less than ten years which is amazing in itself but is longevity and being around all this for as long as you have been a strength or weakness i think one could argue either way and i would be curious at your point of view whether it's a strength or weakness and support why it's a strength or weakness whether being part of city in this city for a long time is good or bad thing and so i believe we're starting with mark  see i'm really losing track mark thank you ok thank you personally i think the strength and the qualities that i bring in here is that i have been here for over twenty years so i have been able to go and see the growth of the city which has been a big bonus i mean when i came and moved in here my wife and i we were approximately about twelve fourteen thousand people and we sit today you know at twenty two thousand and eight roughly and that's a good thing and so i've been able to be around watching the growth of it and i think the best part about it going forward is that i get it to be part of something to go and do the revitalization of redevelopment and look back at all the successes we've had and know that i've been part of it which gives me some of the experience i've been involved with a lot of other organizations and i think that that's a quality and i'm a i'm very proud of it and  my wife has also been very proud and very supportive so i think the strengths are really that i've seen the growth i'm seeing things are going on around us with the neighboring cities but i bring the their knowledge and experience and that's really what i think is the biggest part thank you thank you mark and i do know that peter follows so we're got that back on track peter ok well i think it can be both a strength and weakness i think that's a strength in the sense that you  get promoted in our job that's the way i look at it you're going to look you know learn more you gain more experience and it stays you know a challenge it stays you know i've  in previous jobs you know worried it gets so easy you just don't know you know you can do the job in your sleep and that's where i think it becomes a weakness as long as you can keep on growing in what you're doing it's a  peter thank you kristen thank you i think that the longevity can both be a positive and a negative same with being someone new or to the city and i think that really it's important to look at in the context of the specific situation if you look at the makeup of the current city council bear and the people up here right now i feel like it is important if someone like myself was north of the city to bring a fresh perspective otherwise you do have a lot of people that have been here for a long time that comprise entirely the city council and you can have a lot of kind of the same views not all of a lot of fresh ideas and so i feel like that's where someone like me who maybe hasn't lived here as long as everyone else would be a positive aspect for the city council because i would be different than everyone else  lot of big changes coming up so i think as we look at hiring a new city administrator and new assistant administrator and  all borders and the whole works so i think longevity works and it's a job for me i love it here i just i really do and like it that people keep saying why do you keep doing this i love it i did it before when i was working at long hours  so i just enjoy the people great thank you bill and i know we started with mark i'm back on remembering that so we're good i want to do i want to ask a follow up for all you get we'll start with peter on this and that and it came to me as you're answering the questions and having chaired the economic development commission myself for six years and a lifetime ago but the word commissions keep coming up and this city is robust was several different commissions between parking plan and economic development you know all the different commissions at environmental management is there anything about our commission structure that should change is there some teeth that our commissions don't have is there  right blood in these commissions i mean just talk about your experience with the commissions and maybe how you change it while i've been on the commission for seven a half years and i you know we see an awful new people join the commission that commissions really don't become stale you know of us that have been around and we end up being chairs you know but i don't think a lot of commissions you know it seems like people move all the time and you know all people retire and it kind of you get fresh blood and you know frequently saw i probably end up planning great peter thank you kristen thank you i agree with peter though that the commissions really have their role right now in this they seem to work pretty effectively i think that they i guess have enough to you i mean their function is really to serve more is like an advisory for the city council to provide a recommendations but we don't have the ultimate say on the commission the city council does and so i think that that is how it should be because the city council to mentally is the elected representatives of the city and the permission i was appointed and so i don't feel like there's anything right now that should be changed for the commission thank you kristen lori thank you mark we actually had a reorganization of our committee a few years to question and then look at it did someone on that particular committee get an answer to this and more often than not yes i mean they ask they're really good questions and make our jobs  easier in the long run so i think we have a really effective commission structure at this time thanks thank you lori bell when i first started here ninety eight i was on a parks and planning commission and we just cited above eight years ago the split that up because it got too tied up was you had so much of playing with development was going on and you had the parks and it took a lot of time so they decided to consular but decided to split that i think was a good move planning can concentrate on planning a person concentrate on a party parts and that's why when peter said to move drugs a lot smoother and all is because you know you're kind of down and you're just doing part of the job think they run very well great bill thank you and last one answer this question mark thank you mark with respect they can only speak on behalf of the economic development commission but there seems to be a lot of stability but we do have people that move on and i think if you go and look at that that speaks a lot about the commission but i think we have more importantly we have a very very good working relationship with the council so when something does come before our commission with regards to businesses and so on we have a very good working relationship as i said and they we respect each other from the council so to laurie said there is a mutual relationship between the two the second part is that the council does go in and do reinterviews if you will for people that have been involved with the commission every couple years just to go and check and see how we're all individually feeling about the commissions that we represent and give more reassurance i think one of the main things that i would add is that every five six years we have to do a comprehensive plan with respect to what's going on in the city where do we think it's going to go and so on but that brings in all of the commissions under a planning guide so we all get to be part of one organization in the long term plan so we're individual commissions but we also get together to to look at a long range planning as well so i just don't think that there's really a big need to change it too much we just stay focused on what we go and do and continue thinking all right mark thank you and i believe that's we ran the gamut on that question we're going have about two more questions two or three depending on time before closing statements as we're starting to wind down here on our night and then i want to thank everybody in our audience and our viewing audience for contributing all these that i've done this is the first we've had the multimedia so it's seems to be working ok for the most part i lose a little track as i'm trying to track questions as they come in  but the question is going to go to kristen to start this one and that is what city services would you consider sharing or contracting with other municipalities or private entities and what are the pluses and minuses of sharing services well i think the pluses and minuses i think the positives are obviously clear i mean they'll be a cost savings if you share services i think that a negative of sharing services is that you have to you know for example if you share with another city or use another city service and there is some issue then there can be some negative feelings depending on what happens and you don't personally provide the service you have less control over how it's how it's delivered so i think that's a positive  negative in terms of what specific services you know at this time i don't have any that i would suggest i think that's something that i would really look to staff to suggest recommendations that evaluate whether it would be a good fit long term for the city and if the positive negatives were with  with landfall on fire service with see st paul and water and sewer repair birchwood oh we provide administrative help to them so we already do a lot of this and we have looked at doing additional for example we talked with maplewood about partnering on recreational services but sometimes the cost savings isn't there as you would expect it to be and that was the case with maple d but i see a lot of benefit to partnerships and would welcome the opportunity as it arises to do more of those and again i'm a big supporter of the cost savings associated with those as from a different city coming in and then trying to change things i like the idea that the citizens o p o could have their say in their own what's going on here in the city but the oakville or maybe it was a big city you know i worked over there and done work for them but i just i just don't like your idea of a director coming from another city to work with us and i don't think it's a cost savings we've got to julian them are doing a great job right now all the programs for the kids in the summertime are great i'm a big proponent and believer in in the sharing of services if it financially makes sense for the city we do a lot of it already i think one of our best advantages that we have is if you go and look at the fire station we have you know firefighters coming from all over for trainings and i think it brings a lot of good will that were being able to come in utilizing other departments and learn from each other and that in those ideas right there lori mentioned birchwood we have you know former intern intern that is up there and contracting with them i think that's another good piece right there a partnership is growing better and better with maplewood with the tanners like project is that's coming in i think we just need to really spend a lot of time working with the neighboring cities that we have it brings goodwill and one hand feeds another and so i think it's if it saves us money in the long term and we get some expertise from others i'm all for it i think very thanks mark peter yes the services is on the table be investigated and what any of the cities or office great real quick before i go on to my next question thank you very much for those answers i want to mention real quick the rebroadcast times for what we're seeing here tonight they'll be at wednesdays and i'm am fridays at two thirty pm and sundays at five thirty pm so tune in again if you want to hear over and over these and responses that sometimes you can catch things trust me on your second time through versus your first time through so i appreciate that another one of our e mail questions and this one is starting with laurie getting back on track  and that is how important is it to have a clear vision as a city council member is soo mean it is important tell us about your vision at least one example where you see the city of oakdale in the year twenty twenty  four question one example of the city in the twenty twenty four well i definitely see our redevelopment projects that we're currently working i'm fully completed and prospering but i also see that our neighborhood revitalization programs have made a real impact and i see that we've done that not only in what are some of our oldest areas currently in the area but that that program has spread throughout the city so i just see truthfully the programs that were currently implementing and those that we're looking to implement working rest of them i thought would very be way up there they jumped up fast but they kind of leveled off a little bit and all fall was kind of interesting but yeah i did i see that we're going to be done with everything by twenty twenty is just a keep thriving robe robust city in all of the areas a strong school system continue on the progress of the progress that's going on with it right there i think we need to still continue to go look at providing quality services and again showing that we've got value for the reason why people live in reside and the majority of people working to reference what bill was talking about we had that study put together and we've got about ninety seven hundred jobs right here in the city and our cur ve has been pretty steady along the way we haven't seen great big hits chunks up and down everything so you know through that recession that everybody knows that we had we stayed strong and i think that's kudos to the  council's position that they've been with bring in and attracting good businesses i think the cetera has been a big promoter for us as well as a city so strong robust city i think is the place that i'd like to see is continue to be  a ninety nine days average age was around twenty years old in the city of odell now it's creeping to about forty years old and in the year twenty twenty four i would like to see it reduced to about thirty years old great peter thank you kristen thank you i think that it is important to have a vision as a city council member because if you don't have a vision for where you want to go how are you going to know where to go to get there for my vision and i feel like in the next ten years it would be poor and to have revitalize neighborhoods have strong thriving commercial districts that are attractive and have attracted very positive and successful strong businesses to our area and we've attracted a significant increase in young family similar to what peter said and that's right like to see our city go for thank you kristen and i believe that's it for that question i believe we also are out of time for questions so we're going to get moving on to our closing statements and as you recall cup one of the thing for the viewing audience you might notice that we're always looking the other way we're looking at each other and having a conversation and i've ever so often i kept  again this will be replayed as i noted before several times on cable and certainly do watch if you also remember we did draw in order for closing statements in that order is different than our seating arrangement here tonight and we are going to start i did make one slip at the end i got the little mr in and one name so i'm going to go in use last names on the way around so we're going to start with mr landis who is the closing statement order number one thank you mark first and foremost again i'd like to thank  p for hosting this and more importantly the viewers that are out there and watching this i think it's important that you take seriously everybody's positions and where they at personally i believe that we've got a great city and it can keep getting better but it's going to take some good leadership it's going to take some tough decisions as they need to be i think again being very fiscally responsible with the budget and providing value to everybody that's out there as a taxpayer and continuing to to grow the city i'm willing to do that i want to go and do that i've been committed and everything that i go and do and i will strive and do one hundred fifty percent all the time and if i can to get your trust and my vision and looking at everything i'd be honored to be a city council member so again thank you so much thank you mr land a second in the order for closing statement is feel like having run several businesses i feel like that's a huge positive for me because i know how to not only manage different budgets of different sizes different organizations but i also know how to set a vision or a goal and work hard to achieve that and work with staff to achieve those goals i also touched on this briefly but my doctoral work was an evaluation and i've done many many a valuation is with different non profits and educational institutions to evaluate policies and programs determine whether they are effective not only cost effective but actually effective in achieving their goals and i feel like that would be extremely useful in decision making with the city council and then lastly i feel like it's important to note that the city council should really represent oakdale the city and so i encourage you to kind of think about the make up of the city council and i feel like for me i would really represent young families and bring a fresh perspective to the city council that i feel i could be a asset to to really lucky within the city of oakdale to have so many people that are willing to step up to the plate i believe i believe i bring years of experience to the city council and have worked in all aspects of city government over the years i was chosen by my fellow council members to serve as the acting mayor in the event that mayors iraq is unavailable and so that has been an honor for me and i love living in oakdale and would welcome the opportunity to continue to serve our community and make it a great place for our residents and businesses and i hope to earn your vote on november fourth thank you thank you we've been talking about businesses a lot it's just not about all businesses it's you know the citizens of all be able to and just like i think that there are too many regulations for the businesses and day all i think are too many regulations for the citizens of dale that own properties here things should be easier for you guys to so i think we have a unique opportunity on november first where actually voting for you guys of holding forth to open seats not just on two of them and we have a good opportunity to bring the city council into the next decade so the makeup is going to change a little bit we're going to get a new mayor that's for sure so let's not forget that it's for all of you not just businesses not just us that we represent you and i would be very honored to be on the city council representing you i bring world of views right frankly most of them don't have i know what it is to be overregulated i know what it is to be burdened by regulations and we need to have audience again i want to take time to thank those that have been making this work in the background dr richard tim amy brown who's busy at it mr larry eberhard who's here with us tonight helping out and by timekeeper  community here as a result and we're glad to put this on i want to thank all the candidates for coming out here tonight i also want to thank mr mast who couldn't be here he did complete his questionnaire and that has been turned in and that will be part of the online stuff our re broadcast times again wednesdays nine am fridays at two thirty sundays at five thirty so again i want to thank we're going to have a short break we're going to now have a county commissioner half hour speed i'm a call that a speed lightning round i'll make that up as i go to bed so stay tuned we have another in about fifteen minutes another debate starting that will also be televised and again i want to thank everybody and thank you all and good luck on election night thank you have a great night