voters of white pair candidates form for grant city of a grant for this november election we have five candidates with us for the console and we look forward to hearing what they have to say thank you very candidates for parties but we do make a real effort around election time to register voters give people information about how to register and also to put on forums like this so that you have an opportunity to hear directly from the candidates on the issues and more than that you have an opportunity to ask your own questions the order for speaking tonight will be alphabetical and then we'll rotate through th so be sure you have any questions raise your hand so you can get your questions in and we have a couple of people up here are sorting them for me so we get kind of like topics together ok the five candidates up city for quite a while now and i'm willing to keep on doing it thank you lauren seeders drop twenty one year resident grant i retired from high school i was a business teacher coordinator and i've been out  have a small farm and the reason i'm running is i'm very alarmed at some of the changes in grant everybody i've talked to they say well we don't have a lake cabin but we came out here put a little extra money because when we get home from work we're on vacation and people have horses chickens go carts ring all kinds of things but what really concerned me and the reason i decided to run again you know actions speak louder than words and look what's been happening to grant recently they've just created thirty eight commercial properties in grant if you're on a county road or state road you're going to help and they also instituted supper club special event centers that's not a rural grant they've got rid of the planning commission and now to come to grant we already have it for the school it's right across the street that new supper club is going and i guess i'm kind of concerned about that do we really need separate clubs and a band centers are we going to come to las vegas in the northeast all right good evening i'm david trondra the reason i'm running for grants of the council is simple i'm running for the council because i love grant just the way it is i want to continue to participate keeping it that way i grew up in the area and find springs and and i worked and played in grant when i was growing up i moved back to grant a few years ago to raise my young family here so that my children could experience the same kind of world growing up that i had i plan to continue the time tested policies of previous leaders of grant that result in lowe taxes and frugal budgets i will resist any attempts for water and sewer in the city of grey and the high density cookie cutter suburban development to follow to do that will work to maintain a ten acre density and to preserve our rural way of life i believe in land owners rights to use their property within well established ordinances that preserve the character i believe in elected officials guiding the decisions we make as a community and not appointed commissions has fared well for one hundred fifty six years with uncomplicated statutory government and without a city charter there is no reason to believe that we need a charter commission to maintain  establishing and initiating a perpetual road policy an action plan to repair them commence in two thousand and fifteen what i'd like to see us do is go to the federal government people we've asked them and there and we haven't really got a good answer mr hoover stated he would put a road referendum on the ballot and yet it hasn't gotten there they've talked about going out getting gas tax money that hasn't happened but yes i would support a program to start doing maintenance on our roads so that we can put overlays on our roads and extend the useful life of our roads we've let them go beyond the point were they can we see a lot of them where have are actually started turned out black happened and put in gravel roads down so as i stated last time i said yes i would actually be out seeking grant money because we don't get gas tax money where more eligible for grant monies that are out there at work  probably put a little bit more in the budget but i think you know there was a blue ribbon row battle a number of years ago and rather than just letting three or five people decide what we're going to do the roads i think maybe we should put a few things out there let's the citizens decide hear from them would they want to do about the roads how important is it i know some people live in county and state roads and if they don't want to pay a dime or not that's understandable but we have over four thousand people in grant again i  really think we need transparency in citizen participation in government like we had in the planning commission till it was eliminated and i think if we put it to the public to see what they want that might not be a bad idea let the people speak and tell us what they want reinstating the planning commission actually i'm in favor of keeping the charity commission it is a constitution for a city that we're lacking if we have a charter commission it is not in other layer of government as everybody states out there it's the constitution that have frames our government still waters and the charter cities and many good charter cities and it states that you will in our charter reinstate the planning commission you allow public comment back in our city hall it'll allow initiative and referendum it's got many good things anybody that's taking the time to read the charter i think they're going to a hard together the charter commission and petition a court in fact if you read our resolution says the city dean that's in the best interest of the city i believe it also is in the best interest of our cities so the judge will not make the decisions it gives  stronger voice to the citizens now if they want to change a ten acre rural density and we have three real if you're sitting on our or in a real estate and if you work in our city council right now they can make that decision tomorrow with three voters that charter says we will have  maintain a ten acre density and with a charter it will take fifty one percent of the voters not three votes and a council thank you oh well i want to keep grant rural and i'll tell you right now  if lake elmo would have had a charter they wouldn't have water and sewer today all it takes is three votes for some for they said well i guess we'll go with the the sewer and water down there for the industrial they didn't read the fine print and then they got seventeen hundred homes they have to take if you want to change something with a charter takes fifty one percent of the voters an example recently that happened stillwater has a separate water department they put it on the ballot that they wanted to eliminate it and turn it into the regular the regular m department well guess what the voters turned it down you have more say in the charter than you do because when you vote for someone they tell you they're going to do something and then they may do something else for example the thirty eight commercial properties that were created in grant i think most people want to grant to be rural they don't want to take sewer and water we certainly don't need supper clubs and events centers there are plenty of things you can do with your property way of apple orchards we have farm gardens we have all kinds of things we don't need something is disruptive so i think we really need to have a charter it is a constitution the people meet once a year and all they do is review things they do not make decisions the city council makes the decisions it is  constitution that is above the city council so for example in this particular charter it says the city county council will have to follow the comprehensive plan and our current comprehensive plan says no sewer and water till two thousand and thirty and i'm definitely for that the fundamental problem with the charter commission is that the members have an awesome power to change our government and they're not allowed to by the voters are not elected by the people to do that job they're selected by a judge they may be great people or they may not but they have not been selected by you that's the fundamental problem as far as how many commercial properties we we've created we've allowed to roads and they have to be on parcels of twenty acres or larger so we're using that mechanism to set aside larger parcels of land to protect the world character from grant and the other the other use that's come up that  was slightly controversial was the wedding barn the rural event center that was a new use but there's been weddings going on a golf courses and supper clubs and grants for a long time and this specifies a particular use it also must be on large parcels any there might be some people on there that really have the best interest in the first place and see what they can do it's not a thing for would you fund any major capital fund project for the city well i don't see that we have any major capital fund projects currently i i know that the mayor had talked about wanting to start a fire department  i don't think that would be appropriate our rates would go up and insanely plus there's a brand new one in stillwater that this for seven point two million so i don't see that we have any major capital issues other than like i say whatever  out of the road if we can develop a road policy in see some alternate funding some grants in like like i said before maybe we should let the people decide it's wonderful to say like mayor carts at the last black box theater oh everybody can stay home and all run the city he sure has he's gotten rid of the planning commission he's gotten rid of public created thirty eight properties i don't think one of the things that the met cultural says is we're not supposed to have leapfrog development boy where they put the wedding but we haven't had that there was also a skating rink that was proposed up there eighty four feet wide i believe by three hundred twenty with four bathrooms or four locker rooms three girls bathrooms two boys bathrooms we don't need that type of development grayle like i said everybody i talked to they said well we don't have a cabin we spend more to come out to grab because when we come home we're on vacation i think that's very important to keep and i see that slipping away don't go by what they say look at what they do and they've done a lot of devastating things in the last two years all right granted a small city with small budgets i don't see a lot of need for a large capital groans blacktop roads and dirt roads are born was one i'm attending the meeting over there and we had a good dialogue over there out of that we brought a lot of people together and we get a lot of good ideas one of things we should be looking for is yes we could be doing some if we start looking at grant monies that are out there they are available i work in minutes of the industry and i see a lot of small cities doing it in a lot better than we are i don't know if any of us have taken the time that look into the work of p t o but we're one of the highest per capita incomes in the state of minnesota so i don't know why everybody acts like we're poor popper's out here we're not poor popper's out here but we are letting our black top roads going back to gravel and i think that's a travesty out there there are grant monies out there that are available we simply have to apply they talk about putting in a budget and then you know what if we need a capital program i think that's something that can be addressed by putting it on a referendum with the charter would allow and then fifty one percent of the citizens good voice their opinion right now we're being held down by  a majority of the city council three people so i think that would help do that if we need one let the citizens make that decision some neighborhoods such as sunnybrook where you actively work with watershed districts to fix this problem i think we are actively working with the water folks to do that you know some of the projects i believe are our city has looked at that at one time they're working out with a program where we could have received a large amount of stormwater grant money funding and i heard the figure was i don't have a front the seventy thousand to get two million dollars where the grant money in the past so i think it shortsighted i guess as gary said there is grant money available for the cities and we all pay taxes on the state level you are eligible to get that grant money we have to start actively seeking the grant monies that are out there and i don't sound come with strings attached you can stamp to that way whether that is worth the going out after my or not but that's that could be a good decision maybe for your planning commission review before it was your city council i've actually had a conservation district out to my life farm and have happened to have it in give me advice so in talking to them and several other agencies you money a grant money is available from the d n r i believe there even is some grant money available on a federal level what it needs to be done is it needs to be pursued and i think you know this the council can only do so much if we have a planning commission that works for free i might add at the lecture city in the heat of the building they could pursue a lot of these opportunities and i think there are some missed opportunities i think water management is an issue but you have to realize this year in my rain gauge alone normally we get to about twenty four inches of rain a year this year and in june july and august and september we had twenty seven inches of rain and i called it very carefully because i do a little bit ahead so i think there's opportunities out there i think some of them been best i think that the planning commission needs to be reinstated and utilized to explore some of these well i think you know you have to read the fine print you can't pull a goal more and say yes i'll take this without reading the fine print and i think the planning commission the last planning commission had a lot of people who were contractors and industrial experience and they can make those types of decisions and make the recommendations for the cultural so they can do their work of making decisions rather than doing the research is there hasn't been a lot of research done lately  and like i said help the d n r help the dual treadway out there and they are lacking parking out there we don't want to parking up and down our city streets just like some people don't want parking next to their  encourage them to go to the next parking lot out there but people are going to park along the roads over there unless you get up there we get a lot of space out there that be available get some grant money get some parking lots out there finding some additional parking lots finding some grant money but i think the only way to solve this problem is putting a lot of effort in working with the d n r because that's a very powerful agency we have to do something about it it's going to be a now that you've got a place to take this is a trophy i know of several citizens applied to be newsletter editor cable commissioners all those positions were filled by city council members i don't believe this newsletter editor should be a city the last newsletter put out there it is for the it's for the city council to give you and put on a city and folks i believe that city council is owned by the citizens or they should be citizens and grant they're there to yes i think we need to increase citizen produce it's just went the wrong way they got rid of the planning commission that was all those people were volunteers and also was the cable commissioner for two years and i was the one that initially actually bought  back to the city council to tell what's happening at the cable commission updates etc etc i kind of initiated that so and again we should have people writing the newsletter i think the newsletter and some of those including the web site is kind of become a one way communication in the control of the council and that is not allowing citizens input we need citizen input if we're going to keep this this place rural we get it's a very wonderful place to live a lot of people spend extra money to come out here and because they want to raise their children in a in an environment that allows them to vela citizenship and social responsibility around a deck a program and that's what we promoted getting students involved and i think we need to have citizen citizens in these different posts because i believe they have a lot to contribute they'll give a lot of different ideas they can but they can bring a lot to the plate holding like first of all we've had a lot of applications we're talking wedding we've got we're talking there's been sewers there's been quite there been more applications in the last year or so than there were the whole two years i was on the planning commission so that's not true there been a lot of the wedding bar and the nightclub for example that the golf courses now wants to have wedding events so there's a lot of things that are going on right now currently that the planning commission needs to do and now they're throwing things to the planet at one hundred twenty five dollars in order to flush out the definitions that's going to get very expensive that's going to keep our taxes low right question in the past several years the argumentative and contentious interaction among the board member and between board members and the presidents has been divisive and unproductive  one of those go ahead it's going to start with i think what you can do to be more productive to start listening to yours and allow them to come up and speak chose to put that school on a on a air sanitation say eighty to ninety percent of people came up there and voiced concern appalling that had they'd taken the time and realize that my to mean i had and it's comprehensive plan to build that same school on the  decisiveness we'll start listening and after a while and just like the emergency preparedness we volunteered to put that together got it done it was a very simple process and a lot of good qualified people in our city but they're dead they will buy concern is it should be at the beginning of the meeting in the should be televised so for example if there's a pothole down at the end of two hundred other people say you know that's a common concern i have that i've noticed that too so i think it's very important that we have we have some open forum we have some dialogue yes if someone gets out of control the mayor know very well what to do usually have someone have the police officer of all people out i mean he's he's got that do 't so but i think you know make him more inviting allow people to participate this cloistering together in keeping the citizens out of city government is not necessarily a positive thing helps them or appointees  so they can feel it's part of have some ownership in the government rather than just five six people running the whole thing and not want to hear from anybody else i think it's it's very important and i think the atmosphere can improve again you have to treat the citizens with the respect personal agenda and not a lot of productive dialogue public commentary i would be in favor of moving the public comment period back to begin because i feel bad for the residents come forward to speak and have to wait for a their section twenty four the planning commission that said they should be at reviewed by the planning commission first and i was told oh none of this land applications got anything to do with the planning commission all those applications should have been in council the planning commission of a very vital to our city and i don't believe you should be drawn out by a deputy sheriff you stand up for your rights thank you without citizen participation one of the things that does disturb me is they never read the ordinances for example where jennifer has kept the planner redid the ordinance for the planning commission the old verbiage was i'm roughly going to paraphrase it the planning commission will review topics and make recommendations to the city council ok when it was rewritten and slipped through it was the planning commission will review topics as directed by the city council so in other words they basically tried to neuter the planning commission so you know we have some issues here i'm new to ground politics project some people out here have been to the tractor parade sat down with us at meals we've got great citizens and grant we have a community pride i have helped organize the last three or four successful grant cleanup days and we've done it out of our own pockets and i tell you what when where john after the road for three four hours they come back and have a picnic that's a hard time taking the people out of the parking lot over there because they want to sit down and be part of something twenty years ago i had my daughters planning the road and they still talk about it i took the neighborhood kids that's the grant i want to get back to that's a grant  believe is still there that's why we feed six hundred people at the restoration tractor prayed every year and it's getting bigger every year for the citizens are out there we no longer have grant cleanup if you read  these gentlemen i've spoken to read the charter and understand it's not finished many great things in it if you go back it was the city council that deemed that the charter would be in the best interest of the city it was a city that merits that nominated by council member to sit on the charter and he gave a list of ten other names to fill that charter the judge was very wise he got forty fifty applicants throughout our city look at the members of the charter commissioners spread throughout our community he gave us two great attorneys to work with had we taken the nominations from our city council that subject it was them there we would have had ten application for nine positions the judge was wise he gave us people from around there and i'm proud to be on that commission and the people i set up with this is a document that is just like protecting your right to hunt and fish in became a city to keep from being an x and now this charter will give us the level of protection to keep grant rural that right now it only takes three members and a city council to change our heritage  whereas at a charter it will require fifty one percent of the people so it gives a stronger voice to the citizens well i don't know why this is so misunderstood everybody should know what the constitution is the constitution is a set of rules regulations balance of powers between the judiciary the house of representatives and the executive ok that's all it does us is create a that spells it out so that this is what you can and can't do putting the church that the charter in place space like it will say the city council can change directions like they've done with these thirty eight commercial lots that they say over refining it well yes again it's we're spreading it all over the city what will happen is it will take fifty one percent of the voters to change something so that the people that are appointed part making decisions they aren't running at all that they do is they initially set up the constitution and after it's set up that's the the rules under which the council has to run and if it says there has to be a planning commission there is a planning commission if it says they have to follow the comprehensive plan they have to follow the comprehensive plan and it is not an active form of government they meet basically once a year and they have said it what we'll do is protect your rights maybe you should research a constitution you can understand that level and then that's when the current one is being written  centers and nightclubs there's there's too many changes we need to keep all we have to do was wait the red flag in front of the bull in the cold so we have to we have to be careful of those people because they'll do to us what they did i one member on that charter commission and i tell you what we do has a very good respectful people from throughout our community that support this deal that it sent there and we don't always agree and issues but there is a good level of respect  charter commission meeting and you're welcome to come out we do allow public comment and guess what it's not that terrible to have that charter as a document that will protect your city line just as we changed from  well i tell you right now i feel that so can be played on channel sixteen i think this gentleman has been maybe to one or two meetings i've been to all of them they have covered a lot of ground they've had a lot of good discussion there hasn't been which heated discussion but there has been a lot of discussion in the last meeting they took public comment the attorneys were asking the people in the audience and polling them what they thought it it's a work i actually believe i don't i wouldn't call it an exaggeration i would call it detachment right now we are responsible for fire calls where responsible for the police department that affects our budget site i believe that if we detach our property we will have taken all public sewer and water out of the city grant when the conditional use permit was issued in two thousand and six for the plainfield it said any further development of this property shall use well and sceptic but our city council again the conditional use permit within one hour america are entered in a joint powers agreement with the city of marjah meet i'd take care of the city of grant threshold to keep public sewer and water out of grants so yes we don't get any taxes from there we still pay a lot of taxes and quite honest right now we have all the modern mean i school district sending in grant except for one i don't see any harm and detach on our property and let him stand on our own as some of you may or may not have seen in the newspapers the number of police layers and officers are diminishing rapidly they used to have a police officer in every school to handle difficulty well now they don't every one of the fire calls every one of the police calls are built to the city a great time for keeping taxes low if we could come up with a way to minimize those expenses and if you look at part of our budget the fire and police is is a very large part of our budget we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on that and we need to again we need to cut some costs and i think if that would save grant some money maybe it should be looked at favor allowing anyone in the grant property grant city we can't be annexed this would like larry said would be a detachment so if somebody wants to explore that i don't have a problem with it if you would save us tax dollars we're not spending thousands of dollars every time they send a police volunteer and they did listen and yet right after that they spent forty five minutes to determine whether we should change down the house so do we need more sirens now i think we've done a good job starting with the first one we place it in the middle fairly well covered keep in mind an outdoor siren is exactly what that is it's not necessarily going to become aware when you're sitting in your house so we've done a good job we started that program i see they've carried on through its finish i think we're probably pretty well but if our citizens feel that we have a need in an area let's take a decibel meter out their anger it out because we don't maybe need a large siren we got a small area they do have other siren available less as a citizen volunteer doing all the paperwork doing all the footwork helping locate where it should be that was excellent we now have two more i'm sure who has put quite a few say were injured after that toddler was killed up there in the tornado they had up there  think i think we're pretty well covered if there is an area that isn't being serviced again this is for when you're outside it's not for when your house do it on an as needed basis but i think we were pretty well covered for sirens right now i don't think there's any place in the city considering there's one of mine to meet i right by the high school which is real close there are sirens close all over there's quite a few of them here where they just place so i think we're doing pretty well but if there is a needed area so one can show a need for that maybe a smaller styled site one could be be appropriated i think we need to focus on the probably on the put the money into the roads are probably a little bit better situation i think we're fairly well saluting him such as newsletter editors cable commissioners cleanup you'll have a much better community i see it when i put together this tractor parade i get twenty people in a room that want to come out and bring  community together they all work hard the same goal if we're going to make our city or city a better place we have to start listening as and we have to start respecting our citizens and folks we've got great citizens out there we've got a great community we simply got to engage my little bed and encourage him thank you future a great i think we're kind of at a crossroads we really have to be careful i'm very very worried about you know raging the medical school so we go the way i came out here like many other people have to follow a dream i'm farming i'm forty three acres i've done corn and soybeans i'm currently doing here and have a little stable to me you know fill in the soil as being like being next to god as far as that and i'm very concerned with the changes that we've seen in the last couple years but this is getting very dangerous when there's we're going to getting commercial it says that we're not supposed to be following the leap frog development ladies and gentlemen our commercial area is thirty six my goodness there's cornfields down there why don't they put the club down where the cornfields are there's a complete commercial area to spread it through the city so the comes in and said aha you've done that therefore we're going to come in and that's a real concern for me i want to keep it rural property values will stay up if we maintain some some of this exclusive were known as a nice place to live we have freedom we can come out i think one of the most important things is keeping grant world in one of the problems we have in grant and people may or may not be aware of this i've been early in my career i work in a small world town in one of the things you find that unites people in small world towns are hugely three four social centers the high school is a social meeting place and there's two or three restaurants downtown well the problem with grant is that east half goes to stillwater  half goes to modern media so we've already lost a connection right there and there really aren't a lot of meeting places in grant where you can go i have a cup of coffee others like the cost and that really is is more of a supper club so that's that's is  problem right there in voting for me is going to we're going to have some transparency in government i want to see the planning commission back i want to see citizen volunteers we have a lot of very wonderful people it's amazing how many professionals are out here in grant and if we can get them engaged the type of contributions they could make to our city would be just wonderful but it's being chipped away they're saying we stay within the ordinances folks they're just talking about redefining all twenty two definitions and they've given it to the planner they should be giving it to the citizens to look out for this so we can keep grant world and quit changing all these ordinances to allow more uses yes you have the right to  your property but should be within a rural setting we don't need ice hockey rinks that are twenty seven thousand square feet so people vote for me i will make darn sure to the best of my ability we can keep this is world as we can because i don't want to lose weight for well i'm also for keeping grant i have thirty acres i believe in grant i've been here for thirty using my property right now we don't have one council equal representation come to our next city council meeting and see they're reviewing home occupation when i moved out here is encouraged yes you can have a small business out of your home yes you can use your land and agricultural setting right now coming forward like i said i worked on a lot of issues in our city i brought the city together and many are like mr bammers and we have to have a city function to bring people together we do what's called the grand tractor parade and i'd like to invite that are for the charter commission and more government to people that want to put a referendum for more taxes for you you also heard the lawsuits against the city that's costing us money you've channel sixteen will be wednesday this will go on until the election wednesday eight p m friday one p m and sunday at two thirty for not watching the vikings and then  cable channel fifteen will be on friday october twenty fourth one and eight p m saturday the twenty fifth at eight friday the thirty first at five p m and midnight wow and saturday november first to ten a m and if you want to if you want to check with me afterwards we can go over this it's kind of hard to remember always there also be a d v d of this form at the wildwood library  pretty shortly and now it's your turn clap like crazy