represent us so welcome thank you all for coming in addition to the audiences here today this is a broadcast so this will be on cable television probably for a while after this meeting so you have a chance to revisit it format wise we've changed things up a bit this year and this is the second year of our change format and that is every other year we switch between our local officials and then our state officials so last year you may recall we had our state senate our house of representatives and people that represent us at that level this year on the alternate cycle we have our local representation and that is our school board our county officials as well as our city officials so next year we'll have the opposite panel of questions from our audience there are tablets and paper on the tables one of our directors ted really will be going around collecting questions if you have any one thing to note we're not going to be personal we don't do any kind of question that may be personal of nature inflammatory nature so if those kind of questions come from the audience they will be screened and disregarded by me time limitations and we obviously have a little bit of time limitations we don't have an unlimited amount of time so we're trying to keep our responsive responses brief and goal through the list of questions if there are questions asked of any specific panel that somebody else wants to answer anybody else on the panel time permitting was a chance to jump in and  and answer the question so i do want to start i want to start with just introductions if we can take a mere thirty seconds and there's two microphones we have a house mike that we're sharing and we have the t v mikes that everybody has it's individual so i'm assuming most everybody can he and we do all crimes by juveniles fourteen and older regardless of county or misdemeanor we also do protect the land that the county own suite but we do child support enforcement paternity meter i find springs we're learning and her choice and i'm the baby up here i've only got five months experience going and so but happened over the last twenty three years and it's been great thank you we did randomly select i should say i randomly selected to be truthful just who would start the questions the first couple sets of questions are going to be for everybody on the panel so wherever we start we're just going to move to the viewing right and then back to the left if there's a need to do it randomly commissioner birth i got the straw to start this question but it's a it's a question that i think goes harkens back to even my political days at one point i did serve on the school board probably do it and i think back of what my single greatest accomplishment was was fairly simple it involved dialing a telephone annoyed told the story menu and it was sitting there looking at a phone number down and a telephone to the virginia school district got through a assistant and got through to our now superintendent paddy phillips and offered her a job so i look back i remember if there's any one impact that i might have helped make is part of that body was that very moment that very day so in that light what is your single greatest accomplishment or what just lay should have you been part of that you feel is the probably the most impactful thing you've done in public office and i know commissioner birth it's only been a short time you're welcome to go back to your many other years in the city as well but i think one of the one of the major things that i'm most proud of and i think is done o summerfest this is our thirty years year and it's a means to bring the community together and i think we've helped maintain our small town atmosphere by doing things like o summerfest in the manner that we do you know we're not the woodbury type we don't we don't follow that model but there are teachers old and i think ours works good and my fingers in that for quite a while preceded us have done some amazing things we have cut twenty three million dollars our last six years we have grown our fund balance from a negative one million dollars to over sixteen million dollars and while doing those cuts we added programs and we did things we close the achievement gap and we did great things for kids so more recently we've made some partnerships which are really exciting coming up here soon some renovating of our b relate program to serve better serve our pre k and pre k special ed and we're going to have an enrollment center and lots of just really exciting things that are going to really well but because that was such a difficult site to redevelop because the farmer owner was so difficult to work with we really needed to put a lot of time and energy into making that happen and it's a site that had really needed redevelopment for ten years and we worked on it for many years and finally the molokai and the streets are and infrastructure is there and are just really looking forward to seeing the development being built again this coming year and the following years but that was a major undertaking and a big accomplishment for the city thank you and i know there's another question  best thing we ever did was realize that we needed help in economic development we had no idea when i got on the council how to put deals together how to do it we knew we had to hire the right staff around us to get these things done and probably the best thing we ever did was hire craig who was an economic developer for roseville so we know one thing i have to be general about it and say everything we do goes toward increasing safety for our citizens if you're not safe you're not going to do well in schools you're not going to do well at work you're  spend in a community you have to feel safe so we've done a number of things my management team has made a commitment to not just be tough on crime and by the way we've become tough on crime we've quintupled our jury trials b be smart on crime it's not enough just to be tough so i've got to cater to one lawyer one prosecutor to work in the schools to develop relationships with our schools so we can get to these kids early on and try to do that intervention early on i think that's a dollar well spanked according all the studies and we also have to mean what we say and take an aggressive position on violent crime and we've done that and we're continuing to do it and we can't do it along my office camp so we've developed very strong partnerships with your old deal police department we're very proud of that it takes a lot of work work every other month we spend six hours my prosecutors and i doing training with the police so that we can work more closely together and the net result is double the contacts with our crime victims and we see a decrease in the violent crime when we work together so i'm very proud of the partnerships we've developed with our own police thank you pete next question we're swapping starting with mayor ceroc down at the side and there's three parts to this question and it starts with in the coming year our number one what is your top priority our number two what is your biggest challenge our number three what is your greatest opportunity you could  be accomplished and if we can get a commercial developer development in to the tired site he cites a senior building which is which has already approved but let's say that number one opportunity i see is is an opportunity to do something effective when it comes to domestic abuse i've been kicking this around my management team for the last two years and we want to do something twenty fourteen to decrease of domestic abuse to times right we can't pick up the paper every day without seein somebody killing their spouse or partner and we've got to find some objective ways to do what we do have some plans we want to partner closely with our municipal prosecutors because domestic assault usually typically comes in as a misdemeanor and they handle it and then when the perpetrator does it again then it becomes a foul and we want to start in a front end with the municipal prosecutors with the victim advocates and we want to see if we can put together a plan that would rival the blueprint for safety that ramsey county has we think we can tailor something for our county that works for our people that hopefully will make a difference and that's all the challenge and an opportunity and we want to do it without asking for any money we want to use the resources we have to get smarter about them and find a way to make a difference thank you very much cooperation with other cities we've started then we've just had our first county abatement ever for a company coming out of us in wisconsin to come to minnesota i think we have to travel down that road so we can broaden our tax base i think we have to keep our employees we have great employees and for years i think we've become a training ground because of the some of the problems with wages and things and i think we have to find a way to to do that without impacting the budget i mean if it doesn't do us any good to have great employees and then see him go to ramsey county or hennepin county and then we start over again training somebody new you know that's that's a net loss for the county we have we have to correct that the other one is for each program and i was campaigning i said i was going to try to get more money for the four h program and it harkens back to some of the things pete talks about with the kids i mean that's a great program for the in the school district our top priority is obviously student achievement and closing my gap as you've heard here are ready today the challenge with that always is to do that by being fiscally caught accountable and with a limited budget as far as greatest opportunity we have some great partnerships i have some handouts on your table and on the back side there's a green section with some of the partnerships that's the school district has and there's many more too that we're always working on but that's a great opportunity for us and i think the legislation from this year is going to also be a real great opportunity for us the helping of funding of all day k in twenty fourteen is going to be huge for us and some of the preschool scholarships and things like that so   a priority for the city that being redevelopment of the tanners like former black youth site and also the old site which i mentioned previously and then as far as challenges and i know this was also mentioned commissioner birth i believe that the funding and services scenario it's a balancing act because of course you want to keep property taxes low and do everything you can  not only keep the rates flat but decrease of possible however people want their services to remain intact so you and you can only cut so many things and make so many changes an cases has been recently in front of you would talk a bit about those cases maybe what led up to them and what do you think needs to be done not only of the county but at the city and in any other kind of level to maybe help deal with events so whether it's mental very committed people living and i think this isn't about oh well it starts to feel out a little bit you go cheese we've had some high profile cases what's going on with us it's not the city and if you look and read the paper you'll see it's everywhere it's just when it hits home now it's no longer an open accounting problem its own washington county problem but that doesn't make us unique it just means it's our turn to feel some of the pain that other cities have felt through violent crime and while there have been some violent cases that have come along i just finished a murder case last week that's not about o b l it just so happened a victim lived in oakdale and the perpetrator happened to be go because he had a relative there that could've been anywhere so that's not it another case where it's a pretty mentally ill person to trials pending so i'm not going to say much he snapped and went out and shot a bunch of folks that could have been anywhere that's not an old dale problem that's a systemic problem and then we had a murder suicide last year which was tragic i guess that's everywhere including places like short so what are we going to do about it we have to take a holistic approach work very closely with our partners in law enforcement and community services and probation try to work together i think when we team up we think we can make a difference and a feels like we have recently the commitments there with law enforcement and our other partners so i don't want anybody to get alarmed not withstanding we see a few of these cases now i guess i'd say it's our everybody else has it unfortunately you know there are geographic restrictions on either of them will make a very painful if they do it here so i thank you pete one one more quick question came from our audience while we have you at the mike the veterans court here talk a little bit about how that's proceeding how it's going to make any impact as well thanks i'm very proud of that our veterans hardly sat up the first one was and had opened the second one is here in washington county and by the way next tuesday the eleventh we're having a very big open house folks from all over the state are coming down to visit or factor in score we have judges we have police chiefs we have others i'd love to have you come next tuesday at ten o'clock we're going to have some speakers some patterns and gone through it now there's here it is my commitment is to do the right things and to the right person as a prosecutor that's what it's about now we were seeing and i saw  combat vets coming in when i was an assistant hennepin county attorney multiple tours a combat what do they do they come home to a twenty five percent unemployment rate they're sitting down the basement they've got some post traumatic stress  all veterans by the way but stop and what do they do they start trying to and smoking marijuana to assuage their mental health issues and isn't a surprise that they don't go out and get in a bar fight a traffic thing a domestic assault and what am i supposed to do throw those guys in prison or jail they didn't go into the service as criminals and miscreants and it's only because of what we did to him grinding them up in multiple tours away from their families that i think we have a moral responsibility to try to get him some help to try to get him the damson so i can focus on the violent criminals and not the people that we can treat so we partner with the v a which saves the county a significant amount of money it's a voluntary program but first of all the victims of the crimes they have a strong say in whether this person participates and one thing i'll say it's not a get out of jail free card frequently there are people that say well i if i just pled guilty nothing would really happen and you want me to go to an inpatient chemical dependency treatment program followed by a long term post traumatic stress treatment followed by monthly contacts with us and  we put him on a short leash we'll come up with mentors we've got over twenty in there now we've just had our first graduate the guys back at work back with his family and everything's going well i feel like that's a success it's all about doing the right thing to the right person and it's not a get out of jail free card sure banks thank you for the next question is for school board chair and it's in two parts first in your opinion how do you feel the financial health of the school district is today and second do you see any significant changes in the near future as business people tend to pay attention to operating referendums those kind of things on the ballot how do you feel there's anything in the near future that would change that financial help f rom the public's perspective something different than it is today and as i talked about earlier and once again there's the handouts on your table but financially we have cut twenty three million dollars in six years and growing our fund balance all of that while still spending way below the state average and the bottom right hand corner on the one side is a breakdown of how we spend our money and how it compares to other just there the state average i guess also next to that is a referendum comparison and you can see that district six twenty two is at the bottom of that list of our comparable schools so the money we get  referendum so yes we are deficit spending of to the tune of about two million dollars but we've been blessed with the fundaments that's been able to hold us through that time and we were hoping that we could do that safely and whole in hopes that something would change in the legislation to get us out of that situation and we really feel that maybe that's going to happen we've been spending a million dollars a year on all day k for the last six years i believe six or seven and bringing in the funding for that will be a complete benefit for us so i think that our positive outlook is actually pretty good but like i say we have been deficit spending for a while so you know it's never roses but you know we take what we can and we make roses out of it so i guess that would be lemons and lemonade maybe but yes i feel confident that we can continue to do the things we're doing and do them even better thank you and the next question is for county commissioner bertha it's in two parts first off i'm a bit nosy so this is the first part came from me and that is you've had a long and storied history as you just said five months from now on the storied history prior to me but you're serving as county commissioner but first i want to know what the biggest adjustment is between the county level and what your experience was and that was at the city  part of the question is washington county i believe a city in the number two statewide for the last effective tax rate do you envision we will not only stay there but what are some things you are doing that will be hopefully help keep us there very number one i think that the biggest difference between the city and the county that i've learned so far is the number of activities you get involved with and are expected to learn about i currently serv thousand committees things like public health which cities don't do things like cooperation with the county attorney in the sheriff's office and cities don't do so it's just a brighter a broader aspect of government on i never knew there wasn't an aging thing to do with this with government i never knew that and i'm guessing there are people sitting here today that don't know that so one of our goals is get more people knowing that there is that a government agency that has a lot of money that does a lot of good things for seniors yes we are the second lowest county and we currently we were last time i checked how we're going to keep it there and that's going to be the balancing act that's it's going to be tough there's two realms of thought here one is it's really great to have the lowest taxes around and preach that how conservative we are and you know that the asked the other aspect of that is is a good dog he's been known as the cheapest place in town maybe not i don't think you're going to see any drastic changes in the county portion of your income taxes same as i don't think you're going to see address the difference in the city portion the state has come along and help the counties and the cities a little bit now which is really leaders and that is what is the thing or things you would like to see your local business community do more of or simply do that as a collective they may not be doing today and adding to that the question from our audience of what do you see your role in growing the business space in our community to be and how healthy do you feel this business community is so i can repeat any about it if you get the just of it it's about you know what what should the business community do more of in your opinion to help solve some of your problems but then what should the city be doing also in return to help some of the businesses and have a good economic climate as far as business community i mean i don't see how they can do too much does for the community it's a it's amazing how many events they help out and it's truly amazing and how we can help down is we do it now we do a lot of retention visits what we do is we go out to the businesses and see if there's anything they need some meet and greet to let them know that they we appreciate them being in the city able it's amazing how how receptive they are to that so you get the retain the businesses and also so we got to keep bring in businesses in the city of local i think we do it might be in business friendly we're probably one of the cities in the state of that as far as the business retention visits i think those are my the most important things that we do at the city to acknowledge our our current businesses and let them know that we're thankful that they're here and we need them to diversify our tax base and it's good to have those businesses to provide jobs for our residents and again they're just a critical piece of what the city can do for the business community and also i wanted to mention recently we had a workshop with a neighboring city in talking about economic development specifically and we talked about our local business and professional association and they didn't have anything like that and their city and so i feel very fortunate that we have all of you to help us with economic development and we very much appreciate it thank you lori one quick follow up for me  the county level we have two events next week that i must mention selfless promotion here but we have our annual first off on wednesday the twelfth we have our annual community appreciation picnic this is called up at the north fire station here in oak hill right off of hadley and that's an event which anybody businesses residents kids can come and join we've had upwards of fifteen hundred we had a hell written event last year in which we kicked the fire truck out of the fire station to grill and i watched the fire trucks all get held on i thought  when you look at crowning achievement sometimes it's not necessarily a political action it's an action to bring people together and how much things get done but immediately following that event on that wednesday we have our annual golf tournament which is the same type of thing on thursday to bring everybody together so there's two to golf and an option to be just of the social or so go to our website or go to the city's web site you get a link to those two events and it plays a big role so we we really do do and sometimes take for granted how good of a relationship we have not only with ou residents but with our elected officials where we're blessed we don't have we haven't had what i would like to call the disease city council or does the school board or did these counties for a long time and i know all that sounds awful but some cities h that we do not we're really blessed to have very good representation across the board so next question is for six twenty two chair coburn and that is the higher profile decision of late was to redo the football field attire high school with an artificial circus and in listening to superintendent phillips of one of our o b pe events i have to lay it out she referred to it as the cold field project and that was coined after that really bad and ineffective school board member that used to serve that had put that on the docket to be done years ago and but that aside in times where finances are cherished as we've talked about where a classroom instruction is the focus why make such a such an investment like that today it like ed said we had grown that fun balance from negative a million dollars to over sixteen million and this time both north high and tartan came to us and said our fields are mass we need to do something and there were two options turf field or replace the field just as grass looking at i mean one of the great things that we see in the district is collaboration between all these parties and these a p s and facilities people they all got together and you know came up with a plan and in looking at the ten year facility or the ten year plan by putting in a  actually start gaining revenue and we would be able to use the field more often less maintenance and it even without putting the terrific and we would have to spend i think it was right around eight hundred thousand dollars to just replace the grass tartans field is even worse because it's just kind of built on a wetland it's really rough and whatnot so financially was the first reason because it just made sense it was that we had the money to do it and it was the plan looked good the second thing was the safety of our students tartans field was getting to the point where kids were turning in coles it was if you go over there today still my son plays at target number three baseball and you see kids running in the outfield to catch a ball and also and boom because they've hit this big because it just sinks in places so safety was the second thing safety for our students and finally kind of a marketing aspect pretty much are comparable schools in the neighborhood i have her fields and it was interesting because when we were talking in our school board meeting about this decision and before we voted on it we have student representatives that sit at the board table and one of our student reps said yeah you know the football players they don't get as much  they worry that they're not going to get recruited as much because we don't have a turf field and you know it's they they look to other high schools that have two fields because they think you know they're going to get better quality of play especially when your field all bumpy so not very often do those student the student reps speak up but it was really very telling when this one did and just kind of assured to us that this was a very well carrot work clinic in our district education center it's a beautiful facility the goal of that first of all our partners with health partners was it didn't cost us any money to build that facility and our employees are able to come there before during work before during or after work and the goal is that they will be at work more the primarily for employees and their families what is roughly i mean that employee count today just right fifteen hundred and talking about child chil care for children are being relate facility that we're updating and in the next few years eventually we'd like to have at that facility a health clinic for students are coming in to register to enroll in the district and  the goal would be to have some sort of clinic there where they can get their human ear immunizations and take care of anything they need to do to and started rolling into the garden for preschool sounds very was passionate about that project years ago open enrollment changed things for districts it became a competitive nature and she alluded to the marketing aspect you do to be competitive in schools and to keep your role meant to where it's right the fully funded you have to make sure your product crimes seem to have virtually fallen out of the public eye and what is the status of the drug culture here in washington county and what is our largest concerned with respect to drugs and how do you feel about potential legalization of marijuana ok office and other people from different cities combining i'll tell you that it's heart breaking up the damage i call it an epidemic that i'm seeing and that's a resurgence a heroin and methadone and that daft seco along with it last year we buried five kids in this county i'm new year's day i got a call another overdose we go after the people that sell and distribute those drugs to work kids were aggressive about it i do i want to get in any debate on war on drugs this is all more on the kids dime and i'll be damned if i'm not going to do something about the people that are bringing this cheap heroin and out of methadone into our communities where kids and up taken and when the kids taking the kids stuff so i'm real clear drug dealers be where i live i don't get into first philosophical debates when you're making a profit off the health of my kids you're going to pay a dear price when i get my hands on that's assimilated is marijuana and i stay out of the debate only because personally i don't do drugs i don't drink i don't do any of those things and i get very involved in working with groups that do recovery work so i have a personal position on it and i think that all it's going to do is you know make my life harder and more difficult on the other hand  like some of the models i see with washington and colorado where they tax the living daylights out of it control it by municipalities and pay down some of our debts and throw some money into our schools that's that myself i think drugs are the cause of a lot of problems that i see as a prosecutor i just do so i have some strong feelings about that but you know this so called war on drugs i've got my own war on drugs and i feel real strongly about too many cases i think we have four cases right now where drug dealers are being prosecuted for third degree murder for killing kids so you know if you ask me philosophically i'm just going to tell you i don't have a philosophy i only have dead kids is a follow up immediately what you know what do you think maybe is the cause of why i mean in ninety three with your assessment but why is the mainstream media seem to be burying off of i mean it seems to be more now about is it that the drugs lead to these more violent crimes the violent crimes are being covered or is it is there a view the media coverage is has changed dramatically when it comes to math and heroin and some of those things you just don't hear or see it not a detriment to you that it's not on the front page or is it better to have it on the front page oh i want the public to know exactly what's going on in their community because i need the public's help i can't do this along with the police department can't do it alone this is what the public needs to let us know what's going on in their community and so we can respond but you know we saw a great decline in methamphetamine manufacturing as several years ago when our legislators a couple of whom are here and thanks for coming senator we but it did have a significant decline in meth manufacturing unfortunately that demand was still there and now it's filled by cheap mexican methamphetamine coming up and i consider that drug truly vicious and evil and now we're going to do everything we can to keep those drugs out of the community but the debates now become on whether we legalize marijuana or not and that takes the focus off what's really happening and how drugs are ruining  our schools our communities and i'm committed to continuing to look for some laws on that and i you know this business about marijuana and stuff that's now my deal with the legislature changes i'll respond but until then is there going to be a change in direction do you think there is a need to have a change of direction or what's going to be your five process is to as kind takes away when you know when that visibility needs to change for those sites that's a nonstarter i think it's going to stay that way i hope for future councils hopefully this is the so get developed quick but i don't see it changing at all i really don't and same with tanner site we did change directions we are looking mainly for restaurant down there we have some ideas that we want to use down there so we did change a little there from from that really with tartan crossing it is on pace we just put the infrastructure in last year so while we would all love to see it completely redeveloped it does take time and so i think that we're plugging along just as we should be and not make any hasty decisions on that particular side with blackies tanners like it is taking a bit longer than we had anticipated with the economy  as it's been the last few years but we actually have a workshop scheduled next month regarding some of the opportunities on that side so i'm looking forward to seeing something positive going in there so thank you just as a quick follow up now to professionally as you know as a community banker but i know the intent of the question writer here in this case was the fear that if things go along all of us under single family rooftops on some of those parcels and and for me that would goals of commercial development in both cases are well you know we're always you know i mean if the developer can't get it done there are some families in place there's a you know i mean either another developer is going to come in that can can do what we want them to do or sure there's penalties and low in this situation right now but we haven't hit those points ye housing component of the tartan crossing site was necessary to make it work financially that being said i personally wouldn't be interested in seeing any additional housings that's not the intent right thank you this lifetime is being planned and it's finally in its way to get complete but also a lot of conversation about whether it's real transit going down the ninety four corridor or some mass past dedicated road some different things just talk a bit about mormon open ended question but what your thoughts are with respect to how are those things going to impact is there any if you don't like and would not like to see or one versus the other and you know what does that mean to the county not only the county but the city transit is a really important tool it gets back to some of the other questions are asked about how we can cooperate with businesses i translated we're finding out is really important for a business to be able to get their employees and their customers to the business  as mostly you know i don't like trains and i don't i just don't like trains on the days going to come when you're going to have trains i understand that but i think it's premature bus rapid transit which will affect all jail in the woodbury in a few other places along the line from here to wisconsin will be a plus and i think that's the proper way to go because you can reuse that same dedicated lane and for four and when trains come and they will be here but it's not only night ninety four corridor the gateway we're also aggressively going to newport and building a transit station there for the same bus rapid transit system there and i think it is important to our people out here can can get to other places i can remember when kermit get into that you know this was the end of the world i mean you only came here for back to lunch but those days are gone and if we want to really work hard at economic development then we got to have some of these other tools in place too and it's not only for businesses it's for schools you know with open enrollment kids job on buses minneapolis a city bus that's low so that's a transit is weighs heavily on everybody county going to put its focus on buses and trains and forget about the fact that there still are cars i would hope that and this is a question writers take here do that consolidating two questions into one  will there be some motivation for the county to also develop some some road expansions to accommodate our track yes there are with the wheel it's tanks being raised from five dollars to ten dollars that gives the county another million dollars for roads we understand are roads that have suffered so it's not only for the buses and the trains but for cars in this day and age as bikes you know but yes you will see of some other two that you're not getting or you'd like to see more out why would they be that same question going down for the do so for commissioner birth the same for jericho going to the city in the county and for the city the county schools what are some things that you would like to see maybe from your counterparts more or something never taught you that is a great question mark but i don't struggle with it because i think what i learned early on is again  office can't do things along that we need partnerships and i think we've developed this take us a couple years but i think we've developed some really good partnerships with our schools particular really to schools in oakdale and with our city government particularly the police we work very closely with them that includes training together that includes being in the schools working with school administrators in or trying to program i think it's worked well and i just want to see those relationships continue to be there and i think we get a lot more when we cooperate and if we were pointing fingers at each other and frankly i think it's been really great how we invent accepted schools to augment what they're doing and help out with their programs to spare as i work in the school resource officers and now and same thing with the city i think we've got a terrific relationship with our city police and if we didn't that i don't think we'd be nearly as effective as we are so i have no complaints i just want to maintain and build upon the relationships we have thank you mr burke i mean it was done the communication is pete said we're all in this game together there is no separate turf questions about well that's a city thing or that's a county thing or that's a school today we're all in this together and then close the state legislature well we all need to strive to do the best job we all came together to use our resources wisely and you know hopefully will communicate that and cooperate in building bricks and mortar facilities that none of us should do alone but we could do it cooperatively so i think communication is just in just the whole you know that component of trust trust and communication and transparency and building on the partnerships that are already there it is key and just some changed already is farzana economic development that that used to be our hardest thing with the colony is that they were in a different mindset as far as coming to washington county it isn't going to stay a rural community forever and i think that's important now that we've got dental in the line of communication that we can get a lot of things done theft and you know what's maybe happening to prevent it in the banking world we see a lot of that but also what is your relationship between you and maybe the department of wash got a youth service bureau relationships there right and thanks for that mark because i was full but i get an opportunity to say one little plug for my own cause you know prosecuting criminals is our number one concern but i think another strong role for my office is a crime prevention i would much prefer to put a little time in to keeping you from becoming a victim than help and straighten out and get you justice when you do become one and toward that end we put a significant amount of effort into getting out in the communities and talking about crime prevention the number one crime in america is identity theft as a matter of fact at two o'clock i'll be speaking at st andrews church with one of my colleagues about how to stop that but there's other things too on line safety a lot of us are getting ripped off as we buy things on line of as well as kids who are vulnerable online protecting our seniors merchant identity theft and protecting merchants including for small business merchants how to protect yourself from being a robbery victim those things we feel real strongly about i'd much prefer to help you on the front end than try to help you on the back end so that's one and two the you service bureaus i've met with the directors of  forest lake lakes area new service bureau and our stillwater office and i'm very very interested in partnering with them because they bring to the table things i don't as a prosecutor they give me a bucket full of hammers and sometimes i need a different tool and i don't have anything but hammers big ones little ones but you service your old guys and we try to partner with down i'm getting these kids who want to stay in school or who won't quit smoking marijuana or who you know are doing right kid to get on top of that so i'm a big fan of it i really am great thank you another question real quick and this one's from he specifically i did not try to leave the county out but the city in the schools  answer this but we talked about how important this level of government that's a representative government how important the very next of kin is that is your your your administrative staff so in both cases all along do you have your had in the case of the schools your superintendent in the case of the city your city administrator locked up for so we can have continuity there just there that specifically those two are always near and dear to my heart so i appreciate that question next question for all starting with six twenty two jericho burning this is what this question is for everybody so will again do the same thing will go from amy to laurie then back then down the road again but what is your hands down favorite natural beauty of your jurisdiction so in this case the school's little switch to the city so what is your favorite part about the school district city people what is your but i have to take just one you can pick a few ok i know i am the parent of elementary kids and i think a crime our district and if you haven't been in our elementary schools lately you need to go because they're the coolest place on earth and you walk in there and you see these little bodies going around and the amazing things that they're doing and it's so incredibly different from when we went to school it's it's an lightning it's it's just i i don't even know how to describe it you need to go and stop by and visit us when i when i first went to the school where my kids went there weren't even any kids there and i watched through the doors and there was just something about the building it just made me feel really happy and welcome and the following year i brought my kids there in it has been just a wonderful place for them and the things that they've learned the people that they've met the relationships that they've built you know it's really truly a community school in a bigger city and i would say that about every single one of our elementary schools middle schools are a little different atmosphere so i'm not saying that you don't have that but it's not like that community school that you feel when you're a little bit younger middle school or start going off on their own as is high school so i would say the feeling that i get in our elementary  probably my number one i'm there i'm so excited about this be for like a program that we're going to be starting on i am a former elementary school teacher myself so i realize the importance of that early intervention and i think in a district like ours where our demographics are changing so much and teaching kids isn't just teaching them how to read and write it's being their mother being their confidant being their n you know so many different hats that it is just it's just changed so much in these teachers go through so much and they work so hard and and the more we can do to start these kids off it is that an equal playing field is is just incredible and it just is going to help us grow in close that achievement gap even more you know kids are coming into school today with you know you could have a kindergarten class where you have eight years of eight years or more of difference in ability and they're all the same age but some have had some stuff some have had nothing so that preteen a program that we're going to be building is just really exciting for me  i could go on but there this is a surprisingly difficult question because there are so many things to choose from but i would say one thing in particular that i really appreciate and appreciate about the city is that  we do take that economic development focus and thanks to the staff who do a wonderful job sitting right here and making that happen but i think that because we did focus on that it really helped us when the economy took a dive and other cities fared a lot worse than we did i just really appreciate that we appreciate our business community as much as we do at the city and  secondly if i can mention another thing i would mention our discovery center i want to say our new discovery center but i guess it's been there for a while now time flies but i think that project turned out really well on our farm or nature center site and provide us neat experience so that people can really see what we have to offer with the nature preserve because otherwise i think we had this jewel in our city and people didn't know about it or didn't have the ok to visit it whereas now when we all the events at the discovery center they get to see we're actually a place where the rubber meets the road i mean it's so cool because you're always deal and it's a first time people ever deal with the government is usually in the city government and where you can actually have an effect on people who are you see it firsthand and they come to you i mean the things that pop up each day it's amazing how many different calls and things that come up  while you get somebody that goes off to them but that's what i enjoy the most is just dealing directly with the city as you move up and government to the county you're getting further removed state you're getting further removed and federal you are washington you're really you removed so that's what i enjoy the most is a connection with people ok real quick before we get to a county attorney are put in a did no pressure here we've had three employees get a bad rap i really would invite you to stop down and see the folks in my office these people work very very hard for not a lot of money and they do it because a lot of their job and there's nothing more fun and coming to work with people who share the same values as you and it's not about money it's not about benefits it's about the work we do and how much we all love it and it just gets me through some dark days and just knowing there's people there that i can share it with that work really hard that's terribly satisfying you know you said that to mary it really is about the people that that's what it is and makes it so enjoyable banks commission of earth i think the best thing i've i've seen is your  growth of the county in oakdale and when i first came we didn't have a bank we didn't have a grocery store you know now we have western  keeping open the space of going to buy some more land on the river st croix but these important to keep the waterways water is going to be one of the big big subjects that state legislature the county and distributed all the packets for the ill b p a and you guys have come along way i mean you don't you don't need people to tell you that you build up and i just keep up the good work and thank you ted that before we get to our last question that's going to be remarks i do want to say one thing that's unique and for the viewing audience that might not pick up on this it's a pretty close to a group of people i i consider everybody at this table friends and i've known just about everybody for quite a while and when you get to these kind of spots and when business community is that ingrained with your local government and we know that not only from their leadership but from social aspects whether it's ills picnics and other things you tell a lot about a person about socially and a story of your last couple years i have a son that plays hockey with which eric over and son and i can tell you when you see how well that family is you see how cool those kids are it says something about the mom and about then the leader so we should be thankful cross the board from every one of our leaders of they have this passion to do what they do and they and they might not be out and visible every day it's that tends to be kind of more of the silent form of government that we have sitting here but they do wonderful work and for that we need to be thankful because it i really feel we are well represented here saw last question is just that and it's a chance to close and then you are going to start with the councilwoman pull her back in the same progression just a minute or so just to to end it however you want to end it all right i would like to mention how much i enjoyed working with not only the other local government entities but we have a fabulous city staff and you know the mayor likes to say that they make us look and they do they carry on the day to day stuff and we're very thankful for them and i also want to put a plug in far my fellow council members and their surat and they're so wonderful to where well and when you hear about some of the things that other cities deal with and then i think of how great our group is to our clan i just feel i feel blessed that i get to work with these very professional people on an ongoing basis so i just think we're really lucky at the again like everyone has said thank you for having me here and i really enjoy what i do i'm a paint kind of a positive picture and it's not always positive like that but i really do feel wholeheartedly that our district does an amazing job if you look on that sheet once again that you refer to we've had some really big rainstorms that have happened in our district and the way that our staff and students handle list things terrible things is just absolutely beyond me and i'm so proud to be a part of something that big and you know life changing events and our staff and  in ministration has just stepped up to the plate and done all that they could to make kids ultimately feel safe and have a positive place to learn something really proud of that and thank you for the opportunity thank you real quick and this maybe is more for is nine o'clock i don't know if we've ever finished at nine but i want to thank not only our audience here but our viewing audience the rest of our business association members and of course all five that have taken the time not only to be here today but to dedicate themselves to public associates so our vets next week can't forget summerfest in two weeks thank you everybody for coming and have a great morning