i'd like to welcome all of the candidates and everyone in the audience tonight to ward two city council kennedy farm and as he said i'm from what actually wiper township which you never heard of is a nonpartizan political organization who and we encourage informed and active participation of all citizens in their government and we influence policy through education and advocacy the l w p and the partners who made this event possible tonight do not involve or endorse any candidate or any political party and the purpose is for you to hear the candidates views on a variety of topics that are of interest to you and the views expressed by the candidates tonight are theirs alone and do not reflect the positions of the sponsoring organizations council members must live in the war they represent and they are elected to a four year term the current term runs through the end of two thousand and fifteen as the legislative body the city council sets city policy through ordinances and resolutions the council has sole responsibility for adopting the city's budget and performs a quasi judicial role in hearing appeals for example if a property owner wants to appeal a decision of the zoning board the city council also serves as the library board which oversees st paul library system and the housing and redevelopment authority h r a which supports housing and commercial development through loans and bond issuance cost so members also serve on other boards and commissions such as the port authority and the water commission the council legislates by passing ordinances which become city laws the council also makes performance auditing decisions and monitors the operation and performance of city agencies and holds regular oversight hearings on city departments to determine how programs are working and whether budgeted funds are being spent well in its decision making role the city council actively involves the public through its weekly public meetings so before we formally begin tonight session please turn your cell phones to silent and far form a tonight each candidate will be given up to two minutes for an opening statement the order of speaking has been determined b a drawing they are seated in alphabetical order but their orders speaking it is is different after the first round of questions that answer the questions will be answered in  a random order so i will name the next person to answer a question i'll tell you who the first one is when i read the question but as we go i'll tell you who is next so you'll be surprised give you a card they'll come and collect them when your finished so just raise them in the air no questions of a personal nature will be permitted candidates have two minutes to respond to the questions and there is a rebuttal if they choose but the question answer is two minutes if you can answer sooner than two minutes we can get through more questions so we would encourage you to do that and then following the questions every candidate will have a chance to give a closing statement of two minutes so no campaign signs are literature in this room no t shirts or slogans i don't see any so that's good there's a time keeper sitting in the front two timekeepers they will give you two prompts the first is when you have thirty seconds left the yellow card and the second and last is when you must stop speaking and you can finish your sentence candidates will not we're not allowed to bring electronic devices but they can bring notes and we have provided paper and pencil and the sponsors and moderator reserve the right to ask disruptive audience members to leave so please hold your applause until the forum is completed the questions used in the forum tonight will become the property of league of women voters and forum sponsors so with that i will introduce the candidates and they i will introduce them in the order that they will give their opening statements pat fearing  rebecca baker sharon anderson michael johnson so that is the order they also have their opening statements then you may begin pat fearing  hi my name is pat fearing and the reason i'm running is because i'm against the light rail going down with seventh the river to the river view corridor i don't i think there's other options rather than running right down seventh some of my other issues are police cameras i think the police should wear body cameras  for their safety and for the safety of the citizens the vacant lots that are all around the city from foreclosed homes are just sitting there vacant and that tracks tax burden goes on to the neighbors in the neighborhood there was we need to have the homes rebuilt on those lots and get those back on the tax base  i'd also like to see down at the island station i'd like to see a fishing dock that used to be a doctor on their lot of people in there used to go down and fish rivers be in has now has a fence going across it it's hard to get access to the river in many places they want to turn it into a book a dog park down there but i think it should be not only a dog park but it could also be a fishing dock it could be a boat launch there's a lot more that can be done with that area than just a dog park and i think that for twenty one years now i go into art gallery in downtown st paul many of you know that recently opened another business down there place for musicians to play st paul is my hometown striker and page to be more exact is where i lived when i was a little boy many of you know that i run for the seat in the past i did come in second place the last two times against incumbent dave who as we all know is retiring i'm not going to repeat the information on my of you have it been to your neighborhoods and i'm working my way across the west side right now i'm running again because it's my hometown i love it here and i know i can help  improve it and i know i can do that primarily through the people of the ward and that's why i'm running and i hope come january will be going to city hall together like women voters for all the work you're doing to make sure the people are informed this year my name is dared tolt and i'm really excited about the opportunity to serve as your next city council member i grew up in st paul was the first in my family to go to college i served in the national guard to organizing and that's what i've been doing here in st paul for the last twenty years as a member of district councils as a member of the capitol improvement committee for the city as a staff member for ramsey county commissioner so i've been working very hard but a year ago i was invited to a meeting on the west side about kids getting into trouble on the out of school time we had this meeting in the parking lot of the big correct center because the big correction it was locked and the irony wasn't lost on me that we're outside trying to figure out how to keep kids out of trouble we're standing outside a wreck center so i decided that i really needed to run for city council put my experience to work making sure that we're providing these needed services for the last year i've been walking around talking to many of you about what i'd like to do as a city council member and there are three main things first i want to make sure we provide quality public services that are rec centers our libraries are open providing those opportunities there we're building safe and strong neighborhoods with he with healthy small businesses and most importantly that we have an engaged and empowered community and that everyone has a say in their future and i'd like to think wendy underwood for agreeing to marry me and this is our anniversary so i want to give a shout out going on in television right now so the fact that you took the time to come out to the local one is is very very important you know this is a really exciting time for our city we have people pouring in who want to live here we have new developments springing up on every corner it really feels like a new day there's a fresh energy and at the same time we have this very exciting opportunity to choose someone who's going to represent us on the city council for the next four years or more i've been talking to people all over our board for the last two years now and people don't agree on very many things but they do agree on the two things that they want to see in our next council member people want to see someone first of all who's going to work extremely hard for our neighborhoods and get results working hard and getting results is what i have been doing for my entire life teaching in one of the poorest middle schools in baton rouge louisiana bringing neighbors together to build community at humboldt high school and bringing business people in to show students possible career options and advocating for sensible policies on our cities planning commission the second thing that people want to see in our next council member is someone with the courage to stand up to our political elite when it's right for our neighborhoods that's something that this community has had to do many many times in the past and it's something i've done on the planning commission taking very lonely votes against  studies and storage facilities on our prime riverfront space and many other decisions as well i'm looking forward to bringing my hard work ethic and my courage to represent you on the city council thank you thank you hall and i beg to differ with you the legislative branch of city come in so it's not a quasi judicial board the mayor signs off on all of the laws there separation of powers of government you have legislative executive and judicial pendleton jools was suspended now from the supreme court he said in another county judge that lied about his residence anybody that challenges me on my ownership of ten fifty eight summit avenue i have the title i can prove the texas where i've been maligned for twenty five thirty years by the newspaper all of a sudden because i have the forensic files i have the evidence right bohemian heritage i'm slovak my grandma and her austria my grampa sure koski had to change his name to beckley in order to get a job in the united states so anyhow i stayed in a ledge under penalty of perjury that same boring let's bring some life let's bring some class back to city hall i'm tired of these building inspectors i'm out to abuse these nursing homes and i see the oranges up that's an orange alert have you trust in me with your vote thank you michael johnson i will i'm mike johnson i'm running for city council ward honestly i really don't know much of what i'm doing right now and that's the truth so but honestly i just i feel that that what is one of the things that needs to change is that the people that really feel like they know the system are the ones that just constantly just kind of i don't know the main thing the main reason why i'm running is because my dad's business my mom and dad's business has taken over and eminent domain seven years ago i didn't care about politics that i really didn't that happened it made me really care a lot more and i've looked into a lot of other things that happen with politics personally i still don't like talking about it and i honestly i don't know if i don't think i even really want this job but i feel compelled that i have to do something and that's why i'm running for ward two i did this originally because i thought that it would be just i could have a voice for people that have had the system take advantage of them and i don't know i'm just running out of frustration out of and that's the truth the thing that i feel that has politicians have failed is the transparency i feel that things happened before anyone has an opportunity to say anything about it and i'm really excited that we're going to have an opportunity to sit down and talk about the parking meters and i know everyone is tired of hearing about it but it's it's exciting i'm happy to know that that's that people are going to be hurt thank you thank you for the first question and the first speaker will be karen cobalt and the question happens to be what is your position on st paul's parking meter propos you know i have i haven't heard of that question before i pose to the parking meter proposal the mayor's parking meter proposal because it doesn't it has zero public process there was no study involved there really the way that it came about just wasn't wasn't the right way to to run it to run a city so i want to make sure that as always like i said i want to make sure that we have an engaged empowered community and that when we're looking for parking solutions that we address parking solutions i would i would like to look on grand avenue and west seventh i'd like to look more at shared parking  d better access to transit pedestrian safety to make it easier to walk i don't believe that there is a parking problem and i don't believe that meters especially this current proposal are the answer michael johnson again parking meters i have been against parking meter since i first learned about them on grand avenue and long was there that's something that was talked about also i'm happy that the people are going to be heard i did have an opportunity to go to the lynwood community centers that don't listen to people and it was really frustrating because no one was really everyone that said anything about the parking meters was very against it and it was so frustrating because it just everyone was come by combating the question and not saying hey you know what let's work with  to figure some mode here there are more talking about hey you know what this is just something that's going to happen and that's just too bad and that's kind of what i took from i didn't have an opportunity to sit down throw the entire thing at a babysitter bell function so i had my two and three are my three and four year old sorry with me at the time so i was only there for probably about an hour i wish i could have stayed for longer but you know at the same time everything that i heard was pretty much a rezoning we don't like the idea of parking meters on grand avenue thank you thank you sharon anderson i guess i got to pull a hillary on you and say  besides i'm a republican and i'm a trial supporter which anyhow but anybody watching the base last night hillary said no parking meter finished thank you yes in a roundabout way to parking meters on grand avenue michael i forgot what you said i'm not happy with it and i said absolutely not and if it happens we'll do a referendum and pull him off grand avenue but i don't want to just stop at grand avenue the extension of parking meter times downtown to ten pm is another call that all due respect a mayor coleman money grab and that needs to be repealed as well and having convenient perky and grand it was important having convenient parking don't tell is important and because of the make up of downtown st paul particular in the last ten fifteen years it's become very residential and once you extend the meters in need rebecca or nick nick or i want to be completely transparent with you bill is absolutely right at the last forum and i both said in a roundabout way that we were in favor of parking meters the reason that i said that is because at the time that we were answering that question parking meters were being proposed as a pilot program now i work in the nonprofit sector and what a pilot program means to me is that you try something out for a short period of time figure out whether it works evaluate the costs and benefits and then decide how to proceed it's a sensible way of making policy but it became clear very quickly after that forum that this was not a pilot at all because pilots are done collaboratively pilots are done with a clear goal in mind and with a goal that's communicated to everyone transparently and pilots are done over a period of time building by and they are not done by saying we last got community input on this in two thousand  and you know community engagement is a once in a decade process so i think we're done with that so i have changed my position on this and because it is not being done in a collaborative method i am against the pop the parking pilot program thank you i've been against a parking meter since day one and and i guess that's it we don't need it we don't need parking meters and grand it's just going to hurt the business is the residents don't want it i've been going up to grand avenue s get skate sharp and that's before george's for like thirty years so i know grand avenue very well and the last thing it needs is parking meters people will go other places to spend their money and that's the last thing they want and people that have apartments and grand avenue shouldn't have to pay meters and even if they get permits and they get one permit or they have to pay for the permits nobody wants them the city doesn't need they have a spending problem i don't think we have a money problem i think  they overspend and that's why they're trying to enforce that or get the parking meters going they were talking about keeping the property taxes low at the lynwood forum or to limit meeting about parking meters i think it goes on a little bit further than that so i want to quickly say what at the at the last forum or at the at the lynwood forum my answer was that i was it was against them but we are going to have a vote on it because it's going to happen before we got there and that my proposal in the way to move ahead would be that the money not go into the general fund but it stay you know a street fund that was the that was the discrepancy one of things that would tell you real quick as i am and nonpartisan independent candidate i'm not indorsed by special interest groups one thing you need to do need to know here is as far as some of the cans with all due respect some work within the establishment now and some of the candidates have close ties to the mayor you're not hearing about it but that is occurring and the chamber of commerce has its fingers into a candidate as well so regarding the parking meter issue the mayor wants it and the chamber of commerce what's it look who they are supporting ok the next question and we will begin with rebecca nacre do you favor l r t light rail transit in the ramsey county river view corridor or on west seventh no i do not i as i mentioned i serve on the same pop planning commission i've been there for the last four years and when they came to us to do the second phase of a streetcar study one phase of which had already been completed and the second phase was to study what would happen what route it would take down west seventh and i was the only planning commissioner to vote no on that study i don't think that we had first of all need to spend hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money in another two years on the information that was going to be coming out of the riverview court or study shortly thereafter and i also don't think that rail is the right choice for us up and i think it's really important for this debate that we talk to people who actually live in the neighborhood so that this isn't just a pass through from the airport to downtown but actually something that people in the neighborhood can take advantage of can use as an as an amenity and when you talk to people who actually live or own businesses along with seventh this is the last thing that they want so i'm opposed to the idea of rail down with a path fearing this is the issue that actually got me to enter the race i didn't spend a couple years campaigning in asking for donations and endorsements i took money out of my savings because i was so against a light rail going down with seven because of what it's done upon happen to it is have i think it's a unique neighborhood it's a unique ward and i don't think it should have a light rail going down i said and i'm totally against it and that's one of the reasons i entered the race because it seemed like when i was reading everyone else was for it and it was a done deal and when the last meeting for the quarter came up i think it was passed in forty three seconds with no opposition is what i read in the village or or the community report or so that's the reason one of the main reasons i'm running is because i'm against late we're going down to seventh everybody i've talked to from you know from mancy nice down the road they're all against it they don't want it so i hope you're all against it thank you thank you michael i do not favor real from downtown st paul to the airport i think that it's a horrible idea honestly on sundays in the summertime a lot of times one of my favorite things to do towards the river a little bit walk or own and i honestly just think that that's just going to it's not going to be as nice of an area to do such things like that and honestly it's just it's a fun area it's a fun thing for me and my family to do and i think that if it was along seventh i think that it would ruin the atmosphere  representative for our neighborhood as this discussion goes forward because i want to make sure that we have a solution that makes our neighborhood more walkable that makes our neighborhood more livable that keeps our vibrant commercial corridor as we go into the future i don't think that it's light rail and was seven i don't think that that's that's a workable solution i think right now there's a lot of study there's a lot of data out that we should look at and there hasn't been a decision on the where it's going what it what it is  there's definitely some things that we don't want and we don't want something that's going to take away our businesses we don't want something that's going to make west seventh not cross a ball we don't want something that's going to make it harder for us to get to the river and we to we maintain the arse our scale of development our neighborhood is great and it's doing very well and we want to make sure that it continues like that into the future so that's you know the solutions that the the person board to has to make sure that they're standing up for this neighborhood as the decisions are being made by the region and the chamber of commerce downtown in the airport about how the region is going to grow we need to make sure that we're to have someone there and i'm definitely going to make sure that ward two and that west seventh is represented in those discussions sharon henderson first of all let me tell you i'm blind in my left eye so if i go down like that i'm not avoiding eye contact and all i you know with the american disabilities act and on and on i work years ago at the manor i worked at the paddy you know i'm an old timer actually i could be a historian for st paul more so than bill how and i was a beautician at the imploring him downtown light rail they say build it and people will come i have to take light rail but i got to take a bus to get to light rail i say i'm going to pull another hillary on your and say no we can't afford it thank you and pat fearing did you answer this  but i think also a lot of your minds may have been street cars on west seventh street which is kind of a cheaper version of what real talk about speakers very quickly when i heard about the idea i thought about object it really did and one it went to a limited any bus route that's running on the street in those of you know the buses now they run you know mostly empty it's going to be that was that way for a while the street car would have removed a fair amount of on street parking it would have caused right hand turn lane problems the center turn lane and west seventh street largely would've gone away i worked to get the meeting a cassette as some of you may remember that meeting i went to four hundred fifty houses one i believe  cold winter day and told people the facts as i saw them and bunch of business people rallied good turnout because that is the and questions were taken by the staff person at the city but when i put up my hand she wouldn't call upon me and wouldn't call upon me wouldn't call upon me so i wrote a note to the guy next i said ask for a poll of the room he put up his hand she immediately called  funniest thing and overwhelmingly the people in that room said no i think that helped turn the page perhaps a little bit on the street cars where seven light rail on west seventh for the same reasons  o what is intriguing to think about is light rail using the back side of the union depot running down below the river stop at west publishing chestnut schmidt brewery and that point uses the four plant railroad spur in how you get it across the river to the blue line you could perhaps through the ford parkway bridge you would need a pedestrian bridge alongside that but going to be stopped here i could talk about for five minutes but absolutely no to light rail on west thank you on the next question sharon anderson is the first to answer and they question are asked you to answer yes or no do you support st paul as a sanctuary city it's gotten to the point that we don't even take care of our own people the jobs i don't know god says that would help those who help themselves we have to be self sufficient and i'm not anti semitic i'm not discriminatory on anything i believe as a city council person that i can give due process the public be heard i'm out to expose elder abuse if you know what's going on in some of these nursing homes and i'm a victim of medical malpractise with my eyes i'm going blind to medical malpractise and the prescriptions for so called glaucoma you know but the immigrants the sanctuary city they're getting for medical they're getting the right to vote we've got to we've got to have balance we're all immigrants at one time or another we're all god's children all live from a outer even my little therapy chihuahua dog i put him next to my heart he's my main man and he's my to fill rater instead of taking nitroglycerin so maybe i've got a little off the line of immigration but the same sherry city i an iffy question i have to say yes and no thank you rebecca maker yes michael johnson no well yes but it's really important that people feel safe when they're working with our police officers this is about protecting people that are in situations when they're victims of crime or victims of domestic violence they need to know that  the public safety officials that are there are there to help them and that's why we need to be is that that's why we need to make sure that our police officers are here to protect people living in st paul please the next question goes first to michael johnson that i skip one yes you gave us instructions for a simple yes or no did you not i i didn't what i said was that the question or yes or yes  the stories i've heard out of san francisco on the news about about this issue that's why i said no and it is seen as stories in the news where people couldn't be arrested they could be prosecuted because of this it's not fair to the citizens who are paying the taxes and who live  there michael johnson has to answer this one first there has been discussion that what the mayor wants he gets how can the city council reorganize itself to effectively do hey how do you how do you how would you go about changing someone's mind or changing the mayor's mind on something that is that you don't agree with and simply just state come up with the reasons why it's a bad idea try and convince him that's one of my jobs working for a small family businesses trying to sell people and trying to show them the reasons why and have them see the point of making it their decisions go your way a little bit more so and that's that's having respect and not have and not letting anyone very letting them will you to make their decisions thank you  towboats i'd really like to see a committee structure back in with with the city council so for example there'd be a public works committee so there's a chair of that committee that sort of has a little more or a little more when dealing with the with the department heads that are all appointed by the mayor so i'm also like to reform the way that our budget thing is done and that we have an outcome space budgeting so we can track the return on investment and that provides more of the oversight role that you had mentioned in the beginning that the city council is given the role to do oversight over the departments and over the department's budgets but i think by using that outcome based budget and by using committees we can have more of a direct impact with those department had so that we're not constantly working through the mayor and then also that's you know something that my experience is in assembling boats and making sure that we can put together the five votes that's necessary to override a veto if we have something that we feel so strongly about we need to make sure that we can put together those votes so those are the there some structural changes i'd like to make and i also believe we just you know need to work harder together nacre you know they say with that we have a strong mare we counsel system and same policy but last i checked we don't have a strong mayor dead council system and sometimes lately that's what it seems like if you look at the paper there have been seven zero votes on issues that no matter how you feel about that should be controversial forfeiting all property taxes in perpetuity on the m l s stadium site for example is something that should not have been a seven zero vote no matter how you feel about that issue so what can we do about it was the question i think there are two things one we should start by electing someone to represent our ward in our neighborhood who is an independent thinker starting with someone who's not been endorsed by the mayor or supported by a political elite i think is a good first step and also we really need to end the system of word preference or preferences something that right now is sort of an accepted agreement among the council where if the issue is in your ward everyone else on the council just a first to you so instead of having seven smart rational people deliberating to try to get to the right answer the right policy solution usually we just have one person making each decision which is a little bit scary so that's one of the things that as a council member  i will not not abide by thank you sharon anderson would you repeat the question so i get it clarified in my mind there has been discussion that what the mayor wants he gets how can the city council reorganize itself to effectively do oversight and engage citizens technically we have the separation of powers of government again the mayor is in the executive branch st paul planning commission is in the executive branch the d s i these building inspectors are in the executive branch the legislative branch which is the city council can cut their budget whenever you pass a law it's got to be signed off by the by the mayor so i mean let's get back to the separation of powers of government have a strong city council and have a go at large again we've got right now the city council is meeting and i think they're going to met council on the land on snelling and whatever so defer to the thing of the year if the city council can't think on their own feet and learn how to think and cut the budget downsize government now with this the soccer business they want to have another twenty five commission they want to explode at government has gotten overbroad this separation of powers of government which is the minnesota constitution has got to be held the mayor  ball he doesn't do his job he should resign thank you you know chris and i first met when i invited him to unearth the function i held at the landmark center your was at noon the six ladies and gentlemen maybe somebody can help me in i've seen chris change over the years i'm going to be honest with you and frankly you know this meter discussion on the street car discussion chris is gotten in the habit as have a lot of politicians over the centuries surrounding himself with yes know and i have a long history of communicating with chris constructively to be honest he's ignored some of my communications but it's never dissuaded me from continuing to reach out to him chris is preparing i believe to run for governor that's no secret and frankly he is as i mentioned earlier backing one of the candidates here publicly and i would argue with all due respect backing another candidate here behind the  scenes he works very very closely as i mentioned earlier with the chamber of commerce so if you want somebody who will you know work with chris but not give him too much rain in work very constructive y with the city council and in partnership with them i'm your guy thank  don't don't elect his hand and picked people and you know get somebody different you get someone from the neighborhood is not a professional politician if you want to professional politician well there's a couple up here to vote for then but if you don't want to professional politician you want somebody who's going to represent you the citizen then vote for me thank  you the next question starts with hostile how will you represent the diverse people of the area including racial disparities representation for large numbers of renters representation for moderates and conservatives i don't know if i'm the only one up here who's made it quite known that they are independent and nonpartisan and i've accepted no endorsements nor am i sought indorsements from special interest groups so that puts me in a pretty good standing right there there was a long question you know just touch upon is the best they can and i came from a you know maybe more than a few people is from very humble or poor background and frankly i heard racial slurs from the time i could hear and until the time i left home and i mentioned earlier at a candidate for my be on the thirtieth of september that i am a gay man single happily soul but you know i've grown up my entire life listening to slurs against the world and once it became illegal for gays to marry did it continued on but during my childhood when i heard a lot of you know unpleasant comments never once did i ever use one myself never once i knew of the age of four or five that it was wrong i don't know where i got that from but i never once used a racial slur against people if you look at who my friends are in life i mean they are there rich and poor they're black and white they're everything so i don't know what else to tell you i mean i think i would be a terrific leader for the renter's printers moderates and conservatives ok racial disparity i'm looking around the room with my good eye the eye of the beholder and i do not see any people of color do you see you know i'm blind in my left eye but racial disparities and of course my in laws there's a mixed marriage go higher when the city inspectors come in they're going to condemn your house it happened to me they steal my car they steal the lot or to condemn the property and then by stealing my car then they're going to charge me two thousand eight hundred dollars to steal the property but anyhow the rents are going to go higher and we have no balance there's a lawsuit in the united states supreme court that came down and coleman and justice willing hall made their deals but that case is still out there and it's due to be heard before michael davis a black federal judge has retired and that will break the back of the city coffers and they just would have settled it in two thousand and four we don't really have slum landlords we've got a slum council thank you i've spent my career working to actively engage in empower communities throughout st paul in the region i look forward to doing that as a city council member i want to make sure that we're providing opportunities for everyone that the city  s this city's good job is to provide is to provide the infrastructure for equity that's why it my story of being at the at the bigger rec center and and then also being at other rec centers across the city that are been closed or that have been demolished we need to make sure that we're providing that sort of back with that sort of opportunity in every neighborhood not just throughout war two but throughout the city and that's what i want to do i want to provide those opportunities i'm going to build partnerships not because providing those opportunities can't just be the city it's the city it's also working with nonprofit organizations with the county with the state with the trades  making sure that we're providing jobs counseling and job opportunities and that where as we're hiring people at the city that where we're making sure that we're doing that through an equity lens as we're hiring everyone who's retiring or hiring people to replace those that are retiring making sure that we're hiring people that look like the city into the future want to make sure that we do that and we build on that and that's what i have done that's what i will do oh i'm sorry to answer about renters and i also want to make sure i mean renters live in our community as well we need to make sure that we're engaging them in our community decisions we need to hold landlords responsible for the properties that they're maintaining and we need to  work together with everyone who's living in our community to make it safe and strong rebecca maker the way we address disparities in our community is to start by acknowledging that they are here and they are very very real you know i mentioned earlier that i'm so excited about so many things going on in our city right now but one of the things that i am most ashamed about is that we have one of the biggest employment opportunity and sheepman gaps between white people and people of color in the entire country and that's something that we don't talk about very often thirty percent of our children right now live in poverty and st paul i've spent my entire life as a public school teacher and working for education nonprofits trying to close that gap early so that our citizens of the future are living in a society where everybody has more of an opportunity i think there are two things that we can do one is to prepare our young people many of whom are our minority of racial minorities to work so our right track program the city's youth internship program is one such way right now i support a program in minneapolis the step up summer jobs program that has about twice as many young people in corporate internships every summer as we do in st paul i would love to see our program expanded to make sure we're preparing all of our young people for the future  also talk to someone and this is more of a short term solution but someone at the door had a very good idea i think for helping people learn which businesses are owned by minorities by women by the g o p community and that's to put out a guide and say these are some minority owned businesses and this would be a great way for you to patronize them if you knew about them so i would be very eager to do something more short term more tangible like that as well michael johnson racial spirit that's something that's become a lot more important to me after i met my wife my brother in law married  from seriously some of the bars people were just really giving my brother in law his partner a really hard time and i just i had a hard time with it i'm actually really disappointed with some of the people in our neighborhoods also because i asked my say what can i do to better our communities what do you think would be better communities and they they say things like having certain people move out of the community and that isn't the way to go about things at all i think that with the history center did with the hmong culture and teaching people about that i think that that's one thing that was helpful but yet at the same time it's just it's it's important to have diversity and in a large city like this i think i said it's important to me personally housing i think that owners need to take we need to hold responsible or owners responsible for keeping their own housing up to code i have to rental properties on my block and it is there in such disrepair it's just horrible we i don't know i wish that there was more tha could say about that but i have to stop thank you pat fearing i think things are already in place to take care racial disparities i think they could be improved probably a lot in some in some areas but i think they do exist  already i think earlier it was mentioned that there's a thirty percent power poverty rate in the city i want argue against that but again with all due respect mayor coleman has been on the scene for ten years as mayor and six years i believe his council person so in this race i think it's important you support on november third somebody who might not be endorsed by him i'm being frank with you you the next question i'll begin with pat fearing and i think this will be the last question that we'll have time for before we turn to closing statements a hypothetical a developer wants to build a new structure on smith avenue between seventh and grand what are your top three considerations for you approve the project the business is they would be impacted by the by the development would be my first my first priority and second would be the residents in the area i'm also with that might be affected by the development go next you repeat the question please as a hypothetical a developer wants to build a new structure on smith between seventh and grant what are your top three considerations before you approve the project is the first thing is what is it that they're proposing to do and who are they looking for any public money and three would it complement the existing neighborhood and my background is design and architecture so it's kind of a curse in life i go through life looking at everything from a design standpoint but i've also been a person who's bought rundown properties and rehab them go to bill ha school dot com and click on projects and i've also been a business owners what is being proposed in the cost potentially to citizens taxpayers and how well would it complement the existing number one what do the neighbors think you know what are what are people looking when they're looking at it number two does it fit in the small area plant neighbors have done a lot of thinking about this and they've created a small area plan is is this development  fit into the vision that the neighbors have previously stated number three doesn't need subsidy are they coming out with their own money or are they asking us for money all those all those factors play michael johnson the first question i would have is who owns the property and if they own the property and they want to build what they want to build they should have the right to do what they want with that property as long as it fits in zoning number two what are you planning on putting in basically the same thing with labor that would fit into the zoning number three as long as it like like bill and bear in both what it compliment the neighborhood and it just wouldn't make sense to put something that would not be beneficial for the neighborhood especially if it is  if it's a big box store it would probably have a problem with that because i like the community the way that it is i really like the fact that along was we have these small businesses and honestly it's got to create feel it's got a i have had thirteen properties covertly taken from me i shop at st vincent de paul for their dollar days every tuesday a member of the salvation army seniors and they've already put up this two story building and i don't even know what to do so everybody in the community should find out what is it it's halfway built i don't know if it's going to be office or whatever so you're saying smith seventh in granite i thought there was a bar of there in that corner but you walk up to the salvation army across the street i don't know who the developer is they took away a historic building and now they've got something i don't know if it's going to be office or just what it's going to be there was no community input the city council has taken land by resolution and it's always signed off by the executive branch by the city attorney and by the mayor because nothing becomes law until the city attorney and the mayor signed off on it the city council has got to think on their own two feet and they do not in this business with marcia moore man i mean they bring it up i don't even know what it is it's halfway built check it out yourself smith seventh in grand two stories i don't know who owns or who bought the land i don't know what's going in there was there any community input on what's going on in there that's the new where you are building or is it oh well thank you at least bill knows you know because i didn't know what it was well thank you so but you're asking the question and at least bill says current with real estate he's got the time i really don't have the time or but right now check it out if it's a new labor temple they've got the money ok thank you rebecca an acre i would first consider community value what value does this development bring to the neighborhood and second i would consider whether or not it's the highest and best use of the land we have available we don't have a lot of land in st paul are mostly built up so it's really important that we're dense and that we make the most of the land that we have and since this is our last question and on that note  bill mentioned earlier that the chamber has its fingers in one of the candidates up here which was interesting language i think he's referring to me because i'm indoors by the chamber of commerce and i'm very proud to be endorsed by them those of you who are business owners here i've been speaking about the importance of economic development in our neighborhood since the very beginning and i'm very proud of that but that doesn't mean that i am owned by the chamber of commerce or that i don't vote against them and for an example premier storage was trying to open in prime riverfront space that was something the neighborhood was against it was not the highest and best use of that land and i was proud to vote and speak out against that on the planning commission thank you thank you since you were so prompt on those questions i want to sneak in one more and i hope you'll be as brief too with this one how long have you lived in ward two what war two organizations have you volunteered in and we start with michael johnson i've lived in war two for both fifteen years and i have not volunteered for anything in ward two i'm sorry to say that like i say this is not something that i ever saw for myself  so i never really believe in buy time to certain organizations and board too although with my business we are with my family's business i have donated a lot of time to the shriners hospital  tons of toys i used to store tons of toys for the shriners hospital on our dock free of charge i did that my aunt was  she thought she was a profit on a says she was kind of kooky but she definitely had a pot of great things and one of those things was she did free giveaways for food clothing and those are the things that i really enjoyed doing i love giving my time and honestly those are the things that make me feel better about myself a lot of times i feel bad because now with my family i don't have as much time to do those things but i hope to hope to do that with my family when my children get older also just to show them how to be as human beings thank you thank you karen committee and in those roles in those services dry serving in those roles i've done a lot of really good things for ward two and a lot of good things specifically for this community like making sure that priorities for the city are getting the palace rec center redevelopment and moving ahead with the thirty five bike trail work making west seventh safer to cross these are things that i've been working on as a volunteer here and i look forward to  continue working on those sorts of issues making sure that our our neighborhoods are safe and strong that we have quality public services and that everyone is active engaged those are things i've been doing as a volunteer those are things that i'm going to do as a city council member i look forward to having office hours throughout the ward and being in involved with a lot of different organizations here making sure that we're building a great less seventh community in a great word i've been in the ward for fifty plus years i've been acing i've been a single parent and raised three daughters two daughters graduated from one from highland i i've coached hockey teams i've delivered meals on wheels i worked at the rec centers of course we all want safe rec centers we all want clean air we all want fresh water i mean certain things you just want and you have already have and so who the war is a real special place when you've lived here all your life you don't want to see the light rail going up west seventh that's going to destroy businesses and turn it into like up on university where they've done that already so  i've been here for fifty plus years and to some decisions you know with the mayor handing down that's the kind of things that make you talk to your neighbors and hope they'll get involved hope they'll run for city council so you don't have to so you can put it on someone else to go down and fight those fights so i'd appreciate your vote thank you very much bill ha skull he repeat the question real quick please how long have you lived in the war two and what were two organizations have you volunteered in as i mentioned earlier stryker and page was my childhood home and i just turned fifty three twenty one and a half years ago i made a specific choice to return to st paul from a farm up in northwest minnesota to open my art gallery surgery most of that time i've lived in ward two actually almost all of it i believe as far as organizations there's a lot of the capitol recounts all at a meeting tonight were perhaps revising the bylaws in a major way with member support of course i'm also on the st paul our collective board of directors the city i mean the city tends to put in landscaping and then they don't take care of it but the next year she enlisted me to help her and i helped clean up almost all of the remaining beds in the park and then the next year we got volunteers and it's been a major success ever since owner a few months ago he says bill do you you know how your income you know because i'm an artist you know it's sometimes sometimes artists are always money focused and i'm perhaps guilty that i say that my income suffers because i do a lot of volunteering and that's just in my nature and soul overall most of my fifty three years have been in or very close to work to rebecca n my husband and i haven't lived in were two for very long we moved here four and a half years ago but i can say that we are very excited to be here we plan to retire here and die here hopefully in that order had two children at st joseph hospital and it's funny the question about what we volunteered because one of my campaign members asked me the other day she said you know we've only been working on the campaign together what are your hobbies and i thought about it for a while and i thought you know my hobbies kind of are doing this sort of thing except for reading but otherwise i'm pretty boring so i'm on the planning commission i've been there for four years i chaired the board of the west community organization which is the west haven for road federation on the west side i mentored in eighth grade student school which was one of the most enjoyable of my volunteer activities and i started a group called west side is for strong schools which is a group of neighbors and parents and community members who are advocating for and supporting our local schools on the west side thank you sharon anders but the lives been judged my silver star marina it's been out of our property when i can prove the taxes were paid this time finding records that are forty years old the papers starting to be nice to me villagers said that that is my legal residence when we all paid two hundred fifty dollars to educate you guys pardon me but i'm street smart you understand why i'm here i'll blow the whistle on the corrupt government it's up to you i trust you with your vote i don't care what you vote for it's up to you your tru in any of us is your vote please exercise think of me in green as a stop sign good girl i've color coded the whole co and when the ones that have the red thing stop we have to stop them anyhow i don't want the dark energy i had to find humor in life this is been a low blow going blind from medical malpracti from dr eric stephens who denied me medical marijuana when i have got coleman and i qualify for it start fighting for your health care for your prescriptions travel time for glaucoma costs three hundred fifty dollars for i dropped start the city council people be accountable to you thank you i hope i get a rest day and that is all the time we have for questions and we will begin our closing statements with michael johnson process i've been learning a lot and seriously meeting new people has been so awesome and i love it that's my favorite thing about doing this so far this is not something that i saw for myself about two years ago but two years prior to having children that's not something i saw for myself either it's by far the most rewarding thing that i've ever done i love my life i love my job i'm the only blue collar i will do anything and i want to make sure that they're happy with with working with me and i want to show them that i have the attitude where if you need help with something i will do it or i would like to show you how to do it properly  i work operations i do sales and that's one of my favorite things about my life is a well rounded know my entire full time job i get to have a white collar job and a blue collar job that so so long and all these aspects of my career will help me represent the people of ward two because i do have these different backgrounds with my  career i would like to represent you and i really appreciate you taking the time to listen to what i have to say and thank you thank you for taking the time when i knock on your door also that's really fun have a good of police brutality same as pat fearing say he won a settlement till i go into federal court and on and on but i my humble plea to the can find a cure for cancer i'm a little timer like kirby puckett and if you remember kirby puckett he died with glaucoma so that is my mission i paid two hundred fifty dollars to make government accountable it's more fun getting there than being there i'm not going to win the election but at least i put out two hundred fifty dollars to get a voice to be heard your voices are not being heard gather together go down strike city hall if you have to and or get good on the computer i can zip out a thousand e mails with a click of a hand and i have forensic files p d f files portable document for me i'm excellent on the computer because i taught myself anyhow all the other saying please don't ever have the stress test where they i didn't know it could kill me and then my charge eight thousand dollars to you care i have medicare i've got you care insurance i have to stop i wish i could say more but i appreciate everybody being here and thank you for your maker well thank you all again for coming out tonight to listen to us and you know in some ways this is a bit of an artificial activity because we've been sitting up here you've been asking the questions we've been giving all the answers as though we know everything and the next city council member for awards who is not going to be the person who knows everything or the person who has all the answers the next city council member from or to is going to be the person who does two things extremely well listens incredibly closely and works extremely hard because our community is very strong but we also have to keep being vigilant think about it irvine park could have become a cloverleaf today linwood monroe could be a vacant building were not for the community mobilizing and making themselves heard and people listening i have been listening incredibly closely and working extremely hard for my entire life for this entire campaign i mean to keep doing it until election day and i'm going to keep doing it every single day afterwards and i hope i can earn your support thank last year that we've things that we've been talking about moving forward together these are things that i'm ready to do on day one now i know it's been brought up that i have  wendy underwood made brock you know people that have been working really hard to make word to in st paul better and there that's then i've been working side by side with them to make st paul and ward to  better they they they trust my judgment and i'm proud of that and look forward to doing that like i said in my opening statement i want to make sure you know i've been working for twenty years it's it feels weird to be called a member of the establishment but  i guess i'll wear that with with pride because i've established a reputation as somebody that works really hard to get things done here in st paul we're going to make sure that we're providing those quality public services things that they have been doing you like the palace rec center like making sure that our streets are safe for all users that we're building safe neighborhoods that we're working together we're community policing and that we're engaging in empowering everyone in the community i'm going to work really hard to do that would really appreciate to be your number one choice on november third q well moscow i've been very happy to be here tonight in front of you and there is of all due respect there's nothing artificial about this activity tonight i mean we're applying for a job you're our employers and i do hope you'll employ me come january third earlier in the debate you heard about political elite ok with all due  mayor and the chamber of commerce are like this there may be some small differences between the two of them but they are very closely tied to each other make no mistake you know it's for twenty one years since i opened my business down here and i've  said this to previous forms you know this is a corridor and for too long the city hall has been showing you one side of the corridor when it comes to parking meter issues street cars on west seventh i mean there's been a whole host of things in my time i've seen but too often they're not willing to show you the other side this quarter and that's what i will be all about if i'm elected what i think i want to tell you is my my interest in the city is really deep back in one thousand ninety when i moved back here from illinois was born here but raised on a farm in illinois i began collecting articles on the development of downtown st paul in the river front it's we all have to have a hobby that's been mine so going back to november of one nine hundred eighty i have everything if you ever want to come and see it be happy to sit down with you and oh my gosh i could tell you about so many things i love this city and it's unique and i told said this at the last candidate form and i'll say it again are setting in the city's quite unique t bend of the river of the bluffs thirty seconds ok we've got valleys and st paul is a city of neighborhoods and it's the geography that created it and got the upper west side the lower west side and you got the west side flats you got the west seventh street area irvine park summit hill crocus oh it's all wonderful and i love downtown st paul too and so i do hope you'll vote on november third vote for me and together we'll go to city hall on january in january and i think you should vote for this guy second thank you thanks for coming out i entered because i didn't want to be a rubber stamp i want to be a citizen who actually got involved i'm not a professional politician i didn't go to school get a political science degree i never ever thought i would be doing this let alone that i think that i would draw money out of my savings to do such a thing but to walk around and ask people for donations and endorsements and have to kowtow to everyone needs or wants and expect them to follow through and be honest so i'm not going to bullshit anybody i'm not going to mislead you i'm going to tell you the way it is i'm not afraid to fight the city i fought the city i wanted federal court and someone needs to be up there at the city council for ward two is not going to be a rubber stamp for the mayor or the commissioner wants to run the light rail down west seven still somebody needs to object to these things and if you don't agree with them then you need to hire a citizen not a professional politician and that would be me or one of these other fellows who aren't professional politicians thank you thank you candidates and i believe i've been asked to read all the questions that are left over do you want me to no