Bill Hosko
Name: Bill Hosko
Public Office Sought: St. Paul City Council Ward 2
Email:
Campaign Phone:
Campaign Website:
Twitter handle:
Facebook Page:
Candidate Bio
I am a Saint Paul native. I have been a small business owner 33-years. I have been downtown 30 of those years. I have followed the development of the downtown area and the riverfront intimately my entire adult life. Few are as well-versed as i currently am. Subsequently I am well-versed on our residential, business and tourism, the environment’s health, our well-being and our potential.
I have had many, letters and editorial submissions printed in local (large and small), print and online newspapers.
Including Union Depot in 2000, I was first to bring its redevelopment potential to Mayor Norm Coleman’s attention (1999), which he adopted.
I explained ramifications of installing ‘honor-system’ LRT during its pre-construction planning process.
To more recently, I have been critiquing city hall’s behind-scenes push to expand Downtown Alliance without collectively speaking to W. 7thbusiness community beforehand (details at bottom).
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
Absolutely open and non-partisan.
I would host weekly, in-person and live-streamed ‘press/people conferences’. They would be informative, truthful and unprecedented. Organizations such as yours, business leaders and owners as well as community leaders, and certainly residents, and city department heads and staff would frequently be guests.
Having been around so long, I am nearing 61, many people know me or know of me. Few can claim I have ever been dishonest about an issue I have taken a stand on, or brought to the public’s attention. I have acted with integrity and with the public’s and this city’s best interests.
Your organization, as I have conveyed in the past, would have no better partner to help us reverse our business environment’s weakness and decline. It can be done. Truly, and long-term.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Restoring safety. Truly restoring it, to our once beautiful skyway system (no candidate knows it better), our public transit system (no candidate has ridden it longer) and every corner of this ward (no candidate is as familiar).
Cleaning up the vast amount of neglect; weeds, overgrowth, litter and graffiti across this ward, while simultaneously ending the current practice of neglecting to provide basic city services which our tax-dollars are paying for.
Being an ally, confidante and greatest booster to our business community. No other candidate is as familiar with our business community and what its needs are.
My efforts, would not be limited to just these three areas.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in St. Paul?
Local elected official’s untruthfulness and their ‘too common’ displays of willful indifference to the plight of citizens and business owners.
The ability to yet cherish and heal our abused and neglected citizenry, neighborhoods, business community and our public transit system is one of the biggest opportunities. Saint Paul can, and should be a national role-model in multiple respects such as: safety, neighborhood well-being and attractiveness, business community well-being and being a regional and even national, destination for tourism and convention business.
How would you characterize the business climate in St. Paul and what role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs and new businesses in St. Paul?
It has been willfully abused and neglected for too long. Endless actions, including inactions on safety and security, has made conducting business here ever more difficult.
As stated above, ‘Saint Paul can and should be a national role-model in multiple respects: safety, neighborhood well-being, business community well-being and being a regional, no even national, destination for tourism and convention business.’
The pieces are still there to accomplish this. They are. However, from what I and many others have seen firsthand, this cannot occur without change.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
Post haste, I would actually engage, perhaps with the rest of the city council by my side.
I will reach out to the Met Council, state legislators and Governor Walz and have an honest conversation about why policies laws surrounding use of Metro Transit are not being enforced. No one, ever seems to be a champion for the rights of citizens and workers who use public transit, or for those countless people who have left due to legitimate safety concerns. When I opened my gallery downtown 30 years ago, I began using public transit and later began biking near and far as well (during my campaign I am leasing a vehicle). Back then it was an enjoyable, friendly and safe environment. If elected, I, and with hopefully the City Council at my side, will bring that back.
At a public meeting two months ago, our incumbent was asked how is not putting in bike paths everywhere downtown (5) not harming residents and business quality of life when it is removing so much parking. Her reply was she wanted to see people take the bus and start biking more often. When I asked later how many vehicles she had in her household (married with 2 children) and did she bus or bike into work that day she replied two and that she had driven into work.
The incumbent lives on the near West Side, two blocks from two converging bus lines and ten minutes by bike to city hall.
Our mayor, other city council members and all county elected officials, are not ensuring all local crime laws are being upheld. Elected officials picking and choosing which laws are to be enforced is not only not in the best interest of citizens, our business community and this city as a whole, it has been detrimental on an historic scale. With their endless excuses and dodgeball tactics it’s a disgrace and travesty. It is sad how far we have fallen.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
Our city’s budget has exploded in the last ten years from $500 to nearly $800 million. Three more ‘city’ tax increases are ‘currently’ proposed. These, atop those basically adopted annually now by the city as well as the county and the school board). Incredible. Countless people have been financially harmed.
This out-of-control taxation has been the major driver of escalating housing costs. And our elected officials are gunning for Saint Paul to soon have billion-dollar budgets. I repeat - Billion-dollar budgets – for Saint Paul.
City hall’s plan – create: endless more ‘programs’ and oversite of every aspect of people’s lives and finances. To be funded with endless tax increases which will thereby drive-up housing costs endlessly.
City Hall intends to also endlessly get ‘federal money’ to keep things going. Never mind that the debt we are leaving future generations is now increasing by over a million dollars - a minute.
City Hall speaks of its great record of creating ‘affordable housing’. These units are in reality tax-payer subsidized apartments. Lucrative for these property’s owners and not particularly ‘affordable’ by most people’s standards.
I have stated for years, city hall getting back to the basics and ensuring our budgets are balanced would slow the increased cost of housing here. A bit later in my campaign I will propose three new responsible avenues for Saint Paul to pursue as far as housing affordability.
St. Paul candidates only: Do you support the rent stabilization ordinance in its current form? If not, what would you like to change?
City hall knows by keeping our city elections in odd-numbered years voter turnouts will remain low, no matter how much they praise the need for increased Voter Registration. This in turns makes it easier to get re-elected and for referendum to pass.
The public was misled into Voting for Rent Control referendum by the incumbent and others in leadership positions. As we know, after its passage our incumbent worked to pass multiple variances for the same ‘greedy landlords and developers’ she warned the public about when pushing for the rent control legislation she helped author. I understand prior to the referendum, average rent increases were just less than the 3% Rent Control proposal.
City elections and subsequently city referendums need to be moved to even-years so as to equitably and dramatically increase voter participations. If elected, I will ensure this occurs. The public then deserves the right to Vote again on Rent Control and the legislation City Hall added on to it.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
Answered previously in question 6.
Our elected officials praise the need for public transit and expanding its options, expanding bike paths and doing more to protect pedestrians. Simultaneously they’ve allowed misconduct and crime on public transit to grow to historic levels. Further, they’ve allowed vehicle driver speeding, red-light running, and aggressive actions by drivers to grow to historic levels. As a result, vulnerability of pedestrians and bike riders has never been worse.
If elected, I will ensure these trends are reversed.
Lastly, eight years ago our incumbent campaigned against light rail on West 7th. Once in office, she ignored the crime scene enveloping our Green Line light rail and its station stops (Nationally, the Federal Transportation Administration in 2022 publicly labeled the Twin Cities LRT system as being the least safe in America, by far). Also, LRT on W 7th would remove most parking on West 7th thereby massively harming the existing business community here.
Further, she embraced it being labeled Streetcars to soften its image and sell to the public. When I’ve respectfully asked what is the physical difference between her Streetcar and our existing light rail cars and tracks, I received no answer. To merge with Blue Line LRT at the airport, these ‘streetcars’ would have needed to run on the same track gauge and rail width and the have the same car width and car height.
What will you do to expand St. Paul’s tax base?
Until we truly end the environment here where local elected officials have normalized crime, our future can not be a healthy one. Poverty will continue to rise; the middle-class will continue to shrink and our business community will continue to be harmed while local elected officials continue to work to expand their political careers and their dominion over the populace.
Why should we work to increase our tax base when they are only working on endless new ways to spend money in ways they never would if it were their own and in ways that is not generating any significant return on their newfound expenditures?
Local elected officials regularly claim, thereby hiding behind, ‘there is a National problem at work’ which is affecting Saint Paul’s health and well-being and that they are ‘working through these complex issues’.
With all due respect, neither President Biden, nor Governor Walz, are in charge of our local affairs. The incumbent has had eight years to put this city on a higher, more healthy and more self-sustaining path. Instead, by most metrics we are lower now than before.
Our tax base will increase organically, without government intervention, if only the government will start doing its basic job of providing a safe, secure and well-maintained city and living within its means.
If elected, I can help ensure that so much can change for the better, and quickly, being the great majority will be on our side.
Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
Respectfully, the Saint Paul Chamber backed the incumbent over me originally. Much of the current state of our city was avoidable. Many people, including perhaps the Saint Paul Chamber today, could identify ways and means to which our city budget can be brought into a sustainable state. I hope the Saint Paul Chamber will help me to make this scenario a reality beginning next January. Though our city has been battered and bruised, together we can embark upon an historic realignment of Saint Paul’s trajectory. I have traveled much of America. Truly, there is no place like ‘Our Town’ and there is no place that has the potential to set itself apart and high upon its own unique place in America as Saint Paul.
Thank you.
Public Office Sought: St. Paul City Council Ward 2
Email:
Campaign Phone:
Campaign Website:
Twitter handle:
Facebook Page:
Candidate Bio
I am a Saint Paul native. I have been a small business owner 33-years. I have been downtown 30 of those years. I have followed the development of the downtown area and the riverfront intimately my entire adult life. Few are as well-versed as i currently am. Subsequently I am well-versed on our residential, business and tourism, the environment’s health, our well-being and our potential.
I have had many, letters and editorial submissions printed in local (large and small), print and online newspapers.
Including Union Depot in 2000, I was first to bring its redevelopment potential to Mayor Norm Coleman’s attention (1999), which he adopted.
I explained ramifications of installing ‘honor-system’ LRT during its pre-construction planning process.
To more recently, I have been critiquing city hall’s behind-scenes push to expand Downtown Alliance without collectively speaking to W. 7thbusiness community beforehand (details at bottom).
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
Absolutely open and non-partisan.
I would host weekly, in-person and live-streamed ‘press/people conferences’. They would be informative, truthful and unprecedented. Organizations such as yours, business leaders and owners as well as community leaders, and certainly residents, and city department heads and staff would frequently be guests.
Having been around so long, I am nearing 61, many people know me or know of me. Few can claim I have ever been dishonest about an issue I have taken a stand on, or brought to the public’s attention. I have acted with integrity and with the public’s and this city’s best interests.
Your organization, as I have conveyed in the past, would have no better partner to help us reverse our business environment’s weakness and decline. It can be done. Truly, and long-term.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Restoring safety. Truly restoring it, to our once beautiful skyway system (no candidate knows it better), our public transit system (no candidate has ridden it longer) and every corner of this ward (no candidate is as familiar).
Cleaning up the vast amount of neglect; weeds, overgrowth, litter and graffiti across this ward, while simultaneously ending the current practice of neglecting to provide basic city services which our tax-dollars are paying for.
Being an ally, confidante and greatest booster to our business community. No other candidate is as familiar with our business community and what its needs are.
My efforts, would not be limited to just these three areas.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in St. Paul?
Local elected official’s untruthfulness and their ‘too common’ displays of willful indifference to the plight of citizens and business owners.
The ability to yet cherish and heal our abused and neglected citizenry, neighborhoods, business community and our public transit system is one of the biggest opportunities. Saint Paul can, and should be a national role-model in multiple respects such as: safety, neighborhood well-being and attractiveness, business community well-being and being a regional and even national, destination for tourism and convention business.
How would you characterize the business climate in St. Paul and what role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs and new businesses in St. Paul?
It has been willfully abused and neglected for too long. Endless actions, including inactions on safety and security, has made conducting business here ever more difficult.
As stated above, ‘Saint Paul can and should be a national role-model in multiple respects: safety, neighborhood well-being, business community well-being and being a regional, no even national, destination for tourism and convention business.’
The pieces are still there to accomplish this. They are. However, from what I and many others have seen firsthand, this cannot occur without change.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
Post haste, I would actually engage, perhaps with the rest of the city council by my side.
I will reach out to the Met Council, state legislators and Governor Walz and have an honest conversation about why policies laws surrounding use of Metro Transit are not being enforced. No one, ever seems to be a champion for the rights of citizens and workers who use public transit, or for those countless people who have left due to legitimate safety concerns. When I opened my gallery downtown 30 years ago, I began using public transit and later began biking near and far as well (during my campaign I am leasing a vehicle). Back then it was an enjoyable, friendly and safe environment. If elected, I, and with hopefully the City Council at my side, will bring that back.
At a public meeting two months ago, our incumbent was asked how is not putting in bike paths everywhere downtown (5) not harming residents and business quality of life when it is removing so much parking. Her reply was she wanted to see people take the bus and start biking more often. When I asked later how many vehicles she had in her household (married with 2 children) and did she bus or bike into work that day she replied two and that she had driven into work.
The incumbent lives on the near West Side, two blocks from two converging bus lines and ten minutes by bike to city hall.
Our mayor, other city council members and all county elected officials, are not ensuring all local crime laws are being upheld. Elected officials picking and choosing which laws are to be enforced is not only not in the best interest of citizens, our business community and this city as a whole, it has been detrimental on an historic scale. With their endless excuses and dodgeball tactics it’s a disgrace and travesty. It is sad how far we have fallen.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
Our city’s budget has exploded in the last ten years from $500 to nearly $800 million. Three more ‘city’ tax increases are ‘currently’ proposed. These, atop those basically adopted annually now by the city as well as the county and the school board). Incredible. Countless people have been financially harmed.
This out-of-control taxation has been the major driver of escalating housing costs. And our elected officials are gunning for Saint Paul to soon have billion-dollar budgets. I repeat - Billion-dollar budgets – for Saint Paul.
City hall’s plan – create: endless more ‘programs’ and oversite of every aspect of people’s lives and finances. To be funded with endless tax increases which will thereby drive-up housing costs endlessly.
City Hall intends to also endlessly get ‘federal money’ to keep things going. Never mind that the debt we are leaving future generations is now increasing by over a million dollars - a minute.
City Hall speaks of its great record of creating ‘affordable housing’. These units are in reality tax-payer subsidized apartments. Lucrative for these property’s owners and not particularly ‘affordable’ by most people’s standards.
I have stated for years, city hall getting back to the basics and ensuring our budgets are balanced would slow the increased cost of housing here. A bit later in my campaign I will propose three new responsible avenues for Saint Paul to pursue as far as housing affordability.
St. Paul candidates only: Do you support the rent stabilization ordinance in its current form? If not, what would you like to change?
City hall knows by keeping our city elections in odd-numbered years voter turnouts will remain low, no matter how much they praise the need for increased Voter Registration. This in turns makes it easier to get re-elected and for referendum to pass.
The public was misled into Voting for Rent Control referendum by the incumbent and others in leadership positions. As we know, after its passage our incumbent worked to pass multiple variances for the same ‘greedy landlords and developers’ she warned the public about when pushing for the rent control legislation she helped author. I understand prior to the referendum, average rent increases were just less than the 3% Rent Control proposal.
City elections and subsequently city referendums need to be moved to even-years so as to equitably and dramatically increase voter participations. If elected, I will ensure this occurs. The public then deserves the right to Vote again on Rent Control and the legislation City Hall added on to it.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
Answered previously in question 6.
Our elected officials praise the need for public transit and expanding its options, expanding bike paths and doing more to protect pedestrians. Simultaneously they’ve allowed misconduct and crime on public transit to grow to historic levels. Further, they’ve allowed vehicle driver speeding, red-light running, and aggressive actions by drivers to grow to historic levels. As a result, vulnerability of pedestrians and bike riders has never been worse.
If elected, I will ensure these trends are reversed.
Lastly, eight years ago our incumbent campaigned against light rail on West 7th. Once in office, she ignored the crime scene enveloping our Green Line light rail and its station stops (Nationally, the Federal Transportation Administration in 2022 publicly labeled the Twin Cities LRT system as being the least safe in America, by far). Also, LRT on W 7th would remove most parking on West 7th thereby massively harming the existing business community here.
Further, she embraced it being labeled Streetcars to soften its image and sell to the public. When I’ve respectfully asked what is the physical difference between her Streetcar and our existing light rail cars and tracks, I received no answer. To merge with Blue Line LRT at the airport, these ‘streetcars’ would have needed to run on the same track gauge and rail width and the have the same car width and car height.
What will you do to expand St. Paul’s tax base?
Until we truly end the environment here where local elected officials have normalized crime, our future can not be a healthy one. Poverty will continue to rise; the middle-class will continue to shrink and our business community will continue to be harmed while local elected officials continue to work to expand their political careers and their dominion over the populace.
Why should we work to increase our tax base when they are only working on endless new ways to spend money in ways they never would if it were their own and in ways that is not generating any significant return on their newfound expenditures?
Local elected officials regularly claim, thereby hiding behind, ‘there is a National problem at work’ which is affecting Saint Paul’s health and well-being and that they are ‘working through these complex issues’.
With all due respect, neither President Biden, nor Governor Walz, are in charge of our local affairs. The incumbent has had eight years to put this city on a higher, more healthy and more self-sustaining path. Instead, by most metrics we are lower now than before.
Our tax base will increase organically, without government intervention, if only the government will start doing its basic job of providing a safe, secure and well-maintained city and living within its means.
If elected, I can help ensure that so much can change for the better, and quickly, being the great majority will be on our side.
Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
Respectfully, the Saint Paul Chamber backed the incumbent over me originally. Much of the current state of our city was avoidable. Many people, including perhaps the Saint Paul Chamber today, could identify ways and means to which our city budget can be brought into a sustainable state. I hope the Saint Paul Chamber will help me to make this scenario a reality beginning next January. Though our city has been battered and bruised, together we can embark upon an historic realignment of Saint Paul’s trajectory. I have traveled much of America. Truly, there is no place like ‘Our Town’ and there is no place that has the potential to set itself apart and high upon its own unique place in America as Saint Paul.
Thank you.