Bill Hosko
Name: Bill Hosko
Public Office Sought: Ramsey County Commissioner-District 5
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 651-222-4767
Campaign Website: billhosko.com
Twitter handle: none
Facebook Page: Bill Hosko
Candidate Bio
I will be 60 this fall and am a county and Saint Paul native, self-employed small business owner for 32-years (29-years downtown, now with 4 small businesses here) and am a long-time Saint Paul booster. I have a background in architecture, design, landscaping and carpentry. I have had a wonderful life and have gratitude for each day I can live it.
I have been collecting/saving information on the development of our downtown and our riverfront since 1980! On public record, and since opening my first gallery and frame shop many years ago, I have shared constructive thoughts and ideas, and even concept illustrations, with numerous elected officials, civic leaders and the media about numerous important developments and opportunities for this city and county. On some instances my positions were at odds with leadership’s. My record of being correct over time has been excellent. Subjects included, in part: Science Museum - 1994, Upper Landing - 1996, Union Depot - 1999-2000, Farmer’s Market – 2002,2012, Pedro Park 2010, LRT 2011-2015, Lowertown ballpark 2011-2013, Macy’s redevelopment 2013-2014, West Publishing site 2015-2016.
I have served on two district councils and been a featured editorialist and letter to the editor contributor to local print news organizations many times.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Crime is touching the lives of ever-more citizens. ‘In Our First 90-days’ together, citizens, business owners and myself, and hopefully alongside other county board members and other elected officials within this county, we will adopt plans to address it. Commissioners just voted themselves another pay raise (and pension raise and social security check raise) while the ‘many’ years-long rise in crime and other problems plaguing our county continue.
Concentrating on welfare programs for those most in need and for those suffering from recent financial hardship brought about by events outside their control. Helping pre-retirement individuals to become self-supporting and self-determining again is very important.
Development-wise, and in part:
Ending County Board-led Union Depot’s massive years-long financial losses - $250 million renovation followed by massive financial losses to the county since, in the tens of millions of dollars. Our county and Saint Paul have massive railroad and riverboat history that will be the keystone in turning Union Depot into a regional attraction at last (concepts released in August) if I am elected,
Ending County Board-led West Publishing site’s $20 million demolition debacle (They had NO development agreements in-place beforehand.) with an exciting, and viable, re-use plan (concepts released in August),
Changing County Board-led plans for a $2 billion ‘honor- system’ LRT thru Downtown-West 7th-Lower Highland. The ‘Honor-System’ Greenline LRT resulted in thousands of crimes, hundreds have been violent, since opening. Many more have not been documented. Can we allow this to happen again thru even more of Saint Paul?
How would you characterize the business climate in Ramsey County and what is the role of businesses supporting quality of life issues in the community?
As a small business owner for over three decades, including twenty-nine years here now, my experience has been that too often, with all due respect, elected officials at the county and city, and their staff, collectively most of whom have not owned a business, have not been business-friendly or even-handed with business, unless it has been on their terms.
Regarding, ‘what is the role of businesses supporting quality of life issues in the community’ my experience again is that too often the very organizations that say they represent the business community and or the quality of life here in Saint Paul particularly, have steadily veered away from their often taxpayer subsidized roles in order to have ‘proximity’ to elected officials and their staff.
Regarding actual businesses per se, each should do whatever they think best to support the environment they conduct their business in.
What role do you think the county should have in attracting and retaining jobs, and steps would you take to solicit new businesses to, and retain existing businesses in, Ramsey County?
First, those who made their board positions a career, with all due respect, they should move on. Their unending voting themselves pay-raises (and thereby pension and Social Security check raises) is shameful. They speak of creating a “just community” and helping those in need with ever-more government over-site programs – all while ‘steadily’ enriching themselves while in office, and after they leave until their death.
Secondly, they have no accounting for their massive planning and financial failures such as Union Depot and the ‘West’ site to date. They backed an ‘honor-system’ LRT that has been so damaging to Saint Paul and to the county’s reputation and to our business community. Massive amounts of public dollars have been lost. Massive.
These items and so much more need to be brought into the light honestly, but won’t possibly be with things as they are.
Do you support any specific employment-related proposals in Ramsey County (such as minimum wage, sick time, or mandatory scheduling notice)? If so, what steps would you take to understand the impact of a policy on the many types of businesses in Ramsey County and how would you define any exceptions to those policies?
The county should embrace policies such as these in unison with the metro area and state. We should be working in tandem with them. Otherwise, we continue to lopsidedly put the county in a position where taxpayers here are hit with ever-higher tax bills in order to keep the county board’s poor decisions atop their merry-go-round.
What policies, if any, would you support to help employers address the labor shortage?
Require that the governor’s office and those it appoints to the Met Council clean up, repair and restore lawfulness to every corner of our so years-long damaged public transit system. Unequivocally safe public transit would go a long way to helping many businesses within this county to attract workers who would benefit from this.
Public safety and rising crime rates are of serious concern to the business community and residents. What strategies or policies would you propose to address public safety issues facing your community?
With all due respect, the incumbent’s been in this seat 28-years and the problem has become steadily worse. Crime and criminal conduct and anti-social behavior have become normalized in the last ten years and it is touching the lives or ever-more residents and business community members. Politicians picking and choosing which laws should be enforced is called dictatorship and it is damaging society here. Thousands have needlessly been victims of crime.
CoVid is not the fault here as so many politicians who have created our situation claim.
On our long-term commissioner’s watch, many, many parents who’ve taken thousands of their children out of public schools cite lack of order in classrooms as being their number one reason. It is damaging to children’s ability to learn well and to properly socialize with others.
Our youth are smart. Most know that when few boundaries regarding school behavior, conduct on public transit and consequences for shop-lifting and other anti-social behavior that harms our business community are allowed, they know that the fact is, we don’t care enough about them to even interveen.
Most citizens agree that funding for law enforcement and emergency response services should be priorities in the county budget.
Again, ‘In Our First 90-days’ together, citizens, business owners and myself, and hopefully with other county board members and other elected officials within this county, we will adopt plans to address public safety.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address housing issues facing your community?
Commissioners do not explain that creating privately-owned ‘affordable’ rental housing requires permanent taxpayer-subsidies to owners as long as they are deemed as such. How much can citizens afford? Countless people have been financially harmed and many even priced out of their homes by endless property tax and ‘fee’ increases imposed upon them by the county and city. What does the board do? Vote themselves another pay raise. Their salary for their part-time job 100K, is well above what most make for a full-time job.
Another reality - the number one driver of ever-higher housing costs is leadership’s spending ever-more money in ways they would never do if it were their own and raising property taxes to do it. If elected, I will ensure citizens will have a referendum to give them - the choice on raising property taxes in the future.
We’re a fair-minded, generous society. The public should be allowed over-sight over increased commissioner spending. If, the case can be made to raise taxes, these referendums will pass.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address transportation issues facing your community? Have your strategies or views changed on transportation since we’ve seen shifts in road use, public transportation use, work from home models, etc. due to the pandemic?
I returned to Saint Paul to start my small downtown business, now 4 small businesses, 29 years ago. I have not owned a vehicle during the entire time and do not expect to for the foreseeable future. Public Transit has been an actual, major part of my life and I expect it will be for years into the future.
Distressingly for me and countless others, for over a quarter century misconduct and crime aboard public transit has been growing the entire time the incumbent has, with all due respect, held office and while I have been using public transit. Use by seniors has plummeted and use by families seems to have followed. Our long-term commissioners who voted themselves yet another pay-raise in June don’t rely on transit as I and countless others have for decades.
The rights of those thousands who have been victimized and the countless who have had bad past experiences and who have had to suffer largely in silence for years are not, nor have they been, championed by our current elected official. I have traveled extensively across America and to several other nations. I have not seen the amount of disrespect shown to drivers and other passengers elsewhere as, unfortunately, is commonplace here. In the last decade, enclosures to protect drivers from assault have even had to be installed on most busses. If we would simply enforce fare requirements and basic decency within the confines of our public busses and LRT system, and at transit stops, ridership would skyrocket and funding could then be available for expanding the current system to levels many hope for.
Further-
Back in about 1996 the ‘Metropolitan Council’ held a series of public hearings seeking public support for raising bus fares from seventy-five cents to a dollar-twenty-five - to cover growing operating costs. Most transit users who spoke were very much against it. I spoke in support of them and particularly in support of those who were then, beginning to see ever-more instances of misconduct and shocking abuse to passengers and to drivers. I concluded by saying that, until this is addressed, the council had no right to raise fares (fares were raised of course and repeatedly since, to cover rising operating costs and to make up for lost revenue from those not paying fares and to help pay for additional security to manage frequent anti-social behavior and even dangerous passengers). Afterwards, a Met Council employee came up to me (he was in his 40s or possible 50s) and raised his hands palms-up and raised his shoulders as well. He said, “there is no political will to help us”. There wasn’t then, and there still isn’t today.
Back in 2008, when public discussions began regarding bringing LRT to Saint Paul and up until their conclusion in 2011 – Pioneer Press April 2011: “Tuesday is a day to celebrate rail leaders' vision - It seems silly to be celebrating the final deal that brings light-rail transit to St. Paul at a time when there are holes punched into the ground and workers deployed along the route. But this Tuesday's signing of what is called a 'Full Funding Grant Agreement' means the Central Corridor project is a reality...”
I was basically the lone public voice warning leadership - at all levels, including the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, up to the governor’s office, of the consequences of bringing ‘honor-system’ LRT to our city and county – while simultaneously being one of the most ardent users of public transit. The incumbent in this race, again with all due respect, dismissed my reason and ignored my warnings. His aide even stated at the time that he found my emails on this subject, “amusing”.
While LRT did bring ‘development’ to this city, it has also coincided with a continued decline of our retail environment along its length in Saint Paul and in downtown, and the continued exodus of workers from downtown and this city. How many countless crimes and violence against its users in coming years, and even the deaths onboard these trains and on these LRT station’s platforms, would have been averted had we not embraced the ‘honor-system’?
As we know, today, plans continue to bring another ‘honor-system’ LRT line to this city from the Mall of America and the MSP International Airport. The incumbent, with all due respect again, supports it and calls it a ‘modern-street-car’, when in fact is it simply LRT. Whereas, the cars are shorter and two to a train versus three? So, the paying public will be confined in even closer surroundings where the police will forever be called to this future ‘honor system’ LRT line as well to stem misconduct, crime and violence.
Most sadly ignored, how many children have been introduced to our bus transit system world for the past 25-plus years and to our LRT transit world for the past dozen? Thousands, tens of thousands? From infancy, a world where profanity and anti-social behavior, and fights among those seeking attention and drama and the attacking of peaceful passengers and the regular presence of police and security personnel to stem the egregious behavior has become normalized. No commissioner defends their rights as children, nor the rights of countless adults, to not be exposed to this environment.
I will.
What are your priorities for the county’s budget?
Law enforcement and emergency response.
Concentrating on welfare programs for those most in need and for those suffering from recent financial hardship brought about by events outside their control. Helping pre-retirement individuals to become self-supporting and self-determining again is very important.
Maintenance of County buildings, roads and public lands.
Ensuring proposed tax increases, to cover proposed spending increases, are first placed before citizens in the form of a referendum.
Ensuring any proposed county board salary increases can only be approved beforehand in the form of a public referendum.
What will you do to expand Ramsey County’s tax base?
Turn County-owned Union Depot into an ‘actual’ regional attraction, the building and site, that large numbers of people will pay to see – year-round. Concept to come in August. Much of the funding needed can come from the private-sector.
Turn County-owned West Publishing site into a major attraction as well, that large numbers of people will pay to see – year-round. Concept to come in August. Much of the funding needed can come from the private-sector.
Reversing the board’s refusal to address crime and its impacts on our economy.
Treating the County Fair as an asset again... it will get my full support.
Restoring other events and ‘their authenticity’ such as: our Taste of Minnesota, our July 4th Fireworks Capitol Mall celebration, Cinco De Mayo, Grand Ole Days, among other which we have lost or which have been reduced. Collectively, these seemingly smaller events can be big assets to the county’s financial picture.
How will you work with K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions and businesses to ensure our region develops and retains an educated workforce?
Again, on our long-term commissioner’s watch, many, many parents who’ve taken thousands of their children out of public schools cite lack of order in classrooms as being their number one reason. It is damaging to children’s ability to learn well and to properly socialize with others.
Again, most sadly ignored, how many children have been introduced to our bus transit system world for the past 25-plus years and to our LRT transit world for the past dozen? From infancy, a world where profanity and anti-social behavior, and fights among those seeking attention and drama and the attacking of peaceful passengers and the regular presence of police and security personnel to stem the egregious behavior has become normalized. The number would be in the many thousands. No commissioner defends their rights as children, nor the rights of countless adults, to not be exposed to this environment.
Again, our youth are smart. Most know that when few boundaries regarding school behavior, conduct on public transit and consequences for shop-lifting and other anti-social behavior that harms our business community are allowed, they know that the fact is, we don’t care enough about them to even interveen.
Our incumbent has allowed crime and anti-social behavior to have become normalized. Our incumbent did or said nothing while large areas of our county, particularly in Saint Paul were attached on two evenings in May 2020. Massive harm came to our business community here. The incumbent’s simply and publicly demanding a curfew be implemented would have prevented so much crime, pain and hardship these nights and in the months and even these years after.
The county board has been now dominated by members who want people to perpetually view themselves as victims, to perpetually view themselves as aggrieved, as, with all due respect, a means to control people and to break down their involvement with society at large while they keep giving themselves pay raise after pay raise and while they keep increasing their future pension and social security payouts after they leave office.
I will support the parents and the business people of this county to help steer our public education system back onto the right tracks again and to restore the concept of personal and parental responsibility again. We can and will be a far stronger society if joined in what unites us.
Are there any services currently provided by the county that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
Other than repealing, via referendums, the board’s ability to give themselves pay-raises and their ability to raise property taxes, I would like other possibilities your good questions pose to be up for a frank, honest series of live-streamed discussions with citizens, ‘In Our First 90-Days”.
What is the role of the County Board in fostering increased minority- and women-owned businesses in Ramsey County?
Again, the county board majority has for years been unfair and even very damaging to our business community. Their decisions have cast a pall over the county which makes entrepreneurs even less likely to want to be here, let along survive here in business. There are still women and or minority owned business here today, that over two years after the riots, weekly, continue to operate in hostile, crime-filled environments.
Our incumbent has had nearly three decades to make things better. Things are worse today than in 1994. This environment can and will change for the better if I am elected.
What further policies can Ramsey County adopt to help the business community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic?
Again, problems most plaguing our business community have far less to do with CoVid than with the actions or non-actions of many of our elected officials.
We must restore safety to our public transit and the need for personal responsibility among those that use it.
End elected official’s picking and choosing of which laws should be enforced.
End their looking the other way as anti-social behavior, much of it directed at our small businesses, has been normalized.
Is there anything else you would like to share with voters not covered above?
So many are unhappy with our direction. So many are dispirited after so many in leadership positions have failed them and our business community, for years.
Still, so many good and caring people want Ramsey County and Saint Paul to do well and to do better. If elected, together we will. And it can and will happen in short order – but folks reading this... if you do truly think it is time for a change, you, need to Vote, and you need to ensure others you know Vote as well. Together, we can’t and we won’t fail.
Thank you.
Public Office Sought: Ramsey County Commissioner-District 5
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 651-222-4767
Campaign Website: billhosko.com
Twitter handle: none
Facebook Page: Bill Hosko
Candidate Bio
I will be 60 this fall and am a county and Saint Paul native, self-employed small business owner for 32-years (29-years downtown, now with 4 small businesses here) and am a long-time Saint Paul booster. I have a background in architecture, design, landscaping and carpentry. I have had a wonderful life and have gratitude for each day I can live it.
I have been collecting/saving information on the development of our downtown and our riverfront since 1980! On public record, and since opening my first gallery and frame shop many years ago, I have shared constructive thoughts and ideas, and even concept illustrations, with numerous elected officials, civic leaders and the media about numerous important developments and opportunities for this city and county. On some instances my positions were at odds with leadership’s. My record of being correct over time has been excellent. Subjects included, in part: Science Museum - 1994, Upper Landing - 1996, Union Depot - 1999-2000, Farmer’s Market – 2002,2012, Pedro Park 2010, LRT 2011-2015, Lowertown ballpark 2011-2013, Macy’s redevelopment 2013-2014, West Publishing site 2015-2016.
I have served on two district councils and been a featured editorialist and letter to the editor contributor to local print news organizations many times.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Crime is touching the lives of ever-more citizens. ‘In Our First 90-days’ together, citizens, business owners and myself, and hopefully alongside other county board members and other elected officials within this county, we will adopt plans to address it. Commissioners just voted themselves another pay raise (and pension raise and social security check raise) while the ‘many’ years-long rise in crime and other problems plaguing our county continue.
Concentrating on welfare programs for those most in need and for those suffering from recent financial hardship brought about by events outside their control. Helping pre-retirement individuals to become self-supporting and self-determining again is very important.
Development-wise, and in part:
Ending County Board-led Union Depot’s massive years-long financial losses - $250 million renovation followed by massive financial losses to the county since, in the tens of millions of dollars. Our county and Saint Paul have massive railroad and riverboat history that will be the keystone in turning Union Depot into a regional attraction at last (concepts released in August) if I am elected,
Ending County Board-led West Publishing site’s $20 million demolition debacle (They had NO development agreements in-place beforehand.) with an exciting, and viable, re-use plan (concepts released in August),
Changing County Board-led plans for a $2 billion ‘honor- system’ LRT thru Downtown-West 7th-Lower Highland. The ‘Honor-System’ Greenline LRT resulted in thousands of crimes, hundreds have been violent, since opening. Many more have not been documented. Can we allow this to happen again thru even more of Saint Paul?
How would you characterize the business climate in Ramsey County and what is the role of businesses supporting quality of life issues in the community?
As a small business owner for over three decades, including twenty-nine years here now, my experience has been that too often, with all due respect, elected officials at the county and city, and their staff, collectively most of whom have not owned a business, have not been business-friendly or even-handed with business, unless it has been on their terms.
Regarding, ‘what is the role of businesses supporting quality of life issues in the community’ my experience again is that too often the very organizations that say they represent the business community and or the quality of life here in Saint Paul particularly, have steadily veered away from their often taxpayer subsidized roles in order to have ‘proximity’ to elected officials and their staff.
Regarding actual businesses per se, each should do whatever they think best to support the environment they conduct their business in.
What role do you think the county should have in attracting and retaining jobs, and steps would you take to solicit new businesses to, and retain existing businesses in, Ramsey County?
First, those who made their board positions a career, with all due respect, they should move on. Their unending voting themselves pay-raises (and thereby pension and Social Security check raises) is shameful. They speak of creating a “just community” and helping those in need with ever-more government over-site programs – all while ‘steadily’ enriching themselves while in office, and after they leave until their death.
Secondly, they have no accounting for their massive planning and financial failures such as Union Depot and the ‘West’ site to date. They backed an ‘honor-system’ LRT that has been so damaging to Saint Paul and to the county’s reputation and to our business community. Massive amounts of public dollars have been lost. Massive.
These items and so much more need to be brought into the light honestly, but won’t possibly be with things as they are.
Do you support any specific employment-related proposals in Ramsey County (such as minimum wage, sick time, or mandatory scheduling notice)? If so, what steps would you take to understand the impact of a policy on the many types of businesses in Ramsey County and how would you define any exceptions to those policies?
The county should embrace policies such as these in unison with the metro area and state. We should be working in tandem with them. Otherwise, we continue to lopsidedly put the county in a position where taxpayers here are hit with ever-higher tax bills in order to keep the county board’s poor decisions atop their merry-go-round.
What policies, if any, would you support to help employers address the labor shortage?
Require that the governor’s office and those it appoints to the Met Council clean up, repair and restore lawfulness to every corner of our so years-long damaged public transit system. Unequivocally safe public transit would go a long way to helping many businesses within this county to attract workers who would benefit from this.
Public safety and rising crime rates are of serious concern to the business community and residents. What strategies or policies would you propose to address public safety issues facing your community?
With all due respect, the incumbent’s been in this seat 28-years and the problem has become steadily worse. Crime and criminal conduct and anti-social behavior have become normalized in the last ten years and it is touching the lives or ever-more residents and business community members. Politicians picking and choosing which laws should be enforced is called dictatorship and it is damaging society here. Thousands have needlessly been victims of crime.
CoVid is not the fault here as so many politicians who have created our situation claim.
On our long-term commissioner’s watch, many, many parents who’ve taken thousands of their children out of public schools cite lack of order in classrooms as being their number one reason. It is damaging to children’s ability to learn well and to properly socialize with others.
Our youth are smart. Most know that when few boundaries regarding school behavior, conduct on public transit and consequences for shop-lifting and other anti-social behavior that harms our business community are allowed, they know that the fact is, we don’t care enough about them to even interveen.
Most citizens agree that funding for law enforcement and emergency response services should be priorities in the county budget.
Again, ‘In Our First 90-days’ together, citizens, business owners and myself, and hopefully with other county board members and other elected officials within this county, we will adopt plans to address public safety.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address housing issues facing your community?
Commissioners do not explain that creating privately-owned ‘affordable’ rental housing requires permanent taxpayer-subsidies to owners as long as they are deemed as such. How much can citizens afford? Countless people have been financially harmed and many even priced out of their homes by endless property tax and ‘fee’ increases imposed upon them by the county and city. What does the board do? Vote themselves another pay raise. Their salary for their part-time job 100K, is well above what most make for a full-time job.
Another reality - the number one driver of ever-higher housing costs is leadership’s spending ever-more money in ways they would never do if it were their own and raising property taxes to do it. If elected, I will ensure citizens will have a referendum to give them - the choice on raising property taxes in the future.
We’re a fair-minded, generous society. The public should be allowed over-sight over increased commissioner spending. If, the case can be made to raise taxes, these referendums will pass.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address transportation issues facing your community? Have your strategies or views changed on transportation since we’ve seen shifts in road use, public transportation use, work from home models, etc. due to the pandemic?
I returned to Saint Paul to start my small downtown business, now 4 small businesses, 29 years ago. I have not owned a vehicle during the entire time and do not expect to for the foreseeable future. Public Transit has been an actual, major part of my life and I expect it will be for years into the future.
Distressingly for me and countless others, for over a quarter century misconduct and crime aboard public transit has been growing the entire time the incumbent has, with all due respect, held office and while I have been using public transit. Use by seniors has plummeted and use by families seems to have followed. Our long-term commissioners who voted themselves yet another pay-raise in June don’t rely on transit as I and countless others have for decades.
The rights of those thousands who have been victimized and the countless who have had bad past experiences and who have had to suffer largely in silence for years are not, nor have they been, championed by our current elected official. I have traveled extensively across America and to several other nations. I have not seen the amount of disrespect shown to drivers and other passengers elsewhere as, unfortunately, is commonplace here. In the last decade, enclosures to protect drivers from assault have even had to be installed on most busses. If we would simply enforce fare requirements and basic decency within the confines of our public busses and LRT system, and at transit stops, ridership would skyrocket and funding could then be available for expanding the current system to levels many hope for.
Further-
Back in about 1996 the ‘Metropolitan Council’ held a series of public hearings seeking public support for raising bus fares from seventy-five cents to a dollar-twenty-five - to cover growing operating costs. Most transit users who spoke were very much against it. I spoke in support of them and particularly in support of those who were then, beginning to see ever-more instances of misconduct and shocking abuse to passengers and to drivers. I concluded by saying that, until this is addressed, the council had no right to raise fares (fares were raised of course and repeatedly since, to cover rising operating costs and to make up for lost revenue from those not paying fares and to help pay for additional security to manage frequent anti-social behavior and even dangerous passengers). Afterwards, a Met Council employee came up to me (he was in his 40s or possible 50s) and raised his hands palms-up and raised his shoulders as well. He said, “there is no political will to help us”. There wasn’t then, and there still isn’t today.
Back in 2008, when public discussions began regarding bringing LRT to Saint Paul and up until their conclusion in 2011 – Pioneer Press April 2011: “Tuesday is a day to celebrate rail leaders' vision - It seems silly to be celebrating the final deal that brings light-rail transit to St. Paul at a time when there are holes punched into the ground and workers deployed along the route. But this Tuesday's signing of what is called a 'Full Funding Grant Agreement' means the Central Corridor project is a reality...”
I was basically the lone public voice warning leadership - at all levels, including the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, up to the governor’s office, of the consequences of bringing ‘honor-system’ LRT to our city and county – while simultaneously being one of the most ardent users of public transit. The incumbent in this race, again with all due respect, dismissed my reason and ignored my warnings. His aide even stated at the time that he found my emails on this subject, “amusing”.
While LRT did bring ‘development’ to this city, it has also coincided with a continued decline of our retail environment along its length in Saint Paul and in downtown, and the continued exodus of workers from downtown and this city. How many countless crimes and violence against its users in coming years, and even the deaths onboard these trains and on these LRT station’s platforms, would have been averted had we not embraced the ‘honor-system’?
As we know, today, plans continue to bring another ‘honor-system’ LRT line to this city from the Mall of America and the MSP International Airport. The incumbent, with all due respect again, supports it and calls it a ‘modern-street-car’, when in fact is it simply LRT. Whereas, the cars are shorter and two to a train versus three? So, the paying public will be confined in even closer surroundings where the police will forever be called to this future ‘honor system’ LRT line as well to stem misconduct, crime and violence.
Most sadly ignored, how many children have been introduced to our bus transit system world for the past 25-plus years and to our LRT transit world for the past dozen? Thousands, tens of thousands? From infancy, a world where profanity and anti-social behavior, and fights among those seeking attention and drama and the attacking of peaceful passengers and the regular presence of police and security personnel to stem the egregious behavior has become normalized. No commissioner defends their rights as children, nor the rights of countless adults, to not be exposed to this environment.
I will.
What are your priorities for the county’s budget?
Law enforcement and emergency response.
Concentrating on welfare programs for those most in need and for those suffering from recent financial hardship brought about by events outside their control. Helping pre-retirement individuals to become self-supporting and self-determining again is very important.
Maintenance of County buildings, roads and public lands.
Ensuring proposed tax increases, to cover proposed spending increases, are first placed before citizens in the form of a referendum.
Ensuring any proposed county board salary increases can only be approved beforehand in the form of a public referendum.
What will you do to expand Ramsey County’s tax base?
Turn County-owned Union Depot into an ‘actual’ regional attraction, the building and site, that large numbers of people will pay to see – year-round. Concept to come in August. Much of the funding needed can come from the private-sector.
Turn County-owned West Publishing site into a major attraction as well, that large numbers of people will pay to see – year-round. Concept to come in August. Much of the funding needed can come from the private-sector.
Reversing the board’s refusal to address crime and its impacts on our economy.
Treating the County Fair as an asset again... it will get my full support.
Restoring other events and ‘their authenticity’ such as: our Taste of Minnesota, our July 4th Fireworks Capitol Mall celebration, Cinco De Mayo, Grand Ole Days, among other which we have lost or which have been reduced. Collectively, these seemingly smaller events can be big assets to the county’s financial picture.
How will you work with K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions and businesses to ensure our region develops and retains an educated workforce?
Again, on our long-term commissioner’s watch, many, many parents who’ve taken thousands of their children out of public schools cite lack of order in classrooms as being their number one reason. It is damaging to children’s ability to learn well and to properly socialize with others.
Again, most sadly ignored, how many children have been introduced to our bus transit system world for the past 25-plus years and to our LRT transit world for the past dozen? From infancy, a world where profanity and anti-social behavior, and fights among those seeking attention and drama and the attacking of peaceful passengers and the regular presence of police and security personnel to stem the egregious behavior has become normalized. The number would be in the many thousands. No commissioner defends their rights as children, nor the rights of countless adults, to not be exposed to this environment.
Again, our youth are smart. Most know that when few boundaries regarding school behavior, conduct on public transit and consequences for shop-lifting and other anti-social behavior that harms our business community are allowed, they know that the fact is, we don’t care enough about them to even interveen.
Our incumbent has allowed crime and anti-social behavior to have become normalized. Our incumbent did or said nothing while large areas of our county, particularly in Saint Paul were attached on two evenings in May 2020. Massive harm came to our business community here. The incumbent’s simply and publicly demanding a curfew be implemented would have prevented so much crime, pain and hardship these nights and in the months and even these years after.
The county board has been now dominated by members who want people to perpetually view themselves as victims, to perpetually view themselves as aggrieved, as, with all due respect, a means to control people and to break down their involvement with society at large while they keep giving themselves pay raise after pay raise and while they keep increasing their future pension and social security payouts after they leave office.
I will support the parents and the business people of this county to help steer our public education system back onto the right tracks again and to restore the concept of personal and parental responsibility again. We can and will be a far stronger society if joined in what unites us.
Are there any services currently provided by the county that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
Other than repealing, via referendums, the board’s ability to give themselves pay-raises and their ability to raise property taxes, I would like other possibilities your good questions pose to be up for a frank, honest series of live-streamed discussions with citizens, ‘In Our First 90-Days”.
What is the role of the County Board in fostering increased minority- and women-owned businesses in Ramsey County?
Again, the county board majority has for years been unfair and even very damaging to our business community. Their decisions have cast a pall over the county which makes entrepreneurs even less likely to want to be here, let along survive here in business. There are still women and or minority owned business here today, that over two years after the riots, weekly, continue to operate in hostile, crime-filled environments.
Our incumbent has had nearly three decades to make things better. Things are worse today than in 1994. This environment can and will change for the better if I am elected.
What further policies can Ramsey County adopt to help the business community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic?
Again, problems most plaguing our business community have far less to do with CoVid than with the actions or non-actions of many of our elected officials.
We must restore safety to our public transit and the need for personal responsibility among those that use it.
End elected official’s picking and choosing of which laws should be enforced.
End their looking the other way as anti-social behavior, much of it directed at our small businesses, has been normalized.
Is there anything else you would like to share with voters not covered above?
So many are unhappy with our direction. So many are dispirited after so many in leadership positions have failed them and our business community, for years.
Still, so many good and caring people want Ramsey County and Saint Paul to do well and to do better. If elected, together we will. And it can and will happen in short order – but folks reading this... if you do truly think it is time for a change, you, need to Vote, and you need to ensure others you know Vote as well. Together, we can’t and we won’t fail.
Thank you.