Dan Wolter
Name: Dan Wolter
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 952-479-0020
Campaign Website: www.danwolter.com
Twitter handle: @djwolter
Facebook Page: facebook.com/dan.wolter.lakeville
Candidate Bio
Dan Wolter is Lakeville’s newest city councilmember, having joined the Council in January, 2023.
A resident of Northern Dakota County for more than 20 years, Dan is no stranger to public service, having served as a top advisor to three governors in two states, represented northern Dakota County on the Metropolitan Council, chaired the Burnsville Planning Commission, led the State Legislature's efforts to recruit Regents for the University of Minnesota, and led Lakeville's "Cultivate a Sense of Community" task force.
Dan is currently employed by Iowa-based retailer, Hy-Vee, Inc., managing the grocer’s government and community relations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
On the Council, Dan’s top priority is Lakeville’s quality of life, especially public safety and ensuring the city’s police, fire, and EMS services keep pace with the community’s growth. He is also focused on keeping Lakeville’s taxes among the lowest in Dakota County, supporting business growth to expand the city’s commercial and industrial base, and taking a measured approach to growth and development.
Dan is a native of Waverly, Iowa, with a bachelor’s degree from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and a master’s degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC. He lives in the Oak Shores neighborhood of Lakeville with his two English Bulldogs, Lizzo and Drake.
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
When you are elected to the City Council, the voters of your community have entrusted you with representing them, listening to their concerns, and making prudent decisions on their behalf. That is a responsibility that has a lot of weight and that I take seriously. My style of leadership is both consultative and consensus-building. A city like Lakeville thrives when its leaders are working together, rather than fighting each other.
What would be your top three priorities if elected? How might these priorities be affected by the state's projected economic outlook?
We are already in an economic slowdown and are feeling it at the city level in the form of slowing construction. Lakeville receives nothing in Local Government Aid, so our biggest concern from state government is not so much direct financial aid as it is the mandates the state puts on us that drive up the cost for our taxpayers. The public safety one-time aid that the Legislature adopted in 2023 was smart aid for cities like Lakeville and I hope the Legislature will consider shifting to that fairer model rather than the current Local Government Aid model, which picks winners and losers based on really no rhyme nor reason.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in Lakeville?
Lakeville’s biggest challenge and its biggest opportunity are the same thing: our growth. Between 2020 and 2023, we added more new residents than any city in Minnesota. That is on top of a decade of unprecedented growth before the pandemic. From congested roads to the need for new schools to public safety concerns, that growth brings growing pains. We need to manage those growing pains in a way that protects our quality of life and keeps Lakeville as a destination community, for new residents and businesses alike.
On the opportunity side of the growth question, we have one of the biggest industrial parks in the state, that is literally wrapped around an airport. For new and growing businesses, Lakeville is a wonderful place for them to consider. I also want to look at ways to expand our commercial base. We are fortunate to have Burnsville and Apple Valley to our north – two commercial destinations in the south metro. But that means we haven’t developed the kind of robust commercial base to support a thriving community of our size and we need to think creatively to change that.
Please characterize your perspective on the ideal collaboration between government and the business community when it comes to tackling challenges whether they be education, housing, or workforce development. Do you feel the outcomes of the 2023-2024 legislative session positively or negatively impacted that collaboration and our state's business climate?
Lakeville has been a model community in terms of collaboration between city government and our business community. We are blessed to have a dynamic and robust Chamber of Commerce, which I think is the foundation to any thriving community.
Our Lakeville Works! Program, which is a collaboration between businesses, the Chamber of Commerce, Lakeville Community Schools, and the City, is a practical and focused effort to both provide career opportunities to our students and help meet the workforce needs of Lakeville employers.
Since joining the City Council, I have been impressed with the on-going dialogue and relationship between City government and the business community. Having engaged business leaders, willing to express their concerns and advocate for their views, is one of the greatest assets of our community.
The 2023-24 legislative session contained a number of mandates on local governments and school districts that limit local control and puts added cost burdens on cities and schools. Tying the hands of local governments negatively impacts our ability to partner with our business community and manage our local economies and will have a negative impact on the state’s overall business climate, I fear.
How would you characterize the business climate in Lakeville and what role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs and new businesses in Lakeville?
Lakeville has been the fastest growing community in Minnesota in recent years, which has been good for a thriving and growing business community, including new restaurants, retail stores, offices, business services, health care, manufacturing, and other businesses.
As a member of the City Council, I see my role as ensuring we have as low of a tax burden as possible and a city government that is easy to deal with in permitting and land use. During my time on the Council, I’ve been impressed with the responsiveness and entrepreneurialism of our city to new opportunities for business growth and will work to keep it that way.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
For Lakeville, the most important strategy is expanding our police and fire departments to meet the needs of a rapidly growing community. Protecting our safe streets, neighborhoods, and schools is THE most important part of having a strong quality of life.
Even during the controversy this year that resulted in School Resource Officers being pulled out of many Minnesota schools, the Lakeville Police Department worked with school district leadership to ensure we had that reliable presence in schools.
We have been adding police officers for the last number of years and are in the process of converting our volunteer, paid-on-call fire department to a hybrid one, hiring full-time firefighters.
Like many Lakeville residents, I have been concerned at the actions taken in other parts of Minnesota – and at the state level – that has demonized law enforcement. Dedicating one’s life to law enforcement is a noble profession, that is critical to protecting our families and livelihoods. As a member of the City Council, I will always have the back of law enforcement, understanding the level of sacrifice they are willing to make on a daily basis in service to our community.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
No city in Minnesota has done more to address the housing shortage in Minnesota than Lakeville. From 2020-2023, we added more new residents than any Minnesota city, including the major cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. All of that was done while maintaining our sensible standards for the quality of housing stock.
The recent effort at the state level to strip local control of land use decisions is definitely the wrong approach and would be damaging to communities such as Lakeville. As a former member of the Metropolitan Council during the Pawlenty Administration, I am very familiar with Minnesota’s rigorous approach to community planning in the metropolitan area, which is critical to meeting infrastructure needs and ensuring residents have predictability for their property. At times, that planning seems exhaustive, but it ensures we are able to support the development that occurs, both in terms of physical infrastructure, but also schools. I am grateful for Lakeville Mayor Luke Hellier’s and the League of Minnesota Cities’ work in the Legislature to ensure local control is being protected.
The housing affordability problem is a much bigger issue driven by inflation and interest rates. At the city level, the number one way to address the issue is through basic supply and demand – building more housing units. At the state and federal levels, we need to see more efforts to address the economics that make the cost of building materials and labor skyrocket.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
Traffic safety is a major issue for a growing community like Lakeville. I am hearing increasing concerns about that as I door-knock the community. In partnership with Dakota County and MnDOT, I would like to see an expanded focus on finding new techniques for traffic calming, pedestrian safety, enhanced walkability, and education about traffic safety.
As a participant in the Lakeville Friends of the Environment’s annual bike ride around Lakeville, I’ve been impressed at the great work that has been done to improve connectivity of bike trails, which was also part of the voter-approved 2021 parks levy referendum.
Lakeville’s current transit service consists of two Metro Transit park-and-ride locations – one on I-35 and one on Cedar Avenue. Service and ridership have not recovered from the changes that the pandemic brought about in work habits and commuting. Given those changes – and the extraordinary amounts of money taxpayers have put into challenged rail projects such as the Southwest Corridor – there needs to be a region-wide focus on express bus service improvements as the backbone of a transit system for outer ring communities such as Lakeville.
Cities have addressed many ongoing needs with temporary, federal COVID relief dollars, what are your plans to ensure fiscal stability as these federal, one-time funds run out?
Lakeville has traditionally had one of the lowest tax rates in Dakota County. Much of that is because of the growth we have experienced in the past decade. As development slows and we get closer to being “fully developed,” that will create fiscal issues for which we need to be prepared. We are one of a few communities in our peer group that have no franchise fees on gas and electric services, which is under consideration to help pay for our critical needs in public safety infrastructure. I would love to hear from residents and business owners about that concept.
Families are struggling with high interest rates and inflation. As a member of the City Council, I will ask the tough questions to ensure our tax burden remains low for homeowners and businesses alike.
Uber/Lyft wages and proposed childcare subsidies funded by local property taxes are just a few areas where local units of government are wading into policy debates that may be best suited at the state. Please articulate the different scopes of work between state and local government (City/County). Are there specific areas of policy that the city should lead on in lieu of the state or county government?
Minnesota needs a clearer map of what lanes each level of government should be operating in. We see a dramatic difference between city governments in what they see as their role. The big cities are focused on environmental and labor mandates, but then let the basics of pavement, police, and parks take a back seat. Paid leave was a good example of that. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Duluth, Bloomington and a couple others created aggressive policies that cities have no business making. The compliance headaches it created for job creators were significant. When it comes to labor and environmental policies, that is best suited to be managed at the state level. When it comes to housing, land use, building standards, and community policing, that belongs at the city level and state government needs to get the heck out of the way.
In my day job, I work for a large retailer that operates in multiple states. Minnesota’s patchworks of laws and regulations on labor and environmental issues is a deterrent to business growth, so I am a strong supporter of ensuring those issues with statewide impact are made at the state level and those that are local in nature be made in City Hall. Fortunately for Lakeville, we have strong legislative representation by Sen. Zach Duckworth and Rep. Jeff Witte in fighting for those issues.
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 952-479-0020
Campaign Website: www.danwolter.com
Twitter handle: @djwolter
Facebook Page: facebook.com/dan.wolter.lakeville
Candidate Bio
Dan Wolter is Lakeville’s newest city councilmember, having joined the Council in January, 2023.
A resident of Northern Dakota County for more than 20 years, Dan is no stranger to public service, having served as a top advisor to three governors in two states, represented northern Dakota County on the Metropolitan Council, chaired the Burnsville Planning Commission, led the State Legislature's efforts to recruit Regents for the University of Minnesota, and led Lakeville's "Cultivate a Sense of Community" task force.
Dan is currently employed by Iowa-based retailer, Hy-Vee, Inc., managing the grocer’s government and community relations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
On the Council, Dan’s top priority is Lakeville’s quality of life, especially public safety and ensuring the city’s police, fire, and EMS services keep pace with the community’s growth. He is also focused on keeping Lakeville’s taxes among the lowest in Dakota County, supporting business growth to expand the city’s commercial and industrial base, and taking a measured approach to growth and development.
Dan is a native of Waverly, Iowa, with a bachelor’s degree from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and a master’s degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC. He lives in the Oak Shores neighborhood of Lakeville with his two English Bulldogs, Lizzo and Drake.
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
When you are elected to the City Council, the voters of your community have entrusted you with representing them, listening to their concerns, and making prudent decisions on their behalf. That is a responsibility that has a lot of weight and that I take seriously. My style of leadership is both consultative and consensus-building. A city like Lakeville thrives when its leaders are working together, rather than fighting each other.
What would be your top three priorities if elected? How might these priorities be affected by the state's projected economic outlook?
- Public Safety – Lakeville needs to continue adding police officers to keep up with our growing population. We are transitioning our paid-on-call volunteer fire department to a hybrid one with full-time firefighters.
- Taxes – We have been fortunate to have the lowest tax rate in Dakota County in recent years, largely because of our growth. With slowing growth, we’re going to need to focus on keeping taxes low for our homeowners and businesses alike.
- Measured Growth – One of the biggest concerns I am hearing at the doors is that Lakeville is growing too fast. It is a consistent concern, especially as it impacts our schools. We have been the fastest growing city in the state for a number of years and I think it’s important to take a breath and make sure our infrastructure is keeping up. Just as residents are concerned about housing growth, they are also asking for more businesses to support that growth, which is why I am focused on expanding Lakeville’s commercial and industrial base.
We are already in an economic slowdown and are feeling it at the city level in the form of slowing construction. Lakeville receives nothing in Local Government Aid, so our biggest concern from state government is not so much direct financial aid as it is the mandates the state puts on us that drive up the cost for our taxpayers. The public safety one-time aid that the Legislature adopted in 2023 was smart aid for cities like Lakeville and I hope the Legislature will consider shifting to that fairer model rather than the current Local Government Aid model, which picks winners and losers based on really no rhyme nor reason.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in Lakeville?
Lakeville’s biggest challenge and its biggest opportunity are the same thing: our growth. Between 2020 and 2023, we added more new residents than any city in Minnesota. That is on top of a decade of unprecedented growth before the pandemic. From congested roads to the need for new schools to public safety concerns, that growth brings growing pains. We need to manage those growing pains in a way that protects our quality of life and keeps Lakeville as a destination community, for new residents and businesses alike.
On the opportunity side of the growth question, we have one of the biggest industrial parks in the state, that is literally wrapped around an airport. For new and growing businesses, Lakeville is a wonderful place for them to consider. I also want to look at ways to expand our commercial base. We are fortunate to have Burnsville and Apple Valley to our north – two commercial destinations in the south metro. But that means we haven’t developed the kind of robust commercial base to support a thriving community of our size and we need to think creatively to change that.
Please characterize your perspective on the ideal collaboration between government and the business community when it comes to tackling challenges whether they be education, housing, or workforce development. Do you feel the outcomes of the 2023-2024 legislative session positively or negatively impacted that collaboration and our state's business climate?
Lakeville has been a model community in terms of collaboration between city government and our business community. We are blessed to have a dynamic and robust Chamber of Commerce, which I think is the foundation to any thriving community.
Our Lakeville Works! Program, which is a collaboration between businesses, the Chamber of Commerce, Lakeville Community Schools, and the City, is a practical and focused effort to both provide career opportunities to our students and help meet the workforce needs of Lakeville employers.
Since joining the City Council, I have been impressed with the on-going dialogue and relationship between City government and the business community. Having engaged business leaders, willing to express their concerns and advocate for their views, is one of the greatest assets of our community.
The 2023-24 legislative session contained a number of mandates on local governments and school districts that limit local control and puts added cost burdens on cities and schools. Tying the hands of local governments negatively impacts our ability to partner with our business community and manage our local economies and will have a negative impact on the state’s overall business climate, I fear.
How would you characterize the business climate in Lakeville and what role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs and new businesses in Lakeville?
Lakeville has been the fastest growing community in Minnesota in recent years, which has been good for a thriving and growing business community, including new restaurants, retail stores, offices, business services, health care, manufacturing, and other businesses.
As a member of the City Council, I see my role as ensuring we have as low of a tax burden as possible and a city government that is easy to deal with in permitting and land use. During my time on the Council, I’ve been impressed with the responsiveness and entrepreneurialism of our city to new opportunities for business growth and will work to keep it that way.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
For Lakeville, the most important strategy is expanding our police and fire departments to meet the needs of a rapidly growing community. Protecting our safe streets, neighborhoods, and schools is THE most important part of having a strong quality of life.
Even during the controversy this year that resulted in School Resource Officers being pulled out of many Minnesota schools, the Lakeville Police Department worked with school district leadership to ensure we had that reliable presence in schools.
We have been adding police officers for the last number of years and are in the process of converting our volunteer, paid-on-call fire department to a hybrid one, hiring full-time firefighters.
Like many Lakeville residents, I have been concerned at the actions taken in other parts of Minnesota – and at the state level – that has demonized law enforcement. Dedicating one’s life to law enforcement is a noble profession, that is critical to protecting our families and livelihoods. As a member of the City Council, I will always have the back of law enforcement, understanding the level of sacrifice they are willing to make on a daily basis in service to our community.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
No city in Minnesota has done more to address the housing shortage in Minnesota than Lakeville. From 2020-2023, we added more new residents than any Minnesota city, including the major cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. All of that was done while maintaining our sensible standards for the quality of housing stock.
The recent effort at the state level to strip local control of land use decisions is definitely the wrong approach and would be damaging to communities such as Lakeville. As a former member of the Metropolitan Council during the Pawlenty Administration, I am very familiar with Minnesota’s rigorous approach to community planning in the metropolitan area, which is critical to meeting infrastructure needs and ensuring residents have predictability for their property. At times, that planning seems exhaustive, but it ensures we are able to support the development that occurs, both in terms of physical infrastructure, but also schools. I am grateful for Lakeville Mayor Luke Hellier’s and the League of Minnesota Cities’ work in the Legislature to ensure local control is being protected.
The housing affordability problem is a much bigger issue driven by inflation and interest rates. At the city level, the number one way to address the issue is through basic supply and demand – building more housing units. At the state and federal levels, we need to see more efforts to address the economics that make the cost of building materials and labor skyrocket.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
Traffic safety is a major issue for a growing community like Lakeville. I am hearing increasing concerns about that as I door-knock the community. In partnership with Dakota County and MnDOT, I would like to see an expanded focus on finding new techniques for traffic calming, pedestrian safety, enhanced walkability, and education about traffic safety.
As a participant in the Lakeville Friends of the Environment’s annual bike ride around Lakeville, I’ve been impressed at the great work that has been done to improve connectivity of bike trails, which was also part of the voter-approved 2021 parks levy referendum.
Lakeville’s current transit service consists of two Metro Transit park-and-ride locations – one on I-35 and one on Cedar Avenue. Service and ridership have not recovered from the changes that the pandemic brought about in work habits and commuting. Given those changes – and the extraordinary amounts of money taxpayers have put into challenged rail projects such as the Southwest Corridor – there needs to be a region-wide focus on express bus service improvements as the backbone of a transit system for outer ring communities such as Lakeville.
Cities have addressed many ongoing needs with temporary, federal COVID relief dollars, what are your plans to ensure fiscal stability as these federal, one-time funds run out?
Lakeville has traditionally had one of the lowest tax rates in Dakota County. Much of that is because of the growth we have experienced in the past decade. As development slows and we get closer to being “fully developed,” that will create fiscal issues for which we need to be prepared. We are one of a few communities in our peer group that have no franchise fees on gas and electric services, which is under consideration to help pay for our critical needs in public safety infrastructure. I would love to hear from residents and business owners about that concept.
Families are struggling with high interest rates and inflation. As a member of the City Council, I will ask the tough questions to ensure our tax burden remains low for homeowners and businesses alike.
Uber/Lyft wages and proposed childcare subsidies funded by local property taxes are just a few areas where local units of government are wading into policy debates that may be best suited at the state. Please articulate the different scopes of work between state and local government (City/County). Are there specific areas of policy that the city should lead on in lieu of the state or county government?
Minnesota needs a clearer map of what lanes each level of government should be operating in. We see a dramatic difference between city governments in what they see as their role. The big cities are focused on environmental and labor mandates, but then let the basics of pavement, police, and parks take a back seat. Paid leave was a good example of that. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Duluth, Bloomington and a couple others created aggressive policies that cities have no business making. The compliance headaches it created for job creators were significant. When it comes to labor and environmental policies, that is best suited to be managed at the state level. When it comes to housing, land use, building standards, and community policing, that belongs at the city level and state government needs to get the heck out of the way.
In my day job, I work for a large retailer that operates in multiple states. Minnesota’s patchworks of laws and regulations on labor and environmental issues is a deterrent to business growth, so I am a strong supporter of ensuring those issues with statewide impact are made at the state level and those that are local in nature be made in City Hall. Fortunately for Lakeville, we have strong legislative representation by Sen. Zach Duckworth and Rep. Jeff Witte in fighting for those issues.