Dave Thiede
Name: Dave Thiede
Public Office Sought: Cottage Grove City Council
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 651-331-9995
Website: www.VOTEforDAVE.info
Facebook: Dave Thiede
Candidate Bio
Dave Thiede has been serving the residents of Cottage Grove for 14 years. First on the Public Works Commission for a year and then on the Planning Commission for 5 yrs before being elected to the Council in 2010 and then again in 2014 for a second term.
Dave and his family have lived in Cottage Grove for 20 years. Dave is active in the Lions Club, City Strawberry Festival, MN HighTechAssoc. and Neighborhood Association.
Dave has an Industrial Engineering degree with a MBA in Finance and has worked as a General Mgr in Operations for many years and is currently working for ProActive Solutions Inc. providing IT Infrastructure solutions. Wife Cindy is working for SOWASHCO district (19 years) as a Para for early childhood classes.
The kids were graduates of Park High School and all achieved the highest award available in Scouting (Eagle/Gold).
I want Cottage Grove to be the largest SMALL CITY in the metro. I want Cottage Grove to have good people that work together to help others in the Community like they do in Small Cities and I want us to have the amenities that larger cities can afford. We do this through providing greater VALUE.
Business climate
1. How would you characterize the business climate in Cottage Grove?
The business climate is great! I am very passionate about Industry and have always believed we need to create “fertile soil” in our Business Park that attracts and helps companies prosper and grow.
The City’s 600 acre Business Park is home to 1,150,000 square feet of industrial and manufacturing businesses. Up North Plastics, Renewal by Andersen, Werner Electric, ALC, and Modern Performance Auto have all decided to reinvest in Cottage Grove through expansion and new businesses have been coming in - Leafline Labs, GardenWorld, NorthStar Sheets. As I mentioned I want to make our Industrial Park more fertile for growth and we have taken a major step in making it "shovel ready" with the AUAR (pre-construction analysis https://cottagegrovemn.gov/auar-business-park ) that was done.
We finally got Home Depot and the Developer and other businesses to come to agreement on the commercial contract and the Shoppes at Gateway North will again be full. Getting HyVee to come to our community was a major step toward doing that and we had to make some creative decisions to get it done. Development is a Catch 22 of sorts in that businesses want more rooftops, while residents want more businesses. We have been able to manage that so that they are increasing together but at a controlled rate through effective planning.
We are on a record, yet controlled, pace to add homes. Adding new homes and businesses increases the amount of money we have to spend on amenities while minimizing increases in individual taxes - creating greater VALUE.
2. What role do you think the City should have in attracting and retaining jobs, and what steps would you take to solicit new businesses to, and retain existing businesses in, Cottage Grove?
One of our strategic Council directives is “Positioning the City for Growth”. This has been one of our top priorities.
We have worked very closely with the Chamber of Commerce to not only attract new businesses but retain the ones we have.
We have started new programs and strategies in our EDA group to be more proactive about getting the right businesses to locate in Cottage Grove.
We conducted a Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E) program (a pgm of the University of Minnesota Extension https://cottagegrovemn.gov/eda/1265-business-retention-expansion-br-e ). Objectives included: demonstrating support for local businesses, helping to solve immediate business concerns, increase local businesses’ ability to compete in the global economy, establish and implement a strategic plan for economic development, and lastly, to build community capacity to sustain growth and development.
We have regularly attended the National Retail Conference to talk to different retail businesses and promoting Cottage Grove as a place to do business.
3. Would you support hiring a business advocate as a member of the city senior staff, to concentrate on business retention and expansion; new business recruitment; and business impact of proposed regulations on the business climate in Cottage Grove?
We supported that many years ago and it has proven to be very effective based on our results.
4. Do you support an increase to the minimum wage in Cottage Grove? If so, what specific steps would you take to understand the impact of an increase on the many types of businesses in Cottage Grove and do you support proposals to mitigate the effects on businesses like a tip credit, a youth wage, a training wage, and/or a phase-in?
I believe that different businesses have different dynamics and therefore businesses are successful when ALL the employees work together to provide their product to their customers. The success of the company will dictate it’s capability to compensate employees and the City should not be involved in that decision. BUT I do support finding ways to help businesses be more successful.
5. Do you support any other specific employment-related proposals in Cottage Grove (such as mandatory sick time or scheduling notice)? If so, what specific steps would you take to understand the impact of an increase on the many types of businesses in Cottage Grove and how would you define any exceptions to those policies?
Again, I believe that different businesses have different dynamics and therefore businesses are successful when ALL the employees work together to provide their product to their customers. The success of the company will dictate it’s capability to provide benefits to employees and the City should not be involved in that decision.
Public safety
6. What is your strategy to address public safety concerns?
We are making sure that Cottage Grove is capable of serving it's residents by providing Public Safety personnel the proper tools and facilities at the right time. One example of that is the new Fire Station and new Public Safety facilities.
We are very active in activities like Nite to Unite. It is my belief that the more we know and help our neighbors the harder it will be for crime to occur in our city as people will recognize the “bad apples” and raise a flag.
We have restructured our police, fire and EMT’s to optimize their effectiveness and regularly break our own records for response times in emergencies.
We have been very active in getting residents involved in City Planning activities like commissions and task forces. We are reaching out to the residents in an effort to get many involved. In 2016, a community visioning project called My Future Cottage Grove was begun to answer that question. More than 3,700 comments were received from residents. They wrote their wishes for the community on large chalkboards placed around town. They answered #FutureFriday questions on the City’s social media sites. They provided thoughts and ideas at community visioning sessions, both face-to-face and through Facebook Live. They gave input and comments through the online survey. They participated in focus groups at the middle school, high school, and senior center. We now have 7 resident task forces looking at making those visions a reality.
So again the strategy is getting people involved with their neighbors and their city to form a more cohesive community that, in addition to the expert police, fire and EMT individuals we have, are cognizant of things that are not right and notifying the right people to handle it.
Budget
7. What are your priorities for the City’s budget?
My priority has always been to create greater VALUE. The first thing I look at in budget meetings is the estimated affect on property taxes.
My goal has been 0% every year and we have kept the budget, and more importantly property taxes in check. In 2016 our per capita property taxes were 14% lower than similar sized cities in MN (20K-100K) and in 2017 we lowered actual taxes per capita by 1% while increasing revenue in other ways by 15.2%. At the same time we lowered our per capita expenses by 12%.
Adding new homes and businesses increases the amount of money we have to spend on amenities while minimizing increases in your individual taxes - creating greater VALUE.
My goals also include how to get the employees the tools they need to be productive and get their jobs done.
We again achieved an A++ financial rating, which we have done each of the 8 years I have been on Council. This has saved us considerable money on debt management.
8. How do you view the relationship between commercial and residential property taxes?
Both are important. They are calculated differently, which I won’t delve into here, but you have to help businesses be successful and serve the residents and if the residents have more money to spend they help the businesses be more successful.
9. What will you do to expand Cottage Grove’s tax base?
With my involvement in the tech industry, membership to the MN High Tech Association (MHTA) and broader network, I have already helped businesses to locate in Cottage Grove.
We always work closely with developers to help them be successful and they usually say they love working with Cottage Grove and recommend us to other developers.
Workforce development
10. How will you work with K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions and businesses to ensure our region develops and retains an educated workforce?
I was on both the K-12 and higher education committees of the MHTA and interacted with SOWASHCO school district. I have had conversations with Century College and the possibility of putting in MakerSpace technology labs in with the library and or community center.
We are currently planning and moving forward with the HERO Center (health and emergency response occupations) that would be our first post-secondary educational opportunity. We are hoping to expand this connection and leverage it into additional opportunities in the future.
11. What do you see as the city council’s role with regard to Cottage Grove Public Schools?
The school district has it’s own board and covers 5 different cities so we do not have decision making authority BUT we work closely with School Administration and have monthly meetings to optimize our activities and facilities. Some of the school board members have been on Commissions and City Task forces.
Other
12. What is the biggest challenge facing the city and how would you address it?
Water quality is probably our biggest issue right now that is being addressed. With the MPCA cutting the permitted level of PFC’s (3M Teflon component) in half in 2017 we have had to be very diligent on making sure we conform and get our proper share of funds being made available for the remediation of the issue long term.
We received engineering awards for our quick response and implementation of a temporary filtering solution. In the coming years we will need to replace that with a permanent water treatment facility or some other way to ensure that the content of the water is within state mandated guidelines and safe for all residents.
We currently are participants on task forces that are deciding how to distribute remedial funds.
13. What would be your top three priorities if elected?
The same as they have been:
1. Maximize VALUE = keeping tax increase as close as possible to zero while adding great amenities at minimal cost.
2. Creating that “fertile soil” that attracts industry and businesses with jobs.
3. Creating a safe place for residents to live, have families and work.
14. What do you think should be the city’s top transportation related priority?
We have been working on the Bus Rapid Transit planning and that will continue. We need to develop ways to get people to the BRT. I am Cottage Groves representative on the East Metro Strong transportation committee and I have been involved with the Autonomous Vehicle industry and am working with the state of MN and companies in this industry to see what would be needed to have a network of small autonomous buses that could efficiently get people to BRT and around the city better than today.
We are also looking at more locations to put Electric Vehicle charging stations to accommodate the rise of EV’s.
In the meantime we need to continue to make it easy for people to catch the express buses that go into Mpls and St.Paul.
We also need to continue to make our roads as safe as possible and crossings that are safe for bikers and pedestrians to cross.
15. Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Or, are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
We have been working with and will continue to work with neighboring communities to make all of south Washington County more productive.
• In Public Safety we work with other cities to see if we can share large vehicles like tall ladder fire Trucks and special forces coverage.
• The HERO Center is a collaboration with Woodbury.
• We cover south Washington County with ambulance services and EMTs.
• In Public Works we share or help other communities with Building Inspections, Asphalt overlays and other services.
• We will most likely look at working with neighboring communities for a new Water Treatment facility.
We run a pretty lean “ship” so I don’t think there is anything that we would cut back that we have not already done so years ago and refined our processes to operate more efficiently. Things are running really good.
16. Is there anything else you would like to share with voters not covered above?
I have helped the City through the recession and we worked together to prepare Cottage Grove for the growth that we are now seeing. It is a great time to live in Cottage Grove and we have a great team with great projects in the works and I am excited about continuing to have the trust of the residents and continuing to serve on the City Council as one of their stewards.
Public Office Sought: Cottage Grove City Council
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 651-331-9995
Website: www.VOTEforDAVE.info
Facebook: Dave Thiede
Candidate Bio
Dave Thiede has been serving the residents of Cottage Grove for 14 years. First on the Public Works Commission for a year and then on the Planning Commission for 5 yrs before being elected to the Council in 2010 and then again in 2014 for a second term.
Dave and his family have lived in Cottage Grove for 20 years. Dave is active in the Lions Club, City Strawberry Festival, MN HighTechAssoc. and Neighborhood Association.
Dave has an Industrial Engineering degree with a MBA in Finance and has worked as a General Mgr in Operations for many years and is currently working for ProActive Solutions Inc. providing IT Infrastructure solutions. Wife Cindy is working for SOWASHCO district (19 years) as a Para for early childhood classes.
The kids were graduates of Park High School and all achieved the highest award available in Scouting (Eagle/Gold).
I want Cottage Grove to be the largest SMALL CITY in the metro. I want Cottage Grove to have good people that work together to help others in the Community like they do in Small Cities and I want us to have the amenities that larger cities can afford. We do this through providing greater VALUE.
Business climate
1. How would you characterize the business climate in Cottage Grove?
The business climate is great! I am very passionate about Industry and have always believed we need to create “fertile soil” in our Business Park that attracts and helps companies prosper and grow.
The City’s 600 acre Business Park is home to 1,150,000 square feet of industrial and manufacturing businesses. Up North Plastics, Renewal by Andersen, Werner Electric, ALC, and Modern Performance Auto have all decided to reinvest in Cottage Grove through expansion and new businesses have been coming in - Leafline Labs, GardenWorld, NorthStar Sheets. As I mentioned I want to make our Industrial Park more fertile for growth and we have taken a major step in making it "shovel ready" with the AUAR (pre-construction analysis https://cottagegrovemn.gov/auar-business-park ) that was done.
We finally got Home Depot and the Developer and other businesses to come to agreement on the commercial contract and the Shoppes at Gateway North will again be full. Getting HyVee to come to our community was a major step toward doing that and we had to make some creative decisions to get it done. Development is a Catch 22 of sorts in that businesses want more rooftops, while residents want more businesses. We have been able to manage that so that they are increasing together but at a controlled rate through effective planning.
We are on a record, yet controlled, pace to add homes. Adding new homes and businesses increases the amount of money we have to spend on amenities while minimizing increases in individual taxes - creating greater VALUE.
2. What role do you think the City should have in attracting and retaining jobs, and what steps would you take to solicit new businesses to, and retain existing businesses in, Cottage Grove?
One of our strategic Council directives is “Positioning the City for Growth”. This has been one of our top priorities.
We have worked very closely with the Chamber of Commerce to not only attract new businesses but retain the ones we have.
We have started new programs and strategies in our EDA group to be more proactive about getting the right businesses to locate in Cottage Grove.
We conducted a Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E) program (a pgm of the University of Minnesota Extension https://cottagegrovemn.gov/eda/1265-business-retention-expansion-br-e ). Objectives included: demonstrating support for local businesses, helping to solve immediate business concerns, increase local businesses’ ability to compete in the global economy, establish and implement a strategic plan for economic development, and lastly, to build community capacity to sustain growth and development.
We have regularly attended the National Retail Conference to talk to different retail businesses and promoting Cottage Grove as a place to do business.
3. Would you support hiring a business advocate as a member of the city senior staff, to concentrate on business retention and expansion; new business recruitment; and business impact of proposed regulations on the business climate in Cottage Grove?
We supported that many years ago and it has proven to be very effective based on our results.
4. Do you support an increase to the minimum wage in Cottage Grove? If so, what specific steps would you take to understand the impact of an increase on the many types of businesses in Cottage Grove and do you support proposals to mitigate the effects on businesses like a tip credit, a youth wage, a training wage, and/or a phase-in?
I believe that different businesses have different dynamics and therefore businesses are successful when ALL the employees work together to provide their product to their customers. The success of the company will dictate it’s capability to compensate employees and the City should not be involved in that decision. BUT I do support finding ways to help businesses be more successful.
5. Do you support any other specific employment-related proposals in Cottage Grove (such as mandatory sick time or scheduling notice)? If so, what specific steps would you take to understand the impact of an increase on the many types of businesses in Cottage Grove and how would you define any exceptions to those policies?
Again, I believe that different businesses have different dynamics and therefore businesses are successful when ALL the employees work together to provide their product to their customers. The success of the company will dictate it’s capability to provide benefits to employees and the City should not be involved in that decision.
Public safety
6. What is your strategy to address public safety concerns?
We are making sure that Cottage Grove is capable of serving it's residents by providing Public Safety personnel the proper tools and facilities at the right time. One example of that is the new Fire Station and new Public Safety facilities.
We are very active in activities like Nite to Unite. It is my belief that the more we know and help our neighbors the harder it will be for crime to occur in our city as people will recognize the “bad apples” and raise a flag.
We have restructured our police, fire and EMT’s to optimize their effectiveness and regularly break our own records for response times in emergencies.
We have been very active in getting residents involved in City Planning activities like commissions and task forces. We are reaching out to the residents in an effort to get many involved. In 2016, a community visioning project called My Future Cottage Grove was begun to answer that question. More than 3,700 comments were received from residents. They wrote their wishes for the community on large chalkboards placed around town. They answered #FutureFriday questions on the City’s social media sites. They provided thoughts and ideas at community visioning sessions, both face-to-face and through Facebook Live. They gave input and comments through the online survey. They participated in focus groups at the middle school, high school, and senior center. We now have 7 resident task forces looking at making those visions a reality.
So again the strategy is getting people involved with their neighbors and their city to form a more cohesive community that, in addition to the expert police, fire and EMT individuals we have, are cognizant of things that are not right and notifying the right people to handle it.
Budget
7. What are your priorities for the City’s budget?
My priority has always been to create greater VALUE. The first thing I look at in budget meetings is the estimated affect on property taxes.
My goal has been 0% every year and we have kept the budget, and more importantly property taxes in check. In 2016 our per capita property taxes were 14% lower than similar sized cities in MN (20K-100K) and in 2017 we lowered actual taxes per capita by 1% while increasing revenue in other ways by 15.2%. At the same time we lowered our per capita expenses by 12%.
Adding new homes and businesses increases the amount of money we have to spend on amenities while minimizing increases in your individual taxes - creating greater VALUE.
My goals also include how to get the employees the tools they need to be productive and get their jobs done.
We again achieved an A++ financial rating, which we have done each of the 8 years I have been on Council. This has saved us considerable money on debt management.
8. How do you view the relationship between commercial and residential property taxes?
Both are important. They are calculated differently, which I won’t delve into here, but you have to help businesses be successful and serve the residents and if the residents have more money to spend they help the businesses be more successful.
9. What will you do to expand Cottage Grove’s tax base?
With my involvement in the tech industry, membership to the MN High Tech Association (MHTA) and broader network, I have already helped businesses to locate in Cottage Grove.
We always work closely with developers to help them be successful and they usually say they love working with Cottage Grove and recommend us to other developers.
Workforce development
10. How will you work with K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions and businesses to ensure our region develops and retains an educated workforce?
I was on both the K-12 and higher education committees of the MHTA and interacted with SOWASHCO school district. I have had conversations with Century College and the possibility of putting in MakerSpace technology labs in with the library and or community center.
We are currently planning and moving forward with the HERO Center (health and emergency response occupations) that would be our first post-secondary educational opportunity. We are hoping to expand this connection and leverage it into additional opportunities in the future.
11. What do you see as the city council’s role with regard to Cottage Grove Public Schools?
The school district has it’s own board and covers 5 different cities so we do not have decision making authority BUT we work closely with School Administration and have monthly meetings to optimize our activities and facilities. Some of the school board members have been on Commissions and City Task forces.
Other
12. What is the biggest challenge facing the city and how would you address it?
Water quality is probably our biggest issue right now that is being addressed. With the MPCA cutting the permitted level of PFC’s (3M Teflon component) in half in 2017 we have had to be very diligent on making sure we conform and get our proper share of funds being made available for the remediation of the issue long term.
We received engineering awards for our quick response and implementation of a temporary filtering solution. In the coming years we will need to replace that with a permanent water treatment facility or some other way to ensure that the content of the water is within state mandated guidelines and safe for all residents.
We currently are participants on task forces that are deciding how to distribute remedial funds.
13. What would be your top three priorities if elected?
The same as they have been:
1. Maximize VALUE = keeping tax increase as close as possible to zero while adding great amenities at minimal cost.
2. Creating that “fertile soil” that attracts industry and businesses with jobs.
3. Creating a safe place for residents to live, have families and work.
14. What do you think should be the city’s top transportation related priority?
We have been working on the Bus Rapid Transit planning and that will continue. We need to develop ways to get people to the BRT. I am Cottage Groves representative on the East Metro Strong transportation committee and I have been involved with the Autonomous Vehicle industry and am working with the state of MN and companies in this industry to see what would be needed to have a network of small autonomous buses that could efficiently get people to BRT and around the city better than today.
We are also looking at more locations to put Electric Vehicle charging stations to accommodate the rise of EV’s.
In the meantime we need to continue to make it easy for people to catch the express buses that go into Mpls and St.Paul.
We also need to continue to make our roads as safe as possible and crossings that are safe for bikers and pedestrians to cross.
15. Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Or, are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
We have been working with and will continue to work with neighboring communities to make all of south Washington County more productive.
• In Public Safety we work with other cities to see if we can share large vehicles like tall ladder fire Trucks and special forces coverage.
• The HERO Center is a collaboration with Woodbury.
• We cover south Washington County with ambulance services and EMTs.
• In Public Works we share or help other communities with Building Inspections, Asphalt overlays and other services.
• We will most likely look at working with neighboring communities for a new Water Treatment facility.
We run a pretty lean “ship” so I don’t think there is anything that we would cut back that we have not already done so years ago and refined our processes to operate more efficiently. Things are running really good.
16. Is there anything else you would like to share with voters not covered above?
I have helped the City through the recession and we worked together to prepare Cottage Grove for the growth that we are now seeing. It is a great time to live in Cottage Grove and we have a great team with great projects in the works and I am excited about continuing to have the trust of the residents and continuing to serve on the City Council as one of their stewards.