Oct 2

Oct 2 Recapping the four debates with the candidates for Rochester City Council

Podcast | 2020

The Rochester City Council will look profoundly different come January.

Three of the council’s seven members, including the council president, will not return to their posts for another term — and if the one incumbent running for re-election is toppled by a challenger, over half of the council will be made up of freshmen members.

The at-large council president seat is the marquee race on the ballot, with Randy Staver opting to call it a career after 10 years on the council — seven of those in the president seat. Either Kathleen Harrington, president of the Chamber of Commerce, or Nonprofit Consortium leader Brooke Carlson will take Staver’s place.

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When either candidate steps into the council president role, they will be given the opportunity to sit on the Destination Medical Center board or appoint somebody else.

While most of the completed projects in DMC’s first five years dealt with improving infrastructure and the experience of Clinic employees and patients, Carlson expressed excitement over the next phase of the initiative — which she says will have broader effects for all residents.

“We have the chance now to really focus on some projects, such as transportation and others downtown, like Discovery Walk and some projects along the riverfront, that can really benefit our residents overall,” said Carlson.
Harrington added that it was “important to look at the successes of DMC” — most notably the influx of bioscience firms to the downtown area in places like Discovery Square. However, she cautioned about looking to the initiative to be the end-all, be-all solution to every one of Rochester's problems.

“I think it’s really important for DMC to focus on its primary mission, and that’s the downtown core and the area it’s been extended to,” said Harrington. “I think there’s been a little bit of overreach on some of the issues, I think there’s been some mission creep, so I would recommend we look at retooling some of the activities.”

Even before officially joining the council, the winner of this election will join the current council in a search for the next city administrator, after Steve Rymer transitions out of the role by the end of the year.

Carlson and Harrington put forward unique — but not dueling — priorities for the next administrator; for the former, her priorities center around making sure the city’s next administrator is representative of Rochester’s residents.

“We need somebody who’s very smart in managing the actual administration and budget, but we also want to see a candidate pool that is reflective of the diversity in our community, and be able to choose someone that best reflects where we want to go as a community,” said Carlson.

With the city in a major period of transition — DMC projects, the pandemic, and a largely changing Council lineup all playing a role — Harrington said it would be important to find somebody with experience.

“We need somebody who is comfortable with a diversity of ideas,” said Harrington. “We don’t need somebody who takes Minnesota nice as the norm. We need somebody who wants people that will speak truth to power to him or her, so diversity of ideas coupled with diversity of people.”

Ward 2

Now, let’s shift gears to the ward races. If you live in an even-numbered ward, you’ll have one of these races on the ballot.

Michael Wojcik, the third-term council member, finds himself in a close race with Mark Bransford, a software developer and physics professor. Wojcik is, perhaps, the most polarizing figure in local politics, thanks to his style of communication. Supporters call it transparent, but opponents call it abrasive.

“Yes to being divisive, and not always doing it right myself,” said Wojcik. “Continual improvement is something I really believe in, and I know that I’m very coarse and direct in my approach, and that’s especially tough in Rochester. I do call things out, I do speak truth to power.”

Bransford, on the other hand, has made a large part of his campaign about bringing civility back to the council. The message has won over quite a few discouraged Ward 2 residents, but has led to scrutiny on whether the campaign is packing enough substance. Bransford said those criticisms weren’t true, but acknowledged that he’s heard it before.

“That has kind of dogged me a little bit, and unfortunately, it’s not true,” said Bransford. “I’m not running an anti-anyone campaign. I certainly have never minced any words about leadership style, but yes, I have crafted… if you go to my website, you’ll see a lot of details.”

The two candidates differed most notably on the issue of affordable housing, with Bransford advocating for what he calls “balanced growth”, prioritizing new single-family homes over new urban development.

“The current plan, to just stuff nothing but high-end luxury buildings in the downtown area and cite NIMBYism and sprawl and all of that is a false narrative,” said Bransford. “We need to have political willpower to bring back the residential market outside of downtown.”

Wojcik, a supporter of the Berkman apartment project, spoke in favor of building up and not out, when it comes to new housing in Rochester.

“I think it’s important to remember that sprawl is not a false narrative,” said Wojcik. “It’s a real problem. We can barely afford the infrastructure we have, and we can choose to utilize it better and be smarter. We have very much a different approach on this. I believe in-filled development is smart, I believe sustainable density is smart.”

Ward 4

Katrina Pulham faces a 20-point deficit to Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick in the Ward 4 race, based on August’s primary results. The two candidates are vying to replace Mark Bilderback as the council representative for the downtown area, the portion of the city at the center of the $5.6 billion DMC initiative.

Pulham says the downtown business owners she’s talked to aren’t as enamored now with the idea of DMC as they were back in 2015.

“The original thought of DMC is great for our community - it can do a lot, and it has really brought a lot of funds into our town, but it’s lost some respect, for lack of a better term,” said Pulham. “A lot of people don’t see it as a good thing anymore. A lot of the businesses downtown struggle with transparency.”

Kirkpatrick spoke in the same vein as Pulham, and even Harrington, citing the need for more community-oriented projects in the near future.

“I think DMC excelled at its initial impact for the first five years, however, I'm not sure we’ve expected the outcomes we’ve gotten,” said Kirkpatrick. “I think our community’s been a little left behind with the focus on infrastructure and the hospitality and service industry… so I’m eager to see what the next five-year plan looks like.”

The largest differentiation between these two candidates came during discussion of the park referendum on the ballot this November, proposing a $2 million tax levy increase to update Rochester’s park system.

Kirkpatrick spoke in favor of the measure.

“I support the park referendum because many people say they want changes to our parks,” said Kirkpatrick. “Current budgeting does not allow for additional changes to our parks. Our current budget is simply to maintain what we have. In this economic downturn, maybe that’s what we should do, but I believe in giving that vote to the people.”

However, Pulham was the only candidate to explicitly oppose the referendum, saying a pandemic is not the time to raise taxes. She also touched on the spending protocols of the park board, noting that once the money’s in their hands, it’s out of the council’s hands entirely.

“The city council actually only has a say in how much money they [Park Board] get, but how the money is spent, they have zero say in that,” said Pulham. “So that means the people have zero say in how that money is spent. Now, after it’s spent, they’ll tell you where they spent your money, but it seems backwards to me.”

Ward 6

The parks discussion continued into the Ward 6 debate, with real estate agent Craig Ugland matching up against paraprofessional Molly Dennis. Dennis spoke in favor of the referendum, but Ugland’s answer put him on the fence.

“I would love to see our parks improved,” said Ugland. “I’ve mentioned it before, some of the playground stuff is extremely deteriorated. And again, we need to fix what we have before we start taking on huge new projects. And it’s been mentioned we’re getting federal and state funds, but those funds are still our tax dollars. That’s not free money — we’re still paying for this stuff.”

Earlier in the debate, a viewer raised a question about a hyper-local ward issue, causing headaches for nearly four years now: the bridge on Elton Hills Drive, right near the Rec Center, sitting with traffic cones and road signs blocking two of the four lanes. The bridge is considered ‘functionally obsolete’ by MnDOT, and will cost $3.7 million to replace, with funding set to kick in for replacement in 2021. The bridge has been causing problems for years, so Ugland wondered: why wasn’t the problem fixed earlier?

“Whether it was purposely delayed or not, I don’t know,” said Ugland. “Four years to rebuild a bridge when I-35 took 418 days, it’s unacceptable.”

Dennis, however, was glad the city waited to take on the project. It’s thanks to a $1.14 million infusion of federal funds held by the Rochester-Olmsted Council of Governments, or ROCOG, for transit-related projects. Originally, its 2020 allotment was supposed to go to 2nd Street reconstruction for the DMC rapid bus lines, but with that project postponed, part of that cash was re-allocated to the Elton Hills bridge project.

Because of that saved cost, Dennis said the wait will be worth it.

“The responsible use of taxpayer money is to wait for the federal funds to come in,” said Dennis. “They did come in, and it was scheduled to be repaired next year. I believe it was wonderful that the leadership on the council right now waited for the funds, so the taxpayers of Rochester wouldn’t foot the bill.”

These were just some of the highlights from a huge week of debates.. Full videos for all of the city council town halls are available on our Facebook page. Next week, we’ll host the candidates for the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners and the Rochester School Board, with races for Minnesota state House and Senate following the week after. Make sure to like our page and turn on ‘live’ notifications to make sure you don’t miss a debate.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.