Federal Enforcement & Local Government
What responsibility does local government have to ensure residents feel safe interacting with city services, public spaces, and law enforcement when federal enforcement activity occurs in the community? Would you vote yes on a resolution prohibiting ICE detention facilities in Woodbury, and do you believe city property or resources should be made available to ICE?
 

Public safety is the core responsibility of local government, and it means more than response times. It means everyone who lives, works, or visits here can use a park, call 911, report a crime, or walk into City Hall without being afraid.

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During Operation Metro Surge, federal enforcement across this metro undermined public safety rather than serving it. People were harmed. People were killed. I'm not going to recount it here — most people reading this remember it. But it reached Woodbury: a real estate agent in our city was assaulted and detained by federal officers for filming them. When residents hear that, they stop doing ordinary lawful things. That is the opposite of public safety, and a city is entitled to say so.

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Woodbury should do three things. Say it out loud: when federal officers operate here in ways that undermine public safety, the mayor says publicly that it isn't acceptable and puts a formal complaint on the record. Be clear about what city services do and don't do: our staff and our police do not enforce civil immigration law, do not ask residents about immigration status, and do not share resident data for that purpose. City services belong to the people who live here. And when an incident happens, our officers should be present to keep the peace and document what occurred. I don't think it's realistic for local police to intervene in a federal operation, and they should not be participating in one — but presence de-escalates, and a witness in uniform can change behavior.

 

On the resolution: yes, and I've already done the work. In March I wrote and presented a resolution to the City Council to prohibit the construction or operation of a detention facility in Woodbury and to restrict ICE's use of city-owned property, including our parks. We asked for a resolution rather than an ordinance deliberately — zoning is the primary tool for making it stick, and a resolution directs the City to get there by whatever means works best rather than locking us into one that might not. The Council did not place it on the agenda. Six months later, there has still been no vote, for or against. As mayor I would bring it back and call the question.

Surveillance & Privacy
What is your position on Flock or other ALPR technology in Woodbury? What factors should guide decisions about adopting, expanding, limiting, or removing surveillance technology?
 

Woodbury already uses automated license plate readers. My position is that the burden of proof belongs to the technology and its provider, not to residents — and it's on a clock. There are three tests. If they can't be met by the end of my first year in office, we turn the cameras off.

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Does it actually work? Not "crime went down after we installed them." That's a correlation, and I spent a decade as an auditor learning not to accept one. I want to know how many cases the system materially contributed to, how serious those cases were, and what we pay per camera per year to get that. If the City can't produce those numbers, that is itself an answer.

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Is the data protected — including from other people's searches? This is where most ALPR policies are thin. Who at Woodbury PD can look at our data, under what circumstances, how it's stored and how long it's kept all matter. But the harder question is who outside Woodbury can search our cameras, and for what. Among Minnesota departments that ranges from almost no one to hundreds of agencies, including out of state. Some cities have amended their contracts to bar federal access outright and to prohibit immigration and reproductive-care searches. Woodbury should be in that group. After what this metro went through this year, data collected to help find a stolen car should never become an instrument of immigration enforcement.

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Can we verify it, or only read about it? Safeguards on paper are a claim, not a fact. I would require an independent audit by a qualified firm covering both the vendor's controls and our own query logs — every search, who ran it, and the reason given. Woodbury can't fund a review at that level on its own, so the vendor should pay for it, the way public companies fund the audits of their financial statements.

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And residents should see all of it. The policy gets adopted by the Council in public, the audit gets published, and the reassessment happens on a schedule — not quietly at renewal time.

Oversight & Accountability
Do you support independent oversight of city departments, including law enforcement? What would meaningful oversight look like in practice?
 

Yes. And I'd start with something that seems missing from how Woodbury is currently organized.

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We have advisory commissions for planning, parks and natural resources, economic development, telecommunications, and our watershed. We have an Audit and Investment Commission whose job is to help the Council review the city's financial affairs. We have no commission for public safety — which, as I said earlier, is one of the most important things a local government does. Cottage Grove, right next door, has a seven-member Public Safety Commission that meets every month. I would explore creating one here, and I'd frame it exactly that way: not a special measure aimed at our police, but bringing public safety into line with how we already govern every other city function.

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In practice, that body would review department policy before it is adopted rather than after; review any surveillance or data technology before the City buys it, and receive the independent audits afterward; examine aggregate complaint, use-of-force, and response-time data on a published schedule; meet in public with agendas, minutes and video posted, the way our other commissions already do; and report to the Council in open session rather than through a memo.

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I want to be straight about the limits, because I would rather set an expectation I can actually meet. Minnesota law reserves discipline to the police chief, and a civilian body cannot overrule the chief on whether misconduct occurred. Anyone promising residents a board that disciplines officers is promising something state law does not allow. However, state law says nothing about policy, budgets, contracts, technology, data, or transparency — and that is where most of what residents actually want from oversight resides.

Transparency & Public Engagement
What will you do to give residents meaningful input into decisions before they're substantially finalized? What specific procedural changes would you support?
 

In city government most decisions are effectively settled before they reach a regular council agenda — in concept review, in negotiation with an applicant, at work sessions, in the early phases of the budget. By the time a resident gets three minutes at a podium, they are commenting on something already built. Everything below is aimed at moving resident input earlier, and I would want all of it in writing rather than left to practice.

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• Put the work sessions on the record. This is the cheapest change and probably the most important. Work sessions are where much of the real discussion happens. Some appear to be streamed, but they do not appear to be recorded and kept. A livestream you can't go back and watch isn't a public record — it excludes every resident who was at work that evening. Work sessions should be noticed like any other meeting, with materials published in advance, streamed, archived, and open to public comment.

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• Don't finalize anything the first time the public sees it. I would support a rule that major items — land use approvals, contracts above a set threshold, new surveillance or data technology, and anything creating a long-term obligation — cannot receive a final vote at the meeting where they are first publicly presented. First meeting: presentation and comment. Final vote at a later meeting. Genuine emergencies exempted only by a recorded supermajority, so the exception is itself on the record. This is the one change that most cleanly separates residents being consulted from residents being informed.

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• Publish the rules for getting heard, and apply them the same way every time. Residents should be able to read on the city website exactly how and when an item can be placed on the agenda, so there is a route to getting the Council to act on something without waiting for an election. The rules for speaking should be written down as well: who may address the Council, how many people, and for how long. In my experience three minutes is not enough for many issues, and who gets to speak has not always felt consistent. Predictable rules matter more than generous ones applied unevenly.

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• Log what the City promises. When staff or a council member commits to get back to a resident, that commitment should appear in the minutes as a tracked action item with a name and a date, and be reported as open or closed at a later meeting. Today those commitments live in people's memories.

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• Keep the record longer. The state retention schedule sets council meeting video at three months after minutes are approved. That is a floor, not a ceiling — minutes and agenda packets are kept permanently, and only the recording has a short clock. Woodbury has chosen the shortest option available. Minutes are summaries; they don't capture the discussion that produced a decision. Issues like the proposed detention facility have unfolded across far more than three months, and a resident trying to understand how we got here finds the record already gone. I would adopt a longer schedule.

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• Be in the neighborhoods. As Mayor I would hold open meetings in each of our sixteen precincts twice a year — not to present, but to be asked questions.

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• And over the longer term, change who represents whom. I would advocate for expanding the Council from five members to seven — the Mayor plus six council members, the larger of the two sizes Minnesota law allows. Four of those council members would be elected by ward, two would be elected at large, and the Mayor would continue to be elected citywide. Both the expansion and the move to ward elections require voter approval, so this is a ballot question rather than something a mayor delivers alone. But a council member who lives in and answers to one part of Woodbury is far more likely to hear any resident’s concern early, which is transparency and engagement are really about.

Council Leadership & Consensus-Building
Woodbury's mayor has the same vote as any council member, with presiding officer as the mayor's one distinct duty. Within that role, how would you use the chair to help move a divided council toward resolution on a contested issue, and when would you decide a vote should happen even without consensus?

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What the chair actually controls is the agenda, the sequence of the conversation, and who gets heard. This is how I would act as the presiding officer to help move us towards consensus and effective decision making.

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• Agree on the question before arguing about the answer. My first job as chair on a contested item is getting the Council to settle what we are actually deciding, and what information we need to know in order to decide it. A lot of disagreements turn out to be two people reasoning from different sets of presumed facts, and that can become visible quickly if the meeting chair asks.

 

• Vote the pieces, not the package. A whole resolution often gets debated as a single yes or no when the real disagreement is over one paragraph. When that's what's happening, I would say so and put us to work on that paragraph — amend it, or divide the question and vote the pieces separately. A 5–0 on the parts everyone supports and a 3–2 on the part they don't is a better record than a 3–2 on the whole thing, and it tells residents a great deal more about where their Council actually stands.

 

• Make sure an objection to a motion is stated well. If a member is opposed, I want to hear why, and then I want to say it back to them until they tell me I have it right. That is partly fairness and partly practical: people don't move towards consensus while they still feel unheard.

 

• Bring in the people who know something. Residents who would be affected, staff, outside expertise — early, while the decision is still forming, rather than as testimony after it already has.

 

• Never send something back without a date. Councils often refer an item to staff or a commission for more work instead of voting on it. That's fine — but if the motion doesn't say when it returns, it frequently doesn't. That's how things die quietly, and usually nobody meant for that to happen. I would ask that any referral carry a return date, and that the date go on the calendar the same night.

 

As for when to vote without consensus, my test is whether more time is producing new information or just distance. If two rounds of discussion turn up no new facts and nobody has moved on their position, the disagreement is real. Delay past that point isn't deliberation; it just spares everyone from taking a position. That is when I would call the question to a vote — including when I expected to lose a vote.

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I say that because I have been on the other side of it. In March I brought a resolution on a proposed detention facility to the City Council. It was never placed on the agenda, and six months later there has been no vote, for or against. I don't know how the members would have voted, and neither do the residents who packed City Hall over it. I might well have lost. But a no is an answer, and residents can do something with an answer.

Housing Affordability
What is your stance on prioritizing affordable housing development in Woodbury? What specific actions would you support to ensure teachers, first responders, healthcare workers, and other working families can afford to live in the community they serve?
 

Affordable housing should be a priority with a number attached to it. The Metropolitan Council says Woodbury needs roughly 1,250 new affordable units over the coming decade, nearly all of it aimed at households well below half the area's median income. Housing at those rents doesn't get built at a profit; it takes subsidy. The people this question names mostly earn more than that, and their problem is a different one: the least expensive thing Woodbury allows anyone to build is already expensive. So there are two jobs here, not one. One of them needs money. The other needs permission.

 

A clarification I'd rather make than skate past: a city can't legally reserve housing for particular occupations. What I can actually deliver is housing priced for the income ranges most teachers, first responders and healthcare workers are in — and I'd rather say that than promise something that wouldn't survive contact with fair housing law.

 

• Permission. Minnesota's State Building Code supersedes local codes, so most of what gets called building regulation isn't Woodbury's to change. Zoning is — and some of ours raises the price of a house more than it raises the quality. A required percentage of brick, or a third garage stall, adds a fixed amount to every home built. I'd put several things on the table: smaller multifamily by right near commercial corridors, lower parking minimums, a review of minimum lot sizes, a review of design requirements that act as cost floors, accessory dwelling units — which our 2021 Housing Action Plan declined and which deserves another look — and faster, more predictable permitting, because the cost of carrying a project through a long approval ends up in the price. The Legislature has spent three sessions debating whether to take these decisions away from cities. I'd rather we make them ourselves.

 

• Money. Our Housing and Redevelopment Authority already has real tools: loans for first-time and first-generation homebuyers, a neighborhood reinvestment fund, and the authority to use tax increment financing and tax abatement for projects serving households at or below half the area median income. I'd use them harder, and compete more aggressively for money from the Washington County Community Development Agency, the Metropolitan Council's Livable Communities program, and the state. The federal picture isn't favorable, which is a reason to fight harder for what's left rather than to stop trying. And I'd have the Authority report publicly each year how many income-restricted units its money actually bought.

 

• A caution. Density and affordability aren't the same thing, and our plans have sometimes treated them as though they were. A tightly packed building of luxury units is more units; it is not affordable housing. Affordability comes from deed restrictions and income limits, and if we approve density without them, we should say so honestly rather than count it.

 

• Who owns what we already have. Investor purchases of single-family homes pull units off the ownership market. Woodbury’s authority here is limited, but Woodbury adopted single-family rental registration in 2022, and that data shows who actually owns what. I'd publish it.

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Finally: Woodbury adopted a Housing Action Plan in 2021 with specific commitments. I'd measure us against it in public — what we said, what we did, how many units resulted — and bring it back for a real revision rather than letting it become obsolete and irrelevant.

Representation & Election Structure
Woodbury elects its Council entirely at-large from large candidate pools, and residents have questioned whether that structure still represents the city well. Would you support any of the following: moving to wards, expanding the council's size, or adopting a municipal primary? Please indicate your position on each of the three. For each you'd support, how would you work toward it?
 

I think we should enact all three.

 

• Municipal Primary

  • The first step would be to move towards having a Municipal primary. State law lets a city adopt a primary by ordinance or resolution of the Council, passed by April 15 of an election year. No referendum, no petition. It's the only one of the three that doesn't need the voters' permission, so it's where I'd start. The problem it solves is field size: with two at-large seats up and no primary, a dozen people can run, someone wins with a small plurality, and residents are asked to sort names they've never encountered. That's a name-recognition contest, and name recognition is what an incumbent already has.

  • It also costs less than people assume. A primary is only held when more than twice as many candidates file as there are seats — three candidates for two seats, no primary. A primary only occurs when the field is too big to easily judge.

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• Wards

  • Yes, I support a move towards wards. Four council members elected by ward, two at large, and the Mayor citywide. Today every council member answers to the whole city, which in practice means no member is anyone's in particular. Someone who lives in one part of town and has to run there knows about their needs and hears about a problem there early.

  • I would move towards this by having the Council adopt an ordinance putting the question to voters at least 180 days before an election, rather than forcing residents to use a petition to get the question on the ballot.

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• Expanding the Council

  • Yes, I also support a move towards expanding the council size, which I would do in conjunction with wards. Minnesota statutory cities have five or seven members including the Mayor. We have five. Seven — the Mayor and six councilors — is what makes four wards and two at-large seats possible. I would implement this using the same process as wards, an ordinance putting the question to voters then letting them decide.

Data Centers
Data centers can bring economic development benefits, but place significant demands on energy, water, and infrastructure. What standards in both process and transparency should Woodbury use when evaluating data center proposals?
 

Well first we need to address scale, because the term "data center" now covers two very different things. Woodbury has had small facilities for years and they have caused no problems. What is being built now is on a completely different scale — the data centers built here twenty years ago used roughly a hundred watts per square foot, but now they use eight to ten times that. So, the standards I'd set are triggered by size, not by the words on the application.

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• Process

  • Define a large-load threshold in ordinance — a megawatt figure plus proximity to homes — above which a proposal gets a far more demanding review than ordinary commercial development. Below it, nothing changes. While these new standards are being drafted, I'd pause applications above the threshold — a pause isn't a verdict on any project, it's the difference between deciding and being handed a decision.

  • Then require, before any vote to approve a project that is above that load threshold:

    • Water. Annual and peak-day consumption, the source, and what the facility does when the DNR puts our watershed into a drought phase. If residents are asked to let their lawns go brown, a large industrial user should carry a curtailment obligation in writing.

    • Power. Load in megawatts, the interconnection plan, and who pays for every upgrade. The 2025 state law and Xcel's large-load tariff go a long way here — they settle who pays for the wires. They do not produce a gallon of water.

    • Cooling and chemicals. What is used, in what quantities, how it is stored, where it goes, and how much waste heat is discharged. Closed-loop cooling uses less water, but that water is routinely treated with biocides and glycols and closed loop systems often produce more noise than open loop systems.

    • Noise. Modeled at the property line and at the nearest homes, measured again after it opens, with conditions the city can enforce.

    • Jobs. Permanent positions and what they pay, not construction headcount. If the city is offering anything, that number is the whole basis for it.

  • And no final approval would be granted at the meeting where a proposal is first presented in public.

 

• Transparency

  • All of this then gets published in plain language before the vote — published, not summarized. Notice also has to travel much further than it does. State law only requires mailed notice within 350 feet only when a rezoning affects five acres or less; above that, a newspaper ad satisfies the law. The larger the project, the thinner the notice. For a data center proposal above the large load threshold we establish, I'd want mailed notice for at least a quarter of a mile and dedicated public meetings. And no non-disclosure agreements — if a company won't tell residents what it intends to build in our city, the City shouldn't agree to keep it from them.

  • Reporting shouldn't stop at approval either: actual water use, actual power draw, noise measurements, chemicals stored and discharged, should be published every year.

 

Note that when we set these rules, I would set this bar expecting it to be hard to clear here. We are spending $330 million on a PFAS treatment plant to protect our drinking water while the DNR has our watershed under a drought warning. Other cities may have the water and the transmission for facilities at this scale. I don't believe Woodbury does, and a mayor should be willing to say so before a deal is announced rather than after.

Growth & Community Character
As Woodbury nears full buildout, what should guide its priorities for the next twenty years: continued growth, redevelopment, housing affordability, or something else? What's one thing you'd change about how the city currently manages growth (zoning, infrastructure approval, or otherwise)?
 

For many years growth has quietly subsidized Woodbury's budget: every new subdivision added to the tax base. A full buildout ends that, but it does not end the bill that results from growth. Every street, water pipe, and trail built during the growth years comes due for replacement, and it has to be paid from a tax base that will have stopped growing. That's the twenty-year story, and we don't discuss it honestly enough.

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So the question isn't growth versus redevelopment versus affordability. It's whether each decision pays for what it obligates us to. Redevelopment and infill usually pass that test better than new sprawl, because we already own the infrastructure. Affordability is a priority in its own right and fits here too: smaller homes and small multifamily on land we already serve with existing infrastructure cost less per household than another mile of new road or pipe.

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However, one thing should be settled instead of argued parcel by parcel — which land stays green. Every remaining piece of open space will eventually have an application attached to it. Say what's permanently protected before a proposal arrives, rather than defending it one hearing at a time on a developer's timeline.

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The one change I would make. Every development, redevelopment and variance approval should come with a published lifecycle cost: what the City will own and maintain forever, what it costs per year, when it has to be replaced, and what the project generates against that. A number in the packet before the vote, not assumptions in an appendix.

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I often ask "how does this benefit the people who live here", and I mean it — but on its own that's a sentiment. This gives it teeth. A council can approve something that looks like growth and find out in twenty years that it was a liability. If a project can't carry what it obligates us to, that isn't growth. It's a bill sent to whoever sits on the council in 2046.

Environmental & Natural Resource Stewardship
Some residents feel Woodbury's forestry and natural resource conservation efforts haven't kept pace with growth. What is your plan to build on or establish meaningful conservation and stewardship practices in the city?
 

The Council adopted an Environmental Stewardship Plan in 2024, and the city maintains a System-Wide Natural Resources Management Plan covering numerous open spaces, each with its own site management plan. The real question is whether these plans are being executed and measured, because the answers are hard to find. Adopting a plan is the easy part, but reporting progress against it is where things can go astray.

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So we should publish the tree canopy number every year against a stated target. Strengthen tree preservation and replacement on development sites, so mature trees aren't a rounding error in a grading plan. And treat ash as a canopy program, not a removal program — emerald ash borer has taken a lot of shade out of this city, and what matters now is the replanting rate, species diversity, and whether we're gaining or losing ground.

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Water is our most valuable natural resource and the one under most pressure. Residents pay more per gallon the more they use; while our commercial users pay the lowest rate, and it never changes. I'd fix that. And a city under a DNR drought warning, spending $330 million to protect its drinking water, is not the place to recruit new heavy industrial water users.

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On green space: say what's permanently protected before developer applications arrive, rather than defending parcels one hearing at a time, and make that a cornerstone of the 2050 plan. I'd trade some development potential for it. New open space should also be designed to cost less to keep — native plantings and restored prairie instead of mowed turf use less water, less fuel and less staff time, and make better habitat. Where cost is the obstacle, we should seek conservation partners who can share it.

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And give all of this an owner. We have a Parks and Natural Resources Commission; have it publish an annual report — canopy percentage, acres permanently protected, water use by customer class, replanting against removals — so residents can judge for themselves.

Campaign Finance
Do you accept campaign contributions from sources other than individuals (e.g. PACs, corporations, party committees)? If so, from whom, and why?

No. I only accept campaign contributions from individuals and although my candidacy is supported by the local unit of the DFL SD47, I have declined a cash contribution from them.

Personal
What are you most passionate about, and why did you choose to run?
 

I grew up in Milton, Massachusetts, which governed itself by town meeting. Residents showed up, argued, and voted. I was a kid, so I assumed that was simply how it worked everywhere — that being heard by your local government wasn't a favor, it was the arrangement. I've never quite lost that assumption, and it's what I'm most passionate about.

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Elizabeth and I moved to Woodbury in 2000. It's the longest either of us has lived anywhere, and the city has nearly doubled since we arrived. We stayed because we like it here, which isn't a small thing to be able to say after twenty-six years.

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In those twenty-six years I've come before the City Council a number of times. Once over the City reclassifying wetlands next to the Tamarack swamp, which happened to increase what a developer could make on land they had speculated on. Most recently over a proposed ICE detention facility. I was never placed on the agenda. Not once did an elected official follow up with me afterward. Not once.

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For most of that stretch I had the frustration and not the time. I'm retired now, so I can make being mayor of Woodbury my full-time job. And watching our elected officials avoid taking any position at all on the detention facility was the point where a long pattern stopped being tolerable.

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What I want is fairly ordinary. A resident with a problem should be able to find out how to get it in front of the Council, should get a real answer, and should get a call back — even when the answer is no. I've been on the other side of that counter for a quarter century. I'd like to be the person who picks up the phone.