- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bright music) (lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) - [Host] Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town."

(lively jazz music continues) - This month we're hosting a series of City Council candidate discussions ahead of the upcoming elections.

Today, we continue our series with the City Council candidates for Ward 4.

Ward 4 covers the southeast part of the city.

We are joined today by candidates Andy Friederichs and Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick.

Kelly currently serves on the City Council representing Ward 4.

Welcome to "R-Town," both of you.

- Thank you, Danielle.

- Thank you.

- So let's start by having you tell us a little bit about yourselves and what you'd like community members to know about your vision for the city.

And we will have you introduce yourself first, Andy.

- I'm Andy Friederichs.

I'm proud to be here with PBS.

I grew up watching PBS, and Mr. Rogers was on almost every day, and I gotta watch that, and learned a lot, saw a lot of things I would've never saw.

And where I grew up, I grew up in very northern Minnesota and on a farm, and our closest neighbor was, well, I guess there was an older couple right across the street, but we didn't have a lot of neighbors.

We didn't see a lot of other people.

So it was neat to see the outside world through our television, and it was great.

But I'm proud to be here with you today and be running for City Council at Ward 4.

My vision, you asked about the vision for the city.

My vision is a collaborative vision.

We have a lot of things going on in our community right now as far as hot topics, I guess, I'd call 'em.

Everything from the Silver Lake Dam to the homeless issues we're having in the community to the affordable housing issue, which is of the things that people are talking about a lot.

My vision is to work at that, take those problems head on with the other Council members, with the county, with the other people within the city, the staff and the administration, and work at trying to come up with some solutions for these problems.

I don't know if there is like a hundred percent solutions for all of them, but we gotta work at 'em and work together at 'em.

- Thank you so much.

- Yep.

- All right, Kelly, tell us about yourself and also your vision.

- I'm Kelly Rae Patrick, and I'm the current Ward 4 City Council member, elected in 2020, and I am proud to be a citizen of Rochester for nearly my entire life.

I've watched this city grow from 60,000 to 120,000, and it is really amazing to me the awesome things that we are doing here, the awesome things that Mayo Clinic does and how it is helping our community to grow.

But I'm also concerned that sometimes too much growth can come too fast.

And my vision for the city really encompasses everyone thriving, everyone being able to have a home where they feel safe and secure.

Everybody being able to work at the sports and the recreation that they want to.

Find jobs with living wages that pay their bills, and make sure that we are all doing the work that we want to be able to do.

- Thank you so much.

So you speak about growing too fast.

Let's talk about affordable housing.

If you could share a little bit about how you define the housing needs in Rochester, and if elected, what strategies would you pursue to address these issues?

- Well, the Council has been working pretty closely with the county lately, which is important because it needs to be a collaborative effort between both agencies, and of course Rochester Public, or Rochester Police Department is important there, as well as all of the agencies that care for our unsheltered folks, and then are seeing an influx of people who are becoming more homeless as our economy is changing significantly.

33% of us are living paycheck to paycheck.

30% of the people in our neighborhoods across our city live below 60% AMI.

So affordable housing to me is not a term that I like to use because affordable housing just means that your housing is 30% of your income, and that's regardless of whether you have a high income or a low income.

All of our housing should be 30% of our total income on a monthly basis.

So working together in collaboration with all those agencies has been a lot of talk recently.

And I think we really need to move on getting some things built.

I really think we need philanthropy, philanthropy from folks that are willing to take on some extra work of housing an individual if it's safe and if it's within their capacity.

We need gifts of land to developers.

Development has become exceedingly expensive with fees.

Land values have gone up incredibly, and developers can't afford to build for our lowest income folks.

Are we going to look at combined housing market rate and above?

And then also micro units for some of our more challenged financially folks.

Getting rid of the Vrbos and the Airbnbs that are offsite managed for homes that are $300,000 or below so that incoming families can have a chance to purchase.

I think we've got a lot of strategies that we can use, and I think that's what we need to kind of head head towards is getting more housing for more people as quickly as possible.

- Thank you so much, Kelly.

Andy, same question posed to you as well.

How do you define housing needs in Rochester?

And if elected, what strategies would you pursue to address these issues?

- Yeah, there's housing needs across the whole spectrum, whether it be for the middle class, lower class, or even upper class.

The city's growing.

We have a shortage of homes in this community.

Giving the contractors and the developers the freedom to operate in their spaces and do the things.

Visiting with them and seeing what we can do to help them to make it easier for them, whether it be loosen the reins on them a little bit.

I do believe that with those simple things alone, things can be done without the help of taxpayer money to help them do it.

We have built out over 205 affordable housing units in this community in the last 12 years.

And by we, I mean my wife and I have built out 205, and my son, he's done about 20 himself.

So it can be done, it was done without subsidies and aid.

And we do have people living in these places that we've built.

And it was done by kind of re-imagining what affordable housing looked like.

It was a lot smaller spaces, to be frank.

It isn't a large 2,000, 3,000-square-foot home.

Some of our spaces are as small as 150 to 180 square feet.

So it can be done.

It's just whether or not the people are willing to live in that type of situation and what they're looking for.

Everybody's idea of affordable housing, you know, yes, the government sets the standards, but everybody's idea of affordable is different.

You know, what they're willing to live in or live without.

So I'm proud to say, you know, I have my life savings tied up in affordable housing, because of lot of reasons that would take me an hour to go overall.

But it's a lot of reasons, and it's because that's where we choose to do it.

- Thank you so much, Andy.

And keeping the same theme, We'll go ahead and pose this question first to you, the economic development aspect.

What are your thoughts on addressing balanced economic growth in Rochester, specifically, how does this relate to DMC and Mayo Clinic's 5 billion Unbound project plans?

- Well, to tie it all together there, there's a lot that goes into that.

You know, I can't sit here and say I know everything about the DMC initiatives and all that.

I'm very full aware of it, and I'm very proud that it's in our community.

It's gonna provide a lot of great opportunities for the people for all over the world, not just in Rochester.

I like to see small businesses get going.

I like to see them have the opportunity to get in and rent space, start a business, whatever industry it's in.

I like to see that happen 'cause it gives our town character.

You know, you hear, you often hear people say, "Oh, there's nothing to do here," which I don't agree with.

There's a lot to do in Rochester.

We have great bike trails, we have great parks, we have a lot of great things to do.

So I just wanna be clear, I don't agree there's nothing to do in Rochester, but having small businesses adds a lot of character to community.

Once again, give them the opportunity to operate freely in their space and creatively.

There's a lot of handcuffs, there's a lot of red tape to cut through to get things going.

And it can be tough.

I know this 'cause we've done it several times.

We've owned and operated five different restaurants in town.

We've opened a couple different other businesses, housing and then a service business as well.

So there's a lot to go through, and it's expensive.

One small business we started, two different ones.

There was over $100,000 in just upfront costs before we even got going.

Who can afford that, you know?

At two different points, we ended up having to cash in half our retirement to make it through projects.

One time we had to sell our whole house and our farm to make it through a project.

You make sacrifices to get it done, but you know you're trying to provide something great for the community and have it be something that works for the city.

You know, I call it, every deal, you try to make it a three-way win, for the community, for the city, and for yourself.

So you, if you can hit those three things, it usually goes pretty well.

- Thank you, Andy.

- Yes.

- Kelly, same question.

What are your thoughts on addressing balanced economic growth in Rochester, specifically how it relates to DMC Mayo Clinics' 5 billion Unbound project?

- Thank you.

DMC and the Bold Forward Unbound program is going to be a huge influx of funding into our community, no doubt.

However, the med tech health industry, biotech industry is what we're really pushing with that agenda, and how do we get the Mayo Clinic propelled to be the world's most significant, you know, healthcare industry.

And it's gonna be centered right here.

So if we can push more manufacturing and more industry in other sectors such as trades, the vocational work, more education for our students.

We need to consider this community holistically, not just looking at the major economic driver.

I grew up when IBM was the major economic driver, and we seem to be a one-trick-pony town, and I would really love to see more broadening of businesses, manufacturing and industry coming in so that we can become more well-rounded and serve our public with better jobs.

- Thank you so much.

And so we'll stick with you regarding taxation related to, given recent discussions around property taxes, hot topic, and budget needs in Rochester, what is your perspective on balancing the city's financial requirements with the impact on property owners?

- Well, unfortunately the city has not a lot to do with that.

I understand, we just went ahead and passed just under 10%, our tax levy.

A lot of people claim they're gonna move to Stewartville.

It's a better community.

They did a double digit, close to 15%, I believe, a couple of years ago with their tax levy.

Taxes provide for public infrastructure.

And our city has a huge amount of public infrastructure for the population that we have.

We're number two geographically, and we have a third of the population roughly that St. Paul has, so maintaining all of that and keeping it up is very difficult.

Hopefully as we move forward, we can lower that tax levy, but it's really about the county, and the state comes down and checks everything out every five years, and the county needs to go reassess everything.

So what we pay for places a value on our property.

And if we pay a larger amount for something, that raises everyone up, that's most difficult when that happens for our folks that are on fixed income, our retirees or people that are really wanting to get into their first home.

So the way to control that is how we spend our money.

But when people need to move into a home or purchase property to do their business or to build out something that they wanna build out, it's kind of one raindrop raises the sea.

Although, however, for our lower income folks, it's really not a liquid asset that can be, you know, accrued with property value increase.

- Thank you so much, Kelly.

Regarding this, property taxes and your perspective on balancing it with city financial requirements impact on property owners?

- Yes, I think it's important throughout the whole year, we vote on different matters that come before the City Council.

I think it's very important to weigh out each one, individually, and make sure that we're checking, you know, are we being responsible to our taxpayers?

Because ultimately when that budget goes over, we go to 'em and ask for more money.

And that's the overriding thing that you hear as you're out knocking on doors and visiting with people is, why are taxes going up?

And you try to give 'em a straight answer.

You know, the last time this, this time around the taxes went up because we're ensuring that our public safety's in check, making sure we have the best candidates for our police department, for our fire department, our emergency medical services is handled by mail in this community.

A lot of communities, that ain't the case.

It's community driven too.

But just making sure we're being responsible for our taxpayers.

There's always gonna be taxes, you know, death and taxes, those are the two sure things in life, right?

Well, let's just make sure we're being responsible with the money we have, and we're not being frivolous.

- Thank you so much, Andy.

And speaking of being responsible and safety, let's dive into public safety.

As Rochester grows, what do you see your priority areas around public safety, and how should the City Council engage with the community members and law enforcement to support those goals?

- Yes, engaging with the community members is something, obviously, as a City Council member, that should be easy to do, because you are a public figure, and you wanna visit with them.

And if you do visit with the community, whether it be at gatherings, whether it be individually when they call you, returning their call and visiting with them, which all these things have been being done, they tell you, they tell you what their concerns are.

Honestly, right now, you know, we've had some things that have happened that are kind of monumental the last few months within the city because we're having some different pains as far as, you know, just hostility between different groups and things like that.

But all in all, our police department is doing a great job.

Officer Franklin, the chief of police, you know, continue working with him, visiting with him, seeing what he needs, visiting with the rest of the police officers, hearing their concerns.

And, you know, business owners in the community, they've dealt with some different things that have affected their business as well.

Having an open line of communication with them as well to address their concerns.

Safe neighborhoods are obviously the number one priority in a city.

You know, it affects everything.

It affects home values.

It affects their every day-to-day life, their kids' lives.

So working closely with our law enforcement community is a number one, city and county, so.

- Thank you so much.

- Yep.

- All right, Kelly, the question, same for you, public safety as Rochester grows, what do you see as a priority area for public safety and how the City Council should engage with community members and law enforcement to support these goals?

- I think we're well on track to do that.

We've added some technology downtown with cameras and lights requested by RPD, the police department.

And I was just speaking with a gal, a 125 member out here before we started this interview.

And she was talking about how she loves to walk around her block, and she's now concerned.

She grew up around this area, and she's now concerned that it's not safe to walk at night.

And I assured her that I walk at night in my neighborhood, and sometimes I even walk home from City Council meetings late at night, sometimes through Mayo Park East Memorial Park.

And I think we have a safe community.

We just have some areas and some folks that are clearly misguided, and RPD is doing their best to go ahead and manage that.

They're finally, finally full staffed, but we've got retirees going out.

So managing that budget for public safety is gonna be paramount with the amount of people we're gonna have adding to our community in the next 10 years.

40,000 people, that's a lot.

We need to maintain that technology and give those emergency responders, give neighborhoods the power to be able to, not necessarily police, but pay attention, get out and talk to your neighbors, get out and know who your neighbors are so that everybody knows each other and we can kind of keep an eye on each other.

It's about being social and being friendly and loving your neighbor basically.

So I think if we can just keep an eye on what's going on, we're gonna be good, and RPD is definitely doing more than their share at this point.

- And speaking of social and connection, let's pivot a little bit to arts and non-profit.

What do you think is the City Council role in establishing oversight and transparency for nonprofits receiving city funding?

- Well, we actually have an oversight committee that is held by three of our current Council members, Council member Palmer, Council member Bransford, and I also believe Council member Dennis.

So that's already a mark that we have that's checked off, and managing those funds by observing what's going on, making sure that what we have is being used, what we give out is being used equitably, fairly and transparently.

We had a few problems a few years ago with the art center, but it has been completely managed, and it's taking off beautifully under Michelle's guidance, and the art center's thriving, doing wonderful things, as well as 125 Live here.

So the arts are important, and the city having that ability to kind of work in that area is, I think, very important to kind of keep an eye on what's going on and applaud the good work that's being done.

- Thank you so much, Kelly.

Same question for you related to the City Council role in establishing oversight and transparency for nonprofits receiving city funding.

- Yeah, obviously a good idea.

You don't ever want to just give somebody an open checkbook and say, "Hey, have a great day."

You have to have checks and balances and make sure things are being done properly, covering all the bases, you know?

Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much a short answer.

You're never gonna just throw money down a rabbit hole and walk away.

- Thank you.

all right.

We'll leave it to you to share, and then Kelly afterwards to your final thoughts.

So what unique qualifications and experiences make you an ideal candidate for the City Council position?

- Yeah.

Receiving community help as a youth, you know, all the way through my younger years, and seeing the value of having someone to pick you up when you're down, that started my mind going that direction at a very young age.

I became involved in my school, you know, government, I guess you'd call it, you know, Student Council, a peer helper, got appointed as a peer helper from the faculty and the teachers in high school.

And kind of just opened my eyes up to maybe, you know, maybe I could be a leader, maybe I could be decent at this at a young age.

And then receiving some help to get through college when I was 18, you know, opened my eyes a little bit more, and then getting into the business world and dealing with the city and the county for the last 30 years at that.

And I just realized, you know, it's time to get involved and be part of this versus sit on the sidelines.

I'm not one to really sit on the sideline and complain about things, but as I was working through a lot of different processes the last 12 years within the city, I thought, you know, I should get in here and help out and try and maybe make a little bit of a shift in some of these processes.

And by that I mean in building processes, working, building affordable housing in this community.

It's an issue that is a hot topic right now, and it wants to be, you know, come to the front and get addressed.

And I really feel I'm an ideal candidate to address those issues and work at that.

I'm very open-minded when it comes to affordable housing, the different avenues to do it.

I'm also open-minded to listening to the neighbors and what they do and they don't want.

There is there a lot of pushback for different things like that.

So what makes me an ideal candidate?

Being involved in a lot of government processes for the last, well, essentially my whole life, and, you know, living and working right here in the ward and having three children that have businesses in this ward and are doing well in southeast Rochester.

And then also being in a public business right now where I talk to hundreds of people a day, and I'm able to visit with them and hear all viewpoints.

It's very interesting to hear all the different things that come through our business on Third Avenue.

- Thank you, Andy.

- You're welcome.

- All right, Kelly, question for you, final question and thoughts.

What unique qualifications and experiences make you an ideal candidate for the City Council position?

- Well, I already have experience being a City Council member.

I was elected in 2020 and was elected actually with the highest percentage of votes out of any candidate.

And same thing happened in the primary.

Apparently, I really do listen to people, get things done and have a heart.

And I'm thankful for all the folks that have reached out to me, and being able to serve them as a servant leader.

I've been elected as president of the Neighborhood Association.

I work to create community gardens to teach and help people grow food.

I donate thousands of pounds of food every year just from my front walkway.

And I'm very concerned about this community growing up here, and I just really wanna give it my best.

And I'm thankful that the people have allowed me to do that.

So let's keep a good thing going.

- Thank you so much, Kelly, and thank you so much, Andy, for joining us today.

- You're welcome.

- Thanks, Danielle.

- And thank you for you joining us as well.

We've heard from the two candidates for City Council representing Ward 4.

From 125 Live, I'm Danielle Teal.

We will see you next week on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(uplifting music) - I vote because I hear so many people who are, you know, complaining about the state of affairs, what's going on in the world, what's going on in their communities, and really there can be no change unless you vote.

Whether you're Republican or Democratic, it's important to vote.

- I vote because there's been a lot of men and women before me that have fought for my right to vote.

And I think it's important to let your voice be heard.

- You know, it's our obligation to make it better.

And the one way that we have to do that is to vote, to help make decisions about, you know, who will represent us, and so I always vote.

- When I was, you know, out of college and had my own house in one place, a friend a little bit older than me said, if you don't, and I never voted before in my life, he said, "If you don't vote, you cannot complain."

And that resonated.

So now I vote, and I can complain if I want to.

- Well, I am 63 years old, and I always vote.

I'm originally from Georgia, so I take voting very personally.

There was a time when African Americans could not vote.

So I think of it as my obligation as a citizen to vote.

- I'm new to the area, so this will be my first vote in Rochester.

So I think it's really important to really look at all the candidates and kind of see where they lie, their opinions, their platforms.

- You really only have this, you know, enterprise to inherit and to pass on to children and future generations and to get right.

So, you know, it's not like going to a store where there's one store and another store.

You only have one country.

- No matter who wins or loses, they have an agenda.

If it works, it works.

If it doesn't, you vote 'em out next time.

That's what the country's made on.

We were lucky to get our independence, and we have free voting.

- One of the best ways to give voice to what I'm feeling is to vote.

Everyone has a voice.

Everyone should want to express themselves.

One of the best ways to do that is to vote.