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

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Coming to you from 125 LIVE in Rochester, Minnesota, R-Town.

(upbeat music continues) This month, we've been hosting a series of City Council candidate discussions ahead of the upcoming elections.

Today, we wrap up our series with the City Council candidates running to fill City Council presidential seat.

We are joined today by candidates Randy Schubring and Shaun Palmer All right, are you ready to introduce yourselves?

Welcome to the both of you.

I'm very excited to have you on the show.

- Thank you.

- We're gonna start with you, Randy, if you could share an introduction about yourself.

- Sure.

Thanks, Danielle, and it's great to be here with you and Shaun.

I moved to Rochester 15 years ago.

I took a position with Mayo Clinic in healthcare policy, and when I moved here, I moved to the Slatterly Park neighborhood.

I've been a long time neighborhood guy.

I was president of two neighborhood associations in St. Paul where I lived prior to that, and got involved in my neighborhood and worked on issues like neighborhood beautification and really connecting neighborhood neighbors to each other.

And one of the things in this campaign in my door knocking 3,200 doors across Rochester, I really see a need that people are looking for community connections.

It's really something that helps us build trust and respect for each other.

And so, it's a key priority for me in my campaign for City Council president.

And then in addition to that, I'm hearing about the need for affordable housing for everyone here in Rochester, as well as taking the opportunity with the huge investment that we're seeing in Rochester to broaden our tax base, broaden our commercial tax base to include other businesses.

We all know that IBM isn't what it used to be here in Rochester.

So, looking to other businesses like MedTech and distribution centers and small business to really bring in good paying jobs for everybody here in Rochester.

- Thank you so much, and thanks for sharing why you're running for office too.

Same thing for you, Shaun, if you could share your introduction and why you're running for office.

- Well, I am Shaun Palmer and I've watched "Almanac" on PBS since I was a little kid because I've always loved politics.

I have three great kids, two of them here in Rochester, and my daughter's in Lacrosse.

She works for the Children's Museum and her title is the Director of Fun.

So, I'm proud of her and I'm proud of my other two boys.

And so, we decided to run for election.

In 2018, I was elected to the Fifth Ward City Council Seat.

I sat on that, then became reelected in 2022.

And when we ran for that election, we won that with 72.5%.

It was nice to have that with the neighborhood.

I reached out to my neighbors at least five different times with what we call the Fifth Ward Report.

Send that out to people.

I grew up here in Rochester.

I went to Winona State and a proud graduate of there.

I have a degree in construction, and that degree will come in handy in the next eight to 10 years as the city expands.

And how do we work together with Mayo Clinic?

How do we work together with private industry and private construction people?

We did win the primary.

Very proud of that.

We looked at that primary and that was a big win for us back in August, August 13th.

And I meet people when you're knocking on doors and you're talking to people and they'll stop me and they'll say, "We voted for you."

And you go, "Well, why?"

(speaking faintly) always curious.

And they said that number one was my eight years or my six years of experience on the City Council.

I've watched the City Council for 30 years.

And then the second one is my construction experience.

And then right behind that is the non-partisanship of our City Council.

That's important for us, because we do have two state senators who represent Rochester, one from the Democratic party and one from the Republican.

And we don't have party designation here in Rochester on our City Council seats.

So, it's been a fun experience to be out there.

We've raised a lot of money, a hundred dollars at a time.

Over 320 people have given us contributions.

We got over 400 signs out there in the neighborhood, knocked on a lot of doors so far.

We're knocking on doors right now as we speak.

I have a bunch of volunteers helping me out with that.

So, I look forward to our discussion and thank you for having us on today.

- Thank you so much.

And I'll stick with you because we're gonna be talking about affordable housing.

You talk about the expansions and things like that.

How do you define housing needs in Rochester?

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

- Well, it's been one of my biggest goals on the City Council.

And back in February 6th of 2023, the City Council voted seven to nothing to ask the staff to come back for incentives.

So, we've done the Maxwell study, which says this is how many apartments we need, this is how many single families we need.

We are way behind on the single family.

Today was with a housing coalition, which I represent from the City Council, which is the Mayo Clinic, Rochester Area Foundation, Olmsted County, and also DMC.

And so we work together to how do we improve housing?

I don't like the word affordable housing.

I say it's attainable housing.

What's attainable?

Affordable has been kicked around, and that's a tough one for people to understand, what's affordable to you.

Right now, we have a lot of good things happening.

We have a lot of new builders coming to town.

So, we're looking forward to that single family dwelling.

The reason that's important is for families to build wealth, owning a home.

The Federal Reserve will tell you if you own a home, it's about $375,000 for net worth.

And if you're an apartment person, it's $10,000.

Now, we still need apartments, we still need people, but we're looking forward to the future.

- And do you think that there are enough units for individuals that are seeking, when you talk about attainable, do you think that there are enough units?

- No, and that's one of the things why we're incentivizing to build some single family, and we are doing good with the apartments right now.

- Okay.

Thank you, Shaun.

- Yep.

- Same thing for you.

How do you define housing needs in Rochester?

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

- Well, Danielle, I agree with Shaun.

We are far behind, and we are far behind the spectrum of affordable housing.

And from my standpoint, we really have to look at not just single family homes, but a recent report here in Rochester by the Olmsted County, or the Olmsted United Way, said 33% of our neighbors are financially stressed, that those are folks that are one paycheck away from poverty.

So, we really do need to look at the needs of apartment dwellers as well.

I grew up in public housing and my parents weren't able to pull together that nest egg to participate in that American dream until I was in college.

And so, I agree with Shaun that it is the American dream and where you build wealth, but we really do need to look at the full spectrum.

And Shaun did vote twice against an affordable housing project for low income people in his ward.

And fortunately, the five members of the council did vote in favor of that.

And now that is a thriving neighborhood with 66 families, has a food truck in the parking lot that provides soul food for the residents there.

So, I think we really need to look at all of Rochester when we're talking about affordable housing.

- And there are tiny houses right now.

You mentioned the unit, we talked about units with Shaun, your thoughts on the tiny houses compared to apartments?

Well, I think tiny houses is a good idea.

I think auxiliary units in the backyards, what we used to call grandmother's grandparents' homes.

Actually, in my role as chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission, I recommended to the City Council, which Shaun, along with the rest of the council passed that included allowing those.

But I also look at when it comes to housing.

- Randy, we're gonna jump into the next one, which we'll talk about that too, okay?

- Okay, absolutely.

Absolutely.

- I just wanna make sure there's fair time.

- Yeah, 'cause I have a lot of ideas on housing.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, let's talk about economic development.

I'll stick with you on that as we're kind of having this conversation about the development in Rochester.

What are your thoughts on addressing balanced economic growth in Rochester?

Specifically, how does this relate to DMC and Mayo Clinic's Bold.

Forward.

Unbound plans?

- Well, I think it's really, it's what motivated me to run, is the fact that Rochester's growing.

We are a city now of 120,000 people and we have this huge investment by Mayo Clinic, $5 billion.

There's an opportunity for Rochester to leverage that growth that we're seeing from Mayo to bring in other businesses, as I said earlier, and that includes other corporate headquarters, other MedTech organizations, distribution centers, and others to, one, broaden that tax base and bring in good paying jobs with good paying or benefits for all of Rochester.

I think what I hear when I go out door knocking is property taxes.

And one of the things that I really wanna focus on when I get to the council is what is our long-term budget plans?

Because Rochester is going to continue to grow 40,000 people in the next two decades, so we need to broaden that commercial tax rate in order to bring in more commercial tax base to relieve our residents of tax burden.

- Awesome.

Thank you so much, Randy.

And same question for you.

What are your thoughts on addressing balanced economic growth in Rochester?

Specifically, how does this relate to DMC and Mayo Clinic's Bold.

Forward.

Unbound plans?

- Well, DMC is a partnership between the state, the county, and the city.

And it's working fine.

It's about 10 years that we've had this together.

We have another 10 years to go.

I've always been taught to play to your strengths.

And what they do is that we have a lot of spinoffs from the medical society, a lot of medical stuff that's coming to Rochester.

I was fortunate enough to be on the READY board where we sat and we interviewed people kinda like a "Shark Tank".

And it was very interesting to see the different perspectives of different people.

One of the difficulties we have, and it's not really a difficulty, but we're at 2% unemployment.

And when other agencies have come in, or other companies have come into Rochester to want to grow, they look at our wages and say, "$21 an hour, or $19 an hour is a starting wage, we can't compete."

They're used to in those industries being used to 11 to $12 an hour.

So, it's hard to hear that, but at 2% unemployment, that's a great thing for our city.

And we've worked really, really hard in the last eight years to move that needle forward so that we have a city that works for everybody.

- Thank you, Shaun.

So, sticking kind of this theme taxation, I know you mentioned a little bit about property tax.

Given recent discussions about property taxes and budgets needs in Rochester, what is your perspective on balancing the city's financial requirements with the impact on property owners?

- When you're out in the neighborhood, that's one of the hardest things for people.

They say, "I've been in this house and now you're taxing me out.

I'm paying $6,000 in property tax.

What do I do?"

Well, the the good news to 'em is that your home value's increasing and increases every year here in Rochester.

And that's a great thing.

That's a good investment for you as a citizen.

But I will tell you, in July we voted to increase our police department's wages, something we had to do to keep competitive with everybody.

And I'm proud that we did that.

And so, that brought our tax levy increase up and not our tax rate yet.

So, that's our tax levy.

And the other one we did is that we added the Silver Lake Pool, and that's .5% for the next seven years.

That pool hasn't been upgraded since 1959 and it needed it.

In the City Council, all seven of us voted for that.

I'm proud that we did that.

But the property tax is one of those things that we have to do as responsibility, but your taxes reflect your needs in your community.

And if we want good police, we want a good fire department, we want good roads, you have to pay for that.

And that's the way that it goes, and I'm proud to support our last tax levy.

- Thank you so much, Shaun.

And same question to you, Randy.

Given recent discussions around property taxes, hot topic, and budget needs in Rochester, what is your perspective on balancing the city's financial requirements and the impact on the property owners?

- Well, getting back to my last answer is we have to compete here in Rochester.

We have to compete with other cities, like I said, to bring in other businesses.

And Sean seems to take a defeatist approach to competing for other businesses.

He mentioned that our unemployment is low, but we do know that there are members of our community here who would jump at the chance of getting a job in a distribution center that pays 21 to $31 an hour with benefits and chance to advance.

Another issue when it comes to our budget and competing, we need to compete at the state capital for local government aid dollars.

Rochester is a loser when it comes to local government aid.

Duluth, Mankato, Austin all get a lot more than we do, and in some cases, 10 times more the local government aid that you can use for your budget.

And at a City Council meeting just earlier this month, council member Palmer said, "Oh, I don't think it's worth it to pursue legislation to get a better and fairer deal for Rochester."

So, from my approach, Rochester really does need to compete for business, for state tax dollars, and in other ways to bring out the welcome mat here in Rochester.

- Thank you so much.

And in speaking of the welcome mat and all that, public safety is really key in Rochester.

Individuals are speaking about that.

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

- Well, and Danielle, like I said earlier, I am a neighborhood guy.

I start at the neighborhood, I start at the block and street level, and it's so important to our residents that we have safe and thriving neighborhoods throughout the city.

And that's why in a citywide position, I'm door knocking throughout the city.

I think we have strong relationships between the community and police.

I've talked to Chief Franklin and the community policing programs that we have here in Rochester are great.

I think we can do a better job of connecting our community, our police department to the safety net providers here in Rochester, The Landing, Salvation Army, Family Promise, those that provide services for people in need and having our officers work closely with them to identify those that have needs in our community.

But I think we've got a strong base to work on and continuing to build those community relationships is a key priority for me.

- Okay, thank you so much, Randy.

And Shaun, I just wanna remind you, you can respond using your time to anything that Randy has spoke to as well.

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

- Well, when the police chief asks for something, you need to look at that.

One of the examples would be the camping ordinance.

In 2012, we started out with a resolution from the City Council.

It became apparent that we needed to do a camping ordinance.

We did this this last year, it passed four to three.

We have a CAT team who goes out to the community and meets with all the different homeless people who are out there and they meet with them and they give 'em the services that we need.

And the rationale for the camping ordinance was to get people to go get services.

I'm proud of the fact that the city of Rochester does a good job of investing in our police department.

I'm glad that we do things like outreach with them as the safe city nights, we do that at every one of the parks, not parks, every one of the wards.

And we go out there and people get to see police department, fire department, ambulance people as people.

And one of the things if you study public safety is how do we trust the police department and how does the police department trust the community?

And that's what those programs do.

And that's why we invest in that.

We invest in our officers to have a body camera.

Not everybody in the state of Minnesota has that.

That's an investment that we take, you know?

And you talk about, Mr. Schubring talked about LGA, I've worked very hard in the last eight years to get LGA, the last six as a City Council member.

Bloomington doesn't get it.

There's 850 cities in Minnesota.

About a third of them get it.

It's an aid.

It's something to help them out.

And so, we've tried to battle that one, and I think he misinterpreted what I said, but what I said was, at some point when you're being told no, you've gotta stop saying no and look at other decisions that we need to make.

- Thank you, Shaun, and I'll stick-- - Can I just add something-- - One second.

You can respond in just a moment.

Let me ask this question real quick and then you can use your time for that, okay?

- Okay.

- So, related to the arts, nonprofits, the strong community present with that, what do you think is the City Council's role in establishing oversight and transparency for nonprofits receiving city funds?

- Well, that's a great question.

I am on and have been for the last six years in the Oversight Committee.

And if you remember back in the Civic Theater time, they were having troubles and they were almost bankrupt.

And so, we used to give our nonprofits the money January 3rd, and then we now decided to do it every quarter so we can keep a track of the budget and see how they're doing.

So, we sit down, we look at the budget, we make a recommendation to the City Council of, yes, this organization is meeting our needs and we do that.

A little background on it.

We have money that we give to associations or groups that the city cannot do themselves, or would be better done by nonprofit.

So the Art Center, Civic Theater is in there, 125 LIVE is in there, READY is in there.

There's about eight different agencies that we give money to, and we review that as a subcommittee and we make that recommendation to the City Council and we do that every quarter.

- Thank you so much, Shaun.

And opportunity for you, Randy, related to arts and nonprofits, what do you think is the City Council's role in establishing oversight and transparency for nonprofits receiving city funds?

And of course, you can respond to the LGA comment if you want.

- Yeah, I guess I don't need to address the LGA, except to say that I look forward to working with Shaun as a colleague on the City Council to pursue greater and fairer LGA for Rochester.

When it comes to the arts, I mean, I think it's important that we have transparency, but I also think, again, that it's important that we really build our arts community and take advantage of what we have to offer here.

One thing that I'd really like to see us do is really build out the Chateau to its premier status and work on creative ways to bring in sponsorships from arts communities and really make it a destination where we can have acoustic music that compliments the Civic Theater and other arts providers here in Rochester, and add it to the destination that Rochester can be for the arts community.

- Thank you so much.

So, if elected to serve as president of the City Council, what are your top priorities for the city and how do you plan to collaborate with both the community and other council members to achieve them?

- That's a great question, Danielle.

Well, my top priorities really come from what I'm hearing at the door when I talk to people.

And it really is, it starts with really community connections, community connections throughout the community so that our constituents know they can come to me with any issues that they have citywide.

And then it's also really working on the issues that I hear about, affordable housing across the board for Rochester residents, bringing in good paying jobs beyond healthcare here to Rochester.

And then also making sure that as a city, we're thriving and respectful.

And working with my colleagues, I look forward to working with Council Member Palmer and others to really build on where we see our common goals and seek common solutions, and then respectfully make decisions on moving Rochester forward.

- Thank you so much, Randy.

Same question to you, Shaun.

If elected and served as president of the City Council, what are your top priorities for the cities and how do you plan to collaborate with both community members and other council members to achieve them?

- Well, I think that what I've learned in the last six years and in watching for the last 30 years is that you need to go out in a community and listen to what people have to say, but you have six council people there who you need to listen to, and the mayor, and they have their ideas.

They're out in the community listening to things and I would meet with each one of them every month to find out what they're hearing and what they need to get done and set policy that everybody wants.

It's not what I want, it's not a policy that I look forward to.

But as a council person, you need to see how everybody works together for what's the betterment of Rochester.

And I've done that.

I was in the Environmental Commission for Olmsted County.

I was the president there.

I've been president of the Camp Olson Board.

I've learned things on that.

I was on the READY Board, or the (indistinct).

I was president last year on that.

That was one of those things that you learn, how do you deal with different people at different times?

One of the things, I've said this before, is that the mayor of St.

Cloud goes and meets at different parks and different places, and then also he's done 24 hours.

So, go out in the community and sit there for 24 hours and listen to the shift workers and listen to people.

I have done it when I've been on the City Council.

Again, I did my Fifth Ward Report.

I've gone out, been on the Belau Report, I'm on the KROC radio show once a month when I'm not running for office.

And so you go out and you listen to different people.

And I think the biggest compliment I've got on the City Council is that I'm a good listener and I pride myself on that and listen to what other people have to say.

We go back to housing.

I've sat down with over 80 different groups, different people, and how can we make housing more attainable for everybody?

- Thank you.

Any final thoughts further that you would like to share?

- No, being on the City Council in my experience and being there for the last six years is an honor.

It's a privilege to serve your neighbors.

And when I worked at the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center, I'd worked there teaching semi for 13 years, and people would walk by and say, "Hey, good job," or "No, you're kind of a goofball on that one," Or "Have you thought about this?"

And I don't think people realize that we are very open to listening to what people have to say.

We don't always agree, but we don't have to be disagreeable.

And so that I think is important thing for people to realize.

Part of the problem with government, period, is that we'll have an event to listen and not many people show up.

North Broadway's a good example.

As soon as we bring the shovel to rip up the road, people will call and say, "What are you doing?

And why are you doing this?

And we've worked on it for three years."

So, I'm proud of Rochester.

I'm proud of what I've done in the last six years in the City Council.

I'm looking forward to moving ahead as council president, so thanks for the time.

- Thank you, Shaun.

And Randy, any final thoughts?

- Well, one, thank you, Danielle.

Thank you, Shaun, for having us here today.

I am just so thrilled about the campaign that we've had over the last five months.

It's a wonderful opportunity to get out there and knock on people's doors and ask them what they wanna see for our city.

And I'm hearing about speeders going down the street and snowplows and the bread and butter of city government, which I'm very excited about.

And then also what they wanna see for the future.

Rochester is a growing community.

When I moved here 15 years ago, we had 90,000 people.

Now we're 120 and we're expected to grow by even more over the course of the next two decades.

So, it's really important that we are smart, intentional, and inclusive about our growth, and working on issues like ensuring that we have affordable housing for all people in Rochester, working on bringing in new businesses to complement Mayo Clinic and with good paying jobs, and also working on our neighborhoods to keep them safe and thriving and welcoming going forward.

It really thrills me to serve and see Rochester as what I believe is truly a city of the future.

So, if you'd like to join our campaign, visit neighborsforrandy.com and give me a call.

I'd love to talk to you if I don't see you at your door.

Thank you.

- Thank you both for being here today, Shaun and Randy.

It truly has been an honor.

And thank you for joining us this past month as we've heard from all of the candidates running for City Council.

So grateful for that.

As a reminder, election day is on Tuesday, November 5th, and early voting via absentee ballot is currently open.

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