Working alongside city staff and engaging citizens to identify the most efficient use of tax revenue to:

• Support our aging infrastructure (e.g. water lines, sewer lines) and roads

• Plan more than 5 years out for larger equipment purchases

• Invest in trails/sidewalks

• Develop 5-, 10- and 15-year plans and stick to them

This was one of my visions from my 2022 campaign and it remains one of my priorities as I’m campaigning for your support in my 2026 campaign.

We have made considerable progress in the past four years in catching up on deferred maintenance and road infrastructure projects. In the past couple years we’ve implemented a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) process to managing street projects. The PCI is a standardize measurement developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate distress and severity of our streets that assigns a number for the road condition. This allows us to more effectively plan road projects to maximize cost effectiveness and timing due to an objective, standardized measurement to guide priorities.

In 2023, the City adopted the first budget that had a 10-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), instead of just a 5-year plan. This has allowed the city better proactively save for larger purchases more than 5-years in advance, which is important considering some of these purchases can be over $100,000 - such as fire trucks which can be over $1 million in cost! A 5-year CIP was way too short of a schedule for a city trying to effectively plan large expenses. I think the 10-year CIP has helped the city better prepare for upcoming expenses as we continue to remain in a higher than normal inflationary environment.

I am working with staff to start a 15+ year CIP to identify future expenses that may need even more time to budget and plan. For example, did you know the City of Vadnais Heights is responsible for maintaining the sound walls along Hwy 96? Those walls are over 20 years old now. We did not have this on our radar until recently as the current council has fixated on long-term fiscal planning.

Along with this continued improved planning, I will also prioritize improving our communication about these projects so more interested stakeholders from our community are aware of proposed projects and their potential impacts on them (e.g. special property assessments, right of way work, temporary road closures/redirection). I hope this will improve the opportunity to reduce impact and get the best project outcome for the community.

I continue to believe it is important that all residents have the option to safely travel within our communities and to neighboring communities without needing a vehicle. I will continue to prioritize investing in paths/sidewalks when opportunities arise. The best opportunities often arise due to nearby road improvements which reduces construction costs for paths/sidewalks due to already planned mobilization of equipment and supplies to the area. Other opportunities are through supplemental grant funding or state bond opportunities. Did you know that for the past couple years our city has employed lobbyists to advocate for the Vadnais Lake Blvd Trail? Those efforts have paid off as the State of Minnesota awarded $4.75M for that project as part of the 2026 the Minnesota Capital Improvements Appropriations. HF 719 2nd Engrossment - 94th Legislature (2025 - 2026)

What infrastructure or amenities do you think the city should focus attention on?

• Increase engagement with citizens to provide more input into future residential and commercial development.

Community engagement was in “My Vision” for my 2022 campaign and it remains in my vision for my 2026 campaign. Communication is key to community engagement and improving communication has been a strategic goal for the city since I joined the council. My fellow council members and I have advanced some of our strategic goals for our city, but we have fallen short in improving communications and community engagement. We’ve made little, or arguably zero, progress in this area in the past four years. We need to dedicate city council workshop discussions to this topic and identify changes to improve in this area. Some cities have improve in this area by hiring a dedicated communications staff member, but I am unsure if that’s the right choice for Vadnais Heights today. However, I am sure that maintaining the status quo - using the same methods at the same depth as we’ve done for decades - is not meeting the needs of our community today.

What can I do to make sure everyone's voice is heard?

In my 2022 campaign I had the following three goals with regards to Parks/Environment:

1. Develop a Parks Master Plan and establish a sustainable funding source for our parks. (Done - 2025)

2. Join the Minnesota Green Step City program. (Done - 2023)

3. Implement green best practices. (Ongoing effort)

The first two were achieved. The third is an ongoing effort where I continue to request staff utilize green best practices where it makes sense, but defer to the future on some opportunities when it doesn’t fiscally make sense today (e.g. stormwater permeable pavers for city parking lots).

In 2025, we concluded our ~2 year Parks Master Plan process. The Council has asked the Parks, Recs and Trails Commission to help identify the nearest short term projects to implement, and help prioritize the mid-term projects with consideration of the current available Park Dedication Funds.

When I ran for City Council in 2022, one of my priorities was to ensure we established a sustainable funding source for our parks. Following the completion of the Parks Master Plan, City Council has established a dedicated line item within the Capital Improvements Plan to support our parks. Prior to this, and still largely today, our funding source for replacing equipment at parks has been Park Dedication Fees. These are fees paid by developers at the time of a new development. Given Vadnais Heights is largely built out, this is not a sustainable funding source for our parks. I noticed in 2022 that when we replaced equipment in our playgrounds, we didn’t replace ‘like for like’. The playground equipment got smaller, with less features. This was a consequence of dependency on Park Dedication Funds to maintain our parks. We can no longer rely on this funding mechanism unless we want our playgrounds to continue shrinking, and our overall parks to deteriorate in quality. Therefore in the approved 2026 budget, and in the anticipated 2027 budget, we are building up a true, reliable funding mechanism to maintain our parks so our park quality is not reliant on new developments to fund them.

https://www.cityvadnaisheights.com/992/Parks-Trail-System-Plan

What ideas do you have for how our city can be more energy efficient, green, and environmentally friendly?