On Remaining Involved in City of Andover Affairs

Having lost my bid for the Andover City Council, I'm still interested in participating in the affairs of the City.

The most recent city newsletter identified potential openings on various City Commissions - Planning and Zoning, Park & Recreation, Andover Community Center Advisory and Open Spaces. 

Last night, I attended the November meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission.  Their main order of business was to discuss the current zoning ordinances for Neighborhood Business, Shopping Center and General Business zoned areas of the city where current liquor zoning may restrict new business opportunities, such as the now-closed Serendipity restaurant location.  Current zoning created space around churches and schools in which liquor could not be sold - 400 feet for churches, 1000 feet for schools.

Although Chair Dean Danniger made a good case for 400 and 400 foot spaces, I was pleased the Commission reached consensus on removing the limits altogether and moving to a case-by-case basis while recommending the Council adopt language similar to Ham Lake that discusses reasonability of locating principally on-sale of liquor.

The Serendipity site itself may prove difficult however to reopen as a liquor-serving restaurant without hour limitations and neighborhood protection.  A Rose St. resident spoke of how even Serendipity caused problems with overflow cars on their street and noisy truck deliveries.  Imagine late-night band music or restaurant hours until 11PM or later.  Imagine a Tanners-like restaurant there - not so nice for those neighbors!  And, frankly there is hardly any parking at that location - definitely an issue for any purchaser coming in.


The Commission has three seats coming up this January - Chair Dean Danninger, Val Holtus and Michael Casey.  I'm impressed at first glance by Danninger, even though I suspect we're opposites politically.  Holtus, like me, a former losing candidate for City Council, is sharp and engaged - and engaging - in her way of getting to points.  Casey made no impression on me, and along with Dennis Cleveland, had virtually to say throughout the evening.  Whether any or all will re-apply, I don't know, but I think this is a well-run commission and one engaged in issues of interest to me.

The Morning After - Disappointment - And Thank You

Well, the voters spoke yesterday, and despite our best efforts to come away with victory, we came up short - really short.  I finished in 7th place out of 8 candidates:

Unofficial Final Results from Andover:

2010 General Election Results
10 of 10 precincts counted

DON JACOBSON - 4293  *
TONY HOWARD - 2319
BRIAN HAUGEN - 2372
JEFF SHOEMAKER - 2315
ERIC KOHNKE - 746
JULIE TRUDE - 5477  *
SHANNEN SCHMIEG - 1429
WES VOLKENANT - 1400
WRITE-IN - 88

So, first the most humongous thank you of all has to go to Cheryl, who isn't into politics, but threw herself into this with all the energy she could muster, and provided the creative spark needed to try lots of different ways to get our message out there.  I'm posting two pictures of her "Vote Volkenant" pumpkin from Sunday below.  And Cheryl came up with the great idea of taping our literature into the newspaper boxes and on the mailbox posts on most of Andover.  I don't know if we will miss the driving around the entirety of Andover, but we had a great time doing it.

For those friends, family members, neighbors - and complete strangers - who did cast your votes for me - thank you!  Thank you very much!  It was very humbling to realize that people were casting votes for me, and putting their trust and faith in me. 

Obviously not as many people did trust my leadership, as I would have liked, but it simply means that I'm not the type of individual that voters in Andover are looking to for city leadership.  I'm a county employee, a union person.  It was pretty easy to discern that I'm a Democrat.  I favor government and solutions that call for the city to provide services to the people.

I congratulate Julie Trude and Don Jacobson on their re-election to the City Council.  I hope you both have a successful four years of city stewardship ahead.  And congratulations to Mayor Mike Gamache on his re-election, winning with about 80% of the vote.

Best wishes to my other opponents, Brian, Tony, Jeff, Shannen and Eric - I hope each of you is taking away something from the whole experience this morning, as I am.  Most of you fared better than I in this election.  The voters in Andover resonated with fiscally conservative messages that most of you preached - smaller government, lower taxes, etc.  

I found that message deeply troubling and concerning, but I'm in a minority in this regard.  And clearly last night, as the statewide results rolled in, and Anoka County voters sent many DFLers down to defeat, and statewide the Legislature went Republican, it's apparent that a lot of voters have a very different idea of what direction we should be going in as a state.  I'm sad and disappointed today - and worried for my state and country.  Too many wrong-headed people were elected yesterday.  I was disappointed for myself last night, and would have liked to have run better in the city election, but whether or not Mark Dayton is Governor the next four years, there is going to be a stronger anti-government, anti-social services, anti-tax revenue mood in charge for at least the next two years.  Government by stalemate - in St. Paul and in Washington - is a very real possibility.

Once again, I had the pleasure of meeting many of you, of getting to know my city much better, and I thank all of you who came here for participating in this process with Cheryl and I.

Working to Get Elected Andover City Councilmember

With only one more weekend before the November 2nd election, Cheryl and I dodged raindrops throughout the weekend in our effort to cover the city either by door-knocking (and dropping off literature) or by driving around the city putting our literature in newspaper boxes or mailbox posts.  Cheryl developed a technique of taping our cards on with blue - then green (our campaign color) painter's tape.  At the Candidate Forum and our door-knocking, we've received positive feedback on getting our card.  Cheryl also has a technique of keeping my head poking out of the box at you (I have photos on the same end of the card).  So, if you're tired of seeing my face around, grab our card out, read it over - and vote for me, OK?

Sometimes you get unexpected pleasures.  Off of Co. Rd. 158 today, the map listed a street named Jivarro.  We drove down this dirt road to "nowhere" and came out in front of a farmhouse - but no mailbox (we missed it back on 158).  But the farmer was an old acquaintance from the United Methodist Chuch of Anoka - Jeff Luedtke - who also formerly served on the city's Planning Commission and his was the first family to donate land to the Open Spaces project.  Nice chat - thanks for taking a few minutes with me, Jeff!

I color in our map at home as we finish visiting neighborhoods.  Most of my map is green.  Next weekend, we need to finish literature drops in SE and SW Andover - in the neighborhood just west and south of Round Lake on the west side of Round Lake Blvd, then the water tower neighborhood between Coon Creek and Round Lake Blvd., then the SE square east of the rail line to the city border, and between Andover and Bunker Lake Blvds.

I still have a bunch of door-knocking to do this week - about 650 houses - about 8-10 hours of neighborhood interaction.  I'll be in the 5th Precinct on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday afternoons, early Sunday - before we get serious about the Halloween trick-or-treaters visiting our house Sunday night - and finally, on Monday, if necessary. 

I'm going to be on Raven and Uplander between 141st and 143rd - off of South Coon Creek Dr., then I'll be on 141st Ln, 142nd Ave. and 142nd Ln.- as well as Osage & Partridge that intersect.  I've still got to visit Quinn between 139th Ave and 140th Ln, as well as Nightingale, Partidge and Osage in that section.  After getting to the 13700 and 13800 blocks of Swallow and Raven, I'm going to spend time at the houses NW of North Woods West Park - Ivywood, 141st Ln, 142nd Ave and 142nd Ln. And I've got houses on Crosstown Dr. between 139th & 140th Aves, as well as the neighborhood south of the North Woods Parks - Crocus, Northwood Dr., 137th Ln, 138th Ave, 138th Ln, 140th Ave and 140th Ln.