What’s On Your Mind interview with Rep. Jim Joy from October 23.
Thaddeus Laugisch interview with Reporter Austin Erickson from October 24.
MINNESOTA – There’s an agreement from both candidates in the race for Minnesota House District 4B there needs to be more money for EMS services, but disagreements on how it should be done.
The district includes Detroit Lakes, Lake Park and Audubon and all of Clay County except Moorhead, Ulen and Felton.
Republican State Representative Jim Joy of Hawley finished his first term in St. Paul this year. The business owner was elected the city’s mayor in 2016 and served until he was elected to Minnesota’s House. He flipped a district that put former DFL State Representative Paul Marquart of Dilworth in office from 2001 to 2o23. Marquart is now Minnesota’s Revenue Commissioner.
DFL candidate Thaddeus Laugisch of Kragnes Township is a designer and safety director for Kava Construction which is a commercial agriculture and general contractor.
In the 2024 session, there was a bill in the House to fund rural ambulance services that was signed into law by Governor Tim Walz.
“It would create another agency. Growing government again. I’ve been attacked saying I didn’t vote for that bill. My problem with that bill is that we can’t grow more government. We can’t create another agency,” Joy said.
The law established the Office of Emergency Medical Services to replace the Emergency Medical Services Board. Laugisch says he would’ve supported the bill if he was in office.
“Barnesville is a perfect example. They have enough volunteers, but they need funding in order to provide equipment as well as to make sure the building that they’re in is adequate. We have Hitterdal and Glyndon that have both requested for new fire halls in their area because they have to maneuver vehicles around to get everything into the building and when there’s an emergency, you have to get everything out of the way in order for the rig to get out,” Laugisch said
If elected again, Joy wants the Legislature to look into spending some of the $66 million a year raised from 911 fees from phone bills to pay for EMS services.
Joy says a big issue he had with the last session is spending. He claims the House and Senate, which are under DFL control, spent $18.5 billion from the surplus, raised $10 billion in taxes and grew government by 40 percent.
Laugisch claims District 4B isn’t getting the right representation in St. Paul. He cites a House bill Walz signed into law that provided funding for the demolition of Dilworth’s fire hall and the construction of a new one.
“Our representative voted no on it. He did state in a recent article that he did provide a bill for additional amount for it, but it got stuck in [the] Capital Investment [Committee]. That’s not going to go anywhere. He’s the only author on it and it was one sentence long,” Laugisch said.
Click here for the bill on the Dilworth Fire Hall that was passed and here to see the bill Joy proposed to fund the fire hall.
Joy didn’t attend a candidate forum with Laugisch on Tuesday in Moorhead. Joy says he had a previously scheduled event with his campaign. He said one date and time was given for the event and may have been able to attend it if more dates were proposed.
