Wed, May 1st, 2024 - 1:35am
April 30, 2024 - 11:10pm | By Chris Larson
(Fargo, ND) – Seven Fargo residents are vying for two spots on the Fargo City Commission in the June primary election. Arlette Preston and John Strand are running for reelection to their seats.
All seven joined The Flag and WDAY’s Tom Tucker and Ty Schonert for a conversation on the issues important to the City of Fargo on Tuesday night in a primetime debate aired on The Flag and WDAY Radio.
The candidates were asked about their thoughts on the biggest issues facing the City of Fargo and, if elected, what they would do to fix those problems.
Delson Saintal, a business owner, said homelessness, public safety, taxes and affordable housing are among the top issues facing residents in the city.
He specifically addressed special assessments and taxes.
“Why is it that we don’t have a solution for it (special assessments and taxes),” he said. “It’s either all the plans are bad or it’s harder than we think it is, or it’s just confusing.”
Strand, a business owner and sitting commissioner, said the most pressing issue facing the city is flood protection.
“Even though there’s politics, and there’s upheaval, and there’s bumps in the road, changes and things unfolding with a big project,” he said. “That’s a really major pressing problem, even more now today than I would have expected to say a month ago.”
Strand also said that Fargo “needs a space for people to turn their lives around.”
“We, as a community, need to embrace folks who invest in their lives and turn them around,” he said.
Nate Pullen, who has resided in Fargo but hails from Minnesota, says discretionary spending is one of the biggest issues facing Fargo. He calls it ‘wasteful spending.’
“I think we need to tighten that up a little bit,” he said.
Preston says housing “is the biggest challenge in front of us.”
She cited a recent study that showed that, metro-wide, approximately 17,000 new homes will be needed in the next 10 years.
“That’s not so out of the ordinary,” Preston said. “That’s about what we’ve been building for the last 10.”
However, Preston said housing isn’t being built for those in the income level between $30,000 and $80,000 per year.
“It’s really tough for developers and builders to do those right now,” she said.
Anna Johnson said police and crime are some of the biggest issues facing Fargo residents.
“Our crime rate is 47 per 1,000 residents, and Fargo has one of the highest crime rates in America,” she said. “How is that something that is taken care of? What is our police chief doing?”
Johnson said that she believes that crime is not decreasing.
“We cannot be blind to something that is right in our face,” she said.
Former state legislator Al Carlson said the City of Fargo “must cooperate with the county and the state when it comes to things like homelessness.”
“We have a Housing Finance Agency,” he said. “There are many options out there that can be used, and we need to partner with those if we expect to get answers to those problems.”
He also said the commissioners “need to be focused on solutions.”
Michelle Turnberg, a former media personality, said her most important issues are law enforcement and first responders.
“We need to support our officers, our firefighters, our EMTs as much as possible,” she said. “I think that should be a priority when we are putting our budgets together.”
Turnberg said law enforcement leadership needs to not be burdened with “unnecessary, unqualified and ineffective oversight boards,” allowing them to do their job while being held accountable.
