Wishy files for council

I am now completing my eighth year on our Council and I am proud to say that I have never missed a Council meeting. If there ever was a place where experience and presence makes a difference, this is it. As time goes by, our city’s list of accomplishments is getting longer. When I was elected in 2001, two of my desires were to get started on cleaning up our lakes and environment and making government more accessible to the people. Since then we have annexed our friends on Glader Blvd., and put in a sanitary sewer that goes to the sewer plant, right after that we annexed Lakelawn Blvd., on the west side of Kroon Lake and put in a city sewer line that they can hook up to. With new technology we were able to do this somewhat inexpensively and did NOT tear up the street. Because of our office staff, an excellent finance department and the way we run our city, our bond rating has moved up to AA from A3. As a result of this, we refinanced our city’s debt this summer.

This will save all of us $189,826 over the term of our bonds. This is very similar to many of you that have recently financed your homes. Some of our other successes are: We have gotten a new Holiday Stationstore, Auto Parks store, and ground will be broken in the fall of 2012 for a new medical center across #8 from Arby’s. A beautiful 1900’s home on 1st Ave. is being renovated into a coffee shop. This helps all of us by adding to our city’s tax base. We have replaced all of our antiquated water meters with a type that are accurate and no one needs to enter your home to read. Our city chip sealed, but failed to crack seal our streets over two years ago. With the help of two other Council members and the city engineer, we pressed forward. With the amount of money that was available we not have seven areas crack sealed. Along with being on the Council some of my other duties are:

Chisago Lakes Library Commission, Chisago Lakes Joint Sewer Commission, Liaison from the city Council to the parks Commission, Lindstrom Public Works Commission. My work continues as I, for the third straight year, am trying to “control” and then end, the good “Ol boys system by diligently watching the bills list. Through this system public works gives selected contractors open ended jobs without cost limitations. These are non emergency projects and ought to be put together for lump sum cost quotes from many contractors. It is impossible to figure out how much this costs us but it is taxpayers money that is being given away because others are not invited to bid. Changes to personal friend allegiance and deep seated employee procedures are difficult to accomplish unless the Administrator or three Council members are willing to act. I think the city should come first. At a public works meeting a year ago public works employees stated that it is impossible to get three or four competitive estimates on work. I looked into this and found that possible unfairness exists in the bidding process. The taxpayer’s best friend. I would appreciate your vote.

Editor’s note: City elections are being held in November and the Press will publish filing statements from all candidates until the end of October. We begin this week with the filing statement for Lindstrom City Council Incumbent Joe Wishy. North Branch and Chisago Lakes school board candidates’ filing statements are also being printed until the end of October. In your filing statement you should be describing some of the reasons you are in the race and issues you feel are important. Try to keep the statement to between 350-500 words. (Don’t wait until the end of Oct. to send in your statement.) For county commissioner and state offices the Voter’s Guide will be out in mid-October. For this the Press will distribute questions and publish the responses from those running for MN House, Senate and for the county board. There will also be a Voters Guide published for the 8th congressional district race and for the U.S. Senate race. Information gathering for these larger contests is done in cooperation with the Minnesota Newspaper Association.