Rosemount's Effective Leadership from Phil Sterner

Phil Sterner is a candidate with a record of actually having made government more efficient and effective. Phil Sterner is a candidate for Minnesota House of Representatives (37B - Eastern Apple Valley and Rosemount area). Phil, as part of the Rosemount city council made a huge savings through a number of small and effective changes like

* watering the grass every third day instead of every day

* installing temperature and lighting controls that cut back on energy use

* keeping important areas like baseball diamonds mowed and turning other areas into native praire grass that was better for the environment and less cost for mowing

Phil Sterner encouraged new business and new housing that expanded the tax base, so the burden of taxes would be less on existing owners. While development can always be argued as to whether it is good or bad, there clearly was an active city council trying to improve the local economy. With the expansion, there is hope that more local businesses will open in downtown Rosemount. This could mean not having to drive to get groceries and services.

So here we have Phil Sterner, a friendly soft spoken person intent on making government work better. As part of the Rosemount City Council, Phil has a record of actually reducing government costs and increasing the tax base, both actions effectively reduce the property tax burden. When it comes to sorting out great leaders from noisemakers, this has to count.

So what would it mean to have Phil Sterner in the Minnesota House of Representatives? If we would have Phil's practical no-nonsense leadership on mortgage regulation instead of the Republicans-let-businesses-do-anything approach, then we would have better communities with less empty houses. Those empty houses are really going to push the tax burden onto the people still in their homes. Governor Pawlenty's push of financing education more on property taxes instead of state income taxes have really hurt local retired folks hard. Phil's practical no-nonsense leadership would finance education and transportation. Phil's practical no-nonsense leadership can bring more pressure on better practices to our health care insurance industry instead Governor Pawlenty's long standing protection of health care insurance unfair practices and unfair profits. It took many legislators with courage, who overrode Governor Pawlenty's veto on transportation to actually start fixing our many bridge problems and rough roads.

Democrats have learned, that it takes the effort of everyone in the state, to change our state government. We can't count on newspapers telling the story since newspapers are owned by companies who hire editors to represent company interests. For example our local Star & Tribune newspaper is owned by an oil interests company, Avista, which now has pro-oil-drilling editorials. So basically Democrats are going door to door, using people power. My Senate District 64 is part of the help Democrats everywhere movement. Senate District 64 has an Adopt-a-Suburb Flying Squad, with our own State Representative Erin Murphy driving a car pool.

I am part of the flying squard, doorknockers going outside of our local area. So I had the pleasure of doorknocking in Rosemount. People were wonderful and obviously caring about their community. It is a true pleasure to talk with people who are following what government and politicans are doing. One long conversation that I had was about the best ways to build low income housing and integrate those folks into caring for community.

One of the signs that the Rosemount community is healthy is the obvious care taken in flowers and gardens. There are some really great gardens in Rosemount. However, it was this tree that captured my attention. So with permission, I took this picture. I think this captures the spirit of Rosemount, even the trees smile!