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Vision for Dayton: Mayor Dennis Fisher on Growth, Safety, and Water Quality Improvements
Discover the bold strategies shaping the future of Dayton with Mayor Dennis Fisher in this must-listen episode. Mayor Fisher, known for his forward-thinking approach, shares his vision for managing Dayton's rapid growth while prioritizing the community's character and economic sustainability. He offers insights into his successful initiatives for reducing the city's once-burdensome tax rates through fiscal responsibility and resident-focused budgeting. Mayor Fisher also addresses pressing public safety challenges, including efforts to curb crime and tackle the issue of reckless driving by boosting police presence and enhancing fire department staffing. Throughout, he openly contrasts his policies with those of his opponent, underscoring his commitment to aligning city decisions with the priorities of Dayton's residents.
In a compelling dialogue about Dayton's water quality issues, Mayor Fisher outlines the proactive steps being taken to address the high iron content that affects residents' daily lives. Learn about the infrastructure improvements underway, including the installation of backup pumps and the substantial state and federal grants secured to fund a new water treatment facility. Set to launch this summer, this facility promises to deliver cleaner, iron-free water, improving both aesthetics and appliance longevity. Mayor Fisher reflects on the city council's achievements in budget management and tax reduction as he seeks re-election, emphasizing his dedication to meeting the evolving needs of Dayton's growing community.
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Welcome to the City of Dayton's Question and Answer Candidate. Candidate Mayor Dennis Fisher is with us now. Hi, dennis, hello, okay, the survey gave us a number of questions that we can work with, and I think that we compiled a bunch of questions just based upon that. And let's start out with growth management. Welcome, dennis. Our first question is with growth management. Welcome, dennis. Our first question is growth management. How will you control Dayton's rapid growth to prevent overdevelopment and preserve the community's characters without sacrificing economic opportunities?
Speaker 2:This question has a number of things that factor into it. Due to the significant debt we incurred years back to build the central water and sewer system, we will need new houses to continue paying that bill. Additionally, there is some push from staff and from my opponent to create a lot more debt in 2028. That will also drive the need for more and more revenue. Dayton's rapid growth was slowed considerably by the recent market slowdown. Oddly enough, that slowdown put us at a pretty good rate that the city can handle, which looks like this year is going to be roughly 200.
Speaker 2:Last year was a little bit over 200. That's actually a pretty good rate. Prior rates were significantly higher and I think that the city was in over its head with reviewing those and it didn't provide as much oversight as I feel there should have been. I've been pushing that the city perform some late planning on larger tracts of land than what we typically see in a development. That way, what we can do is the land. If it's got some rough planning to it, we can actually point areas of the land to, say ponding parks. We can manage the entire tract better than individual development, individual chunks of land that we're seeing today.
Speaker 2:If we go that route that should easily provide a way to control the quantity and the quality of these developments.
Speaker 1:Moving on to taxes, then yeah, all right In taxes. What specific steps will you take to reduce or prevent further tax increases while maintaining the city services we have?
Speaker 2:As always, I believe every expense that the city incurs needs to have good justification, and that includes what the residents want. What I've seen over these past couple years is what you know. My opponent's opinion seems to be that if staff wants something, they should just get it because they're the experts. What he and I disagree with is that's the main reason the council exists in the first place is to prioritize items in the budget and verify the value to the resident of that expense is worth the cost. Staff will always it's it's like a negotiation staff will always ask for things they need and want, and my job as one of five council members is to make sure I'm convinced that the value for the residents is there. Before I vote to put something in that budget.
Speaker 2:And it allowed us to take our notoriously high 54% tax rate, which, by the way, put Dayton into the top 5% statewide for taxes per resident Wow. So it allowed us to take that 54 down to 36, which is comparable to Champlin Rogers. It's actually just slightly below. So we did that while increasing the staff to resident ratio, in other words, the number of public works, police, fire. We actually increased that staff to resident ratio, which keeps services up and we just shy of tripled the amount going to roads, so we were able to prioritize things and bring that rate down quite a bit. What I thought was kind of telling was, at some point in those discussions my opponent said that he never would have cut taxes as we did and if the residents didn't like it they could vote him out. Well, I certainly agree with him on that.
Speaker 2:The residents need someone in there that will limit spending to what the residents want and the recent survey that the city did made it clear that a majority of the residents want their taxes to be monitored and reduced where possible, and there's just no way that my opponent cares about that message. I have always felt that if the residents really don't want something, why are we pushing it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Move on to the next conversation. Yeah, public safety. How do you plan to produce crime and reckless driving, and what specific metrics will you use to measure successes and improving public safety?
Speaker 2:In the past, I'd say about six years give or take we've almost doubled our population with all the development, and Dayton's crime rate has actually stayed flat. That's not to say we don't have crime and it needs to be dealt with, but it hasn't increased and it's it's fairly low. The primary problem I'm hearing from residents is the driving. Speeding, uh, is by far the primary complaint and it's everywhere. I live on Pine View and it is sometimes like living next to a quarter mile track. They get out of that four-way on South Diamond and they stick their foot in it. It's one reason I tell my kids to stay off their road, but it's all over the city.
Speaker 2:The police chief has added more radar signs throughout the city, which I think help because I noticed I'm more cognizant of what my speed is when I see that sign. But really I think the other thing that can deterrent is having more police out there and to that end we've added more police over the past few years. Last year we added three, this year we're adding one, which I'm okay with. And as far as the fire side of public safety goes, when I first got on as mayor we had no full-time firefighters. Two years ago we made the chief full-time. Last year there was a new full-time assistant chief added. So in two years we've increased the fire department's general budget over 300%. This year we're looking at possibly adding two additional full-time firefighters. That is primarily because it sounds like and again we still have to go through the numbers what staff is saying is that we will get those two full-time firefighters for free because it'll cover costs elsewhere, and if that's actually the case, I'll support that.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, my opponents run around telling people that I don't support police and fire because I don't hand out blank checks. It gets old and it's a little childish. I think we had. I mean, there are things, like I said, we look at things as to what the value is to the residents. So we two of us there was a fire study being pushed and two of the council including me we didn't want to spend that 45 grand it was right around that number On another fire study because we had just done one about three years prior to that and you know we were sure it's it's going to say the same thing and uh, you know my opponent and the department kind of implied if you don't support this study, you just don't care about public safety. And, like I said, that gets old. And when it was finished, lo and behold, the study documentation was so embarrassing to staff that they quietly ignored the result and we accepted that study and there was no discussion whatsoever over it. It was a total waste of $45,000.
Speaker 1:Okay, moving on. Moving on Infrastructure, what immediate actions will you take to ensure Dayton's infrastructure and city services can be handled, current and future growth, without compromising the quality?
Speaker 2:I covered some of this earlier when we were talking about how to do developments, to improve the development process so that we increase quality. As long as we continue keeping development to the south and this is something that I've been pushing for for the past couple of years when we do development in the south, the infrastructure will just keep up with the growth we have the ability to add it. So really, when it comes to to the infrastructure, I think that the bulk of it is north and south traffic. How do we move people basically south, down to the 16 and 94 areas In the north? We have no real way to do that at this point in time.
Speaker 2:You know I've said in the past, you know why we started development on the north side of the city will forever boggle my mind. I mean, now that it's there, we deal with it. Unfortunately, every new house we put in the north, that traffic two cars twice a day gets onto the river road and the county just doesn't seem to be wanting to look at any ways to improve traffic flow on that road and they won't, for I'm guessing. Until I'm guessing at least five to ten years out, I would put odds that it's going to be even longer than that. So I have always pushed to keep development in the south. We can add infrastructure there. There are a number of north-south roads. We do have problems with some of the county roads, but the rest of the infrastructure we just put in as the development goes.
Speaker 1:Local economy. How do you plan to attract business, create jobs in Dayton and what industries would you target to diversify this local economy?
Speaker 2:Well, the city can do a number of things. For one, our EDA is aimed at that exact topic. One of the differences again between myself and my opponent is he would dissolve the EDA very quickly. He believes that the council should take that task on. I think the council has too many tasks as it is and I think the EDA is there for that reason and I think the EDA is there for that reason. So some of the things that cities can do, both in combination with their EDA and their body, the council body, is to you know, watch the regulation.
Speaker 2:If we look at something and there's some silliness that doesn't seem to make any sense, it needs to get yanked or it needs to not go in. We need to keep our taxes reasonable because you know those businesses pay that also and provide areas in the city that allow businesses to come in. We don't have a lot of commercial areas. I think with this next comp plan we will probably add a few more, even if they're smaller areas. They don't have to be large areas, but to get some sort of even a small grocery store or something to come in is helpful to that area, helpful to that area.
Speaker 2:There are also tools, maybe with some of these larger areas such as TIFF, that is, tax income financing. It's it's kind of a complicated topic but it really boils down to two things. You can collect property taxes from an area to a, either give it back to the businesses, which I refer to as the bribery version of TIF, or you can take that money and pay for the infrastructure that the residents that the city would be paying for otherwise. So to put in local roads to that TIF area, to me that's a good use of TIF. Local roads to that TIF area to me that's a good use of TIF. It also it's a much easier way to manage that expenditure. And, like I said, the bribery version of TIF I made when I first got on council. I voted for one of those.
Speaker 1:It would have passed regardless, but to this day I regret doing that because I went back and looked and there was really no justification for that.
Speaker 2:I just think if a business wants to come here, their money, their tax money, needs to be put to work for the city and not folded back into them. You know, over the past couple years we have been requested to do a few of those. One was, uh, an apartment complex on the south side of the freeway. They wanted a that version of tiff that returns the money back to the back to the company and, uh, you know, we said no. The all five of us said no, and actually that version would have lasted I think it was well over 20 years. So basically that complex would have been there using up city resources and not paying a dime in taxes. We couldn't swallow that, so we did vote against that.
Speaker 1:Okay, next, Traffic and congestion. What concrete measures would you implement to address traffic congestion, unsafe driving and how would you enforce these changes?
Speaker 2:Well, for one. You know, traffic congestion is really fixed by having roads that can support the additional cars being added to that area. You can do some things, such as turn lanes. You can rearrange some of the way traffic flows, but for the most part you have to have the roads that support that level of traffic and, like I said before, the roads, the developments in the north, they're just going to continue to pile the cars onto the River Road we do not have. The only thing we can do with the River Road, since it's a county road, is we can add turn lanes where appropriate, and we did that with Stevens Park and we at some point a few. And we did that with Stevens Park and we at some point a few years back, did that with Cloquet. But it really doesn't help the backup at some of the areas that the additional traffic causes.
Speaker 2:It's just one more reason why I don't. I think we need to focus development in the south. We have a number of ways down in the south to move traffic towards 16 and freeways 81 and to that end, we will also, you know, continue to apply pressure to the county to fix some of their messes down there. They've got, you know, one at 81 and territorial. They've got fernbrook's a mess. Unfortunately, I think the only way to fix fernbrook is probably a roundabout on rush Creek. I think I'd prefer lights there, but the county has this allergy to lights, so I don't know. Like I said, we need to continue applying pressure to the county to, I think, specifically, you know, kevin Anderson, our representative on the commission. He needs to hear from everybody on how some of these the county needs to step up and spend money in our area and they've been hesitant to do so for a long time.
Speaker 1:Very long. Next subject yeah. Okay. Environmental concerns how will you tackle Dayton's flooding, stormwater management, drinking water issues with a measurable long-term solution?
Speaker 2:Well, stormwater management, that's built into every sewer development that's created and that's why you see these ponding mechanisms. I think up until I want to say around 1990 or 2000,. You didn't see ponds, you didn't see developments put in ponds. If you look at some of our older developments, they're just houses. Since then there is a lot of engineering that goes into that. I have a couple of engineering degrees but I don't at all assume that I have a clue how water flows in the ground, and so we have a lot of engineering firms and people look at stormwater and there are certainly a lot of protocols as to how to deal with stormwater and we basically leave it up to those civil engineers to understand how to deal with that.
Speaker 2:Water management is just not as obvious as you would think. As far as the city water quality goes the water that we provide to the residents, to the residents we have so far added a backup pump on both of our water systems. We have our central water system. We also have the old village water system, so we now have backups on those. The backup on the old village system is there and in place and functional. The one on the central system is close. So we have that covered.
Speaker 2:As far as water, as far as keeping the quantity of water up there, as far as the water quality goes, dayton water, no matter where you get it from, whether it's private wells or some of these you 400 feet city wells is loaded with iron and uh, you know. So you fill your bathtub and you see yellow water, unless you have a whole house water filter system. So we've been hearing, you know, complaints about water quality and, and it's it, it's really an aesthetics thing. And you, you can also taste the iron. It's not harmful, it's really an aesthetics thing. And you can also taste the iron. It's not harmful, it's just brownish yellow water. It also kind of can raise havoc with your appliances, and so to that end, we pushed for a state grant almost three years ago. We had Senator Warren Limmer and about 10 additional senators come and they were looking for items to put into the bonding bill that resident that various cities needed, and so we gave him a presentation. Like I said, this is about three years ago. We gave them a presentation that year.
Speaker 2:They had some money in there, but that bond push didn't happen. But it did get the ball rolling with our various representatives over the years and so and recently in 2023, that push kind of came to a head where we got some about $1.75 million from the state and I believe our EDA had some to do with that, but also the push from some of us. Senator Hoffman was instrumental in helping to push that through. Hoffman was instrumental in helping to push that through and we also got a significant federal grant of close to $4 million.
Speaker 2:The system itself was estimated. Well, you know, originally it was estimated at four, then it crawled up to six and when we actually put numbers to the paper it came in at 8.
Speaker 2:So we ended up okaying that and we started that and we ended up getting a good portion of it in, and then we ran into a snafu with a federal agency actually a couple, given that its proximity to the Mississippi River was probably not helpful, because that caused a lot of additional red tape. We are now negotiating what looks like our last piece of red tape. So if that goes through soon, then right now that facility is scheduled to go online this summer and so at that point residents will no longer have brown slash yellow water. They will still need to soften their water. It won't be soft water, so you'll still. Residents are still going to want softeners to to keep all their appliances from calcifying up, but it will, but that that facility will pull the iron out and it also pulls out some manganese but we don't have too much manganese in that water and I think residents will be a lot happier with that answer. And I think residents will be a lot happier with that answer.
Speaker 2:I'm Dennis Fisher and I would like your vote this November. We have three members of this current council, including myself, that have done significant work to reduce the tax burden on our residents. There is more work to be done, and the only way to get that done is to look at the value of these expenditures and make sure it's what residents want and not just what staff wants. We're growing, and therefore our government will continue to grow, but making sure all needs are balanced is the job of the mayor and council, and so I would like your vote. I am Dennis Fisher and I approve of this message.
