High School Coach, Osseo Business Owner Mark Cook New City Council Member

Osseo City Councilmember Mark Cook is one of two new members as of this month, but he got a bit of a head start last year. Cook was appointed to fill the remainder of departing councilmember Alicia Vickerman’s seat in August, and then won election to the seat in November. Councilmember Nick Torres also won election to the panel in November and took his seat in January.

“When you get people who have been involved for a long period of time, you get kind of into a routine of how things go,” said Cook. “To have a couple of new voices with me and councilman Torres coming in to offer some alternative ways of looking at things or just gathering historical information on why things have been done the way things have been done and just kind of, which naturally forces you to re-look at some of those things.”

The city is landlocked among several other Hennepin County northwest Minneapolis suburbs, and is relatively small in size, at one mile by one mile square.

“It still has maintained it’s small-town feel, it’s small-town values, and the people are great,” said Cook. “So, it’s really, really fun to walk around town and be able to have conversations with people and feel as though you really get to know your constituents.”

Cook is the girls basketball coach at Maple Grove Senior High School and is also one of the owners of Annabelle House in downtown Osseo.

“I grew up in this community. I graduated from Osseo High School in 1995. It was always a dream of mine to come back and live in this town and so, seven years ago I was able to do that. In that seven years, it’s been about how can I get involved?” said Cook. “We have really great people in this town who deserve really great representation, and I hope that over time I will earn their trust and be able to do really great things for the city of Osseo.”

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