Brooklyn Park’s Mayoral Candidates Face Primary
Primary Election Day is Tuesday, Aug. 14. Brooklyn Park voters will be choosing who will face off in the general election from four mayoral candidates. CCX News spoke with all four on Friday. We asked each candidate the same questions about their priorities should they be elected. We used a random number generator to determine the order in which we presented them. You can click on each candidate’s name to go to their campaign websites and learn more.
Yelena Kurdyumova
Kurdyumova believes the city’s crime rate has increased, along with property taxes and she says home values have gone down. Her priorities are to require landlords to run criminal background checks on would-be renters and to make city workers respond to resident complaints.
We must stop the flow of renters with really bad criminal history into Brooklyn Park from other cities and states by enacting a new city-wide obligation for landlords to do criminal background checks of their prospective residents.”
Benard Muko
Muko says the city is going in the wrong direction. He thinks home values have gone down, taxes have gone up, and he says there’s a problem with houses that aren’t occupied by the people who own them. His priorities include making people keep their property well-maintained and clean, as well as giving the city’s youth something to do so they don’t commit crimes.
We have an opportunity for them to choose what they want to do after school so we train them so they have a job to do after school instead of standing there. No one wants to invest when people are standing everywhere and committing crime.”
Jeffrey Lunde
Lunde is the mayoral incumbent running for a third term. He wants another term so he can finish work started during his first terms. His priorities include the Mississippi Gateway, light rail and partnerships with businesses.
We’ve got some big partnerships coming that I want to complete the circle and just help the transformation of Brooklyn Park to continue.”
Lunde says during his time as mayor, crime has gone down, development has gone up and he says he’s focused on the city, not partisan politics.
Hollies Winston
Winston says he benefited from opportunities he got while growing up and wants to make sure Brooklyn Park’s youth get opportunities as well. His priorities include making sure the city budget is healthy and streamlined.
First priority is to go through that budget line by line, get together with the city council, and figure out what is it that we need to prioritize and what is it that we can’t really have as a priority. Two, you gotta bring in more business to bolster up the budget.”
Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. To find out where you should vote, go to the Secretary of State’s poll finder website.
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