Meet Golden Valley’s Two Newly-Elected Council Members
Two candidates for Golden Valley City Council won their seats in decisive fashion on Nov. 4.
Tracey Fussy and Chris Queitzsch, who both had DFL support, came out on top of a field of seven candidates with more than 10-point margins.
Tracey Fussy
Fussy told CCX News she wants to put her experience as a city attorney to good use.
“For almost 20 years, I’ve worked with every single department that a city has — police, public works, fire, regulatory services, health, zoning and planning — I’ve worked with all these departments,” she said. “I’ve worked with council members, I’ve worked with mayors, so I understand already what everyone’s trying to accomplish.”
She was the top vote-getter in Tuesday’s election, coming away with about 30 percent of the vote.
Fussy manages all litigation for the city of Minneapolis.
While door knocking — Fussy says she knocked on 3,000 doors during her campaign — she found almost everyone she spoke to is interested in seeing development of a downtown area.
“People want the character of the neighborhoods to stay the same, but they recognize that over on Winnetka, [Highway] 55, Golden Valley Road, that area where the city campus already is — if the buildings there are not going to be existing as they are, that’s a perfect opportunity to put in some housing and some shops and restaurants and create kind of a downtown,” Fussy said. “I knew I wanted a downtown. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that that was not a controversial position amongst anybody I talked to.”
Chris Queitzsch
Meanwhile, Queitzsch won his seat with nearly 25 percent of the vote.
He plans to put his background in software to work for the city.
“My big hope getting into the role is to deliver on things that help the city become more connected and accessible,” he said. “Especially the things that I was pushing out of the gate, which was making a new website and trying to get our fiberoptic internet really laid out in the city.”
Queitzsch said his vision for the future contributed to his success.
“This was a big election about does the city want to progress forward, do we want to stagnate, do we want to maybe revert back to the city we were 40 years ago?” he said. “And I was really happy to see that there was an overwhelming vote that said we want to go forward. We really want to have modern infrastructure, modern sidewalks and walkability, we really want to be the city of this year and the next 20-30 years out.”
Outgoing Members
Fussy and Queitzsch will replace Denise La Mere-Anderson and Gillian Rosenquist, who didn’t run for re-election.
