Q&A With Mayor Mary Hamann-Roland

Apple Valley Patch sat down with Mayor Mary Hamann-Roland, who was re-elected in November to her fourth term, to talk about the issues the city will be working on and how residents and businesses are affected by current economic conditions.

Apple Valley Patch: What is the most immediate issue you will tackle as your next term begins?

Mary Hamann-Roland: I'm going to tell you my top three areas in which we're going to focus on. It's a tough economy. People are very challenged, people have lost jobs, there's downsizing, there's furloughs and other strategies that companies have employed in order to make there bottom line. So we're going to be very careful about the City of Apple Valley raising taxes. That's not going to happen. We're doing anything we can to be cost effective. Second is economic development and jobs. We know that our citizens want to be able to work and live in Apple Valley, so it is our job to really focus on growing those head-of-household jobs in our community. But we also want to attract new opportunities. [The third focus area] kind of goes hand-in-hand with economics and jobs, and that's the Cedar Corridor.  The Cedar Corridor is one of the most defining issues that Apple Valley will have faced in its recent history. We want to make sure that as we build that corridor that the business community remains vibrant and that when the construction is going on that the citizenry is informed about where there are going to be changes … which also relates to transit.

Apple Valley Patch: Speaking of the transit issue, what is your take on the Bus Rapid Transit project and the development along Cedar Avenue?

Hamann-Roland: Bus Rapid Transit will actually help us to alleviate one lane of traffic and that was really a cost-effective approach. We actually did a study on whether or not we could do light rail as opposed to Bus Rapid Transit. I don't know if your readers are aware or not, but the bridge that comes over the Minnesota River would have had to been rebuilt or hundreds of millions of dollars of changes would have had to happen in order to accommodate that light rail. So as we studied it, Bus Rapid Transit just made much more sense. It would be less costly [all around]. This corridor is going to go all the way from Lakeville into the Cities. It is meant to work as a system.

Apple Valley Patch: How will the 2011 budget effect Apple Valley's residents and businesses, especially in comparison to what they saw in 2010?

Hamann-Roland: What they're going to see is that 95 percent of the homes will see no property tax increase from the city side. Now someone might say why [aren't taxes] going down by six percent if my home value's going down six percent, there is additional costs for everything, energy costs. We've lost over the course of time, a homestead credit that residents used to get, we've lost our local government aid. These are really difficult times. We're doing everything that we can to be cost effective. I think that the residents of Apple Valley can feel very good about a responsive city.

Apple Valley Patch: What further opportunities do you see for the city for cutting costs or increasing revenues?

Hamann-Roland: We are part of a high performance partnership, there are 11 cities and a county, and we have already collaborated together … and we've explored more ways we can be effective in our information technologies and communications sharing [to cut costs]. In our budgeting process, our staff has done a fabulous job in looking at all the ways to cut costs. Growing business in the community and keeping business in the community is a way to help keep taxes lower [which is what we are working on now].

Apple Valley Patch: What are some of the long-term priorities the city is working toward?

Hamann-Roland: Economic development. The 275-acre business campus is very exciting, what opportunities and synergy it could bring to the city. Uponor is a green company. This corporation is on the cutting edge and is headquartered in Apple Valley. There is great opportunity [for] economic development and it's a very important for future thrust today and into the future. We need to work together for economic development to keep our community vibrant, dynamic and attractive for those who are living here and businesses that are here now and more businesses that are to come. We want you to plant, grow and prosper in Apple Valley.