First things first

A city government is responsible for a few key things: Public safety, transportation and the overall welfare of its citizens. The most basic function that falls under that description is street plowing and pothole patching.

The picture is of the street in St. Paul that my family lives on. It was glare ice with two deep ruts from November until April this last winter. I spun out twice while taking my kids to school, and was fortunate that there were no cars parked nearby, as I ran into a snowdrift at the curb.

You could say that it was just because it was a very snowy winter. However, I drive to Minneapolis each day, and was able to observe that- though street plowing was not perfect there either, it was markedly better than St. Paul's. Let's not even start on how well the plowing is in the suburbs.

This is to say, street plowing isn't being adequately done, and this can be taken as an indicator of many more things that may not be getting done by the current city council.

It's more interesting to debate topics that are in the national news, and it makes for good headlines when running for a higher office, but the city council needs to be focused on city issues, like plowing streets. Boring, but important. This is what I will be focused on as a member of the St. Paul city council.