Konietzko – a mayoral candidate with a new perspective

by Dave DeMars

news@thenewsleaders.com

The Newsleader caught up with Guy Konietzko early in the morning on June 28 at the Capital Coffee Shop in downtown St. Cloud to learn of his reasons for running for Sauk Rapids mayor and what he brings to the table in the way of leadership skills.

Background 

Having grown up in Rosemount, Konietzko made the military his first career, having served 26 years in service and retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2014. It was army personnel rotation policy and circumstance that led Konietzko and his family to choose to live and stay in the Sauk Rapids area. Currently, Konietzko works for GeoComm Inc. as a business development project manager.

While Konietzko may be out of the military, he still has the military commander’s focus on objective and the belief one should serve the community he lives in. That is why he is running.

“With deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and serving as military affairs officer my last three years, it was time to focus locally,” he said. “It was time to focus on my community, my family, and to spend more time here.”

With three children under the age of 14, Konietzko felt it was time to retire, so his children remember him simply as “Dad,” not “dad the soldier” or “dad being gone to war.”

Governing philosophy

Konietzko says he is a firm believer people elect politicians to represent them, and he has no special pet issue or project to accomplish. Politicians should be trying to make it better for everyone rather than a small elite group, he said.

“I like to go out and listen to the people’s issues and then help to find ways to alleviate whatever those issues are for them,” he said. “I think I am best postured to do that because I’ve been working with state and federal levels of government and foreign governments for the last many years.”

His said his perspective on problem-resolution is different from past mayors. He has a different understanding of state and federal governments and how to leverage his contacts to bring things back to Sauk Rapids and improve the community.

Konietzko said he is not familiar with the particulars of many plans already in place. That is the job of people like Police Chief Perry Beise and City Manager Ross Olson.

“What I would be best postured to do is to support them in those plans,” Konietzko said. “I don’t know (if) the answer is more cops to the crime issue, but I would normally do an assessment to identify the issue before I start throwing things at the problem.”

Konietzko said he brings a different perspective to the job. He said he deals with problems related to police, fire and emergency service all the time in his job. He tries to make those service agencies better by providing them with more efficient tools of mapping and automation. To do that, he said he interviews members of the various agencies to best determine the kinds of tools they need to do the job.

Konietzko provided an example of a police unit in Oslo, Norway, that had to change its perspective on policing, so they could respond to a new directive requiring them to respond to any call for help within 10 minutes. The plan called for pre-positioning individual response units in areas of most crime or activity since those were areas most likely to be affected.

Issues

“With any issue the city faces,” Konietzko said, “let’s take an analytical approach to it, figure out what the actual problem is, and then come up with multiple resolutions and then come up with the best one for that issue.”

Asked to provide a more specific, local issue the city faces, Konietzko said in the planning and implementation of parts of the “Up-the-Hill Project,” several residents whom he talked with were unhappy with how it was presented. Konietzko admits he wasn’t present when the project was laid out, but says he was told by several residents there were water surges in their homes.

“Apparently the water system was shut down, and now there is air in the system affecting the water pressure and the pipes in their homes,” Konietzko said.

From his perspective, residents along the path of the project should have been better informed as to what might happen with their water pressure, so they knew what to expect. It’s being open and transparent with the people about what to expect.

Konietzko went on to say he thought the “Up-the-Hill Project” was a good project for the city. As Sauk Rapids grows, especially on the east side of Hwy. 10, that corridor (Second Street/Golden Spike Road) will be used more and more, especially giving access to the hospital for employees and emergency services, Konietzko said.

On taxes, Konietzko said it’s obvious some residents believe they are over-taxed already, but it’s important the school district, city and county come together and talk about their levies so the population is not overburdened with taxes at any level.

“You are going to have to tax,” he said. “Taxes is what provides safety, security, schools, education – all those things for the community.”

On policing and crime, Konietzko said he has had personal experience with some unwanted persons showing up on his door step in the middle of the night a few years ago. Last year, several of his neighbors were affected when a garage was broken into.

“And I’m not saying more cops is the answer,” Konietzko said. “I would want to do a study to figure out where the crimes are happening, what time of day and how we can better attack that problem.”

Konietzko said he feels the present planning and design does not make use of the river as effectively as it could.

“I think a study of the area would tell us more,” Konietzko said. “You have to do the research, you have to do the analysis, you have to figure out how to go about things from a logical aspect.”

Growth, development

Consult with the citizens more and find out what they want is what Konietako emphasized, and use the river to greater advantage, as well as finding something that brings people downtown.

While the governor’s fishing event next year is a good thing, Konietzko said, it’s a one-time event that involves other locales. What is needed, he said, is an event like the Little Falls’ craft sale each year – a recurring event that draws people to downtown to trade.

“The economic development in the community is really the businesses in the community. Talking to them and getting their ideas – they are the subject-matter experts. They are the ones doing this today,” he said.

Konietzko hearkens back to his military training, explaining he was trained to use effects-based targeting to examine what’s wanted, what effect would be achieved and how to achieve that objective. Konietzko said he believes something like that would be good for government.

Asked whether trying to attract a large retail or box store, or other industry would be a good idea, Konietzko said he believed there would be two conflicting answers from the community. One answer is a store like Walmart brings in cheaper prices and allows people to do more with their dollar. The other is we ought to keep the town small, maintain the small-town feel and keep the big stores out.

Small businesses are key to the downtown area, Konietzko concluded.

“Small businesses are too heavily taxed for what they are. They are a growth organization and they need to be able to provide that growth and provide those jobs,” he said.

Konietzko said he believes in small businesses and small towns, and that we are losing too many of them, but he also believes in growth. “How does one maintain the small-town atmosphere and still manage to grow?” he asked rhetorically? His answer: It starts with education and using the expertise within the town to solve that problem. He suggests visiting other cities to see what approaches they use and what can be learned from those approaches and perhaps imitating their success.

“What’s important is I’m not someone who is doing local government for a long time,” he said. “I’m a guy who has experiences from serving all over the world, serving at the state and federal levels of government, and having connections throughout, and I believe leveraging those next higher levels of government will make us successful in building the community in the way the community would like it to go.”