Age:63
Residence:Rural Altura
Education:Doctorate of educational leadership and law
Work experience:Served 30 years as a superintendent of schools
Family:Married with four grown children and seven grandchildren
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What would be your top three priorities?
1. Establish a long-range financial plan for Minnesota so we don’t have to keep going from crisis to crisis.
2. Establish priorities for what is to be funded at the state level and what is to be funded at the local level.
3. Establish a process for assuring everyone has affordable health care.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing Minnesota?
Minnesota needs to reverse the short-sighted financial planning that brought it from a $4 billion surplus in 1999 to a $4 billion deficit four years later.
Would you be in favor of any tax increases? If so, what kind?
I believe we are going to need a combination of tax increases on income, goods and services, just as any business has to invest in itself or go stagnant.
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Do you support lifting the state's moratorium on building new nuclear plants? Why or why not?
No. We have borrowed this planet from our grandchildren and I believe we should leave it in as good and as safe a condition as we found it, or better.
Should local governments be able to impose stricter standards for large-scale wind projects? Why or why not?
No. We need to look at the greater good. When wind-generated energy is put on the power grid it becomes a part of interstate commerce.
