If you haven't visited the site, the watchdog logo is the opening screen. Harold Hamilton is a libertarian conservative type, to the extent labels apply. It is a condensed way to characterize someone, but unfortunately the words are used so frequently that individuals tend to attach baggage that might or might not be appropriate in individual cases. Watchdog site, this link.
http://anokacountywatchdog.com/
For County Board District 1, Hendriksen and Look responded to the questionaire. Steffen and Hillebregt did not. Many others in the four other county district contests responded, although there was not a 100% response. So if you want a sampling, this Watchdog link allows you to review individual responses.
As to District 1:
Hendriksen, this link.
Look, this link.
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I believe Hendriksen bluntly and honestly defined his campaign position in his responses, and it is refreshing to see that instead of standard "cut taxes" rhetoric on one side, or "I was only an intemediary" statements to the press when such representations omit so much of the actual way things happened.
Hendriksen is not a career politician or one wanting to become one. I saw Steffen, Look, and Hendriksen at the Big Walter Smith event held early evening, yesterday, at the Ramsey amphitheater. Big Walter probably will never crash big time. Lots of kids were there with parents and relatives, and the turnout surprised me. Yet as an opening event it drew the curious, the office holders, and the office seekers. As one among the curious, I will not be going there any second time, and I expect attendance will drop off particularly when foul weather intervenes.
Hendriksen did not "work" the crowd, nor did Steffen or Look, although Steffen seemed more relaxed as more a mixer than either Look or Hendriksen. Look chatted with people from time to time, as did Hendriksen and Steffen, but none of the three were "working the crowd" although each was there.
I think each was there as much to check out the situation with the "opening show" as for any other reason (although one unfortunate aspect of running for office is the expectation that you go to events like this and are exeected to schmooze and make people feel comfortable and confident with you, regardless of much else).
Realistically, showing up at an event has little to do with good or bad judgment, and how accessible, in a real sense, a candidate will be once elected to office.
Said another way, event-schmoozing is downright awful and irrelevant as a litmus test of whether good or bad judgment over time will be shown once elected.
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Only an impartial intermediary - a referee not a fighter?
On the Watchdog site Hamilton posts this Strib link, but not this PiPress link. [Readers, if there's a problem with the second link, please leave a comment. I have had difficulty trying to get it to display correctly.]
In an earlier post, UPDATE section - this link, I quote from the PiPress item where I contend candidate Steffen misstates the true scope of her involvement in things - in the genesis and promotion of the Ramsey Town Center in the past, and I present evidence I believe showing, particularly via a Met Council posting about her "Dream Team" and via unequivocal 2001 City of Ramsey meeting minutes how forceful and determined Steffen was to have things one way and no other.
She should have been only a disinterested intermediary allowing the local people to work things out. However, use of a potential Met Council grant to bully things into her view of proper is inescapable from the minutes.
She in the PiPress reporting in the first few paragraphs paints an incorrect picture by omission, while no particular thing she says is totally false. But to minimize her role in the sorry history of Ramsey Town Center is to simply deny truth, in its totality.
Surely Steffen was NOT responsible for the choice of developer of the project. The land speculators wanting to maximize their cash haul did that "thinking." Whether the Feges-Nedegaard choice was wise or not seemed, to the land speculators, well down the criteria list to how much per acre was going to be paid.
I would not blame Steffen for things she did not engineer, although I do not recall seeing any reported cautionary words from her at the time, about needing a sound and deep-pocketed lead firm, to maximize chances of success.
It must have been an afterthought or an ancillary passing thought while working with some local folks, and against others, while as an appointed Met Council rep that attention to soundness of potential implementation should have been her duty and primary focus, weighing those aspects, while keeping far more of a "hands-off" policy position than she did in micromanagement-engineering, interfering even in which-side-of-the-road detail questions, among local elected individuals.
Local people are elected for local policy decision, Met Council people are appointed to assure the beans are counted properly and to be attentive to deter implementation mismanagement. It was not Steffen's job to tell local people what to do. She acknowledged knowing what her job was, in her PiPress comments. She failed, however, to truly adhere to that path in the past, when the chips were down.
My evidence, again, is in the UPDATE section of an earlier post, here. However, please also read the FURTHER UPDATE to that post to take away a fairer impression of how things may stand, at present, regarding the touchy county-wide extension of sewer services question, apart from how major a role Steffen played in local affairs while on Met Council and whether she is understating such things.
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My objections to Look have been posted, and I will not rehash them here.
But I believe that PiPress thing needs the emphasis.
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Hillebregt would handle the Board job well, but I do not see him as being able to capture as many votes as he might deserve. I have asked him whether he would have interest two years from now running for Ramsey council in Ward 2 against McGlone. Unfortunately, he did not show much enthusiasm for that idea. I believe he'd upgrade the representation were he to run and be elected. More than merely an upgrade, he could be one of the more independent and wise voices on council.
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This probably is the last post here about District 1, before the Primary - next Tuesday - and please do not forget or ignore it.