Politics & Government

Q&A: Metropolitan Council Applicant Paul Chellsen

Apple Valley resident Paul Chellsen is one of three applicants for the district 16 seat on the Metropolitan Council, a body whose members are appointed by the governor.

Apple Valley resident Paul Chellsen is one of three applicants for the District 16 seat on the Metropolitan Council, a body appointed by the governor to provide services to the Twin Cities urban, suburban and rural regions. Chellsen, who is a supervising storm water technician for the City of Minneapolis, answered a few questions for Apple Valley Patch about his background and desire to serve on the council.

Apple Valley Patch: Could you tell readers a little bit about your background?

Paul Chellsen: I’ve lived in the area my whole life…. I think my qualifications are probably slightly more unique than the typical person … with a quarter-century working for the city of Minneapolis in water resources, storm water, public infrastructure type of issues. I grew up in Richfield…. I moved out to Bloomington, and eventually Eagan, and I landed out here in Apple Valley. Living in the different suburbs but working in Minneapolis has really given me what I think is a sort of a regional understanding of this area. I have kids currently in Apple Valley schools. I have six children, three of them out of school to college. But I have had kids in Minneapolis schools too, so I have a good understanding I think of kind of … the disparities and maybe some of the inequities that some of the urban areas have…. My training and education is primarily in water resources. That’s what I’ve been working in at the city of Minneapolis … for 25 years now. My other experience that I have is I do a lot of public speaking … working as a storm water educator as well. I am currently a scoutmaster in an Apple Valley Boy Scout troop and I’ve probably coached 100 different sporting teams with my six kids over the past 20 years or so.

Apple Valley Patch: Why did you decide to apply for a Met Council seat?

Chellsen: Well I’ve always been interested in the Met Council. I’ve worked with the Met Council here at the city, mainly from a water resources and infrastructure type of relationship…. I think it’s just the kind of organization that we need to provide the region with a vision. It’s not elected, it’s appointed…. I think comes the opportunity to… make this body be more of a visionary decision-making body instead of … simply just providing transit. And that’s the No. 1 thing. Rather than being reactionary, I think this organization being visionary can, instead of putting more transit from Apple Valley to downtown, let’s figure out how transit can shape our growth…. The fact that I can jump on a bus in Lakeville and be downtown in a half hour, is that a good thing? I mean it’s certainly an amenity for those who can do it, but we have to be careful … that our transit decisions support growth rather than sprawl…. If we want healthy suburbs, the best thing we can do is a have a strong urban core and we’ll make our decisions based on that instead of making the decisions based on Apple Valley or Eagan. If we make our decisions as a council … not as a farmer in Castle Rock, not as a teacher in North Minneapolis, or a business owner in Apple Valley. My mentor, my hero Paul Wellstone always said that we’d all be better when we all do better. The Met Council can really, really live that.

Apple Valley Patch: You had mentioned transit specifically. Is that maybe the issue that interests you most? Or, what issues would you say that the council deals with interest you?

Chellsen: I don’t know that transit is the issue that interests me the most. I’ve taken mass transit for 25 years…. I think we have a great transit system. I think we need to look more at having transit define how we want to grow and how we want to live as a community. I think we’ve got to start looking at transit on a smaller level to try to make our cities more walkable, a little more dense. I can get to downtown Minneapolis on a bus faster than I can probably get to Cub Foods in Apple Valley. Are we making our cities walkable? Or do people just fly from their house to their work and back?

I think transit’s important, but I think everything’s kind of tied together—the sewer system, the environment. I work in water resources. I recognize that the urban areas are spending the lion’s share of money on water quality. I also realize that the agriculture sector far and away is probably impacting our waters the most…. So is there a way that we can collectively as a region, instead of having individual cities take care of their water … where can we all put our money and get the best bang for the buck? And I’ll tell you right now … it’s gonna be in the agricultural areas. And the farmers can’t do it alone.… If our goal is clean water … why don’t we just decide where our money should go? And I can tell you right away that Lake Pepin is filling it. And Minneapolis and some of the inner ring suburbs are spending a lot of money. And what we’re getting for that is not much. If that money could be better spent out in the agricultural areas, let’s do it.… Sewer, transit, water—they’re all regional issues. That’s the beauty of this board. There’s a lot of flack right now from people that want this to be a more accountable board… they want elected people on it. I don’t think that’s going to make this a better board.… It’s accountable to the governor and that gives it a little more autonomy.

Apple Valley Patch: If you were to be appointed, is there anything in the short term that you would be interested in trying to do on the council?

Chellsen: Right off the bat … one thing to recognize is that the Metropolitan Council has an amazing staff and employees. And the first thing to do is to listen and learn from the people that are there right now. I think the focus has been on transit and that’s probably a good thing. But I think other areas have suffered because of that. I’d like to see some more emphasis put back on the environment, storm water, water resources. So that’s one thing I would look to right away, and seeing where we can make some improvements there. I know that there is an opportunity with the environment and water resources and things like that. Time is of the essence.


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