Spending tax dollars wisely. Promoting Freeborn County. Keeping roads and bridges safe. Working toward zero traffic deaths.

Those are some of the goals incumbent 5th District Freeborn County Commissioner Mike Lee has as he seeks re-election to the Board of Commissioners this November.

Lee, who is a residential instructor for Elm Homes, was first elected to the position in a special election in March 2011 and ran unopposed in 2012.

In the upcoming election, he faces off against Lynn Berven.

Top road projects

Lee listed three major road projects that he thinks need to be addressed in the county.

Those were Bridge Avenue, Freeborn County Road 4 and 780th Avenue.

He said the first stage of Bridge Avenue is planned to begin in 2017 with the second stage to begin in 2020. The project will be paid for with 80 percent federal funding, the half-cent sales tax and bonding.

County Road 4 is a two-year-project that will be paid for with state aid money, the sales tax and and bonding, and 780th Avenue will be paid for with state aid gas tax funds that pass through the Department of Natural Resources.

Attracting business

Lee said in addition to working in collaboration and cooperation with the city of Albert Lea, the Albert Lea Economic Development Agency and Greater Jobs Inc. to attract business, he thinks it is important to hold down property taxes to make it appealing for business to come here and stay, grow and prosper.

He also pointed to the importance of the county’s transportation system and keeping roads and bridges safe and in good condition.

“All goods that come here at some point travel on our transportation system,” he said. “Damaged or lost product because of a poor transportation system hurts a company’s bottom line.”

Lee said he is in support of working with state elected officials to come up with a program that will level the playing field for border counties such as Freeborn that compete with cities in neighboring states to bring in businesses.

He referenced the Jobs Opportunity Building Zones program, which he said helped create over 900 new jobs in the county.

County board
meetings

Lee said he thinks the structure of county board meetings are running smoothly, though he said he thinks the county needs to look at upgrading its video system to provide better quality feed on the public access channel.

He said he thinks the forum period, which gives people five minutes to address the board, is going well. If people need beyond the five minutes, they can request it of the chairman.

Reversing declining population

Lee said he thinks the community needs to promote itself better by telling the story of why Freeborn County is a great place to live, work and raise a family.

It is important to be open to suggestions from people in the county and to think outside the box.

“This is one reason I try to make myself easily accessible to my constituents,” he said.

An ongoing effort is to promote job growth in the private sector.

Improving quality of life

To improve the quality of life in Freeborn County over the next four years, Lee said he thinks community members and officials need to support and enhance the natural resources here, including cleaning up the lakes and streams throughout the county.

This also involves things such as the completion of the final connection of the Blazing Star Trail to west of Hayward, along with keeping roads and bridges safe and supporting job growth.

Other issues

Another issue Lee said he thinks needs to be addressed is the Stables Area wastewater treatment issue.

“We were very close to solving this issue this year, but the failure of a bonding bill in St. Paul derailed this important project,” he said.

Regarding the half-cent sales tax for the Shell Rock River Watershed District, he said he thinks half of the money that is brought in should be used to cover the cost of dredging the lake, while the other half should be used on projects that can leverage additional funding and grant dollars to improve water quality.