James Trantina Running to be Next St. Cloud Mayor

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- St. Cloud will have a new mayor next year.

James Trantina is one of six people hoping it will be them. He has lived in the St. Cloud area for the past 15 years with his wife and four kids.

Trantina bought Collins Brothers Towing in 2012 and has grown the business to over 400 trucks and 400 employees.

This is his first run for any office. He says that if elected mayor, one of his priorities will be safety.

Just watch the crime and see who, or what, or where it is and make sure our law enforcement is getting the help that they need and that we are putting people in place, certain shifts that have high crime levels. It's hard because outside looking in they might be doing that already

He says he also wants to make the downtown better, especially with the loss of the county jail and courthouse.

I have some ideas to see if we can get businesses in there. We've got to get something to liven up the downtown area and get people moving in there again. If that's remodeling, if it's rebuilding, if it's a hotel with a water park, or apartments, or affordable housing we need something to get people back downtown.

Trantina says he also wants to focus on keeping taxes low.

He says the feedback he's been getting from residents has been a lot of concerns about the homeless shelters in the city, specifically the Lincoln Center.

Trantina says he would continue to operate his towing business if is the next mayor. He says it would be a bit overwhelming at first, but he plans to treat the mayor's position as a full-time job and would be in the office every day.