St. Joseph Mayor Rick Schultz Ready to Step Aside After 14 Years

ST. JOSEPH (WJON News) -- Rick Schultz is down to just the last few months in his role as the mayor of St. Joseph. He's been the town's mayor for the past 14 years.

He says, that as an extrovert, one of the best parts of the job is meeting people. The downside is being accessible to residents 24 hours a day.

Schultz says one of the biggest successes during his time in office has to be the growth of the downtown.

We're sitting in front of Bello Cucina and I have a great respect for John and Colleen Petters because they had this vision of what downtown would be, and without these Shops and Lofts being built and the old buildings being taken down, that probably started the impetus for the revitalization of St. Joe.

Schultz says Bad Habit Brewing taking over the former City Hall building was another big step in the downtown growth.

With private development, Schultz says he wanted to make sure the city stays out of the way and helps when it can.

He says the biggest issue right now is managing the foot traffic and vehicle traffic.

He says he learned an important lesson very early on in the position.

When I first became mayor, I remember Costco had expanded into Baxter and so I called them and asked them about putting a store in St. Joe.  When I told somebody that I got chastised because they didn't want big box retailers here.

Schultz says, as he gets ready to leave office, one of his biggest regrets is not getting a new community center built. He says there have just been too many starts and stops with that project.

He says he decided to step down partly because he feels like the city is in a good spot right now. But, he also says the previous and current national elections did play a factor in his decision.

The last two national elections and COVID separated almost every city, mayors elected officials, and residents.  It was left or right, it was right or wrong, vaccinate or don't vaccinate, and I don't know that this election will join us yet.  I still think there will be a lot of left-right, my way your way kind of thing.

Schultz will hand over the job to his successor at the first city council meeting in January. He says he doesn't plan to weigh in on issues or attend public meetings as an ex-mayor.

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He says he and his wife plan to do a lot of traveling in the next few years.

Three men are running to be the next mayor of St. Joseph they are Adam Scepaniak, Bob Loso, and Jon Hazen.

St. Joseph, Waite Park, Sauk Rapids, and St. Cloud all have their long-term mayors retiring at the end of this year.  WJON News will be doing feature interviews with all of them over the next few weeks.

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