Buckvold Looking to Lead St. Cloud As Next Mayor

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- St. Cloud residents have a choice to make for who they want to lead the city for the next four years. Six people are running in the Primary Election for Mayor.

Anne Buckvold was the first person to announce her candidacy. She says she was interested in running four years ago and decided to run this year even before Mayor Dave Kleis announced he was not going to seek re-election.

She says her number one priority is transportation.

So I still want to get rail to St. Cloud, in fact, I want to get Amtrak here and all the way up to Moorhead.  When I share that with people their eyes get even bigger than before when we were talking about Northstar.  That piece of getting the train here just fits inside of a larger vision of transportation that I have for the area.

Buckvold says another one of her top priorities will be economic development.

I've seen it in other cities, we certainly saw it in St. Joe, businesses investing in downtown.  As a city, I'm pretty clear about what our role is.  We're not business, but what I want to do is create a city that compliments and enhances investments in businesses so we have a thriving downtown.  Other pieces have to happen before that.

Buckvold says affordable housing is also a priority for her. The position of Mayor of St. Cloud is a part-time job, and Buckvold says she does plan to have another job as well. She says she's not going to compete with current Mayor Dave Kleis for time commitment, but she does want to be available to the residents.

Buckvold has lived in the St. Cloud area for about 20 years. She has a background as a social worker and as a community organizer.

She ran for a Minnesota House seat in 2016 and was also appointed to an open seat on the St. Joseph City Council. She gave up that seat when she moved to St. Cloud.

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The other five candidates running for St. Cloud Mayor are Carol Lewis, Mike Conway, James Trantina, Steven Schiller, and Jake Anderson. WJON News is featuring each of the six candidates throughout the week.

Early voting is underway right now for the August 13th Primary Election. Only the top two will advance to the General Election in November.

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