Thomas Biernat Takes Aim at St. Michael City Council

Candidate Biography

I am a St. Michael resident with a strong desire to be involved in the progress of our community.  I have over 10 years of experience in the financial industry.  The time I spent working with families and businesses over the years exposed me to community, retirement, and fiscal issues.  It was in helping those families build solutions that my desire to run for office was born.  I have been involved with Prevent Child Abuse MN and Best Prep Financial Matters Initiative.  I also support the community by donating to Crow River Girl Scouts, Hanover Food Shelf, Sojourner Project, Prevent Child Abuse MN, and the St. Michael/Albertville/Hanover Library.

Candidate Statement

Saint Michael is a wonderful city filled with involved residents and businesses.  Our growth comes from ideas from within the community and the desire to continue to focus on our vision.   I am running for City Council because I am interested in helping St. Michael progress towards a city with a thriving business community without losing our small town feel.  I want to go to work with our community to make a better future for us and our children.  While there are many issues that contribute to the progress of our community, below are a few I think are important.

Business Expansion & Taxes - In a struggling economy, we must keep taxes in St. Michael competitive so that we continue to attract the types of business that will help us expand and provide more local opportunities.  Lower taxes mean more opportunities.  There must be a balance as taxes are very important to community development and we have to acknowledge the effect the sluggish economy has had on our city budget.  Saint Michael has been a low tax city within Wright County and I would continue efforts to keep taxes low and ramp up efforts to attract new businesses to our city.

Education - One of our prized ongoing areas in St. Michael is our school system and activities.  This is a very fundamental foundation to our community.  I supported and assisted the efforts to pass the recent tax levy to keep our schools some of the best performing and most desirable schools in the state.  I will continue to be an advocate for our children and their futures.

Communication - Another area that is of high importance to me is the communication between the City, the schools and the residents.  This includes local community events, school events, awareness of new local businesses, and the like.  One key ingredient to helping create a more close knit community is to allow our busy residents easy access to information about city events and how to be involved.  Today's technology can allow a better flow of communication to the residents regarding community events and school events.  Our city has only 151 followers on twitter and only 425 likes on Facebook (Sept 2012).  These are just a couple of the tools we could use to make us more connected.

Visit my website @ www.BiernatForCityCouncil.com