Bill Hargis, who as mayor of Woodbury presided over the east metro city's era of rapid growth and development in the 1990s and early 2000s, has been diagnosed with advanced brain cancer.

"I started feeling bad in early December, but it got progressively worse," he said Thursday.

A neurosurgeon will determine as soon as Friday whether the tumor can be removed, said Hargis, 68. His stage 4 metastatic brain cancer is unrelated to a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2008, he said.

Hargis was Woodbury's mayor from 1993 to 2010, when the city's population tripled from about 20,000 residents to about 60,000. Once a patchwork of farms east of Interstate 494, Woodbury during that period evolved into a Washington County economic powerhouse, commanding one of the largest municipal tax bases in Minnesota. The city now has 70,000 residents, making it the most populous city in the county.

"I got people talking together and working together and they had a good plan here," Hargis said Thursday.

When Hargis retired as mayor, he was succeeded by Mary Giuliani Stephens, whose second term expires this year. She announced recently that she is campaigning for governor on the Republican ticket.

Hargis sold commercial real estate in recent years and remained active in development issues. In 2016 he lost his wife, Joan, to whom he had been married for 46 years. The family includes two sons and eight grandchildren.

Hargis is in transitional care at St. Therese of Woodbury, awaiting further decisions about cancer treatment.

"I can still think and still need to do what I need to do, but I'm running out of gas," he said.

Kevin Giles • 651-925-5037