New Roseville mayor hopes to build on past success

In January, the Roseville City Council will seat a new mayor and two new council members, mostly familiar faces.

Mayor-elect Dan Roe was a council member. Bob Willmus , who was appointed to the council in 2008 to serve a partial term, and Tammy McGehee, who has been involved in other city issues, were elected to take Roe's and outgoing Council Member Amy Ihlan' s seats.

Following is an edited transcript of a conversation with Roe.

Q: What made you decide to run for mayor?

A : It was something I wanted to do in the first place, back when I ran originally in 2003 with my long-shot bid at that time. The role of the mayor, in terms of focusing discussion and keeping things moving forward, is important, and it's something I've always wanted to be involved in as far as a role in city government.

Q: Any issues the council hasn't tackled that you would like to introduce?

A: Our water mains, sewer pipes and park facilities are all many years old, decades old, and are in need of replacement. As a city, we have not been setting aside money over time to be prepared to do some of those replacements. We really need to come up with a plan to address those things, because the needs aren't going to go away.

A: Looking at this infrastructure funding and putting forward a real plan that the community is on board with. The other thing, sort of related to that, is our parks master plan.

Q: You've commented on the high level of public involvement in the recent asphalt plant debate. What are your plans to continue that conversation?

A: I've encouraged the folks that were organized [to successfully defeat] the asphalt plant project to look at other things that they can focus on, keep together, keep themselves organized and look at other issues in that part of the community, or the community as a whole, that they can weigh in on.

Q: What do you think will make you a good mayor?

A: People will say that I'm a good mayor if we make progress and have success in developing and implementing these important long-range plans. A key part of that will be the engagement of the community.

A: I don't think that we'll see a lot of difference, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I think we've had good leadership in our community over the years. Even when we've had contentious City Council meetings, we've still moved the city forward. We've still done things like building our addition on City Hall and funding it with low-cost bonding.

We've always been able to pay off our debt early as a community; that goes back years. All of those things will continue, I think, under my leadership, and I would hope we could just build on the success we've had.