St. Cloud voters elect Jake Anderson as mayor, three newcomers for City Council

ST. CLOUD – In a race between two St. Cloud City Council members hoping to move into the city’s top executive role, Jake Anderson earned about 51.6% of the vote to edge out Mike Conway, according to unofficial results from the Minnesota Secretary of State. The margin came down to about 1,100 votes.

Anderson and Conway beat out four other candidates in the August primary to take a run at the seat that’s been held by Mayor Dave Kleis for two decades. In April, Kleis announced he wouldn’t seek re-election after serving five terms.

Anderson, 45, is an IT manager for Stearns County. He’s currently in his first term on St. Cloud City Council, after serving on the city’s Planning Commission for several years. While heading home from a watch party with friends at Pantown Brewing, Anderson said he was certain the mayoral race would be close — but he wasn’t certain which way it’d swing.

“I’ll say this: A lot of people had a lot more confidence than I did — a lot more optimism — and that may be because of my Scandinavian roots,” he said with a laugh. “But as I went through and looked at the precinct-level results, my strategy paid off of knocking doors in certain areas.”

Anderson said many voters told him they were excited about voting for a younger candidate. Conway, 58, is a consultant at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services. He’s in his second term on the City Council.

Going into the election both candidates had the confidence of the current mayor and both campaigned on similar goals: to remain focused on providing essential services such as public safety and infrastructure, to prioritize downtown redevelopment and to continue Kleis’ tradition of being readily available to meet with residents.

Their similarities drove some voters to decide with their gut rather than specific policies. St. Cloud resident Stephen Murdock, 34, voted for Anderson because he met him at a barbecue recently and thought he seemed nice. Hans Stokstad, 49, said he’s known Anderson for a decade and thinks he’d be a good leader.

“He’s no-nonsense,” Stokstad said. “You always know what he’s thinking. He’s straightforward.”

Mike McLaughlin, 49, said he voted for Conway because he knows him from the business community. He’s also chatted about values with Conway, who is known as a conservative voice on the City Council. “We align politically,” he said.

While at a watch party at the Blue Goose Speakeasy in downtown St. Cloud on Tuesday, Conway said he was disappointed with the outcome, but happy with the campaign he ran.

“Breaking my leg in August was not a good idea. That hindered the door-knocking,” he said. “But I still have two years on the council. I’m excited about the opportunity to move St. Cloud forward.”

St. Cloud voters also elected three candidates for at-large seats on St. Cloud City Council. Voters could vote for three candidates. According to the unofficial results, the top vote-getters were Tami Calhoun (21%), Mark Johnson (20%) and Scott Brodeen (19%).

Calhoun, 66, is a former teacher and owner of Physicians Revenue Services MN. Johnson, 65, is pastor at Jubilee Worship Center in St. Cloud. And Brodeen, 44, is an operations manager for CL Wealth Management in Big Lake.

Conway said he is looking forward to working with Johnson and Brodeen.

“Essentially I’ll have two more conservative voices on the council so I think that will bring balance,” Conway said.

The remaining candidates were George Hontos, (17%), Hudda Ibrahim (13%) and Omar Abdullahi Podi (9%) — the latter two of whom had hoped to become the first Somali Americans on the council.

Hontos was the only incumbent running for re-election. Jeff Goerger, who has served on the council for nearly two decades and is its current president, announced in the spring he would not run again. And Council Member Carol Lewis, whose term is up this year, unsuccessfully ran for mayor, leaving the three at-large seats up for grabs.

Kleis said Tuesday he will do everything he can over the next two months to make sure the transition for Anderson is as smooth as possible.

“He’s got the best team. Everybody that’s in a leadership position I know very well: I either hired or promoted them,” Kleis said. “So he’s coming in with a really solid team and I will do everything I can for him to be successful.”

Anderson said he plans to begin meeting with staff to learn more about the day-to-day operations of the city.

“I think the plan is to ... figure out from staff: Where do we want to go? What are we good at? What are we not good at?” Anderson said. “And then apply my vision of saying we need a much more customer-centric model. I want people to be excited to work with the city of St. Cloud, whether it’s developers or residents.”

Residents in the St. Cloud school district also voted to elect four candidates to serve on the St. Cloud School Board.

The top vote-getters were Bruce Hentges (19%), incumbent Shannon Haws (17.5%), Diana Fenton (16.2%) and incumbent Scott Andreasen (15.9%).

Hentges, 74, is the retired executive director of the nonprofit St. Cloud Local Education and Activities Foundation and former district employee. Haws, 59, is general manager of Comfort Keepers Home Health Care in Waite Park. Fenton, 52, is an associate professor of education at College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. Andreasen, 75, is a licensed private detective.

Incumbents Al Dahlgren (13%) and Monica Segura-Schwartz (12%), along with newcomer Yoanna Ayala-Zaldana (5.6%), did not make the cut.