St. Cloud has new choices for mayor. Here’s how to tell them apart

ST. CLOUD – In less than one month, St. Cloud voters will determine who will be next to lead the city following two decades of Mayor Dave Kleis at the helm.

The good news? Both candidates have ample experience in city politics. They both have the confidence of the current mayor. And they both have similar goals: to remain focused on providing essential services such as public safety and infrastructure, to prioritize downtown redevelopment and continue Kleis’s tradition of being readily available to meet with residents.

The bad news? Voters have to dig a bit deeper to find out which mayoral candidate speaks to them on the issues.

The August primary winnowed a packed six-candidate mayoral field to Jake Anderson, who earned about 24% of the vote, and Mike Conway, who earned about 21%. Both currently serve on St. Cloud City Council. Conway is in his second term; Anderson in his first, after serving several years on the city’s Planning Commission.

“Their preparedness is very similar. They are very committed to the city,” Kleis said. “They do bring different employment experience, different family experience. Maybe that’s what sets them apart.”

Anderson, a 44-year-old IT manager for Stearns County, grew up in St. Cloud, graduating from Tech High School and St. Cloud State University. He’s married to wife Rachel and has a dog, Ruby. Conway, a 58-year-old consultant at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, grew up in the Twin Cities metro and graduated from SCSU with a biology and teaching degree. He is married to wife Lisa and has three children and several grandchildren.

One difference residents will notice if they drive around town is the placement of candidate yard signs: Despite the mayoral race being nonpartisan, in most instances, Anderson’s signs appear with DFL candidates and Conway’s with Republican candidates. But both say that simply reflects the views of the people who put up the signs.

“In an era of hyper-partisanship, it’s better to not be in a camp,” Anderson said. “If I have to work with someone who believes me to be a Democrat [or] Republican, they are already framing it in the context of that.”

Conway said he’s not campaigning on being conservative but knows that’s how some see him: “I’ve always been looked at as a conservative on the council. I am fiscally conservative [but] more socially libertarian.”

When Conway first ran for council in 2018, he campaigned on the platform that council members were not listening to the residents, particularly during the debate on the city’s role in immigration. In 2017, former council member Jeff Johnson proposed a moratorium on refugee resettlement to give the city time to study its cost to taxpayers; at the time, Kleis said the city doesn’t have a role in refugee resettlement, and the council instead adopted a resolution stating the city is a welcoming community.

Conway said that hasn’t been a topic during his mayoral campaign, noting the city doesn’t control the issues — such as immigration — that often divide the parties at a federal level.

“That’s not in the city charter,” he said. “We do what’s best for the city.”

First elected in 2005, Kleis is the city’s longest-serving mayor. In April, Kleis announced he wouldn’t seek re-election this fall after five terms. Though not endorsing a candidate, he said voters should look for a mayor with strong principles.

“They will often face difficult choices, particularly during crises, without the luxury of seeking consensus or votes from others,” Kleis said. “Essentially, they will operate as a council of one, making it imperative that their core values serve as a compass for their actions.”

When asked about their differences, Conway said he thinks he is more decisive than Anderson.

“I understand that you’re going to have to make hard decisions and make decisions that are going to affect the entire city — and not be swayed by just one or two points of view,” Conway said, citing two recent actions by Anderson that Conway said demonstrate this.

In one instance, Anderson voted against the resurfacing of a worn-out road on the north side of town after a resident spoke out about being assessed on the project.

“That’s one of those where we had the money in hand, we had the opportunity to fix it or at least make it a safer road to drive on ... and that road now is going to go back on the [list] and I don’t know when we’re going to get to it,” Conway said.

Anderson said he voted against the resurfacing because the project report said the road needs to be completely rebuilt, and the underlying cracks would just reappear in a few years with only a resurfacing.

“I thought: Why waste money on this?” Anderson said. “I’ve spoken with the neighbors. They agree that if you simply put a layer of tar over it, people are actually going to speed down it more and make it less safe.”

The second instance Conway brought up was Anderson’s “no” vote on the location of a proposed homeless shelter near Costco. The council was under pressure to approve a plan that night so the nonprofit could get a state grant to help fund it, Conway said.

Anderson said he supports the homeless shelter project but voted against the specific site because the city previously denied a request from a nearby bank to put a community garden on the site because officials didn’t want people gathering near the storm water pond.

“So you’re telling me you can’t put a community garden in because you don’t want people congregating near a pond and it floods, but you’re going to put a $9 million facility that’s going to have 75 people there? Anderson said. “That made zero sense to me. You can’t be so two-faced about it.”

Anderson said he thinks he is a more thoughtful decision-maker than Conway.

“I’m a big data guy: I’ll read packets, I’ll go through feasibility reports,” he said. “If you’re going to make a tough decision, it better be an educated tough decision.”