Cottage Grove City Council candidates guide: Angela Chambliss

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Angela Chambliss

Age: 29

Occupation: Senior manager of marketing, communication and measurement of the Women’s Leadership Forum at Best Buy

Lived in Cottage Grove: 2 years

Civic experience: Vice-chair of Public Safety Commission; endorsed by Cottage Grove Police Officers Association

Why are you the best choice for Cottage Grove City Council?

I will apply my college education, corporate retail business experiences and city and local volunteer involvement in my role in the city council while continuing to gain perspectives from the community by reaching out directly and working with city staff on what they are seeing to assure a strong pulse of the community. I will stay connected with the community and represent it to my best ability for a healthy, thriving Cottage Grove.

How should the city jump-start business growth and expand its tax base?

First, we need to bring in businesses that will help increase jobs and thus a lunch crowd. Once we have the criteria of the lunch time “footprints” restaurants/retail require to build in a community from the addition of jobs in the community, we can start marketing to restaurants/retail based on what our community wants to see in Cottage Grove. This will create sensible growth in our business sector to increase our tax base and assure a lower property tax burden on our citizens while providing more in town jobs for working professionals.

I would love to see a compelling retail area with a variety of offerings that draws shoppers to the area, as opposed to residents shopping in other communities to find their preferred goods or services.

Is now the right time to move forward with building a new city hall and public safety complex?

While tightening the pocket book is the right thing to do in this economy, and responsible fiscal spending is a top priority, so is making smart investments in our city’s future at a time where we can get the best interest, bond and construction rates.

The Public Safety Facility is the majority of the cost of the new facility. We have had — and still have a need for — a new public safety facility, and I support the need for a new facility for a variety of reasons, including the current conditions and standards. To combine the city hall into the new facility will create cost efficiencies and synergies for reasons including operating costs savings (i.e., operation of one building vs. two) and our opportunity to build on free land which expires in 2013. We will have to build eventually, and to capitalize on the opportunity to buy back old debt at a lower rate to build a facility we need now and in the future, has my support.

Was the city's decision to drop its opposition to 3M's incinerator plan the right call?

The city is still currently working on a longer term resolution and I hope to be involved in the future discussions and decisions so I can help advocate for a fair resolution for our city.

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