[Music] Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north-central Minnesota.

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Hello again, everyone, and welcome to Lakeland Currents.

I'm Ray Gildow and I'm very fortunate to have with me today the brain trust from the City of Brainerd.

I don't know if I should say that or not.

But Jennifer Bergman is the City Administrator and David Badeaux is the city mayor, so welcome to both of you.

We've not been on the show together before, but it's very good of you to be here.

Who would like to start, because I know you want to talk a little bit about the philosophy.

Sure.

Of what you're doing in Brainerd.

Yeah, well let's, Jennifer, I'm gonna let you just start off.

Just a little bit, just introduce us.

Jennifer Bergman, by the way.

She won't correct you.

I will.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And I've known her long enough to know better.

So, Jennifer, how do you feel about where we're going?

Well, I just think there are so many exciting things happening right now in the city of Brainerd, you know?

And we're really excited to talk about a lot of those things that are happening in the city of Brainerd, today.

We look anywhere from our parks, to our street reconstruction, to our small businesses, to opportunities we have in the future.

I think we're incredibly--we're in a really good place here, at the city of Brainerd.

And one of the things that I'm really excited is, the mayor is going to talk a little bit about our philosophy and, kind of, his thoughts on the city of Brainerd.

And so, how about that for a segue Mr. Mayor?

We always start off with Jennifer because she does a great job of setting things up.

Yes, she does.

You know, we're really lucky at the city of Brainerd that we are a classical city within Minnesota.

We just celebrated our 150th anniversary last year, and it's been great to see where we are.

I like to use the term generations of history, you know?

We have generations of history that we can build upon, and, as a city, we've kind of transformed in various different ways, you know?

We started off as a railroad city.

Then we had our background in the paper mills and that industry type of stuff.

And as those jobs have kind of moved on, we've leaned heavily on resorts and on recreation.

But, as a city ourselves, we're built in that classic style, you know?

We have that grid system, that small downtown area, and a lot of what we're doing is based off of that.

We're very lucky that we have a very young council--a young mayor obviously--but a very young council.

I'm the 4th oldest person on our council, currently, which is.

Really?

Yeah, which is crazy.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

We have a very young council, and with that comes, you know, you talk about like fresh ideas, but really what it is is taking a look at issues and kind of saying well, "Why do we do that?"

You know?

Is there something we could do better?

I'm a strong believer that we don't come up with answers, but we come up with alternatives or things we could do.

And so, for us, what it's really about is focusing on the individual: the individual business owner, the individual family.

The idea of moving away from just being an area that people pass through or maybe come up, you know, on the weekends, to focusing on what is it like to have an extended stay here in Brainerd.

What is it like to get up out of your car walk around and experience what we have to offer?

And so everything has kind of fallen off of that philosophy.

We talk about, you know, our parks or our road systems, all that stuff.

Everything is kind of built off this idea of right sizing to the individual so that they feel comfortable and that they want to actually experience the things that we have to offer.

So, you know, the mayor talking about our location, where we are, also being incredibly walkable and bikeable.

Our Walkable Bikeable Committee really spent a lot of time developing a plan and, in fact, when we're doing our street reconstruction, that's the first thing we look at is: How are we going to get people who are walking or biking around our city?

Well, it's interesting.

You know?

I'm a person that my brain is just active all the time and so it's always asking the question: Why?

Why, why, why, why, why?

How did we get to where we are?

And, as a country, it's very interesting that we ended up with this auto-centric idea of existing that a lot of people say, you know, "That's the American way."

You know?

The "American Dream" and the, you know, hit the road, you know, Route 66 and all that stuff.

It was really marketed to us.

And so the way that our cities were expanded and built was of the idea of, we need you to buy another car.

We need not just the husband to have a car, but we need the wife to have a car, as well.

And so we started to build our cities around that stuff.

What we found, and we're very lucky that here in our area we have a gentleman who runs a non-profit called Strong Towns, there's this cost to that that is built into the infrastructure that needs to be expanded.

And, for us, we're lucky that we were built before that type of stuff started to happen.

And so we're starting to kind of fall back onto how that stuff works, and it really comes down to the itty-bitty things, that you wouldn't think of, that we can make a small change that then makes it more pleasant for you, the individual.

One of those was simply street lighting, you know?

We had a lot of people that said, you know, "How can you possibly lower the street lights?

What will we do?

How will we move around our massive trucks?"

And, in reality, it's had almost no effect on anything.

But what it does is, when you get out of your vehicle, the first thing that should happen is that you feel like you're in a space that you should be.

Safe.

Exactly, safe.

And what happens is, you raise those lights up.

They're 30 feet in the air and you immediately realize those lights aren't for you.

They're meant to illuminate the area so that traffic can flow through.

It's those simple changes that we can make: widening the sidewalk just a little bit.

You know, reorienting a business so that, instead of having the parking lot next to the street, the business is next to the street so that you, the individual, feel like that's a space you should be.

And we've really taken that and run with it in just about every aspect of our our city.

Well, we take a look at safe routes to schools.

You know, one of the things that we're really trying to do is develop sidewalks and safe places for our kids to be able to cross the street.

We just did a project over at Garfield Elementary.

Next year, we're going to be working on, you know, some sidewalks on Oak Street, so our kids can get safely to Harrison School.

Yeah, it's crazy.

You wouldn't think about it, but one of the most dangerous activities that your child will do in their day-to-day lives is being transported to and from school, with you.

Not walking, not on a bus, but with you in your own car.

It's one of the most dangerous things they will do and we know that.

We have those statistics.

But we don't focus on that.

We don't focus on, how do we make that activity safer?

Or how do we have less of that happening?

And so, from a city, that was one of our biggest focuses, just trying to improve the individual day-to-day lives.

Well, I grew up in Brainerd and I worked at the paper mill, when I was going to college, and I was completely surprised when the paper mill closed.

And I thought, you know, that could just about be the end of Brainerd.

And I don't even think, except for the people who lost their jobs, which is a big deal, I don't think the rest of the area even felt it.

I had on a rural sociologist this morning, who studies communities, and we're talking about all of the "help wanted" signs that are sticking all around everywhere.

He said that's going to come to an end because that labor market is going to grow, and it's just amazing.

You look at the diversity in the area now, it's unbelievable.

You know, one time, like you said, in the shops and the paper mill, there are 700-800 people employed in both of those places.

It's a lot of jobs to lose.

But Brainerd has just moved on.

Well, I think the big thing is that people are resilient, you know?

I had multiple family members that worked for the paper mill and, when it closed, the first thing they did was, you know, go back to school or find ways of transporting to this new career.

And that's a struggle.

We don't want to see any of that type of stuff happening.

We don't want to see any type of business closing and having those types of jobs removed.

But what it shows is that there's a resilience to people in this area and a desire to be here, you know?

You could have easily uprooted yourselves and went and found a new location to do similar things that you were doing, but a lot of people in this area--there's something that holds them here.

It has a lot to do with family, typically, but a lot of it is just, it's a very pleasant place to live.

We're talking this morning too was the-- we are sort of landlocked in Brainerd.

I mean there's growth around the area, but the city of Brainerd hasn't changed in its population a lot, has it?

About 80 years.

Yeah.

It's been staying the same.

But the impact in the area is is much more significant than just that 13,000 people that you think of in the Brainerd downtown area, and we're seeing a lot of new businesses starting to develop.

And I know restaurants took a real beating in the in the virus, but I was interested to see some of the new restaurants in the area--how they've been voted as some of the best.

So some of the newer things that are happening are really first class.

Well, I think what happens with that is you get people that are invested, themselves.

You know, you're getting these shop owners or restauranteurs that--I like to say that, in Brainerd, it's not really just the business.

It's the person that's with it, as well.

We have a lot of personalities downtown, you know?

We've got Chris with Minnesota Makerspace.

We've got Marie with the bakery and Theresa with the Bookshop, you know?

There's names attached to these people.

It's not just, "Oh, there's the bookshop.

There's the this."

There's people that are there.

And then they're also invested in the actual operations of the group, as a whole, as well, you know, standing up and getting involved with the economic development parts of the city, being on the Planning Commission, you know?

These people are not just invested in their own business.

They're invested in trying to figure out how we can work together, and that's really shown that there's this uptick in this desire for people to be there.

One of our Planning and Zoning Commissioners has said to me that, "Food drives your city.

And people's desire to be in your city is driven by your food."

And it's interesting that you mentioned that because, as you start to see that uptick in in the quality and diversity that is available, more and more people want to be involved with that and want to be down there.

And I think that, you know, when we look at a community like Brainerd that, yes, it is, you know, almost fully developed.

But what we really have is something unique.

As the mayor mentioned, we're 150 years old.

We have some great historic properties in the city of Brainerd, and we have redevelopment that's occurring.

If you look at what's happening over at the NP Center, or you look at what's happening in downtown Brainerd.

For people who might not know, what is the NP Center?

The NP Center is the Northern Pacific Center.

Oh, okay.

It's the old railroad yard.

Yeah.

Over off of 13th and Washington Street.

The old shops.

Yup, the old shops.

And we've got a restaurant over there, a really cool coffee shop, a smoke house.

Candy, which is one of my favorites.

Candy, oh yeah, their popcorn is to die for.

So, you know, you look at, you know, go what the mayor said too.

You have people in the city of Brainerd who have grown up here, lived here, and reinvested in this community.

They want to see that succeed.

We have organizations, like Brainerd Restoration, that really was created to help revitalize downtown.

We've had our local business owners now kind of embrace that and create this Destination Downtown Business Coalition because, not only do they care about getting customers, which of course that's their livelihood, but they care about this community.

And when people really put their hearts into it, that's what you see.

If you think about, you know, back when the bypass came through and people were really worried about, you know, people not coming downtown anymore.

Well I think what's happened is now, south 6th, instead of having tens of thousands of cars, you know, on Thursdays and Sundays, now you have a destination.

Now you have people who drive down there, come down there, and, possibly, it's easier to access.

Yeah and it's interesting because a lot of people don't realize that, if you're familiar with the area, the two main roads kind of going your east/west.

Washington Avenue.

Yep, you've got your Washington Avenue or your 210, Highway 210, and then your 371.

And a lot of people would look at 371 and say, "Oh, that's where I've got to be.

That's where the traffic is."

But when you look at actual traffic counts, Washington Street, 210, has more traffic counts on a daily basis than 371 does.

So, it's a bustling area that has a lot of people coming to and from, but it has this ability to kind of lean on what it's been and build from that.

That's one of the things that we're, I would say, struggling with right now.

But also we have--and a great opportunity is that, right now, MNDOT is looking at redesigning 210.

We are in the process of working with them to come up with the solution that will work for everyone.

But the focus from us, and I will say maybe a little, you know, I wouldn't say pig headed, but a we have a little bit put our foot on the ground, a tiny bit, in that we want it to fit into our philosophy.

We want that road to, not just be a way for people to pass through, we want it to be functionable for the neighborhoods that are on the north side to get to the south side of town.

If you have people that are in that downtown area, it shouldn't be a barrier that you can't pass.

It should simply be something that is functionable for everyone involved, and that's really where these ideas are coming to a head: Is this something that can work with that much traffic going through it?

And I think what we found is through a very long process.

Oh yes, months.

Months?

I would say years, a couple years now of meeting.

And I think we've come to a solution that we think will work.

And it'll be interesting to see how that continues because it involves the things we talk about: the wider sidewalks, the the positioning of the buildings, the lighting, you know?

Just one of the simple things we've worked on is a lighting philosophy, which is really weird, right?

Not just how high the lights.

No, it's pretty controversial in some cities.

It was very controversial, even here.

We had a lot of people come forward and say, you know, "There's no way that will work."

And there is an additional cost to it.

That's the other thing is, as government officials, I believe firmly that our job is not to be there looking down and casting rules upon people.

It's simply to be the voice of the people and figure out parameters.

We don't set rules so much as we create parameters from which people can work.

So, you know, yes, when we do a lighting policy, that has to affect people because those are actual things that someone then has to pay for additional lights if they have to be closer together, that sort of thing.

But what we're trying to do is find that happy medium, somewhere in the middle, so that the biggest idea is the values of that property should increase because it's somewhere that people want to be.

And you'll hear me say that all the time.

We want to create spaces that people want to be.

And one of the things that, you know, the mayor kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, about our younger council.

And I think it's more than that too.

We don't have a passive council.

We have a very active council.

And the mayor mentioned Washington Street and 210.

Our council members live here.

This is their community, and they're really looking at Washington Street, not only as an opportunity, which MNDOT--their job is to look at 210, to get cars through our city, but we look at it as an opportunity to have people see our community, have an opportunity for people to get from the north side to the south side of our community.

Looking at things like bump outs, and how do we slow down traffic for safety for the people who are trying to get across the street?

And how do we connect something like downtown Brainerd to Gregory Park or, you know, downtown Brainerd to all of our other businesses on Washington Street that are incredibly important?

Our biggest concern in that entire process has been safety, you know?

The first thing we want to happen when you get into the city limits of Brainerd is there should be an immediate signal to you that you are no longer in the rural area.

Because we're surrounded by rural area, you know?

That's a part of how we are.

A great example of that is Oak Street.

You come off of Highway 18.

You hit Oak Street and, where you were going 65, very quickly becomes a 35.

And what we need to do as a city is better signal that that is happening, and the way we do that is by creating roadways that signal to you that you should slow down.

Our brains are set in a way that, the wider the road, the faster we will go, you know?

The more space there is, the more visual, we feel comfortable, the more likely we are to increase our speeds.

And so what we want to do is signal to you that it's time to slow down a little bit.

And there's other things we can do as well that just lead you to realize, once you hit the city of Brainerd is, "Ah, I'm in Brainerd," you know?

"Ah, I'm in a space that is just slightly different than maybe the ways that other people are doing them."

I think the other thing too, that I hear from the council quite a bit, is, you know, we want things for our residents, for those people that are here, today.

Paying taxes.

They are taxpayers.

They are here.

You know, a couple of things that we've heard, right, is we have turned our back on the Mississippi River for years and years and years.

And so we have a very active Park Board, who is spending a lot of time looking at all of our parks, doing some master planning.

But we have a new park, coming online, that I think kind of addresses the needs of our residents and the requests of our residents.

Yeah, you know, it's fantastic that you mentioned that.

The park that is being created along the Mississippi, right next to the high school complex, by the sporting complex, is just a great example of citizens standing up and asking for something.

We had a group that got together, spent years coming up with a solution for what they thought it would look like.

At one point, it was completely different than what they've landed on.

But, through that process of figuring out what will work, what we've ended up with is taking a flat surface parking lot, removing it, and creating a beautiful park that realigns the parking to the road, which is something we believe strongly in, and doesn't remove very much parking.

It's a great example of what you can do when you set your mind to it.

Now, obviously, there's costs involved with it, and we're lucky that the state of Minnesota was able to throw some money to us in order to get that project done, but it's going to be beautiful.

We're talking about an amphitheater.

We're talking about kayak launches, classrooms down there.

Cool.

So that the school district can connect with the river.

And then still leaning on to that philosophy again.

You know?

Flat surface parking costs a lot of money, and people don't realize that.

We have to redo the roads at some point.

So when you move the parking to the road and redesign it a little ways, yeah, a little bit of extra asphalt on that road will add a little bit of additional cost, but versus a completely separate thing, it's night and day difference and it should lead to cost savings, in the future, that then also allows people to feel like it's a space they're supposed to be.

I learned something this morning, and Jennifer you're a housing expert, I know you have a lot of background in that area, there was a trend going on in Minnesota and rural areas across the country, before.

People would get to be a certain age.

They would sell their house and they'd go to assisted living, or some other sort of, you know, endeavor.

Now, the trend, the university is showing the trend, is these people are staying in their homes as long as they possibly can.

And what that does is it creates a housing shortage in a lot of our rural areas, because people haven't moved out of those homes.

Sure.

And so we're short.

How how is the housing situation in Brainerd?

Is that kind of what's happening there?

So, I think it's a great question, a great discussion, and we could probably spend a whole hour of program talking about housing.

I'm sure we could.

But one thing I am going to talk about, a little bit, when you look at the city of Brainerd, and I think another great thing about the city of Brainerd is the housing choices that we do have here, you know?

You can be a first-time homebuyer, in the city of Brainerd, and buy a house.

You know, if you look at other communities, these houses are not even affordable for our younger, you know, population, maybe just graduated from, you know, college or a tech school.

You know, their first job, they can't afford to buy houses.

In Brainerd, you can afford to buy houses.

We also have some Move Up housing as well.

We have a developer that we're working with that, potentially, is going to be developing some of that senior housing that you're talking about.

I think what's really important for a community is a wide variety of choices.

Right.

For people.

We have rental property, single family rental homes.

So anecdotally, yes, I think people are staying in their houses longer.

But I still think that we have housing choices here in the city of Brainerd.

That's maybe different than other communities.

Sure, and to kind of fill in with that there's-- right now we're looking at infill, you know?

We've expanded, not as far as we can, but we've expanded as far as we, kind of, want to, right this minute.

And the idea being that we're looking for infill and building up rather than building out.

But a great indication of where we are is, you know, the median age of a citizen of Brainerd is about 36 years old.

That's amazing.

It is.

It is amazing.

It is amazing.

But that shows who's living in Brainerd, and it's a lot of young families.

We're very lucky.

That also leads to the schools that we have as well and the fact that, you know, and I want to tip my cap, ISD 181 just redid their entire plan, big referendum.

But one of the things they listened to was, we want our neighborhood schools completely unique in the United States in that those things are going away.

People are picking up those schools and putting them out in corn fields.

And we fought hard to keep those because people want to have that, again, connectivity and walkability within their school--having it next to where they are.

But what we're seeing a lack of in Brainerd is, potentially, more of that apartment style living, as well.

Those are the pieces that we're trying to fill in with, and we're lucky that we have the properties in our downtown area that we will most likely start to see that type of development.

That's really true.

Not everybody can afford to buy a house.

And a lot of young families are just getting started, so apartments are the alternatives for those folks.

We don't have a whole lot of time left.

I wanted to touch a couple things.

You've got safe routes to school, walkability plans, what about South 6th Street?

You guys have that down here as a topic.

Yeah, so 6th Street is an interesting one because 6th Street is one of the most difficult roads for us because it does not fit our philosophy, you know?

It just got redone, and it leads to these wide expanses, you know?

You get down to the very south side of town and it opens up and, all of a sudden, you've got a frontage road on both sides.

And if you start, you know, listening to the way that I think, okay, well now you have 3 roads, whereas you normally would have one.

It also increases the distance between places--makes it difficult to move back and forth.

But what it does is it opens up some opportunity for some different stuff, as well.

For Brainerd, we've got a very specific style of building, in a very specific style of operation.

That lower half of of the south of town is ripe with opportunity.

We have an opportunity down there to basically go in any direction, and there's land available there to do that.

So when we're talking about housing, or we're talking about any type of new construction type of stuff, there's a ton of opportunity for us down there.

And luckily, you know, that road is a vast improvement from what it's been.

Simply putting in some bump out walkways with crosswalks--I've lived in Brainerd most of my life, the majority of my life, other than college.

I can't remember the last time I saw a family crossing south 6th Street down by Bane Park, which is on the south side.

Multiple times since that road got finished this last fall, I was stopping in my vehicle to see a family with strollers and wagons moving across that road.

And that shows that what we're doing is working.

You're making progress.

Yeah.

that's exactly right.

Yeah.

It takes time, and we will get there.

You have a website.

We do.

And what is it?

It is www.ci.brainerd.mn.

What's "ci" stand for?

City.

ci.brainerd.mn.us.

Yep.

I don't think I could have answered if people want to get in touch with you, Jennifer, that's the way to go and find out?

Absolutely.

Email or telephone number?

Always call City Hall, you know, anybody at City Hall can answer your questions.

How about you, Dave?

How do people get a hold of you, if interested?

You know, I'm not going to give my number out.

Sure.

But my number is readily available for anyone that is interested.

I am a firm believer that we are representatives of the people, and we try our best to, you know, hear the voices and make sure that you know when an issue arises, and someone needs our assistance, that's what our staff is for.

So I'll gladly answer those phone calls and direct to where they need to be because that's how we operate as a city, you know?

We have about 14,000 residents in Brainerd.

We're very lucky that we're not gigantic, you know?

We're a very appropriately sized city, but it still allows us to have that small town feel where you can pick up the phone and call the mayor.

I don't recommend that everyone pick up the phone and call the mayor.

I don't recommend that.

Call Jennifer.

I'll just transfer you to her.

Yeah.

Well, it's interesting, the two largest industries in our area are education and health care.

Absolutely.

And we have a very good hospital system here.

Yes, we do.

And we have a phenomenal educational system here, so there's two things going very well.

We're very, very lucky.

For sure.

Move to Brainerd.

Move to Brainerd.

Move to Brainerd.

Jennifer Bergman, the City Administrator.

Dave Badeaux is the mayor.

Thank you.

And thank you for being on our show, and we'll have people calling you.

Great, thanks for having us.

You bet.

Thank you.

Thanks.

You've been watching Lakeland Currents where we're talking about what you're talking about.

I'm Ray Gildow.

So long, until next time.

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