Re-elect servant leader Mayor Brown

This letter is paid content. My name is Karl Bollingberg and I have been a Grand Forks resident for 35 years. I have been active in the community for over 25 years serving on the boards of the Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development, Airport Authority and numerous other civic and church organizations. I want to take just a couple of minutes to share with you why I have such great respect and appreciation for Mayor Brown. The thing that comes to mind immediately is his leadership style and approach. I believe he can be best described as a servant leader. When I think back over his 20 years of service and the numerous initiatives that he has accomplished, the Mayor would always put people first and work collaboratively to accomplish the goals.

Because of Mike’s leadership, collaboration between the City, County, school district, Chamber, EDC, UND and the State have never been better. As an example, Michele Kormer, Commissioner of the ND Department of Commerce, just recently said that she wished the other communities could work as well together as Grand Forks does. Mike’s leadership is responsible for making this happen.

Mayor Brown has been busy leading people, and he was also able to reduce our taxes by 40 mills. That is 40 mills over 20 years. That is real savings but at the same time striking the right balance between maintaining the services we all know and love but pushing for more efficient spending. It is easy to say I am going to lower taxes, it is another thing to actually pull it off in a fair and balanced way. Karl Bollingberg

Grand Forks, N.D.