Brooklyn Park is also one of the most diverse cities in Minnesota.
BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — Last November, Brooklyn Park elected its first African-American mayor, and with a month of experience, Mayor Hollies Winston says he’s eager to start following through on his vision for Minnesota’s sixth-largest city.
“It’s a privilege,” Winston said. “It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of meetings, but it’s really an opportunity to affect positive change.”
Winston, who hasn’t had any political experience before running for mayor, says he feels his experience as a business owner has helped him.
“I’ve had experiences where I’ve been in a leadership role, it wasn’t really daunting, and my leadership style isn’t, it’s not the type where it’s overly aggressive, and I like getting other people’s opinions.” . he said.
Winston said people were very clear with him while he was on the campaign trail about what they wanted him to address as mayor.
“Violent crime was at the top of the list. Housing was another,” he said. “We have Huntington Place, which is the second largest housing complex in our state. It’s home to 2,300 to 3,000 people. They’re dealing with, moreover, pest issues, livability issues.”
Bringing more and more localized development, but problems with a greater impact also arose, such as what comes out of the residents’ taps.
“How are we going to develop things, how are we going to get restaurants and stores and the development that people want?” Winston said. “And then, amazingly, and we’re working on this for the folks in Brooklyn Park: hard water. So we have some of the hardest water, most minerals in Minnesota. Like it destroys dishes, it destroys water softeners. water, the pipes; he is very hard on the infrastructure”.
He said that prioritizing problems is a group effort, between him, the council and the staff.
“All of us came together to say, what are we hearing from the community, what are the staff hearing?” he said. “They hear things from a different angle than we do, in part because there are some basic blocks and approaches that we can all agree on. Crime is one of them: people need to feel safe where they live, you can’t the kind of development you want unless you’re tackling the crime.
Winston said that while he has made history as Brooklyn Park’s first black mayor, he obviously didn’t set out for that sole purpose. He said that the title of “being the first” has already been done by many.
“Mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton, you did it in Minneapolis, and you have the mayor [Melvin] Carter in St. Paul, so it’s been done right?” he said. “Still, there’s a great expectation of bringing voices to the table that haven’t always been brought to the table, along with that, I’ve told people that now that you are in office through me, there is a responsibility to govern”.
He said he is excited to take advantage of what the diverse population brings to the community.
“For me, the diversity in the Brooklyn park has been a source of pride,” he said. “I don’t think it’s always been treated as a point of pride. We’re kind of like this: to me, a shining jewel in the Northwest suburbs, because we’ve got this specific size and we’ve also got this diversity and now we just have to help people Let’s see what we have here.”
See all the latest Breaking The News stories on our YouTube Playlist:
