Hugo Voters Express Support For City’s Current Trajectory
Miron and Hegberg Win Re-election
HUGO - Since the election of 2006, Hugo’s politics have become increasingly polarized between two groups of people with diff erent visions of what the city of Hugo should strive for as it moves into the future.
On Nov. 4, Hugo voters gave a vote of confidence to Mayor Fran Miron and two city council candidates who share his vision for the city: Tom Weidt and Phil Klein, both of whom have been actively involved in the city in recent years. Both candidates won election to council seats vacated by council members Mike Granger and Frank Puleo, neither of whom sought re-election.
Former mayors Mike McAllister and Wally Stoltzman, and first-time candidate Jess Roush—all associated with the We the People group, which worked for over 18 months in an unsuccessful bid to force a state audit of the city’s finances—were defeated in the Mayoral, Ward 2, and At-Large City Council races, respectively.
In the mayoral election, Miron, who will be serving his seventh term as mayor, bested McAllister by 4,469 to 2,062 votes, collecting 68 percent of the vote.
In a post-election interview, Miron cited the We the People candidates’ refusal to participate in the October candidate forum as one of the reasons he was able to coast to such a comfortable victory.
“I think a lot of people were very frustrated with them,” Miron said. “It’s one thing to be out there behind the scenes making statements and being critical, and it’s another to actually stand up.”
Miron also said that he felt his margin of victory reflected the fact that people are generally satisfied with the performance of Hugo’s city government in recent years.
“I think we’ve done a good job managing finances and planning for development, and I was hoping we’d garner that kind of support,” he said.
For his part, candidate McAllister said that “I take my hat off to the other side—they were well funded, well organized, and ready to go.”
He said that We the People will be meeting sometime in the future to discuss the group’s way forward after their election night disappointments.
“People made a choice and now we move on,” he said. In the Council-at-Large race, Weidt, who currently serves on the Hugo Planning Commission, polled 3,284 votes to Roush’s 1,174 votes, or 59 percent. Derek Larsen, who withdrew from the race a month ago, still received 1,086 votes, or 20 percent of the total.
Weidt also attributed his comfortable victory to voter satisfaction.
“I’ve had experience with the city for the past eight years. The voters have spoken and said that they like the direction the city is going and want to keep moving forward, not backwards,” he said, adding that he will prioritize bringing new businesses and jobs to Hugo during his tenure as a council member.
In the Ward 2 council race, Phil Klein, who currently serves on the city’s Economic Development Authority and the Hugo Business Association, defeated Stoltzman by a margin of 1,174 to 826 votes, or 47 percent to 33 percent.
Political newcomer Karen Cariveau-Wright, who withdrew from the Ward 2 race shortly before the election, received 514 votes, or 20 percent.
Klein acknowledged that this election presented a stark choice to Hugo voters, and said that the comfortable victories of the three candidates who have been involved in city government provides the next council with a mandate to continue moving the city forward in its current trajectory.
“I think the biggest thing is that the residents of Ward 2 like the direction that we’ve been moving as a community, and that’s reflected in the vote,” he said.
In the District 1 Washington County commissioners’ race, incumbent Dennis Hegberg defeated Eric Langness, garnering 62 percent of the vote. If Hegberg serves out his term, he will have served as county commissioner for over twenty years.
Hegberg told The Citizen that he was surprised by his comfortable margin of victory, considering that Langness won the endorsement of the Minnesota Republican Party.
“This time, I did have the support of the unions, while in the past I’ve had the support of the Republican Party,” he said. “I’m more of a middle-of-the-road-type person than extreme left or right.”