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Lennis "Red" Arndt, city of Luverne North Ward

Lead Summary

The Star Herald asked candidates facing a primary election on Aug. 9 five questions to inform readers about themselves.
The five questions are:
 
1.) Community involvement
2.) Employment, education and family
3.) What made you decide to seek election to the Luverne City Council?
4.) How do you view the role of a councilor in your community?
5.) What makes you the best candidate for the job?
 
 
 
Lennis “Red” Arndt lives in Luverne and is seeking the open seat for the North Ward Alderman, City of Luverne
1.) Member of  Grace Lutheran Church; represented Luverne on the Board of Directors of the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System. 
2.) I have three sons: Joshua and his wife, Tamara, and their daughters Rebecca and Leah live in Luverne; Justin and his wife, Katie, and their daughter Cassidy live in Byron; and Jacob lives in Faribault.
I have worked with municipal utilities in Springfield, Fairfax and Luverne starting in the year 1968. I retired approximately 10 years ago from my position as utility coordinator in Luverne. After that I worked for T&R Electric in Colman, South Dakota, as an electric transformer salesman and technician.  I retired from this position a year ago.
3.) I have always wanted to run for a position on a city council.  Due to a conflict of interest with my jobs, I was unable to run. After Councilwoman Esther Frakes decided not to run, it left a vacancy on the city council.  I felt it was time for me to run. Since retiring I now have the time to do the job justice. I have won one other elected position as a school board member in Springfield.
4.) My role as councilman would be to continue to help to do the excellent job the present council is doing. The council needs to continue to seek businesses to locate in Luverne. We need to continue to keep our infrastructure (water, wastewater, electric and streets) up to date so we can service our residents and businesses, both old and new. The city council is there to serve the people who elect them and try to do this while maintaining reasonable rates and taxes.
5.) I think all three of us running for the position would do a very good job and Luverne is very lucky to have people who want to take the time to run and serve. I believe my work experience with municipal governments for the past 48 years gives me a lot of knowledge on the workings of what needs to be done to keep cities running. I have been on a zoning and planning board, a school board, president of the state Municipal Electric Board, Luverne’s  representative on the Lewis & Clark Regional Water Board from its inception 26 years ago. I have lobbied both state and federal officials. I have served as a fire chief and on many other committees for the cities that I have lived in.
I know that we have to keep everything up to date for now and for the future of Luverne. We also need to keep well-trained employees or Luverne will not grow.

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