St. Cloud Council Member Karen Larson Runs Unopposed For Second Term
ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The current St. Cloud city council member representing Ward 2 is running unopposed in this year's election.
Karen Larson was first elected in 2022 and is seeking a second term. She's a retired professor. She says her priorities remain the same: infrastructure, neighborhoods, public safety, and economic development.
She says one of her first-term priorities was the culture of the city council.
The council is a place where we need to be setting the example of how people relate to one another. Of how things are done. If we don't want to tolerate negative behavior in the community, then we can't be name-calling from the dais either.
Larson says she also spearheaded a child safety ordinance and was instrumental in getting the Avivo Homeless Shelter open in St. Cloud.
She held a number of constituent meetings in her first term and wants to continue to hold public forums in her next term.
Those are really helpful for getting people to talk to one another, come together on issues, and be informed. We have a lot of misinformation we have to deal with. The last one I did, I think we had 60 people.
She says the city is doing a lot of things right, but we tend to have low self-esteem.
This is a little gem of a city. It's a good place to live. Clean air, clean water, good city government, lean city government. People have a tendency to run it down. Whatever the problems are, address the problems, but keep a positive attitude. Celebrate what's right.
Larson says she wants to continue to be a cheerleader for when the city gets things right. She says downtown development is making incremental progress, but it takes time, pointing out several new businesses that have opened along East St. Germain Street in the past four years.
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