By Cristof Traudes

In some ways, Kris Broberg’s run for City Council comes down to this simple a hope: to be able to continue affording life in Minneapolis.

Broberg first considered entering his name after hearing incumbent Council Member Betsy Hodges talk about the strong chance that property taxes will go up in the coming years. He heard Hodges emphasize the impact of pension payouts, which are expected to increase the city’s financial obligations by the tens of millions over the coming years.

“That was a big inspiration — holy cow,” Broberg says.

After watching property taxes increase by more than 70 percent over the past seven years, he sees the future as an impending storm for many homeowners. Someone needed to step in, he says, with the idea that more increases are unacceptable.

The alternative — “people can’t afford that,” he says.

Broberg’s view is that the first step to avoiding large tax hikes would be for the city to go back to focusing almost exclusively on basic services, such as providing fire and police protection. Maybe the city should consider filing for bankruptcy, at least before bankrupting its citizens, he says.

He also believes the city’s current climate with citizens is an us-and-them relationship. There’s some mistrust, and Broberg says one good way to make sure the city remains a transparent body is for it to be independently audited. He wonders why such an audit hasn’t been performed recently, and he wonders why the body that would perform such audits, the Board of Estimate and Taxation, is being proposed for elimination.

ABOUT KRIS BROBERG

Age: 38

Occupation: property management

Family: married

Neighborhood: Linden Hills

Governmental/personal experience: concerned citizen; once ran for City Council seat in Robbinsdale, Minn.

Endorsements: Independence Party, Minneapolis Republicans

Website: www.krisbroberg.org

Phone: 423-8848

E-mail: kris@krisbroberg.org

By jake weyer

By jake weyer

By Jake Weyer and Dylan Thomas