Moorhead City Council
Chuck Hendrickson, elected in 2013, is the senior member of the Moorhead City Council.
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Getting To Know the Council: This is the first in a series of Extra profiles on members of the Moorhead City Council.
Ten years ago, Chuck Hendrickson was launching his first campaign for the Moorhead City Council. Today, three successful campaigns later, he ranks as the longest-serving member of the city’s governing board.
He represents Ward 4, perhaps the fastest-growing quadrant of the city. New housing has changed the margins of the area he serves; after the 2020 census, encompasses the residential, commercial and industrial areas the south of Interstate 94 and east of Highway 75 (Eighth Street South).
“In 2013, the big issue I was talking about was the deteriorating business climate,” the councilman remembers. “We were talking about the Center Mall and the old Sunmart strip mall, empty after the hardware store closed.
“Those issues are finally getting settled, but the business climate is still an issue. We’ve got to compete with Fargo. They’re an economic juggernaut. We have the new community center and library downtown along with the Roers redevelopment, and hundreds of apartments and new retail space have gone up or are going up at I-94 and Eighth. But the challenge is still out there. We’ve got to keep on working to attract both people and businesses.”
When Chuck, a native of Warroad who came here as a freshman at Concordia College, decided to throw his proverbial hat into the ring, he was propelled in part by his mother. Clarine Hendrickson had chaired the Roseau County DFL before she and husband Gary retired and moved to Moorhead. “It was Mom’s idea,” he remembers, though his father too encouraged him. The elder Hendrickson, who taught chemistry and physics at Warroad High School, was a Warroad councilman for two years, then went on to 10 years as mayor.
In the final weeks of the campaign, Clarine’s health was failing. She died one day before Moorhead voters elected her son. “It was tough sledding to divide my time between campaigning and being with her in palliative care,” he remembers. “I’m still heartbroken. But I knew – I know – she’d be proud.”
The city’s political climate, one might say, was more tempestuous then. In the same election, Del Rae Williams defeated council members Brenda Elmer and Mike Hulett for mayor. Mari Dailey, Jim Haney were elected along with Hendrickson, joining Heidi Durand, Nancy Otto, Elmer, Hulett and Steve Gehrtz on the eight-member board.
“It was a different group,” Chuck observes, “with some big personalities. We didn’t always agree. We split over some issues. Some discussions got pretty frank and brutal. But that’s just how it works. We may have argued and fought at times, but we got a lot done, and it shaped the way we’re proceeding today.”
He compares the learning process for a newbie as absorbing a college education in civic government over months rather than years. Then as now, budgets were perennial friction points. “You’re always balancing projects the city needs against others’ determination not to raise taxes at all,” he says.
In recent years, other issues have raised sparks. Two which Chuck adamantly opposed were the council’s resolution to severely limit spraying for mosquitoes and application of herbicides in city parks. He was on the losing side in 2021 when, after the mass die-off of Monarch butterflies the preceding summer, the council voted 7 to 1 to opt out of spraying for mosquitoes. Chuck’s was the single “nay” vote. “If you can find environmentally friendly chemicals to spray, fine,” he insists. “But with all the calls I got about nuisance mosquitoes, plus the very real risk of West Nile virus, it didn’t and doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to kill butterflies any more than anyone else. But the risk to human life seems to me a little more substantial.”
Later that summer, he took a similar stand on spraying parks for Canadian thistle, the aggressive, prickly weed that’s become endemic in the region. “My dad, who was in charge of weed disposal in Roseau County in the summer, used to say, ‘You’ve got to hit it hard and hit it early, or it’ll spread like wildfire.’” The council ultimately compromised, limiting herbicides to the most severely affected parks.
Chuck studied English and political science in college – good preparation for public service, but a rather unlikely combination for his professional career as a technical writer. He worked for Intelligent Insights, a real-time locating system owned by Doug Burgum, then went on to work as a contract writer for American Crystal and other national corporations. Today he is employed by Aldevron, the biotech company in south Fargo that was sold not so long ago to a Swedish firm for $9.7 billion.
“Yes, it’s highly scientific … for a moron with no science background,” he laughs. “My father talked about his field of science all the time around our house. Little did I know that, 35 years later, I’d be talking about the same things.”
Chuck and Renae, his wife of 29 years, have four children. Their eldest, Hannah, 24, is in her second year of law school at Mitchell Hamlin in the Twin Cities. Marty, 23, graduated last spring from the University of Minnesota; in a faint echo of his father’s debates on the city council, he works for the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District. The Hendricksons’ two youngest sons, Max, 14, and 10-year-old Gavin, are starting their first years at Moorhead High and Horizon Middle schools.
They’re a musical family. Chuck’s name was first on Concordia’s choir call-back list when he was a student, and Renae won statewide honors in high school. A member of the F-M Choral Artists, the tenor says he “makes the rounds of local churches” and often sings at funerals.
As for his intense focus on the city his family calls home, Chuck says the years ahead hold some of the same challenges and some rising issues. “Drawing people to our city and building the business community are always on top of the list. We’re still lagging,” he says, adding that he appreciates the work of city manager Dan Mahli and economic development consultant Derrick LaPoint in the city’s ongoing progress.
Two, especially, are growing more urgent. “We need to attract and keep more good officers in the Moorhead Police Department,” he emphasizes. “Not just here – it’s a national and regional problem, too. We need to take care of our police officers.”
The second: housing. “We need to add 16,000 more living units in the metropolitan area to accommodate the growth that’s happening – affordable housing for everyone from graduating college students who want to stay here and young families to seniors.” He adds, “It’s not just a Moorhead issue. We’ve got to get together and think this thing through. We have to plan together.”
The challenges may be enormous but, he believes, they can be met. He quotes his late mother’s advice: “Be a good person. Contribute to society. Treat people well. They’re simple words, but that’s what will make this country, and this city, work.”
