Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Eleven candidates are running for four seats on the Moorhead City Council, but the level of competition varies dramatically from ward to ward.
In Ward 2 on the east side of the city, incumbent Heidi Durand is not running for a third term. Only one candidate is on the ballot – Laura Caroon, an entrepreneur and founder of Ladyboss Midwest, an organization that seeks to empower and connect women.
Ward 1, on the other hand, has five men and women vying for the seat being vacated by first-term council member Sara Watson Curry. They include chiropractor Matthew Gilbertson, community activist Alexa Dixson-Griggs, former police officer and corporate manager Ryan Jensen, early childhood specialist Quindlynn Overland, and Moorhead Public Service chair Kristine Thompson.
The races in Wards 3 and 4 both include one-year incumbents who were elected to fill the final year of unfilled terms in 2019. In Ward 3, retired teacher Larry Seljevold is facing church business manager Jon Bell, who also ran for the same position in 2018. Ward 4 council member Steve Lindaas faces two challengers, small-business owner Jeremiah Jones (who also ran in 2019) and Sanford Health executive Dave Anderson. Lindaas is a professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
All except Bell and Jones shared their top issues and concerns in a virtual candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Red River Valley earlier this month.
Ward 2 candidate Caroon, who came to Moorhead to attend Concordia College and has lived here for the past 18 years, said she hopes to advocate for women and others underrepresented in city leadership. “I hope the city rises to the challenge and makes our community an even stronger, healthier and more inclusive place to live,” she said.
Ward 1 candidate Gilbertson, who has lived in north Moorhead since 1998, said the city’s biggest challenge is “leveling the playing field with our neighbors to the west.” He said the lack of affordable housing, especially harmful to New Americans, and the development of good jobs and small businesses are his priorities.
Dixson-Griggs, too, cited affordable housing as an important need, along with what she termed the poverty at its root. The social worker with Lakes and Prairies Community Action pointed to generational poverty and addiction as two obstacles. “To become more inclusive, Moorhead needs to address these root issues,” she said.
Jensen called the community “an extension of my family.” A former Fargo police officer and small business owner who now works for Electrical Components Inc. The Moorhead native cited a need to rejuvenate the relationship between the police and community, including the use of body cameras, as well as collaboration between government, nonprofits and businesses for the public good.
Quindlynn Overland is a community volunteer and children’s advocate with an interest in starting a day care in downtown Moorhead. Moorhead’s biggest challenge, she said, is building community resiliency. “We band together strongly in emergencies like floods,” she said. “I think we need a better build-up to protect other needs like protecting the agricultural environment and solving economic issues.”
Thompson, who described herself as a “seasoned community servant,” pointed to her past tenure on the Moorhead School Board and current chairmanship of the Moorhead Public Service board as important credentials qualifying her to serve. She emphasized the “four pillars” of her candidacy – community, open communication between citizens and the city to breed trust, collaboration instead of “working alone in our silos,” and creativity in solving challenges like the Covid crisis and the financial deficit that’s likely to follow.
Ward 3 incumbent Seljevold, who grew up in Moorhead and has watched the city change, emphasized the need for more businesses to grow the commercial tax base. “We rely too much on residential property taxes. Households are footing too much of the bill for the services we all want.”
Challenger Bell, who was absent because of a prior commitment, said in a written statement that his focus on the council will be “retaining and adding to our parks, public transit and affordable housing.
Ward 4 incumbent Lindaas emphasized the importance of restarting the strategic planning process for the city. “We need to figure out our vision of food resiliency,” he said, along with ways to increase equity and transparency in government. He also supports offering a tax break similar to the new-home credit for rehabilitation of existing housing stock.
Anderson, a past member of the Public Service Commission, said the city’s greatest challenge is to grow. “We need to keep a foot on the gas,” he said. “Without expanding the tax base and employment base, we’re going to have a hard time paying for the things we all enjoy.” Like all the other candidates, he considers completion of the 11th Street underpass project a priority.
There were few points of disagreement among the candidates during the League forums. Along with supporting the underpass, all said they favor more affordable housing and collaborative support to continue to grow the arts.
Only one question asked by moderators Barbara Headrick and Cady Rutter drew sharp disagreement among the candidates: whether the city should pass an ordinance permitting chickens to be raised inside the city limits. Most identified themselves as “pro-chicken,” endorsing the idea with appropriate safeguards for neighbors, but two – Gilbertson and Thompson – sharply disagreed.
Thompson suggested they might be appropriate on properties of one acre or more, but not in “postage-stamp yards like mine.” Gilbertson agreed: “I don’t think there’s anywhere in Moorhead that’s big enough for chickens. The turkeys are bad enough.”