St. Cloud Mayor Delivers His 18th State of the City Address

(KNSI) – St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis called the community resilient and remarkable for the way it handled the pandemic as he laid out his vision during his State of the City Address on Tuesday.

Kleis began by touting the city’s budget, which he says, if you adjust for inflation, is $5 million less than when he took office 18 years ago. He also stated that crime in the city had dropped 22% from 2021 to 2022.

During his speech, Kleis started to prepare St. Cloud for the loss of many trees in the next decade due to emerald ash borer. “We’re going to be removing a lot of those ash trees. It’s 20% of the canopy. So, we’re going to be working on efforts, partnerships and collaborations for people to be planting trees. We’re going to be planting them in the areas where we’ll see a loss.”

The city wants to plant two trees of differing species for every ash tree taken down. The invasive beetle was recently discovered locally. St. Cloud will roll out more details on the plan later this year.

The mayor announced multiple new initiatives, including revitalizing an old swimming quarry at George Friedrich Park. Kleis says the area needs to get cleaned up. “It doesn’t have the diving because you don’t have the outcropping but people would have the ability to swim. The water quality is not there, and we need that. We need our students that are in the business of learning about how to do that to be doing it.”

He’s proposing a partnership with St. Cloud State University to get it done in two years.

The mayor also commented on revitalizing the SCSU neighborhood by eliminating some campus housing and replacing it with single-family homes. Kleis also stressed the continued need to rebuild downtown with a commitment to getting more people living in the district.

The mayor announced he is relaunching St. Cloud 101 with a public safety addition to teach people about the city’s role in guarding the community from the perspective of the police, fire and public works departments.

St. Cloud will ask people what their priorities for the city are for the first time since 2019. Staff will be doing a community survey in 2023. Residents can look for that in the mail in July.

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