City Council Candidate: Blair Tremere, Former Mayor

Editor's Note: Patch is profiling each of the candidates for the Golden Valley City Council in alphabetical order.  Last week Wednesday , on Thursday we , and on Friday

When Blair Tremere moved to Golden Valley in 1977, he was a recent transplant to Minnesota and had lived in Brooklyn Center and worked in Plymouth.

The South Dakota native moved to the state with his wife after college to and was soon training as an officer in the Army’s Transportation Corps.

He has since made a career in public administration.  He's worked in local, municipal government for nearly 30 years and has worked for five years as a committee administrator for Minnesota’s House Republican Caucus and for a year and a half as a policy adviser to Hennepin County Commissioner Linda Koblick.

Tremere said these jobs were helpful during his terms as Golden Valley mayor and city councilman.

“I have a great understanding of how decisions are made by other levels of government,” he said.

Golden Valley Experience

When Tremere ran for mayor in 1993, it was his first time seeking public office.

“I ran against an incumbent mayor, and I didn’t have enough money to buy signs,” he said. “I had some literature, and I literally knocked on every door in the city, and I won.”

He ran on his background in local development and, in his two-year term, worked on housing and redevelopment projects.

In 2001, Tremere was elected to the city council--he filed for office on the last posible date, September 11--and helped hire Tim Burt for the city manager position. 

In what he called “a capstone career move,” Tremere resigned from the council in 2004 and accepted the position of director of community development at the Metropolitan Council, a job that came with a proscription to holding elected office in the metro area.

Today Tremere says he is retired from public service, though he works in private practice as a public affairs consultant.

Fiscal Rigour

Tremere sees the tough economy as the number one issue facing Golden Valley, but he thinks the city will be able to weather the crisis.

“Things are pretty stable in the city, though Golden Valley is not immune to things happening across the country and the state with regards to property value and folks staying in their homes,” he said.

Tremere advocates a change in process to help the council “roll up its sleeves.”

“One thing the city council could do--and it doesn’t actively do as much as it could-- is to methodically review all of its programs and activities that are funded by public tax dollars and go one-by-one and review them and ask the questions, ‘Is this still needed?’ and ‘Is it appropriate?’”

On his website, he has written about the need to set stricter funding priorities, to differentiate “core service obligations” from “discretionary non-essential programs,” and to adopt “sunset provisions” for all program approvals and renewals.

Another major issue for Tremere is figuring out how best to engage the community. He is a staunch supporter of Envision Golden Valley and he also wants to use new technological tools to share information with the public.

“Cities should use the resources available--including television and the Internet--to communicate with their residents,” he said. “I’m not a high tech person myself, but I do appreciate the benefits that technology affords us.”

He said he wants to implement online chats and support short, produced television programs on the city’s cable access channel on subjects such as how to apply for a city permit and how to enroll children in parks and recreation programs.

A Casual Campaign

Tremere said that his campaign so far has mostly consisted of door-knocking.

“In a small community, the candidates bear the major burden to connect with voters,” he said.

He said he has received some donations but that “I’m probably going to end up writing the biggest check.”

Despite his background working for the Republican House Caucus, he said he has a non-partisan approach to the election.

“I absolutely, adamantly take the position that partisan politics have no place in city government,” he said. “I’m running for the seat and not against anyone in particular.”