As I mentioned in this post, there have been many, many, things taking up what little free time I have and thus blog writing time. One of those things was being appointed to the City of Dayton MN Planning Commission.

I had attended a few Planning Commission meetings last year with some of my neighbors and had spoken during the public hearings on a variety of topics. After one of those meetings the Chair of the Commission approached us to ask if one of us would be interested in putting our names in to be considered for appointment to the Commission since there was an opening. After several weeks of hemming and hawing I decided to throw my name in. And did not get selected. Apparently there had been a lengthy debate and it had been down to me and one other person and the other person was ultimately selected. Oh well.

A few weeks later I got an email from one of the city administrators asking if I would be willing to apply again because they had another opening and so I said yes, and this time I was appointed. 

It has been a really interesting and valuable learning experience. It took a few meetings for me to get my bearings but I feel like I have settled in well and am enjoying being a part of that body. If you want to see me in action you can view all of the old Planning Commission meetings here.

After one such meeting I was approached to see if I would be interested in running for Dayton City Council and I said no but that I would ask around. I felt like I had just started to get a feel for the Planning Commission and the work I can do there I wasn’t ready to “move up” yet. Then a few weeks late I was asked again by another person to run for City Council. I thought a lot harder about it that second time and ultimately decided to say yes.

I’ll admit I’m still a bit undecided. I feel confident that I would do a great job on the City Council, the issue is time. I am so very busy already and the City Council is a much bigger time commitment than the Planning Commission. But I also feel strongly that if we want our communities to be the best versions of themselves then we collectively need to step up and take on leadership roles within our communities. As they say, the world is run by the people who show up. In reality it is mostly run by the people with money, but those of us who show up do have some influence and it’s time for more of us to take more of that power. 

Because I have recently started up Lantern Farm MN LLC and this website is directly related to that business (that is a whole other post) I don’t feel comfortable using this website as part of any campaigning efforts so this will be the one and only time I post anything about my run for City Council here. I did however make a new (free) website for my campaign so if you want to follow along you can here:

https://saravanastenfordaytoncc.wordpress.com/

If you are reading this and are Dayton MN resident, please let me know if you would be interested in having a yard sign. And for everyone, no matter where you live, I encourage you to vote in your primary. For Minnesotans that is on Aug 13. In Dayton there are five of us running for two City Council spots and that will be narrowed down to four candidates during the primary. I would imagine in many cities there are similar primaries and we need people to vote. Primaries are just as  important as the main election!