If you only have ten seconds, here it is.
- 1Let people run a quiet business out of their own home again, legally, without hiding it from their neighbors.
- 2Lower your taxes. Not review them, not study them. Lower them.
- 3Right-size the new city hall by attaching it to the maintenance building, the way it was originally planned.
- 4Bring AI into the city's day-to-day work to simplify it and cut what it costs to run.
Nobody thinks about city hall until the day they have to
Most people here go years without giving it a thought, and that's exactly how it should be. You pay the levy, the plow comes, life goes on.
Then something changes. You want to put up a building, or split a parcel, or run something small out of your own shop. Or the dog next door goes off every night until midnight. Or your neighbor regrades his yard and now his water is sitting on your land.
And the person you meet on that day is usually the building inspector — which is exactly why it matters whether that inspector works for Columbus or for a company with a dozen other cities on its list.
That's the day you find out how this city actually works. And for a lot of people in Columbus, that day arrives as an unpleasant surprise — rules they never knew about, a permit that used to exist and doesn't anymore, and a distinct feeling that the answer depends on who you are.
Taxes work the same way. Everybody complains about them. Hardly anyone knows which name on the ballot will actually bring them down.
So let me be plain about it. I will lower your taxes.
Not commission a study on them. Not slow the rate of increase and call it a cut. Lower them, by taking the cost of running this city down — which is the only honest way anybody ever does it.
Why I keep running
This is not my first time on the ballot, and I've lost the last four. Some of them by a hair. In 2022 it came down to fourteen votes.
So the fair question is why I don't just quit. The job pays somewhere around $4,500 a year. Running for it costs me more than it pays. I have a business to run and a family that needs me. Nobody does this for the money, and there is no version of this where I come out ahead.
I keep running because I did this job for eight years, and I know it can be done better than it's being done.
My first year as mayor I ran a visioning session and asked residents what they actually wanted this place to be. In 1997 I registered the city's domain and put up its first website, because nobody else was going to. That's the kind of mayor I was: get out ahead of it, then ask people what they think before deciding, not after.
I'd rather lose a sixth time saying what I actually think than win by telling people what they want to hear.
What I'd do
Open any of these if you want the longer answer.
Make home businesses legal again
On October 25, 2023, the council adopted Ordinance 2023-09. It redefined what counts as a home occupation and removed the Residential Zone Business Interim Use Permit from the Rural Residential district entirely.
That was the path a resident used to run something small and quiet out of their own property, above board, with the city's blessing. It's gone.
Here's what happens when you close that door: people don't stop working from home. They just stop telling anyone. They hide it from the city and from their neighbors, because they're one complaint away from a problem. That's not a safer city. That's a city where ordinary people are quietly breaking a rule and hoping nobody notices.
I want the door open, with sensible conditions, so people can be honest about what they're doing on their own land.
Bring back our own building inspector
We used to have our own. Now, when a resident finally has to deal with the city, they get someone who doesn't know this town, doesn't know their road, and won't be here next year.
A city's own inspector knows the soil on your side of Columbus, knows which contractors do good work here, and knows your project from the first call rather than reading the file in the driveway. He also has to live with his decisions, because he'll see you at the gas station on Saturday.
That's what personal treatment actually is. Not being soft on anybody — a good inspector says no when the answer is no. It's that you can reach one person who knows your situation, get a straight answer the same day, and be treated like a neighbor instead of a case number.
We traded that away, and most people didn't notice because most people don't need an inspector. Until they do.
Pay cash, not interest
Collect the money, put it in the bank, then buy the road. Collect the money, put it in the bank, then buy the truck.
Bonding for everything feels painless in the year you do it and expensive for the next twenty. Every dollar of interest is a dollar that bought nothing — no road, no truck, no service. It just left town.
I'm not against ever borrowing. I'm against borrowing as the default because it moves the bill past the next election.
Right-size the new city hall
Go back to the original plan and attach it to the maintenance building. One roof instead of two. Shared walls, shared utilities, shared parking, shared heat. That was the sensible version before it grew into something bigger.
A building doesn't just cost what it costs to build. It sets your operating budget for the next thirty years, and an oversized one quietly creates positions to fill it. That runs one direction and it never runs back.
Build the building this city actually needs, and the savings show up on your levy every year after — not just in the year you cut the ribbon.
Enforce the things that actually affect your neighbors
There's a difference between someone quietly working in their own shop and someone whose noise, dogs, or drainage lands on your property.
Columbus is low and flat. Water that gets pushed off one property has to go somewhere, and it goes to the person next door. That's a real harm to a real person, and it's worth the city's attention far more than a neighbor's home office is.
Bring AI in to simplify, streamline and cut costs
I put this city online in 1997, when doing that was still an odd idea. The same kind of opportunity is sitting in front of us again, and this time it's bigger.
Permit questions answered at eleven at night instead of a callback on Thursday. Ordinances and minutes you can actually search instead of phoning city hall and hoping. Routine correspondence and meeting summaries drafted in minutes rather than hours. Purchasing and budget lines checked against last year automatically, so waste gets found before it's spent.
None of that replaces a person who's good at their job. It means the people we already have can cover more ground, and we stop solving every problem by adding another salary. It is by a wide margin the cheapest way to give residents better service.
Most cities will get to this in ten years. There's no reason Columbus can't be early again.
Keep the big players from running a small town
Columbus sits on good highway frontage, which means large operations have real interest in what happens here and real resources to push for it. A city this size can get pushed around.
I'm not anti-business — I built one. I'm against a city where being big enough gets you a different answer than your neighbor gets.
Who's on the ballot
I've known Ron a long time — since well before he ever ran for council. Years back, the two of us used to go down to the town board meetings together and complain about what they were doing. We sat on the same side of that room more often than not.
I think about that a fair bit lately. We both looked at how this place was being run and decided somebody ought to do something about it. I'm the one who went and did the job first — eight years of it — while Ron was still out in the room with his hand up.
Now he's the one on the inside and I'm the one in the back row. We've traded chairs, that's all. I don't think either of us was ever wrong to try.
Rob's a good man too. I'm not going to stand here and tell you either one is a bad person, because it isn't true and you'd know it wasn't.
There are two real differences, and then there's a pattern.
On the ballot, the mayor's race lists Dave Povolny, then Ron Hanegraaf, then Rob Busch. Vote for one. Below it, the council race lets you vote for up to two.
Neither of them has built anything
I started a business from nothing and today it employs about a dozen people. Every dollar it ever spent was a dollar somebody had to earn first, and when I got a decision wrong it came out of my pocket, not out of a levy. That is a different education than any amount of time in a meeting gives you.
Neither of them is conservative
That's not an insult, it's just the fork in the road. They'll tell you the city is running fine. I think it costs more than it should, does more than it should, and has been quietly taking options away from property owners. If you agree with them, vote for them — they're honest about who they are, and so am I.
And here's the pattern
In 2024, Ron ran for mayor in the middle of his four-year council term. He won. His council seat did not go back to you — it was filled by appointment.
Now Rob is doing the identical thing. He's partway through a four-year term that runs to 2028. If he wins in November, his seat gets handed to somebody by appointment as well.
Add it up. Two of the five people sitting on that council right now were never elected by anyone. They were chosen by the council itself. Whatever you think of the individuals, that is not how a city is supposed to fill its seats, and it's how this one keeps doing it.
I'm the only one of the three running for this from the outside, and that has a practical consequence. If Rob wins, the council fills his seat — one more member nobody voted for. If I win, nothing gets appointed to anybody, and Rob carries on serving the term you already elected him to.
You can keep Rob on that council and still change who runs it. Those are not the same choice, and only one of them costs you a seat.
All of this is public record. Don't take my word for it — the minutes and the election abstracts are at city hall.
The money question
Some people see the truck and the signs and figure I'm a rich guy buying an election. Let me just answer it.
I built a business that employs about a dozen people. I started with nothing and I got there by working hard and making careful decisions with money — the same two things I'd bring to the city's books.
I'm not asking you to fund me. I'm offering to spend my own money and my own time on a job that pays almost nothing, because I think I can do it well. What you're actually being asked for is a vote.
Three dates
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Friday, September 18Ballots become available. Minnesota lets you vote 46 days early — a lot of this election is decided in the next few weeks, not in November.
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Tuesday, October 13Last day to pre-register. After that you can still register at the polls with proof of residence.
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Tuesday, November 3Election Day.
Anoka County handles absentee ballots for Columbus. Request one, or vote early in person, or show up on the third. Any of the three works.
Call me. I mean it.
In eight years as mayor and every campaign since, I can count on two hands the number of residents who have actually picked up the phone and called me. That still surprises me, and I've never stopped thinking it's the wrong way round.
So if you've read this far and I still haven't answered your question — about your taxes, about something going on at your property, about why you'd pick me over two men you probably also like — don't be shy about it. Call. Text. Email. Whatever's easiest. I would much rather have the conversation than have you guess.
And if you're on the fence, tell me that too. I'd rather know.
Who you'd be talking to
I'm an electrical engineer and a licensed master electrician. I'm also a builder. I built my own house and my own barn, and I still repair my own cars and trucks in my own shop.
That isn't a brag, it's the point. I'd rather understand how a thing actually works than pay somebody to tell me about it. A city is the same kind of problem — a lot of moving parts, most of which somebody would prefer you didn't look at too closely.
I'd still like to come by — but only if you ask
Over the years I've ridden my e-bike to every house in this city at least once. I've seen your places. Most of them are beautiful. A few are disasters, and I've never once minded either.
Along the way I've picked up five dog bites and more ruined pairs of jeans than I care to count. So when I say I take the loose and barking dog problem seriously, understand that I'm not speaking theoretically about it.
I'm not knocking on doors at random anymore. It was an intrusion, and I'm sorry for it — turning up on fifteen hundred doorsteps uninvited isn't something I want to do to the place I want to serve.
But the offer stands the other way round. If you'd like me to stop by some evening, call and we'll set a time. Or come to mine — make an appointment and I'll put the coffee on. One real conversation on a porch is worth more than fifteen hundred leaflets, and it's a great deal more pleasant for everybody.
There are a lot of new families in Columbus now, partly because of the five-acre averaging rule I pushed for. If that's you, I'd particularly like to meet you. You've landed somewhere good — and it's worth understanding how this city works before the day you need it to.
Call or text: 651-247-4567
Email: dave@povolny.com
About those eight signs
You very likely got here by scanning one. There are exactly eight of them in Columbus, and the number is deliberate.
I've done it the other way. I've blanketed this city in signs and mailed everybody a leaflet explaining how great I am. It works about as well as it deserves to, and it turns a quiet town into a billboard for two months. I'd rather not do that to the place I'm asking to serve.
So: eight signs, no two alike. Different tops, different scenes, and a different little mark sitting in the middle of every code. If you've found two, you've probably already noticed. There are eight of those to find as well.
Eight people let me put one on their land.
They didn't have to. In a town this size, putting a sign in your yard is a small act of nerve — everybody knows whose yard it is, and everybody has an opinion about it.
And it isn't an even contest. When the person asking for space in your yard is someone who'll be voting on your permit next spring, a yes and a no don't cost the same thing. I'm not accusing anybody of anything by saying so. It's simply the shape of a small town, and it's why saying yes to a man who holds no office at all is the harder choice of the two.
Those eight made it anyway. They're the entire ground game. Thank you — I mean that more than a line on a website can carry.
Tell your neighbor over the fence
Eight signs can't reach four thousand people. Neither can one man on an e-bike, and I've stopped trying to do it that way.
So if anything on this page made sense to you, the most useful thing you can do isn't money. It's a sentence. Mention it over the fence. Drop the link into the group chat. Put it on your Facebook page, where the people who actually know you will see it.
A link from someone your neighbors trust beats every sign I could put up.
It costs you nothing but a moment, and it reaches people eight signs and one bike never will.
Texting opens on a phone. On a computer, copy the link instead.
Please don't send me money
I've been blessed. Fortunate, and if I'm honest, a bit lucky on top of it. I've worked hard for what I have, but plenty of people work just as hard and don't land where I've landed, and I've never forgotten that.
So I'm not asking you for a dollar. If you were thinking of putting something toward this campaign, put it toward somebody who could use it instead — a neighbor having a rough year, a family at your church, whoever is in front of you. Let it go where it does some actual good. I can cover my own signs.
Be kind, be caring, be forgiving. Let me try to do the same for you from that chair.
The only thing I'm asking anybody for this year is a vote.
And to everyone who has voted for me before
Thousands of you have, across these elections. I have never once taken that lightly, and I want you to know the losses didn't change what I think or why I keep showing up.
I've stood on a lot of doorsteps in this city and had real conversations — about a permit that made no sense, a road that never got fixed, a bill that keeps climbing, a neighbor problem nobody at city hall wanted to touch. I remember those conversations. Some of them I still think about.
I haven't given up on any of it. That's the whole reason I'm on the ballot again.
To everyone who has served on this council
That includes the men I'm running against, and the people I've disagreed with hardest.
Nobody takes that seat for the money. It's evening meetings while your family eats without you, a packet to read on a Sunday afternoon, and neighbors who are perfectly friendly right up until the week they aren't. You give things up to sit there, and almost none of it is visible from the outside.
In eight years as mayor, exactly one person ever thanked me for serving. One. I've never forgotten it, and I'd guess he has no idea it still means something to me all these years on.
So let me be that person for the rest of you.
Whatever we've disagreed about, thank you for putting your name forward and doing the work. It counts for more than anyone tells you.
And my family
My wife is remarkable, and my five children have inspired me more than they know.
They're also the ones who actually paid for all those meetings — the dinners gone cold, the weekends I spent with a packet instead of with them, years of a schedule nobody else in the house ever voted for. They carried it without much complaint. None of what I've done in this city would exist without them.
Whatever happens in November, that part I already got right.
Don't stop at my name
The mayor is one vote out of five. If you agree with what you've read here, mark my name and go home, you've done about a fifth of the job. The council is where most of this actually gets decided, and there are seats on this same ballot.
So do the rest of the work. Find out who is running for council. Call them the way you'd call me. Ask them about the new city hall and what it is really going to cost. Ask whether a man ought to be able to run a small business out of his own shop. Ask them what they think the levy should be, and see whether they'll give you a number or a speech.
A mayor without a council is one voice at a long table.
If holding the line on spending matters to you, there are conservative people running for those seats. Seek them out. I'm not handing you a slate and I'm not going to tell you how to fill in the rest of your ballot, because you don't need me for that, and a council that agreed with me on everything wouldn't be good for this city anyway. But go find them, ask your questions, and vote the whole ballot.
TIME YOU HAVE GIVEN THIS
Be proud you're informed.
You made it to the bottom. Most people never get past the first screen.