Tim FLAKOLL

Creating the best place in America to live, learn, have a great career, raise a family and to be able to proudly call it your home.

Public Safety

Provide fairness and balance in delivering vital services such as human services, infrastructure, growth and development and public safety.

Grew up on the family farm/ranch and currently live in Fargo so I understand both rural and urban issues. I am an owner of the family farm/ranch. I served 18 years in the ND Senate. Represented Cass of the Fargo Planning Commission. Chaired the Senate Agriculture, Education and Interim Natural Resources Committees. I have held more than 40 offices in community, regional and national organizations. Currently I serve as VP of the Homeward Animal Shelter, Chair - Northern Plains Ethics Institute, President of Phi Kappa Phi, Commissioner for the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, and serve as church Elder.

We need to successfully complete the FM Diversion. We need to do more to ensure safe communities. Cass County needs to work with state, federal and local governments to develop and improve infrastructure. Cass County needs to continue to hold the line on taxes and the successful opening of the expanded jail will be an important challenge for our community. Our relationship with the state of North Dakota in being architects to best provide human services is still evolving and we must ensure that we continue to serve the public in meaningful and lasting ways.

First we must continue to tag them as top priorities and be focused in our approach that often has been disjointed with many players going in different directions.

Our academic infrastructure is the first place we need to start. The community needs to do more to recruit college students to the metro. We then know they are well trained/educated and those grads have high retention rates in the region. More quality, affordable housing stock will help with job growth and retention in the Metro. We need to have a favorable tax climate and be a national leader for entrepreneurs.

I think well reasoned incentives have been shown to be effective but they, need to have a framework of time limits for specific developments and be as uniform and predictable as possible. I was a part of Renaissance Zone legislation that has lifted up and injected new life communities across the state.

There are some new state programs such as Prairie Dog legislation that we need to continue to advocate for locally.

First we need to finish the FM Diversion so that those new housing units are protected and do not have to pay costly flood insurance. Cass County needs to help ensure that people can build with confidence and not have high property taxes as a barrier.

At some point we will largely have used up the development land inside the FM Diversion and political subdivisions need to prepare their taxing strategies for that day.

We need to have as much regional coordination as possible to housing strategies and I think Cass County government is well positioned to do that.