Teresa Miller (Little Canada City Council, Minnesota, candidate 2024)
From Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia does not currently maintain this page. Please contact us with any updates.
Teresa Miller ran for election to the Little Canada City Council in Minnesota. She was on the ballot in the general election on November 5, 2024.[source]
Miller completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Teresa Miller provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 7, 2024:
- Birth date: December 17, 1967
- Birth place: Saint Paul, Minnesota
- Bachelor's: St. Catherine University
- Gender: Female
- Profession: Writer / Editor
- Prior offices held:
- City Council Member - City of Little Canada (2021-Prsnt)
- Incumbent officeholder: Yes
- Campaign website
Elections
General election
General election for Little Canada City Council (2 seats)
Dawn Kulousek, Chris Kwapick, Angie Malone, and Teresa Miller ran in the general election for Little Canada City Council on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | ||
| Dawn Kulousek (Nonpartisan) | ||
Chris Kwapick (Nonpartisan)  | ||
| Angie Malone (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Teresa Miller (Nonpartisan) | ||
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Miller in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Teresa Miller completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Miller's responses.
| Collapse all
I am running for a second term for the Little Canada City Council. I was born in Little Canada and have lived here for the past 37 years. I have deep family roots in Little Canada stretching back to the late 1920s when my great-grandparents settled here on a small farm which was located on Centerville Road on part of what is now Pioneer Park. I returned to Little Canada after high school while I was attending college at St. Kate's, and I've lived here ever since. I love Little Canada and have always considered it home.
I am a single mom with a 23-year-old son who has severe autism, so I have a lot of experience and advocacy in the disability community. I have been a home healthcare direct service worker for 16 years, and I also work as a freelance writer. Prior to needing to take care of my son full-time, I had a career as an advertising account executive and copywriter.
I currently serve as a board member for Northeast Youth and Family Services nyfs.org, a cause that is near and dear to my heart.
I am also a board member and Vice President of Ramsey County League of Local Governments (RCLLG) https://fusionlp.org/rcllg/ , where I am also co-lead of our Climate Action Workgroup (CLAW), focused on sharing resources and best practices to enhance sustainability and combat climate issues in Ramsey County.
I look forward to hearing from you, and invite you to check out my website at www.teresamillerlittlecanada.wordpress.com- I was first elected to the position in 2020, and since that time I have brought a fresh perspective to Little Canada. During my tenure we have built more affordable housing units and continue to plan for more. We have also invested in redevelopment opportunities by purchasing some key properties that can eventually enhance our Rice Street commercial corridor, as well as other areas of the city. We are always actively seeking more energy-efficient and sustainable ways to combat climate issues. We are also beginning to actively engage with our very culturally and socially diverse community members to ensure their inclusion in all that we do. My re-election will allow me to continue this and other important work in Little Canada.
- My top priorities are Accessory Dwelling Units, which I’ve heard most about from our residents in my term on the Council. I think that ADUs are critical for those who wish to age in place amidst their community, the growing trend toward multi-generational families living together, and as potential affordable housing stock in the future. I would also like to engage with our local businesses to enhance our Rice Street Commercial corridor, making it a more attractive and vibrant “city center” area with better pedestrian and biking accessibility and green space to support our existing businesses and attract new ones. I’m also very interested in seeing us have an indoor public gathering space in the not-too-distant future.
- I want to work with all of our community members to encourage more active community engagement and proactive steps to make Little Canada an even greater community than it already is.
I'm particularly interested in robust Climate Action, as I think that it's obvious that climate change has been creating some truly disastrous weather conditions in recent years. No matter where one thinks the responsibility of climate change stems, it's still our responsibilities as good neighbors and good stewards of our communities to do what we can to improve climate conditions. I think that green space and sustainability is also key to making our community more attractive, more accessible, and better equipped to meet the needs of our residents and local businesses.
City government is really the roots of the entire government system. A lot of decisions that affect us are made from the top down, so it often seems like we're just required to comply with national and state laws, regulations, and codes, and to some degree that is true. However, we are working so closely with our residents that often we see potential large-scale problems popping up before larger government entities do. This gives us a certain advantage in being aware of what needs to happen on a more global scale. We have identified a number of issues that we have brought to the attention of our local legislators, and subsequently to our national congressional members, primarily because we are basically "ground zero." Our close relationships with our constituency make city government a very key part of the informative process of what works and what doesn't when it comes to state and national lawmaking.
There are a lot of great women that I look up to. I knew my great-grandmother only a little, really, but I heard stories about her being the one who was instrumental in my great-grandparents coming to America from Sicily. She wanted a new life, and she was going to have it! She was a little dynamo, and she worked very hard, had 10 children, and I always remember her as happy to see her family. My grandmother was also someone I looked up to -- an avid reader who would read to me from the local newspaper and The New Yorker starting when I three or four years old (mostly because that's what she wanted to read instead of children's books!). We later went on to have interesting conversations when I was in college and taking philosophy classes and burning everyone out trying to talk about how much I was learning. She loved to engage with me on topics like that when no one else was particularly.
This is an interesting question, and the only books or films I can think of seem sort of grandiose, so I don't think that I'd use an example like that. I would say that my philosophy is, very simply, in the oft-used words of the late Senator Paul Wellstone: "We all do better when we all do better."
Honesty and integrity are incredibly important for an elected official. I often hear comments from community members that display mistrust in any elected representatives, and I can understand where that sentiment stems from, but I also want to assure them that I will never attempt to lie or mislead a constituent about any issue. What you see is what you get. And sometimes I have heard testimony that has changed my mind about an issue, so I will change my stance on a position. That is not coming from a place of waffling or trying to appeal to one faction or another. It is merely an honest change of opinion based on compelling information that I didn't have before. I also think it's really crucial to actively listen to the concerns of all of our residents. While sometimes the end result is not always satisfactory to a particular contingent of residents, I still want them to know that they have been really heard. Sometimes, however, there are city projects that are really important to implement, even though they may end up upsetting some of our community members.
I am extremely honest and very dedicated to the work. I have a lot of empathy, and I really try to always do the right thing.
I believe that you really have to spend a lot of time getting to know the workings of the city and its processes, especially its revenue and budgeting. There is a very fine line we must walk to make sure that we can keep all of our core services in place, while still planning for ongoing maintenance, improvement of our parks and amenities, and planning for bigger projects and programs into the future. It all adds up, and as we are all taxpayers, we don't want to overwhelm everyone with onerous city tax bills, but we still want to provide useful, attractive, and fun amenities and programs that benefit all of our residents. So, keeping on top of all of that is extremely important. I believe that there is a lot of research and self-educating involved in being an effective councilperson. Very fortunately, Little Canada has a super city staff that is fantastic to work with, and they are always there to answer any question that you can throw at them. And if they can't answer it right away, they will research it for you. So, I think that having a good relationship with city staff is also key to the position -- but they're so good that is easy to do.
I would like to make things just a little better for someone else.
I remember seeing a lot about the Watergate break in on television (although I had no idea what it was all about -- just that it was big news), which was just after my brother was born. I was 4-1/2.
My very first job was at McDonald's, and I worked there only two shifts because I was lucky enough to get a much better paying job as a part-time receptionist at a nursing home facility. That was a job that I loved because of the lovely residents, and I kept it up into college, when unfortunately, I just couldn't manage the commute and the schedule anymore.
This is so hard! There are so many!
The last one that I absolutely adored was called:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
A very old reference, but still a favorite. Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson in "His Girl Friday"
Everybody Wants to Rule the World (the version from Despicable Me 4)
I have a wonderful son who is 23 years old who was diagnosed with autism when he was two. It turned out that his autism was very severe, and he has a lot of developmental challenges associated with that. Somewhere in that time period, I became a single parent, and I ended up having to stay home with him full-time due to his volatile and unpredictable behavior. It has been a life-changing experience, which has been difficult and isolating in some ways. In other ways, it has shaped me into the person I am today; one who is far more creative, resilient, adaptable, and empathetic than I ever would have imagined.
I think that what I mentioned in the previous response is one of the biggest. I also think that at a local level we can much more easily implement "pilot programs" that work specifically for our localities with direct input from our residents. It is much easier for a small entity to engage in community outreach and react quickly to our specific community needs than it is for larger government entities, so I think that we are at an advantage in having a better idea of what our residents really want.
I didn't have any previous experience, and I think that I've adapted pretty well to the position. There is excellent training through the League of Minnesota Cities for first-time councilmembers. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have previous experience. I think, however, that you really have to have a strong interest in doing your homework and really digging into the role and learning as much as you can. This is not a passive role where you show up two nights a month and that's it. It is a very hands-on position where I feel that significant intellectual curiosity and a desire to really commit to the work is paramount to being effective.
The ability to do a lot of reading and research. A background in finance would certainly be helpful, although I don't have one. Very active listening skills, and a strong sense of integrity and empathy.
As I've mentioned previously, this is really the most direct experience with constituents and their wishes -and their complaints. We see first-hand what kinds of larger-scale government programs are working and which are not, so in that way it is something of a testing ground. This day-to-day direct contact helps us understand what is most important to our residents, and we have the unique ability to reach directly out to them personally.
I'm not very good with jokes, but I did see quite a funny, quite old comedian whose name I can't recall, so I unfortunately can't credit him, that had a pretty cute one:
"I went to the doctor to see what he could do about my arthritis. The doctor said, "that's not arthritis, it's early onset rigor mortis."
"I went to the doctor to see what he could do about my arthritis. The doctor said, "that's not arthritis, it's early onset rigor mortis."
St. Paul Area Association of Realtors
I am absolutely committed to financial transparency and government accountability. I have pushed very strongly to make sure that all of our financial information is not only available online, but that it is very accessible, clearly laid out, and user friendly. Every resident should know exactly how every dollar is spent in our city. All of our fees should be clearly labeled and identified, and there should be no ambiguity about what you are paying for. We are 100% accountable for every decision the city makes, be it for good or bad. Residents should be able to find out whatever information they want or need in a timely fashion. I know that sometimes residents are concerned that they are not getting all the information they need, and I think that in the past there have been some glitches in terms of how information was relayed. I think that this has improved under my tenure, and it will continue to improve as long as I am able to advocate for better communication and full transparency.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
|
Candidate Little Canada City Council |
Footnotes
