 across section of citizens from our viewing area. Also, Lakeland PBS has a community advisory council that advises the station on programming and how well the station is meeting the expectations of the public it serves. Meetings of both the board of directors and the CAC are open to the public. Information about these open meetings, including dates, times and locations can be found on our website, lptv.org in the governance section. You can also call 800-292-0922 for more information regarding Lakeland's board and the CAC meetings. You're more exposed solo, but I find that sometimes that challenge will bring out this other side of you. And you learn to adjust when a string breaks or your guitar just goes out in front of 500 people. You know, what do you do? You learn to be a comedian sometimes. And there's a lot going on between sound and instruments and the songwriters, band performers. I think they become some of the most memorable things to do sometimes. Programming on Lakeland PBS is brought to you in part by Minnesota Public Radio, dedicated to providing in-depth news to inform you and lively classical music to inspire you with four frequencies serving the Lakeland area. Providing internet speeds up to a gigabit per second to support all your devices. It's the GigaZone from Paul Bunyan Communications and it's right here. Minnesota Power, powering the pace of industry. And the members of Lakeland PBS, thank you. Debate Night 2018 is sponsored in part by AFSCME Council 5, a statewide union of more than 40,000 public employees working together to elect candidates who represent the values of real Minnesotans. Lakeland PBS, the Bemidji Pioneer, the Brainard Dispatch and Northern Community Radio are proud to present Debate Night 2018, a look at our area of legislative candidates and now the State House of Representatives District 2A Debate. Your moderator tonight is Bethany Wesley. And we're back with Debate Night 2018. Thank you for joining us this evening. We're continuing our Debate Night series this week as we feature seven state legislative debates over four nights of television. Tonight, we're live from our Lakeland PBS studio in Bemidji and we now are set for our District 2A. Matt Grossell from the Republican Party and Michael Northward from the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. Our panel tonight features Dennis Wyman, News Director for Lakeland PBS, Matthew Lidkey, Government Reporter for the Bemidji Pioneer and Heidi Holton, the News and Public Affairs Director for Northern Community Radio, KAXE and KBXE. Now, the rules for tonight's debate. Each candidate will get three minutes for an opening statement. Our candidates then will answer questions from our panelists. Some of these questions will be of the panelists' own choosing. Others may come from the public. The order of the candidate's responses will be rotated, beginning with opening statements and finishing with their closing statements. Each candidate will have two minutes for each question. Each candidate will have the opportunity for a one-minute rebuttal. Each candidate also tonight will have the option of a one-minute bonus time to add onto one of their answers. This can be used during the answer to the initial question or during the rebuttal, but it can only be used once. Questions will continue until we are at about 50 minutes, at which time we will move on to closing comments. Closing comments will be two minutes each. Okay, we're ready to begin. Opening the debate tonight will be Matt Grossel. Matt, your opening statement. Thank you, Bethany. Thank you, panel. And thank you, Michael, for being here tonight. And thank you to all of you out there watching. And I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be here before you this evening. I'm Matt Grossel, your state representative for Dick Street Two-Way. I was humbled at all your support in 2016. And I'm still humbled at all the support that I continue to receive from everyone. You know, why I ran for the legislature was because it was a call. It's just like a call that I had to enter into the U.S. Army. The same call I received when I entered into law enforcement. When I was asked, and I was only asked one time, to run for this office, the first and only political office that I've ever run for. I was asked to do it, and I told the individual that asked me that I needed to do some praying and fasting before I decided this, because if this wasn't a call on my life to do this, then I wouldn't do it because I wouldn't be doing it for the right reasons. I sought wise counsel, I prayed, I fasted, and here I am serving you because it was a call to move forward to go back into public service. I retired from law enforcement early because of injuries. Methodal exposure messed up my respiratory system. Children and I, we started doing mission work abroad. And so when that call came to come back here and go back into service, I greeted it and welcomed it. In St. Paul, I served the community in District 2A in our state. And our community in Minnesota is different from others. Our community in Northern Minnesota is different from others. It's not Minneapolis or St. Paul. It's not the suburbs. We are what is called the out state or the rural areas. And as some would say that there's not much out here except for cows and rocks. Now, just as I'd love to hear from everybody, all the constituents, just as I'd love to hear from everybody when I was working in law enforcement. Listening to constituents allows me to serve the community better. Let's me, let's the people know that I'm just me. I'm Matt. And that I'm working for you. And that it's all the things in Northern Minnesota to listen to you, to make sure that our concerns are brought to St. Paul. Now, I went to St. Paul to represent our community in the legislature, go from helping to lower taxes for healthcare, to fighting for, to fighting to protect our most vulnerable, our elderly or children and the unborn. Lowering the taxes and working to allow for proven environmentally safe economic development in our area. And to move forward projects like line three project and supporting mining. So again, I'm humbled to be here. I'm glad that I get to represent the people in the district 2A. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Michael, your opening statement please. Well, thank you Bethany and thank you panel. And thank you Matt for your service to our country, our state and our district. Bonjour, hello. My name is Michael Northbird and I'm running to be the next representative for Minnesota's House District 2A. I was born and raised in Cass Lake, Minnesota and I spent my whole life here. I'm a member of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe enrolled in the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and I'm a direct descendant of the Red Lake Nation. I have a deeply rooted connection to my district that predates the state of Minnesota and the United States itself. So I have an inherent concern for what goes on here. But not just here, all of Minnesota. Like many of you, I would like to see Minnesota have a future worthy of being proud of. A Minnesota that builds on the Minnesota nice that we're all known for. Where we care about each other and care about others regardless of our differences. A Minnesota where we continue to care about the air that we breathe, the land that we live on and the water that we drink. I've been an environmental program manager for the last nine years and I regularly work alongside tribal, state and federal agencies. I've also previously worked construction jobs, labor jobs and in the food and beverage industries. Just to name a few. I'm here to tell you that I didn't run for this office on my own, that people like you asked me to. Because they know how much I want to ensure that we have a future to pass on to the next generations. Every day I hear from concerned people about a direction our government is taking us in. They're concerned about what goes on behind closed doors as well as right in front of our faces. And from what I've heard along the campaign trail, it is far past time to get Minnesota back to representing you and your family's agendas. That's the only special interest I'm interested in. Miigwetch, thank you. Thank you. Our first question tonight will come from Matthew Lidkey. Matthew? I wanted to ask about the growing number of children that have been going into foster care for the past several years. The result has been a major financial strain on counties, especially like Beltrami. I wanted to get your response to this issue and what you feel needs to go forward in St. Paul to help counties like Beltrami. All right, Michael, your answer first please. So foster care is an issue that I'm pretty well aware of. I'm my reservation where I come from. We have a lot of out of home placement. And I think that one of the main things that we need to do is understand why foster care is happening and then think of and get together collectively and think of solutions as to what we can do as a state, as a district, as counties to come up with viable solutions to ensure that these kids are able to be retained with their own families. I know that sometimes not everybody's family is able to take in these children in need. And at the same time, people who do have the ability to take in children in need, I think should be stepping up to do so and we should be encouraging it and providing incentives for it in order to ensure that these children have good homes to live in and good lives to live in the future. And I think that most people would probably agree that placing these children out of home is not the best idea for anybody. I don't know how you would feel about your child being placed out of home, but I definitely wouldn't appreciate mine. I would like to at least have the opportunity to ensure that I do provide a livable household and do it all in the right way in the right correct manner. And so I think those are some of the things that we need to definitely work on making sure that people are able to do those things. Ma'am. Thank you for the question. The growing number of children out of home placement is very alarming. And you don't want these kind of things going on. And a lot of the issues that are being brought up are chemical dependency, alcohol dependency, to just to name a couple of things. Beltrami County is on a financial cliff with this and it's kind of a scary notion that all the money that Beltrami County has to put into out of home placement is driving them closer and closer to bankruptcy. And we can't have that. We don't want that. So what I've got in place is some legislation that will give it. And I'll take a step back from that legislation but in looking at some of the information that Beltrami County has put forward, and I believe if I remember correctly and there's about 80 to 90% of the children that are in out of home placement are from the Red Lake Reservation. Now, the legislation that I previously mentioned to move forward in the next session will give Red Lake more sovereignty, more sovereignty over and have control over the children and their placement, where they go, so that the responsibility will not be on Beltrami County any longer but it will go back to the Tribal Nation Red Lake. And that is something that representatives from Red Lake, representatives from Beltrami County brought to me at the end of session so that I could look at this legislation and to decide let's move forward with this, let's work together, let's find a good solution so that these children will have the best care possible and that they will be in the safest place possible. And if Red Lake wants to take on that challenge, then I'm all for that. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Michael, do you have a response? Well, first of all, you can't give a sovereign nation more sovereignty but besides that fact, the only problem isn't just in Red Lake so I think when you look at all four counties that make up District 2A and ensure that they all have the right tools to get the job done. Thank you. Matt, do you have a response? And the same legislation that I put forward, I believe they have put that forward on the White Earth Reservation as well and it's from what I'm understanding, it's working very well. The Tribal Nation, if I misspoke a word, and I'd say, I apologize for that, but to give the tribes more control over where the kids are being placed and let them be responsible for the children. Thank you, Matt. Our second question will come from Heidi Houghton. Thank you. Affordable housing is an issue in rural areas. Costs are high. Many people who do own homes are at risk of losing them. What are your thoughts on this and what reforms would you be in favor of, especially in rural areas? Matt, your question. Okay. Affordable housing, you know, and I talked about a little bit of this last night. Just a short story. When I got out of the military, I had to, I started out with pretty much nothing and I bought a home, a trailer house, and it was a 1976 model and I paid $7,000 for it. Each time I made an advance in employment, I would set goals, set goals to upgrade to a better home and to keep working towards a better job. We need jobs for people to be able to afford, for people to be able to afford housing, we need to get them working. We need to get jobs going and we've got a very good opportunity to have some very good jobs in our area and that is that line through replacement. $2.6 to $2.9 billion of private investment into our area, into the state. That's huge. If we get people working, people can start to set goals. People can start to earn a good living. People can start to look at how do I want to spend this money on a home, what type of home, how far should I go? We need to release some of the regulations on building so that these homes, these homes can be more affordable for people. So those are just a couple of the things that I hear about down in legislature and those are some very good things that we need to keep pushing forward. Make it affordable. Get rid of some of the regulations so we can build homes, decent homes for folks. And let's get some work going so that people can earn these things. Thank you. Michael? Well, I definitely think that we should continue to support current laws that are in place and not weaken them. But I also think that we should ensure that we utilize our tax credit financing, also known as low income housing tax credit. This has been in existence since 1986 and it gives incentives for the utilization of private equity and the development of affordable housing aimed at low income Americans. It provides tax credits that are more attractive than tax deductions because they are credits that provide a dollar for dollar reduction and tax payers federal income tax, whereas a tax deduction only provides a reduction in taxable income. The other part of that would be to ensure that we are helping different groups that promote these kinds of things. One of them being Minnesota Housing Partnership and ensuring that we're providing adequate funding for our state and for our district in order for people to receive this kind of funding. The Minnesota Housing Partnership convenes, guides and supports a diversity of partners working to improve conditions of home and community. Building on decades of experience, they develop capacity and promote policies that expand opportunity, especially for the people of lowest income levels. The other part of that would be that, we need to enforce laws that reduce disparities and create programs that increase households of color. And another thing to that would be to ensure that rental assistance, which is a proven to reduce homelessness, household instability and overcrowding is done in adequate ways. Thank you. Matt, do you have a response? Are there additional thoughts? No. Thanks. Okay. All right, our third question comes from Dennis Weiman. Thanks, Bethany. What can be done at the state level and within the constraints of the constitution, to try to stop the next school shooting? Hoping to hear something you believe has an actual a realistic chance of passing in our current political climate. All right, first answer comes from Michael. Well, I think that's probably one of the most difficult questions to answer, given today's climate. One of the things that is a misleading point that people like to make is that somebody's out there to try to take their guns away. Nobody's trying to do that. All they're trying to do is, I think of most Americans want is that responsible gun owners are exactly that, responsible gun owners. I'm a gun owner. My family's are gun owners. We're all hunters, fishers and gathers. And I got my own guns. I don't want your guns. But one of the main things that I think we do need to do is look at the background checks and ensure that when guns exchange hands, that they're also subjected to these background checks. But the main issue that I think here in the state of Minnesota, at least, is the fact that we do have a loophole and that loophole is taken advantage of. And I'm sure it happens in other states. And we definitely need to get more resources out to people to deal with mental illnesses and not only mental illnesses, but just school safety in general. So the basic answer I don't think is a one answer tells all. But we all do need to work together to ensure that our kids are safe when our schools, that our churches are safe and that our events are safe. And one of the ways of looking at that is ensuring that we have good, strong gun safety measures. Okay, thank you. Matt. Thank you. How to do school shootings? Very difficult question. And how do you reduce that? I look at it like this. And what has changed over the years? What has changed over the years? We've got more guns than ever. We've had guns since we became a nation. And to think that we have the silver bullet to do that, we don't. We don't have that. And it's gonna take a lot of time. It's gonna take working together to try to stop these kind of things. What has changed though? As a child, as a kid in high school, I could bring a shotgun to school and have it in the back window of my truck. No one ever bothered. No one ever, you know, it's not a word about it. No one ever brought these guns into the school to shoot anybody. It's a heart and mind change in this nation and our society to where these kind of things are looked at as like games. These things are looked at as a devalue of human life. Those are the things that we have to change. We have to change the hearts and the minds of our society to bring value back to human life so that these kinds of events, these kinds of tragedies don't occur. Some of the things, you know, some of the more practical ways of stopping or trying to minimize what can be done at a school shooting or even getting into the building, harden these buildings, harden the schools, make it more secure, make it so that they have to check in, make it so that you have alarm systems, have a program set up inside the school to where this is how you react to the shooting, put a liaison officer in the schools. None of these are foolproof, but the more you harden that soft target, and I'm using law enforcement and military terms and I apologize, but the more you harden that soft target, the less attractive it is for somebody who wants to do these children harm. Thank you. Michael, do you have a response, a rebuttal or additional thoughts? Yeah, I'm glad we agree that something needs to be done because that's the most important issue here, not only in our state, but in our America, that something does need to be done. And one of the things that I'm aware of is not too long ago, there was a bipartisan bill that included a variety of initiatives intended to keep firearms out of the hands of persons who are mentally ill. And it was also supported by the NRA here in the state of Minnesota. So I think that it's very important, and I agree with many of the things that Matt said, and I think it is something that we, in the Minnesota legislature in the next coming years, will be able to work on something collectively about. Thank you. Matt, a response? Well, I don't recall any bill that was supported by the NRA that put more restrictions on guns. And there, we have some of the most strictest and best gun laws in the nation. So we do the background checks. We cover every base that we can to make sure that firearms are going into only hands of law-abiding citizens. More gun restrictions, more gun laws will only restrict law-abiding citizens like myself and you. The loopholes, people keep talking about these loopholes. There are no loopholes. We supplied, through legislation, we supplied $50 million for school safety to be used to possibly harden these soft targets through bulletproof glass, through alarm systems, et cetera, through locking mechanisms, whatever. However they wanted to use this school safety money, they could do it. But half of that got vetoed by our governor. Now, we can debate all night on why it got vetoed. The fact remains that $25 million were vetoed and only $25 million came through. I'm sorry, Matt. No, that's okay. Matthew? Yes, I'd like to ask about your ideas for healthcare and what are your thoughts on the future of healthcare as well as the question of do you support the concept of a single-pair system? All right, Matt, you're up first. Okay, I do not support a single-pair. And when I started out, I look at what we got accomplished in 2017 after getting rid of Obamacare and are starting to get rid of Obamacare and ensure we started off right away with delivering on making sure that we got the premium relief, we got the premium relief moving right away in legislature to begin to fix the damage done by these things. Then we began to enact reforms to help drive down the costs of health insurance and healthcare for all of the Venezuelans. We ended surprise billing, no more getting large out-of-network bills. We made that illegal. Re-insurance nationally. It's a nationally allotted program. This program, this was a program to help to deal to drive down costs in a high-risk pool. Not only did it work what states across the country are looking at what we did to deal with their own problems. So, you know, it's, the work that we've done is already showing that there are improvements. Premiums have gone down. The last report yesterday was premiums have gone down from seven to 27% right in that ballpark. And the effects that it'll have in my, in our district, in District 2A, I think on the top side, it was approximately $6,000 for a family of four that they would save. Elderly people would save. Even our young people, 25-year-olds, they would save. So we stopped the premiums from going up. We've got premiums coming down. We need to keep moving in the direction that we have started in 2017. Okay, great. Michael, your response. Or I'm sorry, you're in. So, yes, I do support single payer. And, you know, one of the things that was just mentioned was some kind of decreases in savings. Unfortunately, it wasn't for a large number of insured Minnesotans, it was for a small number, less than 3% actually got decreases according to the report that just came out. The other thing is that the reason for the rate increase to the individual market was because insurance companies were handed over $540 million with no strings attached. And that part of the recent legislature voted to allow insurance companies to sell jump policies that deny coverage for pre-existing conditions and things like cancer screenings and treatment, maternity stays, hospitalizations, and many other critical needed benefits. That's one of the most important things that I've heard from the constituents in District 2A is regarding their pre-existing conditions and being attacked through their insurance for simply having a pre-existing condition. So, Minnesotans continue to struggle with health insurance and can barely afford or use due to high premiums and high deductibles. And a Minnesota care buyer would allow consumers from around the state to take advantage of affordable high quality and a broad network of care that is currently unavailable in the individual market. But most people refuse to even hear that. All right, Matt, rebuttal the response? Well, the single payer, the single payer plan, the single payer complete government takeover of healthcare, that's what it would be. Same government who cannot get the DMV to work. Same government who ruined Minnesota's best in nation healthcare with the partial takeover with Minture. $17 billion, $17 billion in higher taxes. Another huge problem will be the lack of access for healthcare in rural areas. We simply can't lose, we simply can't lose this in rural areas. This is a problem that those designing this system down in Minneapolis and St. Paul didn't think about. We cannot afford, we cannot afford to lose doctors up here in the North, in Northern Minnesota. And study after study of this will confirm this. Thank you. Michael, a response? No. Okay. So, I guess the main thing is what was recently passed and what's been talked about is just a giant bandaid and only temporary relief. Most Minnesotans will actually see their insurance rates go up in the next year. And so, I'm all for providing full-time solutions and not half-hearted solutions. And I think that quality care for all Minnesotans is one of the most important issues that are gonna be facing our future as a state. Thank you. Heidi, your question. What do you see as a possibility for growth in the economy in your district? Are you hearing about new industries or new jobs or training that your constituents might be wanting? Michael? You have a big question. What do you see for new job growth, new economy, economic growth in your region, maybe industries or training? Yeah, so one of the things that I've been hearing repeatedly about, and I'm sure Matt's gonna talk about it, is bringing back our trades and our vocational trainings. You know, we do need trade jobs and having them not only in our post-education, but in our K through 12 schools, not necessarily the K side, but in our senior high schools, having more opportunities for the younger generation to have something to come out of high school and grow into, and then to coincide with that, to have some place to go after they get out, because just having that experience and that training in high school isn't gonna be enough. They're gonna need something to come to when they come out, helping our community colleges and providing dollars for public education, I think is gonna be the most important thing for us to do in order to prepare our next workforce and to increase our economy and make sure that jobs are there. The other part of that would be is that, I think that renewable energies being that they not only pay the same high dollar jobs, but there's actually more jobs available than non-renewable energies, is gonna be an important issue for us as a state leading up to the next decade or so, and people are gonna see the great change that's gonna become of our state once we actually take advantage of these things that are well known and they're out there and they're available to all of us as we sit here today. Thank you. Well, again, what I look at, and I'll mention this again, I'll beat this, I'll kick this dead horse as long as I have to, but it's not dead yet. Line three, line three replacement. Like I said before, it's a 2.6 to 2.9 billion dollar shot in the arm for the state, and it goes right across the state. I heard time and again in the legislature that these are just temporary jobs. Well, these are the people that are supposed to be allegedly representing the farmers and the laborers. Contract jobs, these are contract jobs, and that shows me that they don't know anything about these contract jobs. These are permanent jobs. These are jobs that these construction outfits bid on year after year after year after year to keep their people employed. I don't want to see this line three go by the way of the sandpaper. We need these jobs. We need these jobs to keep people working. And yes, we need to get into the trades as well. We need to train these kids. Good. Michael, a response? Yeah, well, you know, from the beginning, you know, the state agency, the Minnesota Department of Commerce was tasked with making a determination on behalf of the state for the need and adequacy for the EIS and the scientific data that would or would not support this line three. And, you know, one of the things that I think people fail to realize is that it's not Minnesota oil. Minnesota is not an oil producing state. We have a big issue that's even bigger than our state that's actually a world issue. It's called climate change. And the oil that's gonna be running through line three comes from the Alberta tar sands. And I don't think anybody has ever put in perspective the size of Alberta tar sands, but it's 54,000 square miles, which is over half the size of the state of Minnesota. So you can draw a line basically down by Minneapolis, St. Paul and the whole entire northern Minnesota. If you can agree to put that into the type of conditions that tar sands are in, then I think we do have a really big problem and a really big set of differences. Okay. Matt, a response? The oil doesn't come from Minnesota. No, it comes from Canada, but it comes right straight across our state and it impacts every life across there. It impacts the lives of a lot of Minnesotans. To all these programs that we've talked about, low income housing, making sure that people have heat, making sure that schools can supply their buses with the fuel that they need, making sure that we can pay for our emergency services, that's what the oil coming across Minnesota does for our state. It is a tax base that helps these communities continue to use the programs, to supply and fund the programs, right on across, right on down the line. So no, the oil's not from Minnesota, it comes through in all Minnesotans. I say all Minnesotans benefit from the tax base that it leaves behind and the jobs that it brings. Thank you. Question six comes from Dennis. Let's go ahead and talk a little about line three, but it looks like you guys have that covered. So we'll move on to a different topic. We'll talk some more about it. Both of you guys want to, all right, we'll move on to broadband and how important is that to your district. In the 2017 session, the legislature included $20 million in funds for the border to border broadband grant program. The goal was to provide state resources that help make the financial case for new and existing providers to invest in building infrastructure into unserved and underserved areas of the state. How important is expanding broadband in your district and how big of a priority would this be for you if elected? Matt, your response. Thank you, Dennis. And as far as the broadband goes, if you look at that legislation, I help support that legislation to get it through. It is important. We need to be able to, look at our district. It's massively rural. It stretches from the Northwest Angle all the way down to Akely and from the Clearwater County line with Polk County over to Beltrami County with Couch and Cass, all of these. So it is very important that we enable people to be able to conduct business from these rural locations, from their homes, from their small businesses in these small towns. So yes, broadband is important to us and we need to keep moving it forward. As far as some of the things that people say that, well, it's old school. It's obsolete. No, it's not. We need it here. We need to have broadband to reach out to supply these businesses like resorts. Again, I've heard some talk about the businesses out of homes. So, yeah, it's something that needs to be done and to help our students to be able to reach out as well. Yeah, well, Matt is obviously correct. We have a very large district and it's heavily rural. Throughout the campaign show, everybody else asked me what's the biggest city. I said, I'm not sure if we have big cities. If you consider Bagley being the biggest one at 1,300 people followed by Badet with 1,100. And I'm sure Matt can attest to that. So one of the things, aside from the stuff that Matt said, which I do agree with, I think a very important issue for a district the size of ours and how rural it is and how much space there is in between places is that we need to have it out there for our emergency services. Our emergency services, our firefighters, our ambulance, EMT, first responders and our law enforcement. You know, having such a dispersed area of people, they need to be able to get from one place to the other and they need to be able to communicate not only with each other, but with the emergency services themselves, nine on one, that kind of deal. So yeah, I definitely support expanding broadband and any kind of broadband initiative, not only within my district but within the state of Minnesota, because a lot of Northern Minnesota is kind of the way we just described our district. And we need to ensure that people are able to do what they're able to do and our emergency services are able to do what they're supposed to do as well. Matt, any additional thoughts? No, thank you. Okay. Matthew Littke. I want to continue on that sphere of infrastructure and talk a little bit about the almost backlog sometimes of the roads, bridges and water and sewer systems in a lot of Minnesota, including the rural areas. I want to ask, what is your ideas and what are your plans to help alleviate that with having these backlogs of road projects and water projects, things like that. All right. Michael, that's to you first. So I think that what we need to do is make sure that we are using money that is dedicated for these things and not grabbing them from other places that are not dedicated to these things. And far too often, we as the state raid funds that are intended for other specific uses when we don't necessarily really have to, but we do it to make certain people look good. And at the same time, because it helps gain brown money points, I guess you could say. And so one of the things that I think that is very important is ensuring that we use any kind of budget surpluses to fill in those gaps. And that we definitely continue to look at new ways to come up with the proper funding for these types of things and not underfunding our roads and bridges and infrastructure, which isn't, does happen in our state quite often. So when we get a bill and it says, this is what is needed, I think we should make every effort to attain that goal and not reduce that because then that puts all of our resources in an infrastructure at risk. Thank you. Matt. Well, as far as some of the comments, I'm not gonna chase that rabbit down the hole. Roads and bridges, the agencies that are in charge of roads and bridges and the scheduling and prioritizing these types of work jobs and also the city's sewer and water infrastructure, they have it set up as a criteria as to what needs to be done first. And so we supply them with the funding to do that. And in 2017, we supplied them with a lot of funding. We put millions of dollars aside for roads and bridges to make sure that we bring our roads up to par to make sure that bridges that need to be repaired get repaired or replaced. So I sit on the bonding committee and that is one fun committee. People look at the bonding committee and I think they go, I want nothing to do with that. But you get to look at things and you get to help to prioritize to make sure that the money that the taxpayers are paying goes to what it should. And that is roads and bridges infrastructure, things that are assets to the state, not just these little pet projects. And as far as, I don't want brownie points. Nobody wants brownie points. We wanna make sure that roads and bridges are good because that is the light blood, especially up here. We have farmers, we have pipeline, we have loggers, we have emergency services. We need to get from point A to point B and do it without any issues with our roads and bridges. And as far as our infrastructure, I've gotten several of our cities funding to make sure that they can replace the sewage, the outdated sewage, outdated water systems, et cetera. So I look forward to keeping going and making sure that tax dollars get used and that we are good stewards of it. Michael, additional thoughts? No. Okay. Heidi, your question. We have a growing aging population in rural areas and especially in northern Minnesota. What do you think are the issues that they could use assistance with that you would do if you are elected the next legislator from this district? That goes to Matt. Well, we'll continue to do what we started. And that is to try to bring relief and try to make tax, fewer people, few of our seniors on their social security. The more that we can help them to be relieved of these tax burdens, the better. They've paid taxes, they've busted their backsides, all their lives. Why should we be taking more from them in their senior years? These are some of the things that, some of the phone calls that I get from seniors who are on fixed incomes. And they talk about taxes going up and all these things. And it's heart-wrenching and it's heartbreaking. So anything that we can do to make sure that we relieve our seniors of these types of tax burdens of myself, I think, and relieve them of all tax burdens so that they can live and live out the rest of their years without that worry of how am I gonna pay the taxes on this stuff? As far as some of the things that we've done, you know, as far as our seniors, our veterans are seniors. We've got the veterans home that will come to the midget. We've got it one step closer to becoming reality. We jumped on that as soon as we got going in the legislative session in 2017. We didn't get it at that end, but I made them commit. I made them commit, we get this done in 2018 and we did it. Michael. So I think, you know, from the seniors that I've heard from one of their main issues is being attacked for using public assistance. And that's something that definitely has to end. And I know that one of the things that has been attempted to do is say that, you know, if somebody's able to work that they should be working then in order to receive this public assistance. And I agree with that. These people have worked their whole lives already and we're gonna require them to work more and longer and further just to be able to receive the public assistance. I don't think that's right. But the other thing is that we need to ensure that seniors too have affordable ways of living. I think it's somewhere as upwards of about half of their income goes to paying for a place to live. And a large percentage of people growing into that age also have that same kind of issue with probably about 40% of what their income is. And so, you know, we need to not only increase livable wages so that people can set aside more money in their retirement years, but, you know, we definitely need to stop stigmatizing public assistance and allow, especially seniors, some kind of exemption that ensures that they're not being attacked on a regular basis. And another portion to that would be that I think we need to make sure that we encourage, you know, we encourage, you know, assisted living and personal care, attendant funding so that seniors do live a more comfortable lifestyle and don't have to worry about these issues so much. Okay. Matt, do you have a response? As far as the seniors must be a cold hearted son of a gun that would attack seniors who are on public assistance. That's wrong. It shouldn't be done. And as far as public assistance goes, seniors who need that, they should be on it. They should be on it. And if that is a way that will give them relief, then, you know, we keep going with that. Those who need to be on public assistance should be on public assistance. Not everybody needs to be on public assistance full-time. Yeah, well, I kind of alluded to this the other day too, is that, you know, part of our public assistance and our welfare system needs to be addressed by the fact that the largest benefactor of it is billion-dollar corporations and the lack of affordable or livable wages that they provide to their own people, their own employees. And, you know, we definitely need to crack down on that and figure out ways to not only make them pay their fair share, but, you know, penalize them when they cost us taxpayers so much money. Okay, thank you. We're gonna sneak in one last question here, but that means no rebuttals. You get a chance to answer, and then we'll move on. Dennis? Okay, cool. We'll keep the question short as well. Do you feel we are adequately funding our education system, and what would your goals be if elected? Michael. No, I don't think we're adequately funding our education system. I think we definitely need to dedicate a lot more of not only our funds, but our personal time as Minnesotans. You know, we need to, you know, I wanna get us at the top of the list of most educated states. And one of the ways that we can do that is ensure that we have adequate funding for our public schools. Totally against for-profit privatization of our public education. And I think that that would do more damages than good. And one of the things I wanna do is ensure protections for that public education and those funding dollars for decades to come. That's one of the ways that I am going to think when I'm in the legislature is way beyond my years, way beyond my term, when especially when it comes to education in the future of our children and the people who are actually gonna replace us. Thank you. Matt. Ask that again. Would you please, Dennis? The question? Yeah. Yeah, just do you feel we are adequately funding our education system and your goals for the next session if elected? Okay. Yes, I do feel that we're adequately funding them. There's a lot of a fact that needs to be trimmed that is not having a good effect and is not benefiting our students one Iota. So those are the things that we need to cut out so that the money that is being sent to these schools that is being sent for our students benefit is being used correctly and is being used for programs that are having a good effect that are having to get the maximum result for the dollars that are being spent for our students. Everybody wants that. I want the best education, the best teachers possible for our students. I want our teachers to be adequately paid. In the last biennium, we increased the funding. But like I said, there's things that need to be, there's things that need to be trimmed out of there. I'm sitting on education innovation in that committee. In the Minnesota Department of Education came with a very, what struck me as a very startling, what was it say, how do I say that? This is one of the highlights that we have more children in special needs and special education. That was one of the highlights that they presented. I don't know about anybody else, but I see something wrong with that picture. We need to make sure that one, we get the best education for our children. But if we have more kids being put into special education, there's something wrong. And I think we need to work together to find that out. And that is what we do in education innovation, is that we work across the aisle back and forth. That is one of the most relaxed and friendly committees that I've ever, that I've been on. So I think we're adequately funding. Is there more to do as far as getting things in order to make it the most effective? Yes, there are. All right, we will move to closing statements. And Matt, you go first. Oh, where do we start? I just want to thank everybody for who's out there watching. I want to thank our hostess and our panel and the crew that's here. And Michael, thank you for being here as well tonight. You know, there are a lot of things that were brought forward tonight. And I'm glad they were, I'm glad they were. They needed to be talked about. They needed to be put out in front of everybody so that they can see what's going on and what's been done. And what do we want to do with the coming biennium? You know, Minnesota, it's a wonderful place to live. It's a very wonderful place to live. This is, to me, Minnesota is God's country. Northern Minnesota, where we live in our district, is God's country. And it's where my friends are. It's where family is. And it's a gift to God, gift from God. So it's very important that we take care of our resources here, take care of our part of the state, and we need to be good stewards of it. We need jobs in this area. And we will continue to make sure that the folks in St. Paul, Minneapolis, don't stand in the way of new jobs in Northern Minnesota. In 2016, in 2016, I promised to go to St. Paul and work to find ways to get exploding healthcare under control. We did that. The first thing I did was pass legislation to provide premium relief, thousands of men's sotans. We made important reforms in communities across greater Minnesota to continue to have success in healthcare. I continue to, my pledge is to continue to keep working, to fight for our seniors, to fight for the unborn, to fight for children who are being victimized by child pornography, to make sure that these laws represent the victims and not the perpetrators. I continue to, my pledge to fight for our working people, 49ers, the Carpenters Unions, our construction workers, our firefighters, our police, they will not, no one will disarm our police. My pledge is to make sure that it is safe for our medical personnel to go to work, for our firefighters to go out into the field and anybody that assaults them will be charged accordingly. I sit on public safety as well. I just want to tell everyone, again, thank you, and I am humbled by your support, and I am humbled to be in a position where I can serve. And that's the key word, serve. Thank you. I just want to say, God bless you, your families, this fine state of Minnesota, and God bless this country. Thank you. Michael, closing statement, please. We were not, I'm going to use some of my time as a rebuttal to the last question, since we didn't have a rebuttal time. The majority in the legislature in the last couple of years actually supported bills that did not adequately fund education. That would be House File 890 and House File 947. These two bills, luckily, were vetoed because they lacked adequate education funding that would have resulted in teacher layoffs larger class sizes and less financial aid for college students. They also voted to ease teacher licensing requirements, which would have resulted in less qualified teachers in the classroom, so I just wanted to clarify that one. So with that, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if your family has lived here for five days, five years, or 500 years, we are all Minnesotans. So to my fellow Minnesotans, I say this, between now and November 6th, you have a choice. You can choose how inclusive our health care should be. You can choose to ensure protections for Medicare and Medicaid, and you can choose how we should protect our schools, churches, and local events. And you can choose how to maintain our momentum for increased and livable wages and not just affordable housing, but also home ownership. As some of you may already know, there are certain legislators that aren't looking out for Minnesotans' interests. That our state is being sold to the highest bidder, and that there are non-Minnesotan ideologies holding our great state hostage by implying that we don't have a choice. But everything from foreign corporations to Washington politicians, but guess what? We do have a choice. You have a choice. Our future, your future is always a choice. The future of our elders are children and our families, and many ways are molded by those who are elected to represent us. So this coming election, I would appreciate your support in your vote. I also appreciate you watching tonight and being there for others tomorrow, whether that's me or Matt again. But even more importantly, I appreciate you all as my fellow Minnesotans, including those here in the studio tonight. Together, we can build a better Minnesota. Miigwetch, thank you. I want to thank both of our candidates, both Matt and Michael, for agreeing to and taking part in debate night 2018. If you missed any portion of tonight's debates or either of the debates which aired on Monday, featuring the candidates from district 5A and 5B, the full broadcasts are posted on the Lakeland PBS website. That site is lptd.org. Additionally, the Bemidji Pioneer will have a write-up from the debates, both this one and the one that preceded it, both in print tomorrow and online later tonight. Visit BemidjiPioneer.com for recaps. I want to thank you again for tuning into the debates here tonight, and I invite you to continue joining us again tomorrow evening. At eight o'clock, we'll feature the candidates running for district 9A. John Poston from the Republican Party and Alex Herring from the DFL. From all of us here at Lakeland PBS, we thank our candidates and the panelists for their participation. We thank you, our viewers for tuning in. Thanks, have a great night. The Lakeland Calendar is sponsored by E.L. Mink Jewelers on Laurel Street and Brainer. E.L. Mink Jewelers is your home for fine jewelry and jewelry repair in the heart of downtown Brainerd. The Miltrami County Historical Society's Fall Fundraiser, Leaves of Grass, illuminated, will be held at the Eagles Club in Bemidji tomorrow beginning at seven. The cost is $25. The Brainerd Public Schools Foundation's distinguished achievement