BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — This past November, Brooklyn Park elected its first African American mayor, and with one month under his belt, Mayor Hollies Winston says he is eager to start following the vision he has for the sixth largest city in Minnesota.
"It's a privilege," said Winston. "It's a lot of work, it's a ton of meetings but it's really an opportunity to affect positive change."
Winston, who hasn't had any political experience prior to running for mayor, says he feels like his experiences as a business owner has helped him.
"I've had experiences where I've been in a leadership role, it wasn't really daunting — and my leadership style isn't — it's not the type where it's overly aggressive, and I like to have other people's opinions," he said.
Winston said people were very clear to him while he was on the campaign trail, about what they wanted him to address as mayor.
"Violent crime was top of the list. Housing was another one," he said. "We have Huntington place which is our state's second largest housing complex 2300-3000 people live there. They are dealing with — more so they are dealing with pest problems, livability questions."
Bringing in more development and more localized, but higher-impact issues like what's coming out of residents' taps also came up.
"How are we going to develop things, how are we going to get restaurants and stores and development people want?" Winston said. "And then surprisingly, and we're working on this for folks in Brooklyn Park — hard water. So we've got one of the hardest water, most minerals in Minnesota. Like it destroys dishes, it destroys water softeners, pipes; it's very hard on the infrastructure."
He said prioritizing issues is a group effort, among him, the council and staff.
"It's all of us kind of coming together saying, what are we hearing from the community, what is staff hearing?" he said. "They hear things from a different angle than we do, part of it is there are some basic blocking and tackling that we can all agree on. Crime is one of them — people need to feel safe where they live, you can't get the type of development you want unless you're addressing crime."
Winston said while he has made history as the first Black mayor of Brooklyn Park, he obviously didn't set out for that sole purpose. He said that title of "being first" has already been done by many.
"Mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton, she did it in Minneapolis, and you have Mayor [Melvin] Carter in St. Paul, so it's been done right?" he said. "Still, there's a huge expectation to bring voices to the table that have not always been brought to the table, along with that I've told people that now that you're in office through me, there's a responsibility to govern."
He said he is excited to tap into what the diverse population brings to the community.
"For me the diversity in Brooklyn park has been a point of pride," he said. "I don't think it's always been treated as a point of pride. We are kind of this — to me, a shining jewel in the northwest suburbs, because we have this specific size, and we've got this diversity as well, and now we just have to help people see what we have here."
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