I am a strong advocate of investments in sustainability for Columbia Heights. Over the last seven years as your city councilor, I have repeatedly requested Columbia Heights to set up a Sustainability Commission for our city. Well, good news! We now have a sustainability commission that began in the late fall of 2023! In the few short months since it’s activation, the commissioners on this important group have already worked on a sustainable purchasing policy, a complete streets policy, formed sub-committees to tackle invasive plants and to research sustainable intern programs, and they will be providing a section in our city newsletter to recommend sustainable practices that you can adopt in your day to day life.
I would like to hear about your ideas for how we can improve the sustainability of Columbia Heights. Please contact me and tell me what you think.
Beautiful parks support a clean, healthy environment.
In 2009, our city police department chose to adopt the philosophy of community oriented policing. The following is a brief definition of community policing that our Police department relies on to steer their organization forward.
Columbia Heights Police Department hosts the annual Truck and Treat event.
“Community Oriented Policing (COP): Working with stakeholders (neighbors, business people, schools, other departments/government entities) to find out what the community needs from local law enforcement to reduce crime and increase public safety (note—perception and reality can also be two different things).
COP is also an opportunity for law enforcement to work with stakeholders in a way for everyone to understand what we can, and cannot do to help with public safety.
COP cultivates relationships
COP has to involve as many community partners as we can.
And…. COP allows us to problem solve and share the responsibility of crime and public safety together. We are much more effective when citizens understand that crime and public safety is their responsibility too.”
As a Columbia Heights City Councilor, I strongly support community policing in our community. Every year our police department conducts a review of their community policing policies, strategies, strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their ability to keep our city safe in a more equitable manner for all of our citizens. This style of community engagement by our law enforcement officers has been successful in reducing crime and improving safety for everyone.
Our law enforcement officers also participate in many activities in our community to develop and strengthen relationships with residents, businesses, and other stakeholders. For instance, they have picnics for residents throughout our city during the summer. They partner with other departments to host our Truck and Treat event. They conduct a resident Police Academy workshop for our residents to educate people about their policies they use when conducting police business. They host gym night for the teenagers at our high school. Many of our police officers participate in our Big Brother/Big Sister organization in our community. They have hosted Conversation events at First Lutheran church where residents can discuss their concerns and questions about policing in our city with our police officers. They conduct door to door policing surveys in our city. This is just a smattering of all the activities our police do to strengthen their relationships within our community.
If you re-elect me to the council I will work hard to help our police department improve our community policing. I think it is very important that all residents in our community feel safe and are treated with respect in all ways.
I love the diversity of our city! We have people from all over the world living here. On my street alone, I have neighbors from Ecuador, Colombia, Russia, India, and Sweden.
I lived for twelve years in Seattle, where I met people from all over the world. It made life interesting. The experience taught me that we have more in common than we have differences. That we are humans first and everyone of us deserves to be respected.
After the horrible tragedy of Mr. Floyd’s death and the protests that followed, I believe that it is even more important for myself and everyone to honor his life by opening our minds and our hearts to those we consider different from ourselves. In doing so, I believe that we will discover that our human commonality will bring us closer together with a deeper understanding of each other. We are all worthy of respect and dignity.
Columbia Heights is my little Seattle. I want to continue to highlight and support the diversity in our community that makes ALL of our residents feel safe and welcome.
I am an advocate for redevelopment to include new independently owned businesses, housing, and gathering spaces. A healthy and vibrant commercial center for Columbia Heights makes our city attractive to new residents and businesses. Redevelopment generates tax revenues that can be used for additional improvements and city services.
During my time as a city councilor, I’ve supported several actions that have made positive impacts on our downtown area. These include small business grants for facade improvements, moving our city hall to a new location, implementing a moratorium on auto-related businesses and others.
Small business grant facade improvement.
Our small business grant program has been a great success. Not only are businesses replacing doors, windows, signage and improving facades, but they are also taking advantage of the security camera program that our Police Department set up to help make our main street safer. The program expanded to 40th Avenue last year and more importantly, businesses are spending beyond the $5,000 grant limit and investing even more money into their building.
It is also important that we focus on business retention as well as attracting new businesses to our city.
As most of you know, the council voted for a new city hall last year. It will be located on the first floor of the new luxury apartments located at 3989 Central Ave.
I support the new city hall project. Our current building has $6,600,000 in needed repairs and it is more cost effective to build a new city hall than to repair the old city hall. With your support, I look forward to seeing this project through in the upcoming year.
Vote Connie Buesgens 