La Crosse Mayor Matt Harter says he won't seek a second term: transcript

Key points

• Harter says serving as mayor has been the best job he has had and that he decided against a second term after talking with family and friends.
• He says he has thought about the decision since being elected in April 2009 and will serve until April.
• He believes new relationships between the council and a new mayor will help more get done, given past differences with incumbents.
• He says his term focused on keeping spending in check and that other challenges now need attention.
• He declines to name a preferred candidate and says the community should decide.
• He plans to step back from public office, work a normal job and stay in touch with everyday people.

Chapters

1. 0:14Announcement that he won't seek re-election
2. 2:05Staying involved and a mayor's term ending in April
3. 3:57Reasons: fresh start, council and spending
4. 5:43Questions on issues and a successor
5. 7:27Future plans and working a normal job

Full transcript

0:14Well, first off, as always, I appreciate you guys coming up to take the time to do your job and report. And I'll say, as we get started, it's been a great job for me, really the best job that I could ever hope to have, and definitely the best job that I ever have had, and it's been a pleasuring opportunity over the last three and a half years to serve you all and serve the people of the City of La Crosse, and the people that I've met, and being able work with you guys has been an experience really that went in my life but after real careful consideration and talking to family and friends and I'm thinking on this and this is something that I've thought about really since the day that I got elected last spring and obviously as the days go by and come closer to the end of the term is something that I think about need to be made and people need to know and know so that way they can and be prepared and prepared to be a candidate and ultimately prepare to be a candidate.

1:18I'm going to run for an election and elect a mayor for the City of La Crosse. So again, at this point, after careful consideration and discussion with family and friends and constituents and supporters, I have decided that I will not seat re-election to a second term in this office. At this point, it will be done in April, serving in the mayor's office for this term. so I appreciated the opportunity to serve. It's been a great experience working with you all and after consideration and really looking most definitely at what's best for the community and the City of La Crosse.

2:05I started at a really young age, and there's a lot of ups and downs to that. Really taking the interest and the best interest of the community in mind at this point. I feel that it is best for someone else to serve in the mayor's office over the next four years other than myself. And I will continue to do all that I can to support the city in any shape and fashion that I can. I know there's a lot of elected officials in the City of La Crosse, past elected officials, that have helped me.

2:36Through my term in office, I certainly will be available to help anyone and offering a small amount of support that I can to the community, to the City of La Crosse, to any elected officials. La Crosse will always be my home no matter where I go or where life takes me. This will be my home and I'll be around and I'll be around to help them in whatever fashion I can. At this point, I do feel that it's best for the city that someone else takes the names for the next four years. I fade away a little bit and let some other people take their responsibility and do all that I can in a little bit quieter of a fashion than I have in the past four years.

3:18So again, it's been a pleasure and opportunity to serve with you all over the last four years and work with you all and maybe at some point in the future maybe it will come to pass again but at this point for the next four years i believe that this my community is better off having someone other than myself serving the mayor's office for the next four years if anyone has any questions mayor are there specific factors that have led to this decision well again as i said something I thought about every day really since being elected in April of 2009.

3:57I was elected at a really young age, and overall, I think we're heading in the right direction. In the community, I think the council has come around to realize what the community wants. I think that the council is heading in the right direction, most specifically. A lot of the incumbents on the council and myself had differences, and I really feel that over the next four years, with the council, being in the position that they're in now, working with someone else in the mayor's office, more progress will be made, really, and more will get done.

4:37I think it will provide the opportunity for a fresh start, new relationships between the council and the newly elected mayor, and new ideas. And over the past four years, we've held a very strong course on keeping spending in check. that's really been a high priority and probably the high priority and you know I campaigned on that I told the people that that you know it is and should be the highest priority for the community and we made it that high priority and so it's got us here but at this point you know I do feel that there are other challenges facing the city I think the council is willing and open to address those challenges, and I think over the past four years, we've, again, had that hard course that we've needed to, really keeping spending in check, and in order to, I suppose, broaden the scope a little bit towards addressing other things in the community along with that goal that we've had over the past four years, I

5:43I think it's best for the community to have some fresh faces in here, a fresh face in the mayor's office. I'm sure there will be some new faces on the council after the election, and I think at that point, I think the community will be best served, again, with just some new blood in this office and working with some new blood on the council. Mayor, what issues do you think needs to be addressed, and is there a candidate that you think could potentially fulfill them? Well, I'm not going to pick out any individual candidate, you know, there are any number of them in our community right now and, you know, before I stepped into the race, I don't think anyone really anticipated, you know, a 24-year-old guy from the north side stepping up in 2009 and, you know, being elected by the people of this office, so for me to speculate on, you know, one person or, you know, tap anyone on the shoulder that I think is going be the person for the job. That's really for the community to decide.

6:42You know, that candidate who decides to step up in the community. So, I won't say that, but, you know, I will say, you know, addressing, you know, more issues that have come up over the past four years, but, you know, we haven't been able to make it as high a priority because, you know, we've had really other priorities that have been established and, you know, really keeping that spending in check, I think, is a very vital component, you know, of really our government operations here. and we've been able to do that over the past four years, and I want over the next four years for the community to focus on that as well as other things, and I think doing that, there's probably another candidate out there that can help us do that a little bit better.

7:27What do you plan to do with your time in the future? Well, right now, I'll fade out of the public office for a little bit. Go back and work a normal job, and make sure that I keep in touch. And that's another thing that weighed very heavily on my decision is that it's very easy I think in a public office to lose touch with the everyday person working in our community and again starting at a very young age I think. That's something I need to be very cautious of and something I am very cautious of. Most of the public officials that I have esteemed have done a very good job and worked a full career somewhere other than government and other than elected position. That certainly weighed very heavily on my decision. I think there's something to be said for working a normal job.

8:20Like, you know, most of the people in our community, in our state, in our country, and, you know, really the whole globe, and all those people do, and, you know, for an elected person, especially at a very young age, to continue on in office, I think it would be a very easy thing to lose touch with that, you know, everyday walk of life, and that's something that I'm very sensitive to and very cautious about, and that, you know, nothing that I want to lose. I guess the question would be, being a young mayor, would you suggest another candidate to elect another young mayor? Do you think that would be a wise choice for the community of lacrosse?

8:58Well, again, that's going to be for the community to decide.

Source and licence

Recording: File:La Crosse Mayor Matt Harter Announces He Won't Run For Second Term (nov 23 press conference).webm by laxwatchdog (2012-11-23), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.