Rochester Mayor Kim Norton is running for re-election

(ABC 6 News) – Rochester Mayor Kim Norton announced that she will seek a second term and asks for the community’s support as she runs for re-election this fall.

Norton became the first woman Mayor of Rochester, Minnesota in 2018 and took office on January 1, 2019.

“I love finding solutions to problems facing our community,” explains Mayor Norton. “I have worked hard with our wonderful city staff, the city council and many of our community partners throughout all the challenges brought on by the pandemic. Together, we worked to find ways to support local businesses and struggling families, while keeping Rochester moving forward. I am proud of the actions we took to protect the health of our community and to help Rochester rebound from the pandemic and its economic impacts quickly and successfully. I look forward to tackling new projects that will benefit our whole community in the years ahead.

While continuing traditions of past mayors, Mayor Norton has also worked tirelessly with city staff and others to launch many initiatives and programs to address needs of the people in this community, including the following:

• Winning the prestigious Bloomberg Global Mayor Challenge – a $1M grant for Rochester — awarded to only 15 cities worldwide — that focuses on increasing economic mobility for BIPOC women while fulfilling workforce needs to support the city’s growth in construction related fields.
• Promoting new workforce and economic development tactics to help Rochester businesses and community members sustain economic stability. This included supporting an entrepreneurship navigator program as well as working with the city council and community partners during the pandemic to ensure that federal emergency funds reached main-street businesses and struggling entrepreneurs as quickly as possible.
• Taking steps to make our city more environmentally sustainable and resilient by engaging a community task force in creating a comprehensive sustainability plan, adding electric buses, converting streetlights to LED, and supporting development of benchmarking efforts in buildings across the city.
• Helping our community address homelessness through considerable community engagement and collaboration with state, county and city officials and nonprofits, resulting in the development of both night-time shelters and daytime programming.
• Prioritizing public safety and ensuring progress on diversity, equity and inclusion goals for the city, its staff, and on boards and commissions.
• Maintaining amenities that support a high quality of life for all residents, such as neighborhood and park enhancements, and improved transit options and bus stops.
• Encouraging a healthy community and launching health-promotion activities for residents, including the mayor’s own Move with the Mayor program.