GARY DELANEY
garymdelaney@yahoo.com
801 Smithtown Terrace
Excelsior, MN 55331 (Victoria)

*A Victoria resident since 1988.
*Wife Anne; children Tim, Kelly, Brian,  Gary.  6 grandchildren.
*Occupation/Job:  Carver County  Commissioner.
*University of St. Thomas.  BA degree in  Business Management from St. Cloud  State University.
*Sr. VP Morgan Stanley and John G.  Kinnard & Co.  Executive VP  Northern Capital Management.  3M  Salesman in New York City.
*Rotary, Paul Harris Award, President;  President Hwy 12/494 Homeowners  Association; President, City of  Minnetonka Development Commis- sion; State of MN Dept. of Tourism  Commission, board member.

1a) Why attracted to this community?  After the 1965 flood, when I helped resi-dents move out of their homes, I began to make friends and spend time in Carver County.  My sister and husband have lived in Chaska since 1957.  Our parents are buried in the Guardian Angels Ceme-tery.  The rolling topography, lakes and streams, and closeness of rural areas have been a very desirable living environment.
1b) Roots.  My roots are here in Minnesota.  The Delaneys immigrated here from Ireland, we believe, in the 1860s to the Henderson area in Sibley County and eventually moved to St. Paul.
2a) Reason for running.  From the days of grade school, to high school, then college and through my adult life, I have always been engaged as class officers or in community, civic, government activi-ties.  I feel a responsibility for people to be engaged in the world around them.  When good people do nothing, the bad people will take over.  I believe I am on the good side.  I have no hidden agenda nor further political aspirations.
2b) Payback.  The payback for me is the opportunity to serve the people of Car-ver County.
3) Good candidate.  Life experiences are important when making decisions.  Whether in business, family, or govern-ment, my life experiences are many and varied.  My military training, education, business-financial careers, civic-commu-nity activities, and now, for the past four years, county government - all help to make reasoned decisions. 
This is more than a fulltime job.  Last year I drove 23,000 miles and attended hundreds of meetings.  Most meetings are during the day so having another fulltime job would be unfair to the taxpayers.
4) Government functions.  County government is, perhaps, the least under-stood of the different levels of govern-ment.  Counties are the agents to imple-ment the programs of the State and Feder-al Governments.  Very few of our activi-ties are non-mandated services.
In Carver County we have, over the past four years, consolidated services from 27 departments to 7 divisions.  County government's mission is to ad-minister mandated programs and provide services that the public would not be able to provide on their own.
Examples of county services are li-braries, police/sheriff, road, public health, planning and zoning for all the rural areas, social services, parks, elections and taxa-tion, records of many kinds, county attor-ney, land and water services, veterans services, and license center services.
5) Overstepping.  As a county com-missioner I am always looking for ways to save the taxpayers money.  In the first two years of my term, the county faced huge financial and organizational issues.  An example would be that the State cut close to $5 million from the county's budget to administer their mandated programs.
Together with the overspending from the previous years, the County Board of Commissioners balanced the budget with-out raising taxes.  We downsized and cut a lot of things.
After the above crisis occurred, there were programs that were cut.  I am always looking for opportunities to be more effi-cient and would welcome any ideas.  The proof of our streamlining services is that our bond rating for Carver County is now AA.  Fewer than 10% of the 3,000 coun-ties of the USA have as high a rating.
6) County's direction.  I believe the direction of the county is pretty good today.  We have solved a financial crisis, reorganized our government structure, reduced workforce numbers, raised the bond rating, resolved a number of sticky lawsuits that were inherited, had many planning sessions about the future, and raised our level of respect for Carver County at the regional and state level, all the while not raising taxes.  Because of the dynamic growth of our county, we have huge issues and plans to consider.
7) Next four years.  It is easy to give a long list of issues like roads, growth, parks, police, welfare, vet services, taxes, etc., etc.  Who would disagree? 
The plan for the future of Carver County is to insure that we study and are concerned about our open spaces and rural character, to share common issues be-tween cities and school districts to save time and taxpayers money, to encompass different elements of our community into the Comprehensive Carver County Plan that is due the Metro Council in 2008, to create a better tax base because only about 8% of our tax base comes from business.
8) Vision.  My vision for Carver County is to keep taxes down, expand economic development, continue to streamline county government, get roads and other infrastructure built to accommo-date the growth, preserve our historical past, retain and protect our open spaces and water resources.
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