Brad Farrell/Winonan
Abby Peschges/Winonan
Adjunct professor of history Mark Peterson is running for mayor of the city of Winona. He participated in a question and answer session with
Student Senate on Sept. 26. Peterson was born in Mankato and attended Mankato State University as an undergrad, receiving a Bachelor of Science in History and Geography. He went on to earn a Masters of Arts in History at Portland
State University in Oregon. Peterson has been the Executive Director of the Winona County Historical Society for the past 30 years and an adjunct professor of history at Winona State University for 13. He has been a part of numerous committees including the Downtown Revitalization Committee, Winona Middle school Re-use Committee and Winona State Sesquicentennial Committee. This will be his first time running for a public office.
“I’m going to make Levee Park the pride of the city again.” Peterson said about what he wants to change in Winona. “It was the first landscape designed park in the Upper Mississippi.” The park was destroyed during the flood in 1965 and was never rebuilt to its original state.
Peterson’s campaign focuses on pushing the city to be more centered on tourism. “We can do more for the cultural offerings of downtown. It has a lot of opportunities.”
By creating more tourism of the area, it will help promote Winona State. “The more we show off what we have, the more people will want to send their kids here, or relocate their business here.”
“Teaching here, I know the high quality of the students.” Peterson recognized that Winona State is a large part of the city of Winona. As for student involvement in the community, Peterson said, “I would love to have a dialogue with students to see what their needs are, and work with the city council to get it.”
Peterson supports the idea of building more theme houses like the current Sustainability house. He said, “I think it’s a wonderful idea, and makes WSU competitive.” More theme houses with increase the diversity of families living on the same block. “Having a mix between families and students is beneficial. It leads to being a more inclusive community,” Peterson said.
Peterson said that he would love to take another look at alternate side parking, a policy that requires cars to be removed from odd and even sides of the street on the respective days. Peterson said, “My wife loves it. I hate it, for 25 percent of the year I can’t park in front of my house.”
Contact Abby at [email protected]
