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I’m Matt Trost and I am running for Mayor of Dayton.

I am currently serving on Dayton City Council. I started serving Jan 1, 2023.

Get to Know Matt

I was born and raised in Dayton, MN and spent over half of my life being influenced by the city and everything it has to offer. After getting married at St. John’s the Baptist (over a decade ago) and starting our family, we moved back to Dayton in order to raise our daughter in a safe, and promising community.

I obtained my Bachelors in Economics from the University of Minnesota (Go Gophers). Since then, I led multiple initiatives driving billions of dollars in financial savings for fortune 500 companies. Now, I want to focus my strengths on serving our community creating a safer, stronger Dayton.

Police

It’s Important to ensure the safety and security of all residents in the city of Dayton. This will require the city to ensure proper staffing and training to our officers. The city of Dayton has had an open officer position for some time now. We should be working closely with the Chief to understand what we can do to attract the talent needed to protect all citizens

Last budget season (2023), the city staff asked for 4 officers and some on council would not vote for a budget that allowed the hiring of the requested officers.

Why did they need that many you may ask?
From 2018 to 2023 we grew from approximately 1500 homes in Dayton to over 3000. In that same time period we went from 15 to 16 staff in the police department. We went 1/2 a decade without looking at properly funding our Police Force so they can be successful. How this was missed by the previously elected staff is beyond me.

Water

The quality of the water provided to the residents of Dayton has decreased due to lack of water treatment options. While on the City Council I have voted in favor of expanding our water treatment in this city. We now (or will soon have) have water treatment options for 2 of the 3 major water systems in Dayton. I have spent considerable time working with State representatives on both sides of the aisle to help get state funding for the 3rd System. Partial funding for this was in the final bill that did not get approved before the end of the last state legislative session. As the city continues to grow, the needs of the city will grow as well. We should be proactive instead of reactive.

Fire

Previous to my time on City Council, response times, staffing, and overall resources of the fire department had not grown at the same pace as our community demands. This is not the fault of the fire department, but due to the gross underfunding of the department. I have voted in favor of properly supporting funding the fire department staffing and tools for our department to be successful. Recently the Fire Department (Full time and On-call firefighters) came to the city asking to change models to help increase firefighter pay, this was met with hesitancy from some. I believe in paying our first responders a reasonable wage for the services they provide to all. Currently the starting wage is $15 an hour. This new model would offer a starting wage of $30 an hour.

We have been hearing for years that Dayton will need to secure land for a 3rd fire station, we don’t need to build it now but land is not getting cheaper. Despite this we have struggled to secure land. I voted in favor of utilizing a piece of land the city could get for free, this was not the majority view and thus the land was not secured for this use.
I continue to push to get this well needed land.

Why is this so important?

There are a large number of houses on the south side of the city. It takes the department up to 22 minutes (12-15 on average) to respond to fire calls on the south side (from the time the call is made till the fire department arrives). Neighboring cities respond in ~24 minutes. Unfortunately a newer home burns in 13-17 minutes (NBC verified report on this fact). Newer homes burn hotter and quicker. Also, houses in newer developments are fairly close together. Chances are higher that the fire will spread to neighboring houses. I see this as a significant safety issue that needs addressing.

Public Works

It’s important that the public works team has the staffing and resources needed to ensure timely snow removal and road maintenance required for our growing community. Our staff runs very thin in Public Works. This has led to the staff being unable to fix and maintain roads as they would like. We need to ensure the proper staffing so that our city can operate to the quality expected by its citizens.

We will need to continue to fund our roads.
Over the last year we conducted a road survey to help staff better see how we can make the greatest impact to city roads and longevity. We realized that we are slightly underfunding our roads if we wish to increase the overall quality. This is something that will need to be rectified during the upcoming budget season for next year.

Dayton’s Character (Rural Feel)

I am a believer in making sure that we are working to help maintain the rural feel of Dayton as long as we can. I think what this means will continue to evolve over time. Here are just a handful of ideas I support that can be done to help preserve rural feel:

Pushing to get as many homes as possible connected to Three Rivers Park
Promote agricultural business and Agri-tourism, such as: Wineries, Orchards, Corn Mazes/Pumpkin picking, local farmers goods (Eggs, Pork, Beef), buy and eat local.
Preserving our history where we can (old barns and silos) and including this in park designs
Reserve spaces for Horseback Riding, ATVs and Snowmobiles
Preserving/reserving greens spaces/parks within the community
Looking into 1 home in 10 acres where it is fitting for the community to provide more options for homebuyers in Dayton

Show Your Support

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See you at the polls!

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© Matt Trost 2022. Paid for by Candidate.