Two Longtime Council Members Won't Run Again

No incumbent city council members are running for reelection this year.

Councilmen Bruce Rowan and Rick Brausen, whose positions are up for election in 2011, told Patch on Thursday they aren't seeking another term in office.

Voters elected Rowan to the council in 2001. He served on the Zoning and Planning Commission prior to joining the council. Brausen leaves after 10 years on the council and eight years on various boards and commissions.

Rowan said his decision to leave the council is a personal one—provoked in part because he wants to spend more time with grandchildren who weren’t even born when he was first elected.

“I’ve decided that 10 years is enough,” he said.

Brausen, a self-employed landlord who owns three rental houses, said his business has kept him increasingly busy.

His path to the council was an unusual one that included two elections and two appointments. In 2000, council members picked him from among about 20 applicants who applied to fill a vacancy left open after Gene Maxwell, then a councilman, was elected as mayor. Voters elected Brausen when he ran for office two years later.

He chose not to run again when that term expired. But council members appointed him to the council again just a year-and-a-half later, and he ran for office again in 2007.

“For all the good things I just said (about the job), I’m not as enthusiastic about it as I have been in the past,” Brausen said near the end of an interview discussing highlights of his council tenure. “It’s just time for me to move on.”

It’s not unheard of for former council members to move to other government bodies, such as the Charter Commission. But neither Brausen nor Rowan plans to take that step.

Rowan encouraged the next crop of candidates to knock on a lot of doors, find out what people think and then be brave enough to make the right decision even if it goes against the grain.

“You’ve been elected to make decisions, not parrot the decisions of others,” he said.

Brausen, showing a bit of the humor he’s known for bringing to council meetings, advised his successors to not let their new positions go to their heads.

“Have fun with it, and remember it’s just Hopkins, MN,” he said, echoing advice former Mayor Bob Miller gave to him. “You’re a City Council member in a small town, and it’s best to keep it that way.”