Owatonna’s People’s Press reports…

Justin Ohnstad and Gary Spatenka are vying for the Steele County Commissioner District 1 seat, which is soon to be vacated by James Brady. Ahead of the election, both discussed their perspectives on public safety facilities in Owatonna, data centers and their primary focus if elected.

Here’s what Justin Ohnstad had to say…

As data centers are a major topic of interest in neighboring communities, Ohnstad was asked what his approach would be to the possibility of their construction in the future.

“To my knowledge we’re not being approached for that at this time. There are a lot of questions that need to be asked: location, utility consumption, rate increases and things of that nature,” he said. “How will it impact if it can be a positive impact on the residents of Steele County? It’s definitely worth exploring. Which is not a yes answer. However, let’s ask the questions and figure out what benefits it might bring to the county.”

Ohnstad also discussed the benefits and potential for overreach inherent in the use of Flock cameras.

“I don’t have a ton of research on them. However, my personal belief is I don’t need a camera to take a picture of my license plate three times a day when I come in and out of town,” he said. “That being said, if something were to happen to a community member like an abduction, (Flock cameras) would be an asset for law enforcement and potentially expedite the recovery which could be invaluable. I think government serves a role and it certainly has to have an involvement in people’s daily function, but they are tiptoeing on the line with being too much Big Brother for me.”

Here’s what Gary Spatenka had to say…

His opinion on data centers is contingent on future conversations with the community.

“The big thing right now we have going on in the county is going to be these data centers and that hasn’t really come up yet,” Spatenka said. “I think that we have to sit down as a county and have open meetings to discuss these data centers because we don’t really know a lot about them yet.”