WILLMAR

The two candidates running in Minnesota House District 16B had the opportunity to make their case to the voters earlier this week in a candidate forum.

Incumbent Rep. Dave Baker, R-Willmar, running for a sixth term, and DFL challenger Josiah Ampian, 27, of Willmar, were hosted by the Willmar Area League of Women Voters on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the Willmar Municipal Utilities building.

Questions put to the two by a moderator ranged from everyday challenges voters face to how each candidate would work across the aisle if elected, among other issues. House District 16B lies solely within Kandiyohi County, comprising all but four townships in the southeastern corner of the county.

In his opening statement Ampian pitched himself as a local who wished to step up for his community in St. Paul. “I want to be able to represent my district and the people that helped me grow up and showed me such a wonderful youth that I want to be able to represent them at the state level,” he said.

Ampian graduated from Willmar Senior High School in 2015. According to West Central Tribune files, he went to Ridgewater College for a year before serving for six years in the Air Force as a network technician. Ampian moved back to Willmar in 2022.

Baker spent his opening statement amicably welcoming his opponent, stating he and Ampian had shared a dinner about two months prior to get to know each other.

“I found that to be very engaging,” Baker said, “He’s a fine young person and has every right and should do this because I think it’s really an honor to do this and serve.”

Despite being in office for 10 years, Baker said he still enjoys the work he does in St. Paul.

“I’ve got a real fire in my belly yet to want to go back and continue to try and do the good things that Minnesotans want me to do, especially the folks here in Kandiyohi County,” he said.

Baker, an area business owner, was first elected to the Legislature in 2014. During his time in office Baker was part of securing funding for the Willmar Wye railroad bypass project, a new facility for the state poultry testing lab in Willmar, and funding for the project to expand Highway 23 to four lanes between Willmar and Interstate 94.

Each candidate was asked about the greatest challenges for residents within the district.

Ampian stated he saw two prominent problems. First, younger residents in the district say the cost of living and housing are the biggest problems they face.

“You have a lot of people who are having struggles living and getting financially set up where they can actually live,” he said. “Housing has gone up as everybody understands. Inflation is killing their paychecks.”

He continued that some legislation passed in recent years has “increased taxes on their income and that’s creating a harsh environment for them.”

Ampian said the second problem is continuing support for elderly and retirees into the future.

“People looking at their retirement and saying ‘what’s going to happen? Is my Social Security going to run out? Do I have enough to live right now? Do I have enough to sustain or to retire?’ I think those are the two biggest issues in our district,” Ampian said.

Baker said he believes overall economic health is the biggest issue.

“What I’m hearing from our folks in Kandiyohi County … is the economy is a big deal. Inflation has really crippled a lot of families to be able to pay their electric bills and their food bills,” he said. “We need to understand that inflation is also driven not only by some of the supply chain issues, some of the whole-sale costs, but mandates that are put on people.”

He continued, “The extra things businesses have to do to be able to sell their wares, sell their products . ... When those things happen and the government is putting more pressure on, those costs have to be passed on.”

Baker said he also feels education is a key concern for the district, adding that he knows school administrators who were frustrated with mandates put on the schools.

“A lot of money was spent (on education) and I actually was not afraid of that one-time investment,” Baker said, “but we’ve got to be able to change that and bring some real common sense back to our voters in our state to make sure we have a balanced approach to our education.”

Asked about working across the aisle with legislators from the opposing political party, Baker said he has been known to be a very bipartisan member of the House.

“I am committed to working across the aisle like I’ve always done,” adding that the legislation written and passed in a bipartisan manner is “always a better bill.”

Ampian, who was endorsed by the Kandiyohi County Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in April, said at the forum Tuesday night that people will not find a single endorsement or pledge on his website or in his own campaigning.

“I am not here for my party. I have ideals with them, but I am here for my constituents. I am here for you,” he said. “For me, this is about you as individuals in my community that I have to represent.”

As far as reaching across the aisle if he is elected, Ampian said, “I think that really comes to commonplace solutions and being approachable by people and not being afraid to approach them,” he said. “I think that piece is where I can come in, I’m not afraid to go out and talk to people from across the aisle and hear ideas that I don’t like… I want to figure out how to come to a compromise and consensus that’s good for the people in our communities.”

Both candidates shared a somewhat similar opinion about making sure child care providers have enough support to implement proposed child care regulations.

A project to “modernize” child care regulation in the state was launched after legislation was approved in 2021, with plans for the Minnesota Department of Human Services to present a progress report and draft licensing standards in the 2025 session. The department paused that plan after it received “extensive feedback from the child care community requesting more time for additional feedback and engagement on the next draft version of standards.”

Ampian said, “We’re probably both a little bit peeved about some of the regulations that were coming across for that.”

The department in April 2024 put forth a 97-page document of draft standards for family child care settings and 81 pages for child care centers.

Ampian said he believed the proposals should be “stripped down. We can’t have child care that we need in our rural communities without a lot of those barriers being removed,” he said.

He raised the example of allowing only certain kinds of turf in outdoor play areas.

“We need to allow people to take care of kids in the way they have been doing for the past 20 years,” Ampian said.

Baker described the proposals as mostly burdensome.

“Our daycare providers right now are hanging on by the skin of their teeth and if we put more mandates on them … you’re going to see a huge (number) dropping their keys on the desk and saying ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ That would be the worst thing we could do.”

Baker said he received a lot of emails from daycare providers sharing concerns about some of the proposals. He referenced listening tours hosted by the state Department of Human Services.

According to the department, the project team hosted or participated in 23 listening sessions that engaged more than 950 participants and collected 2,498 individual ideas or pieces of feedback shared on notes. In addition, more than 1,000 individuals completed the survey on draft licensing standards.

“Thank goodness they heard them,” Baker said. “ … We’ve just got to make sure we’re listening to providers. Give them support, and try to give them everything we can.”

A full recorded video of the candidate forum is available on the Willmar Area’s League of Women Voters Facebook page.