Toby Leonard eyes Mankato mayoral seat ahead of midterms

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - Campaign season is in full swing for the midterm elections on Nov. 8.

A mayoral election will be on the ballot for the residents of Mankato. One of those candidates is Toby Leonard.

Leonard has been in the Mankato community for around 30 years and sees only growth and potential for the city.

“We can expand businesses here, so we have a great workforce, we have a good agricultural base, we are centrally located to move things around we have quite a bit to offer here at least with business and expansion,” Leonard said.

With a background in working with college students and disadvantaged youth preparing for their futures, he believes that this background and his analytical way of thinking would help him to lead the city into the future.

One of his issues is doing what he can to bring rent prices down.

“There’s things we can do to the rental code to make it less expensive to renters. We can reduce some of those hurdles landlords have to go through and that would increase the supply and reduce the cost to the landlords which translates to lower costs to the renters,” Leonard said.

Leonard has been campaigning throughout Mankato hoping to gather votes. One concern that he has been hearing is public safety.

“What are some concerns you have been hearing about public safety in Mankato that maybe people have brought up to you?”

“There’s been an uptick in crime, overall,” Leonard said. “That has been one of the concerns. The main thing is that we can use data on where crimes are occurring and see if we need to move police to where it needs to happen. See if it is in one neighborhood maybe we can see about moving patrols there.”

Leonard calls himself objective when it comes to making decisions and believes that this will help him in the mayor’s seat.

“If you start to look at the whole picture, looking objectively we can start looking at what policies we can implement and what we can do as a city council to make it a better place.”

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