Paid for and maintained by
Jessica Peterson for State Senate


Our part of the state is changing all the time. As more and more of our area becomes suburban, we're faced with a huge challenge: how to balance this development with our desire to preserve the land, whether as farms or woodlands and wetlands.

As a County Commissioner, I deal with these challenges every day. I'm very proud of my success in finding ways to manage growth and maintain our community's way of life at the same time. We all want our rivers and lakes to be fishable and swimmable. We want forests and prairies, whether for hunting, hiking, or just enjoying their beauty. It's part of our Minnesota heritage, and it's the State's responsibility to use good science and fair regulation to improve and protect our waters and our lands.

There's much the legislature can do, too, to make sure that Minnesota families can keep farming, and that they can make a living doing it. We need agriculture; it's one of the most important parts of our economy. And by paying attention to agriculture, we have chance to truly improve the environment. Environmental sustainability and economic sustainability are not opposing goals. They're pieces of the same puzzle, and if we can get everybody working together we can build economic and environmental policies that work together too.