Council candidate profile: Ross Altendorfer

• Ross Altendorfer

Ross Altendorfer

Talk about it

Ross Altendorfer may be one of the younger candidates running for Woodbury City Council. But he’s also one of the longest-tenured residents of the 16 candidates seeking a seat in the council chambers.

The Woodbury High School alumnus grew up in town. He works as a sales representative at Northern Tool and Equipment and is studying business administration at the local Globe University campus. If anyone knows the ins and outs of Woodbury, Altendorfer believes he knows them best.

“I feel like because I live here, work here, go to school here and grew up here, I see everything that goes on, day to day, year to year,” said Altendorfer, 29.

On the positive side, Altendorfer has seen Woodbury grow from humble beginnings to the commercial center it has become for the east metro. On the negative end of the spectrum, he said he sees a community that still lacks proper response to growing traffic volumes and vacant commercial space.

“The residential roads still seem like they are behind the times,” he said. “I mean (the road crews) come by and throw some sticky tar in the cracks and call it good, and that seems about it.”

Altendorfer said a fresh perspective is what is needed to solve the new problems that face a community that has grown by three-fold since he first moved here as an elementary school student.

So how would he solve such problems? Common sense.

“I used to work at Hoeppner’s Auto Body in town and pretty often we’d see police cars come in for a car wash that cost $14.95,” he said. “Citizens shouldn’t have to pay that much to have police cars washed when there are other cheaper avenues out there.”

Although Altendorfer knows talk is cheap, he said some of his biggest verbal supporters are those who are quite a bit older than he.

“The people who I have been talking to who are much older say they think we need some young blood on the council to change some stuff that needs to be changed,” Altendorfer said.

Ross Altendorfer

Age: 29

Occupation: sales, Northern Tool and Equipment

Family: youngest of three siblings

Woodbury resident: 19 years

Civic involvement: none

Tags: city council, election