Additional Q-and-A with Jeffrey Beck

Here’s candidate Q-and-A content in addition to what appeared in EPLN’s print Voter Guide, mailed to Eden Prairie homes in early October. We are repeating the Voter Guide’s introduction of the candidate.

Jeffrey A. Beck

Beck has been a resident of Main Street in Eden Prairie for several months and previously lived in Richfield, Bloomington, St. Louis Park and Hopkins.

Now a caregiver to his elderly parents, he previously served on the board of the Hennepin County Soil & Water Conservation District.

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Beck said that if elected to the County Board, he would “work for all the people in my district, not just rich people like others do.”

When asked about endorsements or donations from groups, Beck said, “This position is supposed to be nonpartisan – by definition, not allowed to have any party endorsement. Yet, we have candidates breaking this rule every day.”

EPLN: What is your position on the much-debated question of whether Hennepin Healthcare, the County Board, or another entity should control Hennepin County Medical Center and other county health facilities?

BECK: Hennepin Healthcare nurses are underpaid for what they have to put up with.

In addition, as a believer in consumer protection for Hennepin County residents, I feel this is the most expensive, overpriced, rudderless facility ever. The medical costs for all procedures are 20 percent higher than at other Hennepin County hospitals. In plain English, this is a rip-off medical facility. The CEO of Hennepin Healthcare overcharges you intentionally every time you step into the hospital’s door. High charges for ambulance rides and aspirin; hostile customer-service workers at the front desk. The public should have a right – since this is a public hospital using public dollars – to see all the prices they charge for their surgeries, operations and services. Only Jeff Beck will publish all of the real hospital costs for surgery and lab procedures.

I will close this hospital down and build a new, smarter-looking, more friendly community hospital that we all need today, with new management. My CEO won’t be paid $1 million, either. We will offer the lowest prices in the Twin Cities for all medical procedures, under my watch. I want to help people save money. Others want to run you off every day.

EPLN: The county has a solid-waste management plan that calls for considerably less trash to be produced by 2030, yet the state says the county is actually headed in the wrong direction. What additional steps would you propose, if any, to get residents to produce less garbage?

BECK: There is a simple solution. The Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) mass-burn facility has the potential to poison a lot of people in Minneapolis, just like 3M chemicals are a threat to people in St. Paul. I’m tearing the building down. Immediately! 

Better recycling practices are needed. Paying $1 to bring back to stores all bottles for recycling works. We can cut trash by 20 percent.

EPLN: How would you maintain impartiality and fairness, even when faced with issues that may conflict with your personal beliefs?

BECK: I have studied the Hennepin County Board for over 20 years, and have watched how seven people made mistakes, more mistakes and even more mistakes. I know that if elected, I can do better than all of them