Prominent business owner Joe Powers wins Rochester mayor race

Joe Powers, who owns a Rochester catering business and popular restaurants, including Canadian Honker, has won a very close race for mayor of Minnesota’s third largest city.

Unofficial results show that Powers received 50.5 percent of the vote, beating Jess Garcia, a psychologist and former Rochester school board member. He’ll take over the office held for the last eight years by mayor Kim Norton, who announced her retirement earlier this year.

While both candidates focused on conversations around affordability in town — from property tax hikes to affordable housing — Power’s campaign also focused on public safety, proposing greater investments in the Rochester Police Department.

The new mayor will be tasked with guiding Rochester through a period of tremendous change.

Rochester is in the midst of several massive, years-long redevelopment and construction projects that have created traffic headaches for residents and have hurt local businesses, leading several to close their doors.

Mayo Clinic is building a new, $5 billion hospital complex in downtown Rochester, and the city is in the midst of a 20-year $5.6 billion economic redevelopment plan, known as Destination Medical Center, which is meant to make Rochester more attractive to visitors, including the patients and their families who come from across the country and world for treatment at Mayo Clinic.

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