Dakota Times

Minnesota may rank third highest in the second annual U.S. Prosperity Index from the Legatum Institute, but House District 52A candidate Mariah de la Paz said she sees all the years of economic growth, stability and security is being lost even faster.

The Legatum Institute based its ranking on economic performance, growth and quality-of-life indicators, The Center Square reported. The organization used 11 categories of prosperity, including inclusive societies and personal freedom. The state ranked 14th on Safety & Security.

De la Paz, a Republican candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives in West St. Paul and parts of South St. Paul, told the Dakota Times that businesses are leaving Minneapolis and if she could stop working in the city, she wouldn’t return. A health care worker who deals with COVID-19 everywhere she goes, she gets held to rules that confine her even outside the work environment.

The state has entered a social crisis and won’t return to the status quo, she said.

“I work on the edge of downtown Minneapolis and was confronted by a deranged man at an intersection going to work with a machete in his backpack. I zoomed out of his way as I feared for my life,” she told the Dakota Times.

The idea of the radical left in Minneapolis is creating stress and anxiety. If the police are defunded, De la Paz said local residents will have no safety net and things will get worse.

“We have people with mental illness roaming the streets and no one is dealing with them as it is now,” she told the Dakota Times. “How much less will our safety be a concern for those political officials?”

De la Paz has some hope for the future perhaps because of the chaos.

“I do believe that this chaos is an opportunity to move forward with a new societal framework for betterment, and I am sure our status quo will not return anytime soon nationwide,” she told the Dakota Times.