Don’t let the lack of lawn signs in St. Paul fool you.
The candidates for St. Paul mayor may not yet be dominating front yards, but a number spent the season wearing out their shoe leather.
Ask Melvin Carter, a former St. Paul City Council member, how he’s keeping busy this summer and he chuckles. In the span of two weeks, Carter said goodbye to the beloved grandfather who had been his namesake, came within a couple dozen votes but couldn’t quite win the St. Paul DFL endorsement and was married at a destination wedding in Mexico. Until the end of June, he was the father of two adorable young daughters. As of July, he also has a 9-year-old stepson and two adult stepchildren.
This summer a crowded field of mayoral hopefuls are keeping busy, on and off the campaign trail. The deadline to file for mayor is Tuesday. The election will be held Nov. 7.
How important are these next 12 weeks to the campaigns?
As she goes door-knocking, Green Party candidate Elizabeth Dickinson said well under 10 percent of voters tell her they have a candidate in mind.
About a third of voters understand that the election will be decided by ranked-choice ballot and how that works, some 40 percent “have some knowledge of it,” and “it’s new to about 30 percent.”
Dark horse candidates who have filed include Barnabus Y’Shua, a resident of the Union Gospel Mission men’s shelter who said God compelled him to run, and perennial candidate Sharon Anderson, who blames the city for evicting her from her Summit Avenue home in 1988.
As for why the lawn signs haven’t rolled out yet, under city rules they’re not allowed to go up until Sept. 8. Historically, political signs appear before the primary elections, but there are no St. Paul primaries in 2017.
DAI THAO
You won’t find City Council member Dai Thao at City Hall on Tuesday evenings. That’s because he’s dedicating his “Action Tuesdays” to hot spots and hot issues around St. Paul. On Aug. 8, he was seated by a rainwater-filled pothole near St. Clair and Cleveland avenues, fishing pole in hand, to call attention to right-of-way fees, potholes and street maintenance issues.
In a Facebook video titled “I am fishing for votes in the Land of 10,000 Potholes,” the mayoral candidate said: “Every Tuesday until Nov. 7, we’re out in the community working on the issues that you told us are important to you. … Some potholes are so big you can go fishing in them. We’ve got to fix this.”
Thao said he supports the city’s plan to shift the majority of street maintenance funding onto property taxes (as opposed to fees based on property type and sidewalk frontage) which will bring some savings to the poorest property owners.
On Aug. 1, the Thao campaign rolled into Mears Park, highlighting concerns about crime and poverty. On July 18, he picked up litter on Central Avenue and North Milton Street to emphasize that the city’s organized trash collection proposal could cut down on illegal dumping.
PAT HARRIS
Former City Council member Pat Harris serves on the boards of Como Friends, the Minnesota Children’s Museum, Serving our Troops and other nonprofits, and his volunteerism has kept him busy this summer. That, and heading to Little League games for his three sons and tennis matches for his daughter, who was also enrolled in the Circus Juventas summer camp.
In between, he’s also running for mayor. “We’ve been reaching out every day, knocking on doors, having events at people’s houses,” Harris said.
In those conversations, he hears about “really everything” from jobs and the economy to libraries and parks.
Yes, “the Ford Plant comes up,” said Harris, who represented Highland Park during his multiple terms on the city council. He continues to advocate for a go-slower approach when it comes to rezoning more than 120 acres of vacant Ford Manufacturing land that will someday become the city’s next major neighborhood.
“There’s lots of different forums where we’ve had conversations about the Ford site,” said Harris, a vice president with BMO Harris Bank. He said he worries about the traffic impact, green space and quality-of-life issues. “I’ve just been saying that the zoning process is going way too fast.”
MELVIN CARTER
Former City Council member Melvin Carter remarried near Cancun, Mexico, in early July, but there wasn’t much time for siesta.
At campaign events, he reminds residents that St. Paul’s residential population is growing fast, and the city needs to build up to draw jobs and housing.
“We’ve added 20,000 people since 2010,” Carter said. “Growing out isn’t an option. … That’s going to require density, that’s going to require transit, that’s going to require bike lanes. … We’re either building transit, or that’s a whole lot more cars on the street.”
Carter’s mayoral campaign hosts phone banks every Tuesday and Thursday evenings, with 10 to 15 volunteers attending, according to campaign manager Emily Weber. That’s followed by door knocking every Saturday with a crowd of 10 to 20 folks. “We’re hearing over and over again that people’s top issues are education, equity, and — increasingly — transportation and transit,” Weber said.
Carter, who advocates for early education initiatives as part of Gov. Mark Dayton’s “children’s cabinet,” will be speaking at the St. Paul College orientation on Thursday. He recently delivered a few remarks of solidarity and support outside the Dar Al Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington following an Aug. 5 bombing attack.
TOM GOLDSTEIN
Attorney Tom Goldstein spent part of the summer going door to door collecting 500 signatures in lieu of the $500 filing fee in the mayor’s race.
Goldstein, who previously served a term on the St. Paul school board, has been holding candidate events at his home and issuing public statements urging the city to move slower on the rezoning of the vacant Ford land.
He said he’s been “knocking on doors, spending time with residents and going to every community event that I can find, and hear about things that I might not be tracking, just to be sure that they’re on my radar,” Goldstein said.
He continues to take Minnesota United team owner Dr. Bill McGuire to task at public forums for the soccer stadium under construction off Snelling and University avenues.
In late July, Goldstein wrote an email to the seven members of the city council urging them to condemn a stadium naming rights deal between Minnesota United and Allianz Life, a German company that worked closely with the Nazi party during World War II. The company later made partial financial restitution to Jewish families it had wronged, but the New York Giants and Jets ended their stadium talks with Allianz in 2008.
TIM HOLDEN
Commercial Realtor Tim Holden ran for the mayor’s seat in 2013 and garnered 16 percent of the vote.
“When not tossing a bean bag at Fifth and Minnesota, I have been caring for my grandmother who is staying with me and is on hospice,” said Holden, in an email. “Respect for loved ones and each other is what we need to consider more everyday in this hurried society of confusion.”
ELIZABETH DICKINSON
In a detailed written response to a reporter’s inquiry, Green Party candidate Elizabeth Dickinson said that since mid-April, she’s connected with more than 600 people through door knocking, which means she’s probably knocked on five times as many doors.
“We’ve been in every ward at this point,” she said.
She said many voters are open to talking about her priorities — environment and energy policy, police and community relations, and education. “I usually have to explain that the school budget is separate from the city budget,” she said.
“Raising the minimum wage to $15, as in Minneapolis, has overwhelming support,” Dickinson added. “Only about 5 percent of people I’ve door-knocked indicate any concerns about how it might impact business or prices.”
Also occupying her time are city-led and community discussions on race relations and the shooting death of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, right-of-way maintenance funding and how the city might obtain voluntary payments in lieu of taxes from large nonprofit and government properties.
“Outside of the campaign, I continue to attend national Clean Water Action board meetings by phone and Community Power MN board meetings in person as I’m able,” Dickinson said.