An unserious St. Paul City Council fiddles while downtown crumbles

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Unlike most of my neighbors, I am not a native St. Paulite. I moved to the city in 2018, never having imagined I’d ever live east of the Mississippi River. Later in life, I grew an appetite to try new things. I converted to Catholicism. I found recovery. And I relocated to a place I had only known as a kid from field trips to the Science Museum and State Capitol.

It was an easy transition; the city’s beautiful tree-lined boulevards, historical architecture and warm and diverse communities drew me in and have kept me planted here ever since. Even though I work in Wayzata, the long commute is worth it. I like coming home to St. Paul.

It is my care and commitment to the city that has me so concerned with the state of things here these days. In 2020, I warned my fellow residents in an opinion piece for the Pioneer Press that St. Paul was “headed in the wrong direction.” Sadly, five years later, the decline has only accelerated. Who could have imagined things would get so bad that Lunds & Byerlys would have to close the one remaining grocery store in downtown St. Paul? Or that the charming and once-vibrant Mears Park area is now nearly restaurantless and an ominous place to be after dark? Or that the 16-story Alliance Bank Center would have its power shut off and tenants evicted with hours’ notice? Downtown St. Paul is in a doom loop, evident to anyone who has visited its desolate streets recently, and needs bold leadership to pull it out.

Sadly, our City Council has not proven capable of that kind of forward-thinking leadership and instead remains infatuated with national progressive political issues it has no business in. Last week, in a unanimous vote, council members, taking cues from far-left Macalester College students, passed a resolution urging Congress to enact the “Green New Deal.” Of course, the move is foolish from a policy position, as that radical proposal, which has a price tag of around $93 trillion, is a senseless piece of legislation that thankfully has no chance of ever becoming law, particularly these days. But, more outrageously, with all the troubles St. Paul is facing, why is the council distracting itself with meaningless political showboating?

Instead of taking direction from untested college students who know nothing about running a city, the St. Paul City Council should listen to a former Chicago mayor and prominent Democrat, Rahm Emanuel, who ran his city well. “Safe streets, strong schools, stable finances,” he said recently. “Focus on those three things and your city’s going to be fine.” Amen. Making a city run well isn’t easy. But it’s also not all that complicated.

St. Paul council members should also heed the advice of one of their former colleagues, Jane Prince, who represented Ward 7 until 2023. A lifelong Democrat, she’s tested and knows her stuff and has some serious ideas about what needs to be done to rescue downtown St. Paul.

For starters, she thinks city, county and state employees need to return to working in their offices there instead of working from home. Now. Calling these workers in would bring a boost of energy back to the Capital City. And I agree that it’s a much needed no-brainer.

I spoke with St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter about this. He told me city employees will be required to come in three days a week starting April 1. That’s good news, and county and state leaders should require the same of their teams. And the three-day requirement should expand to five soon, as is becoming common in the private sector once again.

But that will get us only so far. The city needs to transform itself into a place that attracts new businesses, residents and visitors instead of repelling them. Between 2020 and 2023, of the five largest Minnesota cities, St. Paul was the only one to lose population. And last year, two major employers left downtown St. Paul for better climes. Things aren’t going well, and we’re not doing St. Paul any favors by pretending otherwise.

“We need city leaders that are willing to do the hard work of governing and be engaged with what’s going on in our community on a day-to-day basis,” Prince told me during our phone interview. “Our neighborhoods and businesses need advocates for their interests at City Hall — not political activists. St. Paul is surviving because so many of us love it and always will. But we need to be realistic about how serious and urgent the problems are and bring a laser focus to their solutions.”

St. Paul also must get to work making itself competitive again. It won’t be able to do that with such sky-high taxes. The city’s sales tax of 9.875% is the highest in Minnesota. St. Paul’s effective property tax rate — 1.39% of estimated market value — is the heftiest for all of Minnesota’s 20 regions. Not exactly the kind of climate that attracts new residents and commerce. And the city’s absurd rent-control law has brought development to a standstill and has understandably spooked investors away. It should be repealed with dispatch. Competition and free markets, not government fiat, keep rent rates low and housing options abundant.

I cut my teeth in politics working for Sen. Norm Coleman, who made a name for himself by revitalizing St. Paul in the 1990s as its energetic and impressive young mayor. The city was degenerating then, but he turned it around by keeping property taxes low and streets safe, and by partnering with the business community to boost the city’s economic engines, which benefited everyone. His leadership also single-handedly brought the Wild to St. Paul, and it’s hard to imagine how much grimmer things would be today in downtown St. Paul if the Xcel Energy Center didn’t exist. Norm would tell me all the time how much he had loved being mayor because of the direct impact he could have on the quality of his constituents’ lives. And he did. That history is worth repeating.

Decline is not destiny; it is a decision. Plenty of cities across the country, such as Nashville, Boise, Raleigh and Salt Lake City, have rebounded after the pandemic thanks to good governance and pro-growth policies and are enjoying a period of renaissance and revitalization. St. Paul isn’t. That can change with better governance, but that will happen only if voters insist on it. The Capital City has way too much going for it to settle for the downward trajectory it’s on.

Andy Brehm is a contributing columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune. He’s a corporate lawyer and previously served as U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s press secretary.