Four newcomers aim for St. Paul seat vacated by Council President Brendmoen

For the first time in more than a decade, St. Paul's Fifth Ward — covering much of the city's north-central area — will have someone other than Amy Brendmoen representing it on the City Council.

Brendmoen, who has sat on the council since 2012 and served as its president for the past several years, is not seeking re-election. Four candidates are vying to replace her for a ward bordered on the west by Como Park and on the east by Payne-Phalen: Hwa Jeong Kim, Nate Nins, Pam Tollefson and David Greenwood-Sanchez.

The Fifth Ward is one of four St. Paul districts that will have new members chosen Nov. 7. Each of the candidates is hoping their backgrounds and experiences will resonate with voters who have a wide range of concerns.

Hwa Jeong Kim, a onetime legislative aide to Brendmoen, said she's taking part in her sixth election cycle. Endorsed by the DFL Party, Kim said she has knocked on thousands of doors and heard the firsthand concerns of constituents for several years.

While the ward's residents have a range of concerns, from crime to historic preservation, Kim said that increasing the city's supply of affordable housing will be a priority if she's elected.

"If you can stabilize a family through housing, give them an affordable base, they're able to meet other basic needs," she said. "I believe it's the biggest element of individual and family stability: housing people."

Kim, 38, is part of a bloc of candidates in all seven wards that would make next year's council the first composed of all women, as well as its youngest and most racially diverse. Still, she said, they each bring their own experiences and backgrounds to draw upon — despite espousing a common progressive agenda.

Kim said her job as executive director of a nonprofit focused on voting rights, as well as her work for the ward and on the St. Paul Planning Commission, set her apart from her rivals. "I'm uniquely poised to be an effective leader who gets results," she said.

To Pam Tollefson, the City Council has become too partisan and strayed too far from its job of providing basic city services, such as road maintenance and public safety. Council members, she said, are too enamored with splashy and expensive projects.

Her age of 62, and the experiences that come with it, set her apart from others seeking the council seat, Tollefson said.

"I've been a renter and a landlord. And I've been a homeowner," she said. "I was a single parent — and I took care of my parents. I just bring so many more life experiences that they can't possibly have."

Tollefson said the major issue facing the Fifth Ward is crime, whether the copper wires stripped from light poles in Como Park or the all-too-common gunshots on Rice Street. She said she would be a better ally of police than some of her opponents.

David Greenwood-Sanchez, 37, is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Iowa, commuting to Iowa City to teach classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Born and raised in the Como area, he decided to run after watching council members dismiss the hard work of his neighbors as they unsuccessfully fought to save the former St. Andrew's Catholic Church from demolition. It wasn't an isolated event, he said.

"This campaign is to make sure that doesn't happen to other citizens," Greenwood-Sanchez said.

Too often, he said, the council shuts down discussion and crowds out citizens who step forward to speak their minds when that runs contrary to council wishes. Whether they oppose a regional bicycle trail on Summit Avenue or stand against a new sales tax, residents who go against a politically aligned mayor and City Council are marginalized, he said.

How does he hope to overcome his better-funded, DFL-endorsed opponent? "What you really have to do is put yourself out there and get real support from real people," he said.

Nate Nins, 37, said he has lived in just about every neighborhood in the city and bought a house on Rice Street at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The former Marine and National Guard member said he hopes to bring a regular-guy mindset to the City Council.

A former local library employee who now works to provide technology to local government through St. Paul's snow emergency alert system, Nins said he would draw upon his information technology background to make public information more easily digestible.

While the city collects property taxes to pay for common needs, he said, there is little agreement on what those needs are. "I'm a consensus builder. A team leader. And that's the kind of mentality I would bring to this role," Nins said.