Richfield's outgoing mayor reflects on six years in public office

Richfield Mayor Maria Regan Gonzalez knew she would have to approach her job differently from her predecessors, to govern as herself — a younger Latina woman — and as someone committed to including people who had not always had access to political power.

As she prepares to leave public office, Gonzalez said she hopes her approach will have a lasting impact on the city. Minnesota's first Latina mayor — and the youngest mayor elected in Richfield — decided not to seek re-election in 2022.

"I didn't meet other people's expectations, and I was very OK with that," Gonzalez said.

She's proud of doing things differently, of cultivating community leaders who pushed for new policy priorities such as parks and recreation services accessible to people with disabilities, secure affordable housing and a conscious commitment to equity across city staff. None of that would have been possible, Gonzalez said, if she had conformed to others' ideas of what a suburban mayor should be.

"I'm proud that I committed to being a genuine, authentic leader," she said. "I was OK on disappointing people in that way because my leadership was focused on equity and inclusion."

Tuesday is Gonzalez's last day in office. Mary Supple, a council member, ran unopposed for mayor in 2022 and will take office this week.

Gonzalez fell in love with Richfield when she worked in public health there and in neighboring Bloomington. She appreciated the diverse community, which boasts Minnesota's largest Latino population outside Minneapolis or St. Paul, and being able to walk to a park from almost anywhere in town. It was the kind of place where she'd always wanted to live, the kind of place where she wanted to raise a family. She bought a home in the city and decided to stay.

As appealing as Richfield was, with its slogan "the urban hometown" and all the community had to offer, Gonzalez also saw the diverse population wasn't always reflected in city policy. Not everyone in Richfield felt connected to political power.

"There was this lack of connection but not lack of intent or want to connect," she said.

The killing of Philando Castile by a police officer in Falcon Heights was a catalyst, Gonzalez said. After years of watching inequities hurting communities of color and undocumented people, she decided to run for City Council in 2016.

Gonzalez said she saw a place to make a difference. Her bicultural and bilingual background — her mother is from Mexico and her father from Mora, Minn. — could help her connect with community members who felt outside the English-speaking power structure.

She won the council race in 2016, receiving 56% of the Ward 3 votes over Lisa Rudolph, who had the endorsement of the outgoing Ward 3 council member and mayor. Gonzalez was endorsed by longtime City Council member and former legislator Edwina Garcia and then-U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison.

In a 2018 interview, Gonzalez said some had suggested she run as Maria Regan, not Maria Regan Gonzalez, to obscure her Latina identity. She said her decision to embrace that identity, with the backing of Garcia and Latino community groups, helped her win the race.

Gonzalez said she didn't feel ready to run for mayor in 2018 when the seat opened up, but she put aside her trepidation. Though she ran unopposed, Gonzalez said she still campaigned to win over voters.

It wasn't always easy, she said.

"I had a lot of people asking me if I was only going to represent Latinos," Gonzalez said. "People said I was too young to be a mayor."

But she said she did not want to try to get around those assumptions by conforming to the way things had always been done. She didn't want to attend meetings for groups with long histories of engagement, but instead wanted to help other communities get organized to advocate for their needs.

"My job is to cultivate new leadership, and people did not like that," Gonzalez said. But she is proud for staying committed to that approach.

Equity and inclusion shaped Gonzalez's approach to handling COVID-19 in Richfield and responding to unrest after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And as the city — like the entire metro region — grapples with a crisis in building and maintaining affordable housing, Gonzalez said she is especially proud of her work to prevent displacement of poor people from large apartment complexes in Richfield and her advocacy for affordable, accessible construction.

During Gonzalez's final council meeting Dec. 13, several residents and local leaders said she kept that commitment to lifting up other voices throughout her four years as mayor.

Emilia Gonzalez, a Richfield resident and executive director of Navigate MN/Unidos MN (and no relation to the mayor), said it was an honor to have witnessed the city's first Latina mayor navigate the turbulence of the past four years.

"Witnessing her temperance and her commitment and her resilience was truly inspiring for me, because we were facing all these challenges together," Emilia Gonzalez said.

Crystal Brakke, chair of the Richfield school board, said the mayor was a strong partner.

"You were so often the first call or the first text," Brakke said.

Maria Gonzalez said city staff were open to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and stepped up to cultivate relationships in neglected communities. She said she hoped thinking about racial equity and affordable, accessible housing will continue at City Hall and throughout the community after she leaves office.

Now, Gonzalez said, she is hoping to shift her focus from the 36,500 people of Richfield to her own family.

She had wanted to run for re-election. But at 37, she said she also wanted to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother. She did not see a way to serve the public, work full time — a necessity, she said, because her day job provides health insurance for her and her partner — and be the mother she wanted to be.

"I'd love to just be a mayor and a mom, but that's really not a choice for me," Gonzalez said.

Still, she said, she believes the new leadership she has helped cultivate in the city will keep driving Richfield forward.

"I'm so proud of everything I was able to accomplish," Gonzalez said.