Vision-2
Why I'm Running For City Council
I’m running for council because our city needs a new voice and new ideas. St. Paul is facing some serious challenges – housing (un)affordability, crime and insecurity, an alarmingly vacant downtown, and some very serious struggles to balance the budget. This is without even mentioning the deeper challenges of homelessness, poverty, and disinvestment in our communities. We can’t continue with our current brand of insider politics; we need change.
I am running to bring an honest, independent, and reasonable voice to the council, and to address these challenges in a real way. In particular, I am running to return voice to our neighborhoods, to balance the budget responsibly, and to promote “real” affordable housing, strong public schools, and a healthy environment.
The central challenge of our city is one of priorities
our leaders are prioritizing ambitious and grandiose projects that are leaving us unable to satisfy our fundamental governmental responsibilities. There is perhaps no better example of this than the proposed, and absolutely unnecessary, expansion of the Como Pavilion – a beloved building in great condition – right here in Ward 5.
How can we continue to push projects like this while so many of our people and services are being neglected?
To have a functional city, we need to readjust our priorities
Let’s start by paying our firefighters and supporting them with a good contract.
Let’s repair the roads, not with patchwork fixes, but with lasting repairs.
Let’s find a way to improve the mediocre snow-shoveling services that left so many people stuck this past winter.
Let’s find real solutions to address the rising violence and insecurity across the city.
And let’s stop talking about addressing the challenge of homelessness; let’s start funding real actions to help address this.
As a councilmember, I will promote 3 priorities:
Returning voice to our neighborhoods
So many people across St. Paul feel like they don’t really have a voice, as though the city’s decisions are being made without them. My top priority is to help create spaces of meaningful engagement for our citizens, spaces where our residents can speak and be heard. This is vital to the political legitimacy of our city, and to our ability to find effective and reasonable and effective solutions to our problems. If we don’t find a way to do this, we will continue to see patterns of low voter turnout in our marginalized communities, and the migration away from the city from those who feel ignored.
Generating a sustainable revenue base
Since city leaders have not been able to effectively generate the revenue needed to sustain expenses, they have relied on continuous tax increases to fund the gap. For example, property taxes have increased nearly 15 percent this year, and the city is also proposing a 1 percent sales tax increase to repair the roads, a basic responsibility of government. We can’t continue down this route. Not only is it bad governance, it is also most burdensome for working class families and individuals on fixed incomes. This simply is not right. Fortunately, we can fix this problem. One very clear solution is for the city reduce its use of TIF (tax increment financing), a policy which attracts developers by providing 25 year tax breaks to incentivize investment. Instead, we need to reign in our use of TIF, and begin to generate revenue by having our developers pay their fair share in property taxes.
Expanding “real” affordable housing
The city is suffering from a housing shortage, and this is making it difficult for people to contemplate homeownership, and often simply to pay the rent. Unfortunately, St. Paul has pushed the mantra that “all development is good development,” a doctrine resulting, primarily, in the widespread construction of $1500/month condos across the city. Let’s be clear – this is not affordable housing. Rather than continue to wait for the benefits of these condos to trickle down to regular people, we need to proactively work alongside developers to find new solutions focused on real affordability via new construction, new multi-plex options, the repurposing of historic buildings, tiny homes, and office conversions.
Why I’m Running
The central challenge of our city is one of priorities – our leaders are prioritizing ambitious and grandiose projects that are leaving us unable to satisfy our fundamental governmental responsibilities. There is perhaps no better example of this than the…
Services
The central challenge of our city is one of priorities – our leaders are prioritizing ambitious and grandiose projects that are leaving us unable to satisfy our fundamental governmental responsibilities. There is perhaps no better example of this than the…
Community Voice
Returning the Voice of our Neighborhoods My top priority as a councilmember is to restore the voice of our neighborhoods – in particular, our democratic voice. I write this in response to a series of events that we have witnessed,…
Diversity
I'm running to become the first Latino Councilmember in the history of St. Paul. I'll also share a few reasons why you should take this seriously: - Nationally, Latinos account for 19 percent of our population and over half our…
Budget
One of the biggest myths making its way around St. Paul is the idea that we can only fix our roads if we approve a new 1 percent sales tax. This will be on the ballot on Nov 7th, and the mayor and city council president are encouraging us to get onboard and vote this in (after having already scheduled a 15 percent property tax increase for 2023).