TTT1141–Oct 10-StPaulElections-Ward2
Our Videographer was away this week; no video available.
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The St. Paul City Council and School Board elections will garner much attention – not only for the large number of candidates challenging incumbents, but as a test for the city’s and county election bureau’s implementation of the new voter-approved Ranked Choice Voting system, which eliminated the traditional primary in favor of one November general election that will tally multiple voter choices generally until reaching a single majority winner for the council seats and four top vote getters in the school board race.
Starting with the crowded Ward 2 field, TruthToTell will devote the next four weeks to St. Paul’s elections – in the fervent hope that voters will stop giving their local government(s) short shrift and get to the polls in numbers higher than the all-too-common 15%-35% turnouts.
Each of the City Council races, except the Ward Seven (Lower East Side) seat held by Council President Kathy Lantry, is contested this year and ten candidates are vying for the four District 625 (St. Paul) Board of Education seats up this year (the other three ran in 2009 and will again 2013). The highly contested races this year are four: Wards 1, 2, 3 and 5, although it’s possible that Ward 6 incumbent, Dan Bostrom, is facing a fair challenge from Bee Kevin Xiong, of the strong, still-emerging Hmong constituency on the city’s Upper East Side. Ward 4’s Russ Stark has meager competition this time around.
Ward 3’s Pat Harris is departing, opening up that race in way it hasn’t for nearly 20 years given that Harris’ predecessor was his brother, Mike. The only race without an incumbent means a high-stakes scramble for Harris’ successor, given his penchant for consistently supporting his old friend Mayor Chris Coleman’s agenda. Deep rivalries have surfaced within the DFL over that seat, despite the official nonpartisan nature of city elections. We will bring the four candidates in that race together October 17th.
In Ward 1, incumbent Melvin Carter III faces his own long-seething rivals. And we’re looking to recruit the four contestants in that race for an October 24th conversation.
But this week, all five of the candidates in Ward 2 will meet in our studios to discuss the issues facing the city and the ward. Ward Two, the largest of the seven wards geographically and, perhaps the most diverse, is spread out from Downtown all the way out to West 7th/Fort Road to the Highland Park area, but also takes in all of Crocus Hill and the West Side (across the river).
Incumbent Dave Thune has stated that this will be his last term, and that he will step down a second time in four years if reelected. He left the Council in 1997 but returned in 2004 after his successor, Chris Coleman, jumped into the Mayor’s race. Still, a couple of the same candidates that frequently plague Thune’s reelection are back in it, taking potshots at Thune’s “leadership” as are two new faces on the political landscape.
TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI conduct a conversation among these five candidates.
DAVE THUNE – incumbent. An artist (he owns a West 7th St. gallery and coffee shop) and West End community activist, he’s completing his second term of this new round after previously serving eight years through the 1990’s. (Disclosure: your writer challenged Dave Thune in 1993) He lives in Irvine Park and is DFL-endorsed.
JIM IVEY – is a software developer with his wife, residing and working in Lowertown St. Paul for the last ten years. Among his interests: Urban gardening and curling. Endorsed by the Green Party of St. Paul and TakeActionMN.
BILL HOSKO – Artist and picture-framer in downtown St. Paul. States that he resides at Kellogg Square downtown. Small business booster and self-described government watchdog. Ran against Thune in 2007. Independent.
CYNTHIA SCHANNO – is an aircraft buyer and seller based at Holman Airfield. A native St. Paulite, she started as an accountant out of St. Thomas, but has flown since her teens. She was a Norm Coleman appointee to the Saint Paul Downtown Airport Taskforce. She sees the airport as an underutilized tie to city’s economic development. Independent.
SHARON ANDERSON – has been a perennial candidate for just about every office in Minnesota, and it doesn’t seem to bother her that she no longer resides in Ward 2, which should render her ineligible to vote, let alone run for the City Council seat there, which she has deone many times. Ms. Anderson continues to insist she still owns a house at 1058 Summit Ave., which everyone else insists she lost in a tax forfeiture at least 30 years ago. She continues to list that house as her official residence and no one steps forward to challenge her right to run in this ward. She is retired. Republican.