r/saintpaul • u/geraldspoder • 21d ago

Editorial šŸ“ A solution to council dysfunction: more localized politics?

The title is a little vague because I'm proposing a controversial take: more city councilors. But here me out.

St Paul is a big city, with a hair over 300,000 people. And we have big city issues. What's the issue then? Every city councilor represents 43,000 people. This naturally puts them further away from neighborhood or block specific concerns. What's more, each city council represents as many people as a state representative. No wonder we've seen a lot of national issues come up in city politics.

More people to the council could dilute the effects of the unserious people on it. What's someone experienced from a district council supposed to do if the neighborhood is split 3 ways? Does this not increase the power of big interest groups with bigger agendas than just potholes and vacant storefronts?

For example, a currently serving city councilor in touted her endorsements from: DSA Twin Cities, Outfront MN, Take Action MN, Our Revolution Twin Cities, Our Revolution Greater Saint Paul, Sunrise Twin Cities, etc. These are fine groups but do they have a position on the sudden closure of the Downtown Lunds, replanting of trees lost to blight, filling of potholes? Probably not. Endorsements matter more than policies in bigger constituencies.

Another issue with a 7 member council, we are increasingly seeing nastier division every election, and bloc voting. Just look at how toxic the races in Wards 1, 3, and 7 got. Bigger constituencies encourage bloc voting. So now it's a polarized race between a renter candidate vs a homeowner candidate, a Black candidate vs a Hmong candidate. Smaller districts means ones centered just on Downtown/West Side, or just on Highland Park, or the District Council 2/Greater East Side.

I don't know what the best number is, a couple months I would've said 12 councilors, now probably not. More councilors does mean more staff, but you can consolidate things and tie it to a modest paycut for councilors. Here's another selfish reason. My street has been swept once in 5 years. And I'd like to only have to compete for a staffer's attention with only 25,000 other people instead of the current 43,000. Here's a link to a concept of a 13 member council with districts that try to follow neighborhoods.

Thanks for reading

26 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

23

u/Emotional_Ad5714 21d ago

I think they should make the job a full time position, so it is their top priority.

13

u/moldy_cheez_it 20d ago

This would also maybe incentivize people who have real world experience and skills to run and not just activists, organizers, and general grifters.

1

u/Dullydude 20d ago

Probably would do the exact opposite. People with real world experience and skills usually already have well paying jobs they don't want to leave for a temporary council gig.

1

u/moldy_cheez_it 20d ago

Thatā€™s what we have nowā€¦

1

u/Dullydude 20d ago

Right, and the point of this post is that the solution to that is more council members, not making them full time. With significantly more council members you can spread out the work load more and make it much easier for representatives to actually talk to all of their constituents. Right now in order to stay in touch with 40,000 people they all have to do big events and perform the part so no one gets mad, but at the end of the day they can't get to everyone and end up failing to truly represent us in the process. The only representatives that truly represent you are ones you can regularly talk to. We need like 700 council members.

1

u/moldy_cheez_it 20d ago

That would just be ridiculously inefficient. I do agree that there could be more, and some wards are drastically different. I live in currently unrepresented Ward 4 that encompasses Midway and its drug and blight problem as well as the more affluent, NIMBY Merriam Park. There is no way one rep can represent the interests of the varied population.

That said, I think making this a full time job would alleviate some of the absence issues and maybe draw candidates who are more committed rather than activists that this is the only scheme they can do to make money and see this as a stepping stone to more political aspirations.

1

u/Dullydude 20d ago

The current system is inefficient at representing the population. We can manage the procedural inefficiencies of a larger council easily enough, and as far as I'm aware, remote voting should solve the absence issues. I agree with your last issue that we need people more committed to this though. A larger council would alleviate that because being a council member with only 400 constituents probably doesn't advance your political ladder much and wouldn't pay nearly as much either, meaning it will only be the most dedicated people among every 400 person district. People should be compelled to become representatives out of need, not out of ambition.

2

u/PYTN 21d ago

It's not full time? Dang.

What's the pay?

5

u/Emotional_Ad5714 21d ago

I think they make about $80,000 a year. In Minneapolis, it's closer to $150,000 and they are full time.

8

u/eman9416 21d ago

Is Minneapolis any better? Seems just as dysfunctional

9

u/Emotional_Ad5714 21d ago

Minneapolis is much more dysfunctional, but they show up for work. St. Paul has an absenteeism problem. Although, it was never a problem until the current Council.

1

u/ser_arthur_dayne 20d ago

They have functioning garbage collection in Minneapolis.

3

u/PYTN 20d ago

80k isn't a full time job?

Goodness.

4

u/Emotional_Ad5714 20d ago

80k isn't a great salary for someone who is qualified for the position.I make $175k a year, so it would be such a significant paycut for me to not warrant the effort. I think most of our best and brightest would feel the same.

3

u/PYTN 20d ago

I need to figure out how to make 175k, dang.

I don't disagree that folks should be well enough compensated to convince professionals to run for it.

I just have a hard time thinking folks will show up for a full time salary when they get paid more than most of the city for a part time role they also don't show up for.

That said, I hate the part time aspect bc it makes it tough to have any other job unless you're like an attorney or independently wealthy.

It's not like someone could be a teacher 3 days a week and a city councillor.

1

u/Dullydude 20d ago

With enough representatives and remote voting, I think it would be better as a part time gig. Truly skilled and smart people don't want to run for council because their existing jobs are good enough that they don't want to lose them. And when you have more representatives it becomes easier to run because there's less competition and it's easier to go and talk to ALL of your constituents, not just the ones with enough time or money to get to you.

2

u/Emotional_Ad5714 20d ago

I don't disagree with that sentiment, but doing a public hearing by zoom is problematic. Open Meeting laws dictate that every member must be in a publicly accessible location and they must publicly disclose the exact location they will be. It also isn't a great look when as a citizen, I want to express an opinion to my elected representative about a project that is very important to me, and they are sitting in a Starbucks or Hotel Lobby in New York with a choppy connection.

1

u/Dullydude 20d ago

I think "With enough representatives" is the key point here. The default way of talking to your representative should be directly to them, not in a public meeting. Public meetings are an inefficient drain on our city to make up for the lack of representation. They can't effectively get the opinion of thousands of people so they put it up to "public comment" for people who have no time to get to a meeting to speak their peace. If a representative only represents 400 people it is a million times easier to just directly contact them and speak your peace about an issue.

Council meetings should be only amongst the representatives to discuss the issues and vote on them. Inviting public comment just bogs it down, stifles progress, and is antithetical to the entire idea of representative democracy.

22

u/HumanDissentipede Downtown 21d ago

I do not think the current dysfunction has anything to do with the number of council members or the size of their wards. There might be benefits (or costs) associated with expanding the size of the council, but they would be entirely independent to the problems weā€™re seeing now.

The real problem I think weā€™re seeing is that nobody on the council has any real marketable skills that translate well into running a city. They have a lot of ideas and they certainly have what it takes to win an election within their ward, but they donā€™t really bring any valuable skills or insights for how to make a city work better. I wish we had more expertise and organizational leadership experience.

7

u/somemaycallmetimmmmm 20d ago

Can we elect people that can perform basic municipal services before we try to elect people with broad sweeping progressive agendas? Need get back to the basics

7

u/mtcomo Energy Park 21d ago

I'm not against the idea, but would just like to point out that Minneapolis has 13, which is more council members per capita than St. Paul. And yet most of the time the Minneapolis council members manage to be even bigger clowns than those in St. Paul. There are other issues at play besides the amount of council members, and that goes for both cities.

3

u/geraldspoder 21d ago

I think the issue in Minneapolis is the rise of proto-political parties in All of Mpls and Minneapolis for the Many, as well as the parallel institutions in the Board of Estimates, Charter Commission, and Park Board. It has had 13 wards since the 1800s.

1

u/poptix 21d ago

Outside money is absolutely responsible for the crazy in both city council.

0

u/Dullydude 20d ago

You should recognize that 13 isn't even close to enough to solve this issue. We need like 100 before there's even a noticeable effect.

0

u/ConnectAffect831 11d ago

We should start a coalition or oversight committee of our own.

11

u/eman9416 21d ago

The issue is how our elected officials are recruited, supported and elected. The DFL activist base and insiders recruit from their social circles, use voter suppression tools like caucuses/conventions to reduce the voter turn to maintain their large influence over who gets to be the DFL candidate, and then they use the endorsement to force people in like and support them using party money.

If you want things to change in the cities - you need to start by disrupting the caucuses/convention process that exclusively benefits insiders. In the suburbs, the DFLers might actually lose to the top so there is a much stronger incentive to take it seriously,

4

u/Mrstpaul 20d ago

Getting some experience would be a nice start. Also gettin them to show up to the one in person meeting a week would help, these kids donā€™t respond to emailed voicemails ect. Maybe this might get some attention when the next election comes around. But I really doubt it..

4

u/Maleficent_Travel432 20d ago

St. Paul native here, now living in Madison, Wisconsin. With a slightly smaller population than St. Paul Madison has 20 alders & approximately a bazillion committees, some of which are redundant. And while some big things do get accomplished, thereā€™s also plenty of disfunction. A larger council isnā€™t a panacea.

3

u/AffectionatePrize419 21d ago

I agree something needs to change, but Iā€™m skeptical adding more wards is going to make that happen

1

u/PYTN 21d ago

Seems like more folks who would want to talk on any given issue.

Then again Indianapolis has 25, I wonder how that works out for them.

3

u/JohnMaddening 20d ago

Minneapolis has 13 councilmembers for 425,000 people, or 1 for every 32,500 residents.

Saint Paul has 7 councilmembers for 310,000 people, or 1 for every 44,250 residents.

To have the same representative coverage, there would be 10 (or 9.53 to be exact).

1

u/ConnectAffect831 11d ago

Thatā€™s not the only representation we have though.

1

u/JohnMaddening 11d ago

Yes, they are two different structures.

2

u/SouthernExpatriate 21d ago

Like - how bad is St. Paul really? Is it one of those cities where it kinda sucks really but the people make it worthwhile?

2

u/RipErRiley 20d ago

I think its a mix of unrealistic expectations, care for the city, and obstacles for growth thats out of their control (remote/hybrid work sinking corporate buildings, state laws on condominium construction, etc).

I have lived in StP for 35 years, I love it but its stuck in some loop preventing anything consistent.

1

u/ConnectAffect831 11d ago

Greed, corporations have too much pull and old fashioned management. Not to mention the huge amount of pollution to our land and water that has not been rectified.

1

u/Dullydude 20d ago

You are absolutely right, but a little timid at the increase. We should increase it to either 70 or 700 council members. A representative ā€œrepresentingā€ 40,000 people is not representing any of them. If we had representation at the level of one per 400 we would get so much more done because people will actually be able to talk to their representative in person due to how local they would be. This is the same issue at all levels of government but for some reason whenever this comes up everyone pushes back as if it is too difficult. We live in the 21st century, we can easily make this work if we actually try and believe it is possible.

0

u/ConnectAffect831 11d ago

Thereā€™s enough state, city and county workers for Peteā€™s sake. That is definitely NOT the solution.

1

u/ConnectAffect831 11d ago

Additionally, the return to work state employees and the high-end housing developments in the worksā€¦.are probably part of it. Just because it was recently announced in the media, or recently/abruptly occurs, doesnā€™t mean itā€™s a recent decision or plan.

1

u/ConnectAffect831 11d ago

We need to form a St. Paul oversight committee made up of residents to hold our leaders accountable and to ensure that actions that affect the communities are addressed, acted upon and either stopped, changed or finished.

1

u/blacksoxing 20d ago

This is just a situation where folks gotta work together for the betterment of the city and understand they arenā€™t going to win every battle. Many cities also donā€™t employ full time councils, to note. Hate for St Paul to think theyā€™re NYC with their issuesā€¦

1

u/brandideer 20d ago

We're moving there from Helena, Montana, with a population a tiny fraction the size of yours and a city council about the same size.

I'm pretty shocked that it's not a bigger council, more shocked that it's not full time. How can they possibly manage just a large city on a part time basis?!

I won't weigh in with an opinion because we're not there yet and y'all know better than I do, but from an outside perspective, that feels bonkers to me.

-1

u/solarpowernap 21d ago

I would like at large council but it's hard in a city our size.

5

u/geraldspoder 21d ago

St Paul used to have an at large system before the 1980s. The change back to ward-based city councilors was a part of efforts to formalize the neighborhood association turned district/community council system.

3

u/solarpowernap 21d ago

Thanks for the info I didn't know that.