St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter came into office in 2018 bullish on building multi-family housing at sites such as Highland Bridge, where other candidates called for adding single-family properties. He later threw his support, initially, to rent control, a voter-approved ordinance that he’s since convinced the city council to repeal for housing built after 2004.
His reasoning? A major citywide slowdown in new housing construction. Given high interest rates, rising construction costs, post-pandemic demographic changes like remote work and other factors dogging the mayor’s progressive agenda, Carter is seeking re-election to a third term well aware that the past eight years have been difficult ones for the city, and for the nation.
“I tell my wife everyday I have the best job on the planet, and she says well you sure picked the wrong eight years to do it,” quipped Carter, during a recent mayoral forum. “It is no secret that our world, our country, our state, our city has been through a lot.”
Carter, the city’s first Black mayor and among its youngest, once promised a greater focus on the city’s neighborhoods in light of complaints the previous administration had been too preoccupied with large new projects such as downtown CHS Field and Allianz Field in the Midway. State Rep. Kaohly Her, his most prominent challenger, has pointed out that some efforts, like a “Cultural Corridors” initiative to boost business in the city’s ethnic destinations, never got off the ground.
Instead, much of the mayor’s attention has returned to downtown, where major questions swirl around a proposed $450 million remodel of Grand Casino Arena, as well as vacant storefronts and office buildings that have fallen into foreclosure. As property values and tax collections decline downtown, the mayor noted, everyday residents will see their property taxes increase to make up for it, and the arena is a key part of turning that around.
“If we want a big change downtown, we have to change something big,” said the mayor, in an hour-long interview Tuesday.
Carter has proposed a 5.3% tax levy increase for next year. “There are calls for property tax relief,” he said. “We look around and see (municipalities raising tax levies) 19% and 18%, and frankly the county at 10%. We’ve worked really hard on that one. There are maybe two cities in the metro area that had a lower levy increase proposed this year.”
Leaning into social initiatives
In his first term, Carter — a fifth-generation St. Paulite who had once dreamt of becoming an Olympic runner — quickly leaned into social initiatives, from college savings accounts for the city’s newborns, an experimental “guaranteed income” pilot project and fine forgiveness for residents who are late to return library books. The mayor would go on to sign the city’s $15 minimum wage ordinance, as well as new residential tenant protections fashioned by the city council.
He also expanded the city’s Right Track youth internship program and an effort to have youth serve on public boards. Then came a city-driven effort around medical debt forgiveness, social workers embedded in public libraries and free youth sports at the city’s rec centers.
“The elephant in the room is poverty,” said Carter, during a recent mayoral forum led by the Coalition of Asian American Leaders. “It doesn’t matter who teaches our kids science if they don’t know if they’re going to eat tonight.”
With property taxes rising and the Trump administration threatening to block as much as $200 million or more in funding for the city in the next few years, some have said it’s time to abandon the mayor’s social initiatives, as well as a raft of Parks and Recreation-related proposals, like the five-mile Summit Avenue bikeway, a downtown promenade, a Mississippi River Learning Center at Crosby Farm Regional Park and a North End athletic complex.
While surrounded by challengers calling for property tax relief or a general change in course, Carter is asking voters to re-elect him so he can fulfill rather than abandon many of his initial goals, albeit in a relatively short amount of time. Given the city’s transition to even-year elections, whoever wins the five-way mayoral race on Nov. 4 will serve a three-year term.
“One of the most dangerous things I hear in this election season is ‘stick to the basics,’” Carter said. “All of this comes back to whether we want to preserve the city we had 100 years ago or to build the city we’ll need 100 years from now. … The ‘basics’ are what got us here.”
Some critics think “the role of government is to do whatever government did last year,” added the mayor. “The purpose of government is to help people. Once upon a time we decided that living together with other people is actually better than to try to clean my own water and plow my own road to my house… Living together in community makes that better. … Government has to think through how to make that life fair for folks, and facilitate common opportunity for ways that are accessible to every human being.”
A clash with firefighters union
In public forums, the mayor has noted that rates of violent crime have plunged in the capital city, but the city’s most urgent priorities still loom. To his mind, that includes addressing the fentanyl crisis, building “as much housing as we can,” revitalizing downtown and “protecting our neighbors, both from the attacks that we’re getting from the Trump administration, and to make sure that our neighbors can live with dignity in our community and our economy.”
When it comes to his social agenda, he plans to stay the course.
“If the Kresge Foundation wants to give us half a million dollars to help our kids go to college, I don’t know why any mayor would say ‘No thanks,’” said Carter, noting that beyond city staffing for his Office of Financial Empowerment, the “CollegeBound St. Paul” savings accounts are grant-funded. “Those things are not competitive with opening a library.”
He’s received a wide-range of endorsements in that mission, from Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar to the St. Paul Federation of Educators, four members of the city council, the progressive advocacy group Faith in Minnesota and the SEIU Minnesota State Council, which represents a wide range of government workers.
He’s also garnered the support of the Minnesota Nurses Association and the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters, neither of which endorsed him in 2017. The St. Paul DFL, which is reconstituting itself, and the St. Paul Area Chamber’s political action committee chose not to endorse any of the five candidates in this year’s mayor’s race. St. Paul Firefighters Local 21 are backing Her’s campaign.
Carter points out that he’s never before received the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, even during his years on the city council, and the firefighters once presented him with a plaque adorned with a golden ax in gratitude for his investments in their department. Relations with the labor union soured when the mayor dug into scheduling and peak staffing models, and when the mayor pressed to have members of the city’s “Basic Life Support” EMS teams gain seniority protections at the same rate as firefighters.
Those EMS teams tend to be more heavily staffed by young people, women and people of color, the mayor noted, and they’ve saved the city thousands of dollars by freeing up firefighters from low-acuity calls like sprained ankles.
“There are folks who have been responding to 911 calls for three years who have less seniority than the last firefighter who was just hired,” Carter said. “We’re changing a lot with the fire department. … We’re sort of value-engineering city government services to deliver them more economically.”
Progress on trash, roads, parks, violent crime
That’s not the only change his administration has introduced. A new 1% “Common Cent” sales tax will pay for nearly $1 billion in improvements to roads and parks over the next 20 years, including much of Summit Avenue’s road reconstruction, though the mayor’s challengers note St. Paul now bears the distinction of having the highest sales tax in the state.
The city has made progress on organized trash collection through a new multi-year contract with a private provider that leaves city employees in charge of clearing 10% of the most difficult trash routes. When city workers finish that duty, they’re reassigned to clear illegal dump sites, which has helped with beautification.
“We’ve been through two Trump administrations,” said Carter, during the CAAL forum. “We’ve been through a pandemic. We’ve been through the murder of George Floyd and everything that happened behind it. And I’m proud of the way we’ve come out of it.
“I’m even proud of the things we won’t talk about much. We won’t talk much about homicides and gun violence here, because we’ve been able to bring every category of violent crime down by double digits. … St. Paul is on track for the lowest homicide numbers that we’ve had in over a decade. … We won’t talk about infrastructure, because we’ve doubled our pace to rebuild our main roads.”
“You’ll hear of course from my opponents tonight that that’s not enough,” he said. “And they’re right. That’s why I’m running for re-election, because we can do a whole lot more.”
Melvin Carter
Age: 46
Family: Married with three children at home, ages 5 to 18; three adult children.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Florida A&M University; Master’s degree in public policy from the University of Minnesota.
On the proposed remodel of Grand Casino Arena
Carter said he remains committed to remodeling the home of the Minnesota Wild, despite pushback from state lawmakers and a $450 million price tag. “It’s really important for all of us who talk about the future of downtown, and who get frustrated that we are collecting less property taxes downtown than we used to,” he said. “The biggest, most impactful thing right at the tip of our fingers right now is renovating that arena. I’m the only candidate who is actively saying that.”
On declining downtown property values and downtown revitalization
In addition to the arena renovation, the Carter administration has proposed incentivizing the conversion of office buildings into housing through a $5 million downtown fund and efforts to streamline permitting, including a new software interface known as PAULIE. The mayor has been a supporter of the Downtown Alliance, a partnership with major employers like Securian and Ecolab, who have formed the Downtown Development Corporation to pursue a downtown investment strategy, and have introduced street ambassadors, graffiti removal and skyway security collaboration through a fee-based Downtown Improvement District.
Foreclosures downtown have a silver lining — they’ve introduced new players to St. Paul, ones that are saddled with less debt, and hopefully more money to invest in their properties. “We’ve got a number of buildings that have sold recently,” Carter said. “We don’t have to go to a conference in Vegas to recruit someone to buy those buildings. We have to light a fire to make sure (the buyers invest) in those buildings.”
On administrative citations
The mayor has supported a proposal on the November ballot that would amend the city charter and empower the city council to create fine ladders for those who break particular city ordinances. Critics fear city inspectors will go overboard, issuing fines for minor violations like tall grass, or the city will use fines to balance its budget.
“We get to decide how they’re used,” Carter said. “I think it’s a stretch to say that the administration that eliminated library late fines and made youth sports free and eliminated medical debt wants to use administrative citations as an oppressive weapon against their own residents.”
Currently, when it comes to dilapidated housing and problem properties, “we get to leave it there or condemn the building. … We don’t have the same intermediate tools that every other city has.”
On the St. Paul Public Schools special levy referendum
The mayor said he will vote “yes” on a special tax levy referendum that would raise $37 million annually for the St. Paul School District, adjusted each year for inflation.
“You’re either a city that invests in your children or you’re not,” the mayor said. “Now is a really hard time to consider a property tax increase for anything. … Those graphs that the school district has to show about what other school districts are spending per pupil versus what we’re spending are really telling. Like any parent in the district, I want my kids to have the best.”
On housing
In addition to supporting office-to-residential conversions, the Carter administration has established or expanded programs around down-payment housing assistance, emergency rent assistance, a new raft of tenant protections, and major exceptions to the voter-approved rent control ordinance with the goal of jumpstarting new housing construction.
Carter noted the mayor’s office launched an “Inheritance Fund” that offers additional housing down-payment assistance to former residents of Rondo and the West Side who lost their housing to road construction and other public projects. The city is also creating a fund to support cooperative housing.
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