24 August 2023
The St. Paul City Council issued a joint written apology on Thursday for the hiring process surrounding the sole staffer for its new Community Reparations Commission.
The apology follows a public protest Tuesday outside St. Paul City Hall, where some 15-20 Black civic and elected leaders said the council had erred in offering the role of senior policy analyst to a Hmong woman rather than a Black descendant of American chattel slavery or a descendent of the city’s historically-Black Rondo neighborhood.
The council’s apology, released by Director of Council Operations Brynn Hausz, noted the “council and its central staff would like to acknowledge and apologize for the pain caused in the course of this process.”
It was still unclear on Thursday the circumstances surrounding the hiring process, including how many applicants were interviewed for the staff position and by whom.
Nathaniel Khaliq, president emeritus of the St. Paul NAACP and an appointee on the commission, said several organizations he works with, from the NAACP to the African American Leadership Council in St. Paul, had never received notice of the job opening.
“It would have been good if we could have gotten the commission in place first, and then started this hiring process,” he said Thursday.
News of the hire
The woman, a legislative aide to St. Paul City Council Member Nelsie Yang, was introduced, in person, as the new hire to the 11-member reparations commission during a meet-and-greet with City Council Member Russel Balenger on Aug. 17, according to commission members, who were immediately taken aback.
“She introduced herself as the new senior policy analyst,” said Trahern Crews, a previous applicant for the job, who also serves on the reparations commission. “That was the first time all of us met in person.”
News of the hire trickled through the city’s Black civic circles over the weekend, leading up to the speak-out outside City Hall on Tuesday morning. Protest participants said they also objected to the role of the reparations staffer having to split time by serving as the city’s liaison to St. Paul’s 17 neighborhood district councils.
“It seemed like a done deal. I was on the phone quite a bit Tuesday talking to (Ramsey County Commissioner) Rena Moran, Black Lives Matter, (AALC President) Tyrone Terrill,” said Nate Khaliq, a member of the reparations commission. “Everybody to a person in our community was outraged at how it transpired. We weren’t trying to make her the issue. It was the process we were dealing with.”
On Wednesday morning, city officials emphasized that the applicant had not left her role as Yang’s aide. On Wednesday afternoon, they said she had actually declined the job.
Negative phone calls
In a brief interview Thursday, Council Member Mitra Jalali said the applicant had received a torrent of “online harassment” and “negative attention” from community members, much of it heavily abusive, regarding a hiring process she had voluntarily removed herself from.
Jalali called for “a total reset” in the process, which she said needed deep review.
“Since January 2023, the City Council department has engaged in a hiring process for a Senior Policy Analyst position that would both staff the work of the commission … and serve as the liaison between the city and the neighborhood district councils,” reads the written council statement. “This week, a diverse group of advocates including community members, African-American community leaders, elected officials, and commissioners expressed their public frustration with the design of this role, the hiring process, and its outcome.”
The statement goes on to say: “This Council and its central staff would like to acknowledge and apologize for the pain caused in the course of this process. We have heard the feedback given by the community and are actively working to better serve this critical work. This includes revisiting the design of this role and its duties and having conversations in the near future with commissioners and concerned community members to repair trust and align on shared vision for this work.”
“We acknowledge that our staff person has also been deeply affected by this situation and apologize for the negative scrutiny they have received as a result of our actions. They have declined this role, and we ask that their privacy be respected at this time.”
Khaliq said he believed the city council was committed to restarting the hiring process with more community outreach and input.
“This has historic significance to many of us in our community,” he said. “As I said in a letter to the council, I appreciate your effort in correcting this misstep and starting the process all over.”
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