31 December 2023
It was 2011, and Amy Brendmoen — then a marketing director for the Children’s Home Society & Family Services in St. Paul — had her sights set on joining the St. Paul City Council. Her well-organized campaign unseated two-term council member Lee Helgen by less than a percentage point — 50.18% to 49.2% — a total of 36 votes.
Even more bruising battles and unexpected challenges lay ahead, including a pandemic, racially tinged riots following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, tough debate over rent control, a $15 minimum wage and more than one election fight.
The council would also help the city navigate construction of the Green Line light rail, CHS Field, Allianz Field, Highland Bridge and the North End Community Center, among other key projects that unfolded during her tenure.
After 12 years in the trenches of City Hall politics, including six years as council president, Brendmoen chose not to run for re-election this year, opening the door for her former legislative aide — Hwa Jeong Kim — to win the Ward 5 council seat last month.
“It’s strange when you quit a job and have to give a year’s notice,” quipped Brendmoen, addressing her peers on the city council in a goodbye speech this month. “This job has been an honor. What a joy, what a joy. … Twelve years went by in a flash.”
As 2023 rolls to a close, Brendmoen isn’t the only council member to leave office. After weathering some of the most momentous events in modern city history, four of the city’s seven council members will not return in 2024, the steepest turnover the city council has seen since 1998.
Chris Tolbert
St. Paul City Council member Chris Tolbert during a swearing-in ceremony for Police Chief Axel Henry in the council chambers on Nov. 16, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
During his 12 years in office, Ward 3 council member Chris Tolbert played no small role in the cleanup and redevelopment of the Ford Motor Co.’s Twin Cities assembly plant overlooking the Mississippi River in Highland Park. The new development, dubbed Highland Bridge, spans more than 122 acres of parks, office space and affordable and market-rate housing.
Tolbert, who began serving as chair of the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority in 2017, helped usher the project past opposition from residents who wanted less real estate density and more single-family homes.
“I got yelled at plenty of times by large crowds of people, but that’s part of the job,” said Tolbert on Wednesday. “There’s a quote from Harry Truman: half the fun of living in a democracy is complaining about the government you got. When our office was getting inundated, it’s one that helped me keep perspective.”
“And the other Truman quote was: it’s amazing what you can get done when you don’t care who gets the credit.”
In 2013, not long after taking office, Tolbert worked closely with future library director Catherine Penkert and then-Mayor Chris Coleman to launch Right Track, a city-driven internship program that matches St. Paul youth with professional employers in the public and private sectors.
He also served on the city’s Board of Water Commissioners, which has played an instrumental role in launching a new project aimed at replacing thousands of lead water pipes from residential service lines, free of charge to homeowners.
“Most people at City Hall are just trying to do what’s right,” Tolbert said. “I might not always agree with the path they’re suggesting, but they’re good people. Especially my fellow electeds.”
Tolbert, a licensed attorney who works part time in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office’s child support division, plans to work there full time in the new year.
Jane Prince
St. Paul City Council member Jane Prince during a swearing-in ceremony for Police Chief Axel Henry in the council chambers on Nov. 16, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Fresh out of the University of New Hampshire in 1976, Jane Prince and Rebecca Hamblin threw a dart on a map and drove on a whim to the Twin Cities, where they each caught the bug for public service.
Hamblin became an attorney for Education Minnesota and Prince worked for St. Paul’s Department of Planning and Economic Development from 1984 to 1989, splitting her time in communications for then-Mayor George Latimer’s office.
Prince chaired the St. Paul Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party from 1995 to 1997, and then served as an aide to St. Paul City Council member Jay Benanav for 10 years. Eight years ago, she won the Ward 7 seat on the city council, representing her Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood and a long swathe of the city’s East Side.
Prince became known during her tenure for sometimes casting the sole “no” vote (or one of two oppositional votes) on major projects like the Ford site master plan and the Summit Avenue bikeway. They were votes, she said, informed by the spending priorities of everyday people on the East Side who felt overlooked by City Hall.
“If there’s one thing I really tried to say for eight years, the East Side is part of the city, too, and there needs to be equity in parks and investments,” she said. “We’re the electeds with the least distance to the people we represent.”
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When she took office, Prince explained, the city had closed two East Side recreation centers and torn down a third on Margaret Street. She devoted much of her first term to getting the Highwood Hills and Eastview rec centers reopened.
Eastview is now the headquarters of St. Paul Urban Tennis and offers community hours on nights and weekends. “Even though we were talking about equity, the programming for kids in the more prosperous neighborhoods was so much greater,” she said. “We really were able to reverse that thinking.”
“Under (St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter), we have significantly increased free and low-cost programming throughout the city,” Prince added. “And now we’ve increased swimming lessons — but we don’t have any pools on the East Side. You can’t offer free swimming lessons and then only have them west of (Interstate) 35E.”
Russel Balenger
St. Paul City Council member Russel Balenger during a swearing-in ceremony for Police Chief Axel Henry in the council chambers on Nov. 16, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
An oversized poster hangs in Russel Balenger’s Ward 1 office showing off sharply dressed Black partygoers at a St. Paul event center in the 1960s. The scene could be mistaken for a debutante’s ball. And of all the young men there, “I was the most handsome,” quipped Balenger, during a recent interview.
When former Ward 1 council member Dai Thao moved out of state, the city council appointed Balenger in August 2022 to complete his unexpired term. Born and raised in the city’s Rondo neighborhood, Balenger was the founder and director of the Circle of Peace Movement, an anti-violence effort, but he was still taken aback by the public aspects of his new role.
“I had no idea what all went into this,” said Balenger, addressing his council peers during the final council meeting of the year on Dec. 20. “It’s a whole different thing walking down the street and going into the barbershop and the ice cream shop and fighting your way out, but I’ve enjoyed it.”
During his time in office, he worked on an effort to create free swimming lessons across the city, which began with a pilot program at the Oxford/Jimmy Lee Recreation Center on Lexington Parkway; helped launch the city’s new reparations commission; and reclaimed a portion of Concordia Avenue, which is reverting to its original name — Rondo Avenue.
“From the very first morning, I thought, just go do the right thing,” Balenger said. “Do what’s right. And I tried to live that every day. … I’m excited to see the good work that the new council will do.”
Amy Brendmoen
St. Paul City Council President Amy Brendmoen during a swearing-in ceremony for Police Chief Axel Henry in the council chambers in St. Paul on Nov. 16, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Brendmoen, a former mediator and investigator for the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, would face a testy political challenge in 2015 from David Glass, who had accused her of influencing Parks and Recreation director Mike Hahm — her future husband — to drop his long-standing lease for a coffee shop and event venue at the Como Lakeside Pavilion, situated in walking distance from her home.
Pointing to a grander vision for the pavilion, she won that race by a large margin, and another in 2019, where she faced three challengers in the ranked-choice election.
“It is really easy to use the seat as a place to critique, or saber rattle, or create sound bites or just make a fuss,” said the council president, addressing her council peers on Dec. 20. “But if you really want to deliver and make a difference for this community and this city that we love, you need four votes to make something pass. Better yet if you have five. And that takes work, it takes vision, it takes building a coalition.”
“I’m really proud of taking four votes to five, to six and often to seven,” she said.
She pointed to projects that have taken a decade or more to unfold, including Highland Bridge, the work of the Rice and Larpenteur Alliance and the North End Community Center under construction on Rice Street. “This work is a marathon, not a sprint. … This council work is really about the long game,” she said.
“(The mayor) once said, the city’s role is where everyone else runs away, we run in. Whether it’s an emergency, fire, unrest, violence or things like youth development or unsheltered folks, we go in. And because of that, we have to be decisive, and we have to act quickly. … It’s an ever-changing environment.”
“We do really good work, but sometimes we make mistakes,” she added. “And when we do — because it happens, and it will — I just encourage folks to continue to be really tough on the issues, and encourage folks to do better. Check our execution. Encourage revision. But be easy on the people. These are our teammates.”
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