I originally wrote this to get some thoughts down and then thought, why the hell does anyone care what I think? And I don't know if anyone cares about my thoughts but I wrote them anyway.

I have had a thousand conversations with my fellow St Paulites and they all have a similar vibe: this stinks. It shouldn't stink--we have a really cool city with smart, progressive people, a relatively stable economy--but it stinks. There is an unavoidable malaise, even for someone like me, who might be one of the most positive people about St Paul.

I think it's important to run through what stinks: empty storefronts, empty lots, and a downtown that just struggles. And so, the question we need to ask, the question I think about literally every day of the week: why? Because the biggest question in Saint Paul politics is who the hell is making it stink so much. And guess what, it's not the politicians.

St Paul's Problems

Every city in the US took a massive hit in the pandemic and then recovery. Saint Paul has struggled even more than Minneapolis as it has fewer downtown residents to support amenities and until relatively recently a large portion of its workforce had not returned to offices.

Even when you compare it to Minneapolis, Saint Paul has a number of additional obstacles toward recovery. First off, it's just not as wealthy ($73k median household income to Minneapolis' $81k). But the biggest obstacle is the massive governmental elephant in the room: 27% of St Paul's property is untaxable due to all the colleges, churches, and government buildings.

An additional major obstacle is that St Paul's single largest private property owner died recently and he had let his entire portfolio rot to shit. Bill Lindeke did a great job of summarizing in his MinnPost article. I can't find a single pull quote to properly do justice to the chicanery and general misbehavior of these folks: ripping off employees, disinvesting in properties, and leaving tenants high and dry.

Add to that Minneapolis' center as the downtown with the commercial hub for big businesses, that's a significant set of hurdles.

Most of these are not new problems, but any discussion of Saint Paul that doesn't start with that stark reality is fundamentally flawed. And it's also important for everyone to get on the same page that yes, there is a level of this stinks, but we need to be clear that the main culprit is this set of obstacles.

Before I actually make the case for Mayor Melvin Carter, I want to briefly address his challengers to point out they're not serious in the least. Everyone acknowledges the problems and promise to wave a magic wand. Take this attack ad from a Kaohly Her affiliated PAC:

I won't take on its very stupid premises (Tom Basgen pointed out the disingenuity already). But the anti-Carter argument is: things in the city are bad and we should lower taxes. Ah yes, the free market will fix potholes!

I don't know much about Her, but she is the most serious challenger to Carter. Lots of people say nice things about her personally, but her campaign has offered almost nothing beyond: things could be better. An example: I received a campaign text that included mention her support of an Urban Wealth Fund. What's that? I wondered, so I went to her website. There was no mention of it. Not a word.

I then spent the next week reading obsessively about Urban Wealth Funds and its a fascinating concept not really tried in the US yet. Look, if we're campaigning on taking all of Saint Paul's property assets and putting them in a sovereign-wealth fund management system to create alternative capital for your citizens, you should be running on that idea. I could get behind a really interesting and dynamic vision for Saint Paul. But she's not. It's not a serious idea, but a campaign desperately throwing ideas onto the wall to see what sticks.

The other main candidate is Yan Chen. I met with Yan Chen at the request of a friend of mine and found her very pleasant, but completely lacking in any details or ideas of how to fix the problems. For example: her primary complaints (beyond high taxes) were that Mayor Carter isn't good for business (I'll get back to this one) and that he didn't say enough positive things about Saint Paul. Look, you can say many things about Melvin Carter but "he's not positive enough" is literally the only one I won't allow.

All of Mayor Carter's challenges are coming from the right and they amount to: I would do better, I just won't say how. I had a conversation with the person who introduced me to Chen and he kept saying "all my business friends say Carter isn't good for businesses."

"What does that mean?" I asked. What would be better for business in Saint Paul? I put this to Chen as well and I have seen no one come up with any thing. And that's because this is a campaign built 100% on vibes. "The vibes in St. Paul aren't great and I would bring better vibes. Business Vibes." Listen, I'm a Small Business Owner (TM) and let me tell you, everything in business is vibes.

We shouldn't overlook the fact that the candidates are all running to Carter's right (and I would not consider Carter a leftist candidate), because these are the people who keep making Saint Paul actively worse. The same people complaining about rent stabilization are the same people who fought and defeated previous efforts for tenant protections. The people who complain about a city's lack of fixing streets are the people who repeatedly and endlessly take the city to court over frivolous issues like Summit Avenue's rebuild (don't make me rehash this fight, but it is a fight over making Summit safer for pedestrians and bikes is worth losing a few extra trees).

To belabor the point on Summit Avenue--and a big reason I can't take Her seriously--is that Her has prevaricated on the issue. She won't condemn the plan to make Summit safer, but she'll appease the whiners by criticizing the process by which they got there. I don't have any faith in someone who is so tepid on basic issues like this.

And the same people who rail on about safety and the lack of development are the people who fought the administrative citations that would let us fine the hell out of Madison Equities and the owners of the derelict Midway CVS. Even though the city council passed those administrative citations, the same loud Saint Paul conservatives forced it to a ballot initiative (I already wrote about it, please vote yes).

Essentially, Carter's challengers are proposing the Republican bargain: put the same people who created the mess in charge of cleaning up the mess.

There are also two dudes running. I could not be paid to learn their names. I assume Jerry and Rick. Or Tom and Tim.

One basic case for re-electing Mayor Carter is that there are no serious alternatives. I haven't heard one remotely viable alternative from a candidate on how things get turned around.

But I was in a Mayor Carter Ad, so I want to make the positive argument for the guy.

My case for Mayor Carter is that Saint Paul's recovery might be slower, but it is far, far more positive than people give it credit. First off, Saint Paul has seen a dramatic decline in crime. They're on track for a 70% drop in homicides and they solve more than 70% of their cases (Minneapolis might solve A case this year, TBD).

And this decrease in crime can be directly linked to Mayor-led initiatives such as overloading resources on early gun interventions. The Saint Paul police, for example, prioritize investigations on every gun that gets shot off in the city. And by intervening at that stage, they prevent that gun shot killing someone. It works!

There are also signs of life and thriving. Snelling Avenue south of I-94 is fantastic, walkable, and dynamic (Bar+Cart next to Dunn Brothers, across from Patina, etc...). North of 94 on Snelling is not as bright, but you have the new Little Africa Market that is opening soon. The Creative Enterprise Zone (CEZ portion of the Midway) has had a number of apartments and businesses go in. We also have the Frogtown Community Center as well as the brand new and gorgeous North End Community Center.

My personal Carter advocacy has come from more specific cases: Black Hart's growth has been supported in part by city funds and twice we've received city STAR fund grants for small construction projects (can't wait for our outdoor bar to be built this winter). More than that, it was Mayor Carter's office that brokered the agreement when we had our six month standoff with the most evil bureaucratic entity on the planet: the Department of Safety and Inspection (you know the way Parks & Rec folks talk about the Librarians? That's me and DSI). When we were caught in a six month bureacratic mess, they got us on a call together and said, "ok, we want this patio built, how do we do that?" Bob's Your Uncle, Black Hart had a patio approved.

There was also the problem with the BP station at the corner of Hamline and University. It's owners willfully allowed and seemingly encouraged drug usage and dealing and by the end you had 30-40 people hanging out and spreading the two blocks over to our patio, harassing and assaulting our patrons. I can't emphasize how much that summer sucked. And the city fought a long battle to shut it down. They're fighting the same fight right now against the derelict CVS at University and Snelling.

Maybe these things seem minor to you, but all I have is my perspective as a neighbor and business owner, but when I have needed support, they have been there.

The fact that the challenges to Carter come from the right and not an insurgent progressive candidate is interesting (compare to three candidates running relatively to the left of Minneapolis' Mayor Frey). But that's because there is a cognitive dissonance in most of the complaints about the city.

The largest complaints are that the city government needs to be smaller. But this is precisely the opposite problem. Return to the myriad things that stink right now and it is a problem that the city doesn't have enough tools to take on the skeezy businessmen that actively suck capital out of our neighborhoods and let the city rot.

Saint Paul didn't make the owners of the CVS building deadbeats. Saint Paul didn't leave the residents of Madison Equities buildings to live in squalor (Saint Paul had to go through a long criminal process precisely because they didn't have the ability to fine the hell out of them). Saint Paul didn't cause the massive disinvestment in the Midway.

No, that was caused by speculators and absentee landlords. I should know. It took me 5 years to finally buy (and pay 200% more than market value for it) the lot where we built the patio. Why? Because our city does not have the tools to counter rampant greed.

So why in god's name would I vote for the people on the side of rampant greed? Is the candidate that sides with wealthy homeowners on Summit Avenue going to take on absentee landlords? Hell no.

I can come up with a list of more progressive stances that Carter could take as mayor, but thankfully we have a pretty progressive city council where we can have a back and forth on policies.

But what we have in Carter is a Mayor who has made significant progress in rebuilding Saint Paul. Economically, where we have the biggest obstacles, it hasn't been as fast as Minneapolis. But look at the crime data and it has been miraculous.

Carter deserves another term to continue that work. I trust him for that, because he's taken hard stances and stuck with them even in face of pressure. He hasn't bowed down to the bed-wetters of the business community, while at the same time championing the local economy. I don't need a Mayor to be perfect, I just need them to have integrity and a work ethic.