(00:00:00) If I think the simplest explanation give you is it's simply time to move on. I've served my time in the city council accomplish the kinds of things. I had hoped to accomplish and think it's time for some new people with new ideas to come in. Obviously. There's a lot of other reasons why I chose not to run. I guess the simplest way I could explain as to how I arrived at. The decision was as per the other times. I've run I've made a list of pros and cons as to why I should run and why you shouldn't run and this time the list of cons got the very long and there weren't that many good reasons why I should run again and I think once you reach that point, it's time to move on before one becomes too cynical or pessimistic about life and public office and looking back over the six years that you served on the council. What are some of the high points that that you consider took place or that that In that in that career. Well, I'd like to think that maybe I wasn't in particular responsible, but at least participate in the process of the revitalization and Rebirth of of cities and in particular Saint Paul, there were a lot of reasons for it. But when I first ran for office, which is 1972 and incidentally I did lose my only 10,000 volts cities were especially Central cities were not in particularly High favor with anybody. There are lots of problems a crime blight poor education and it was against that background that I decided to run and try and do something as far as st. Paul is concerned. I (00:01:42) was fortunate enough to win in 1974 and I immediately (00:01:45) started working on some of those issues and I thought important housing Downtown Development citizen participation and by and large in those areas, we have been quite successful. In fact, I'm delighted with the way downtown has All being I think our housing program is probably if not the best in the nation certainly one of the best in the nation and I take great pride in looking back on our citizen participation process because I think the same Paul has to be one of the most democratic cities one of the most open governments in the United States. If you were talking to her when you talk to councilman and women from other cities around the country and they asked about the development that's going on here in st. Paul and they ask about how it happened that maybe 10 or 15 years ago or even less than that. The city was not such in such good shape and there wasn't the hope that there may be today what kinds of things do you suggest to them that they can do in their own cities? (00:02:41) Well, actually I think it's more of a market question as much as anything and by that, I mean that you have to have structure that provides enough confidence for private developers to come in and invest their money to take the risks. Are necessary in the development and in this particular case, I think that st. Paul is fortunate on three counts. Number one St. Paul and the rest of the metropolitan area are extremely fortunate to have the Metropolitan Council. I think the Metropolitan council is got to be the finest organization was kinda United States and capable of cutting through a lot of red tape that normally hang up development in other metropolitan areas. Secondly st. Paul (00:03:27) through dumb luck more than anything else (00:03:29) has one of the best city Charters around what the city Charter does is to structure city government much like a corporation and that you have the chief executive officer the mayor and the board of directors in the console and it's a very clean form of government streamline form of government and consequently, the decision-making process is a lot faster a lot easier a lot more deliberate than it is in some other places. Third eye Point again to our citizen participation process. A lot of people felt that by giving so much power to the neighborhoods that we'd be hanging development up. I think the opposite has been true. In fact, I just read a letter coming across my desk this morning where a district council recommended a particular band and School site become single family housing. Well that's unheard of for a neighborhood group to request development. And that's precisely what's happening. Sometimes the neighborhood groups will start the development other times it'll be initiated by developers, but with the cooperation of neighborhood groups, and I think that is as been a startling difference probably the last thing I want to mention is at st. Paul in the last couple of years has become very cognizant of the importance of a good credit rating of being able have the financial tools available to provide a certain degree of lower risk to developers either in terms of Long guarantees or in terms of tax exempt bonds or whatever it takes to put a particular project together and that is me a tremendous difference. So I think all four of those factors have come together with the development boom that we've been seeing in Saint Paul (00:05:13) talking about development in st. Paul. We've been hearing more and then less and then more again about the People Mover for several years. Now, some people are saying that if it doesn't make it through the legislature this next session that we won't see one. What do you think? What do you think will happen? And what would you like to see happen with regard to the People Mover (00:05:32) now? I let me talk a little bit about the national energy crisis because I don't think we in Minnesota have had the full impact of what it means to to not have gasoline to not have Mobility Twin Cities have been very fortunate in having an excellent transportation system. Its roads its met upon Transit Commission, and I think we've been impacted the same way some other cities. That pain areas particularly on the west coast and the East Coast have and it's against that background that I look at the People Mover as being a guaranteed for Mobility for st. Paul residents, especially those that have to go to work and also shop recreate those working state government. It provides the means to get around in a very dense area either downtown area in a way that is very compatible with vanpools jogging the work light rail Transit the regular Metropolitan Transit Commission buses other modes of transportation, and I'm convinced that the people mover is as a federal government. Hope to be a demonstration project that will show the nation the directions of the future in terms of how we have to cope with the shortage of petroleum products because it is basically Electric System. I just Got back from a downtown people movers users conference in Washington DC where all the cities some 19 cities that are ever interested in people movers were and the surprising thing to me was the other metropolitan areas in particular Los Angeles Detroit, Miami saw the value all of these types of systems and we're going full speed ahead to try to develop them as soon as possible because they saw the Crunch and transportation coming and they felt and it wasn't comin to get these systems up and operating as soon as possible particularly us Angeles with the 1984 Olympics coming there, but here locally I'm very hopeful I'm optimistic that the legislature will approve the system this time. I think they will however, if they don't I think it's fair to say that st. Paul will drop to the back of the pack as far as consideration by the federal government. The federal government has those eighteen other requests most of which are very viable projects. They want to demonstrate the feasibility the People Mover and they're not going to wait for st. Paul. Makeup it's mine (00:08:02) who has to be convinced or what are the things that that have to be brought to the to the for and and be successfully presented in order for it to sell this time in the legislature. It's been there before and the whole lot has gone on as far as presentations. What what will be the make-or-break point or points this time around? (00:08:22) Well, I'd say last time that the real issues weren't considered there a lot of sight issues a lot of political considerations that that impacted on not only people were but the transportation Bill and unfortunately the People Mover in the last day became a political hostage all familiar with that these days and and suffered because of it, but I think the three points that most people need to be convinced them is number one the financing. Is it really going to work and along with that is the usage obviously if nobody uses it the financing package isn't going to work but the private sector just They approved a new financing plan that basically puts a lot more private dollars into the People Mover. Secondly, I think people are going to have to be convinced that it's not going to be a visual intrusion in the downtown area. A lot of legitimate concerns expressed at this may become another power line issue in the downtown if we don't have the proper guide way and I understand appreciate those issues and I think we have to take that into account and I'm convinced them of a mind that we can make it that statically compatible with the root alignment the Capital Area the downtown area and the other sensitive areas third. I think that we have to have the the public acceptance. That's that's necessarily the support that's necessary to make people believe that this thing is really going to work and key to that is winterization plan. I a lot of people have been told are of the opinion that the sing simply won't operate in the That's true with some of the system's there's nine eligible manufacturers. However other of the systems are very Mobile in the winter. There's there's basically nothing that can stop them. There's a Canadian system that's designed to work in all kinds of weather were very interested in taking a look at the performance and that this winter the system at the state zoo, even though it's called a monorail does have a DPM vehicle and we're going to take a look at that. In fact, I'd invite you to ride along in the middle of a blizzard this January. I plan to be out there and I hope a couple other people will be too but those three areas the financing the winterization and ascetics I think are the key issues to not only public acceptance but to legislative acceptance if we can answer those three satisfactory, then I think we will get a people mover. (00:10:52) Let's talk about Minneapolis and st. Paul for a little bit whether it's real or imagined. There is for many many years been arriving. Read between two cities and sometimes it surfaces and sometimes it seems to almost go away or be there but nobody really says much about it during the past six years that you've been a member of the council. Have you seen that rivalry surface at all? And do you see it being a very significant part of how the city's relate today? (00:11:18) Well, I certainly what you see is the case that the Rivalry does exist has existed and probably always will exist, but I can remember Louis de Mars and I sitting down and talking about this and coming up with the notion of a Twin Cities committee was a Minneapolis st. Paul committee where regularly the Two Cities Minneapolis and st. Paul would sit down and talk about issues and the upshot of all that was that not only did we find out that we had more in common than we had differences but that because of these Mutual concerns because we are both first and foremost. Oh older Central cities that we Should join hands and go to the legislature other governmental agencies together and make our case and that's a precisely what we did and in fact a little bit later on Duluth join the group because there again they're very similar to st. Paul Minneapolis losing population financial problems decaying stock. And and so we now have the Tri-Cities committee and I think the three cities have benefited from that. I think the competition between the two cities is healthy. But when you look at it from a planning standpoint, we're extremely fortunate to have the situation that we have and that you don't have this tremendous congestion all in the center of the metropolitan area rather what you have is what I call a barbell you have Downtown Minneapolis, which is obviously the biggest part of the central business district of then you have downtown st. Paul. And then in between that you have this very vital Corridor that includes University the Midway district and other areas and I think therein lies the magic of the metropolitan area that that you can have this tremendous accessibility and mobility. And in years to come I see the differences between Minneapolis and st. Paul to continue lesson and there will be a day when because of the movement toward Metropolitan government because of the way people work and shop and travel ignoring these imaginary governmental boundaries that for all intents and purposes are really won't be that much difference between the two cities. (00:13:43) We've talked about some of the good things that are happening in st. Paul. What are some of the problems that you see facing the city right now the serious problems that if they aren't solved in the next five years or so are going to make it more difficult to live here in St. Paul. (00:13:57) Well, I could speak First about the role of government. I guess one of the things I've noticed in the time I've been in government is the increasing skepticism of people toward government toward elected officials think this is in part what we see in The Proposition 13 phenomena, but additionally, it's almost like Rodney Dangerfield. We don't get no respect and that's somewhat disheartening. I hope that the ant attitude will turn around but beyond that I think st. Paul is faced with a lot of the problems that virtually all the cities in the nation. Are we got an energy crisis on our hands? How are we going to cope with that? We have still an air pollution problem, which is going to get worse. If we turn away from petroleum products to more consumption of coal, who knows it's going to happen with nuclear energy. I think we've got to deal with with those kinds of problems additionally. Paul has been very successful as far as development, but there's no question, but that that's cost the city something and so I think the financial stability of the city is a very important issue, but I don't think there's any question but that given the energy crisis given this just incredible age of technological change that we have given the Iran situation the OPEC nations given the state of the economy. There is no question, but that we're not a watershed era and st. Paul is going to be suffering as the nation will with with these incredible problems of inflation and energy and all the byproducts of that and I'm just hopeful that st. Paul can at least in part be a demonstration City and helping the rest of the nation out of some of these (00:15:50) problems you mentioned before we started this interview that at least three people perhaps four people have indicated some interest in running for your Seat on the council when you step down next to next year. How does that reflect on the climate the political climate in this city, would you say would you describe it as still pretty vital or you mentioned people's attitudes towards politicians. Do you think that that that's going to continue in that will affect how many good people turn out to run for office. I got (00:16:24) quite a bit of criticism for announcing my retirement early. I announce some eight months before the end of office and while some of that criticism may be legitimate. I may be the oldest lame duck around the reason I did that was to hopefully spark some enthusiasm some interest in people running for office. And of course that takes time for people to think about it and decide make the decision or they're going to run my theory on why it is a running is that they sense a certain frustration the populace Impulses entry is to a certain extent frustrated with city government and as a result people are stepping forward to run. I don't think that everything is well in st. Paul and the people that are stepping forward. Hopefully you'll be speaking to some of the issues as they see him in that sense. I take solace in the fact that they are willing to step forward that they are willing to make that sacrifice and I'm glad to see that because in many respects I think that you can always serve in a job so long I tend to look at five years as being the the length of time that you can serve and I've gone one year beyond that and at that point you become stale you lose your perspective and it's time to move on to another position or another occupation and I think that with the new people come in that they will offer that New Perspective that is so necessary to keeping city government vital. (00:17:57) It doesn't sound to me like you're Illusion then with politics. (00:18:01) Oh, not at all. I intend to stay very active in government and politics albeit not in city government. I fell in love with with government when I first started working for Fritz Mondale, which I hate to say. It is almost 15 years ago. Now I was just an intern in his office and I would run for coffee and open the mail and all those kinds of things and I've been intrigued with government and politics ever since then and and will continue to be (00:18:25) what do you hope to do after next June or July? Well want to be house (00:18:29) husband number one, my wife and I have just had another son and somebody has to stay home take care of the kids. She works full-time and and will continue to do so and also I'm going to help her out a little bit in their profession in a managerial capacity. I hope to finish school. I'm enrolled at st. Thomas in their MBA program out there and I've got about another year to go but beyond that, I don't know. I haven't really made any occupational plans and hope to spend my summer re-roofing my house and building. My solar heated Greenhouse beyond that. I just don't know and I'm not picky worried about it. I don't want to sound sexist but and let my wife support me for a (00:19:10) while. A wish or a thought for your colleagues that you leave behind on the council. (00:19:17) Well, I don't say this just for my colleagues, but I would say it for for all people in government. It would be my fervent prayer that government remains decent that that honest people continue to run for government that the citizenry doesn't become so jaded that only those people that have a vested interest are the ones that are elected for office and I think that we've had good people run for office and I hope that that continues to be the case that that people take their turn. They do their civic duty, and I guess that would be my prayer.