Keeping Our Community Safe and Thriving 

Council Perspectives, St. Paul City Council Ward 3

Hello Community Reporter Readers,

We have an election on Tuesday, November 4th and our democracy is stronger when you participate. Please vote!

It’s been a challenging year and one of contrasts. As major crimes in St. Paul plummet by double digits, our year has been punctuated by startling violence. Gravest of all the Annunciation Shooting across the river. Last month, State Senator Sandy Pappas spoke of the work happening at the state to prevent a similar tragedy from ever happening again. Our office, Mayor Carter, and all Council Members are working together and in parallel with our St. Paul Delegation to advance City Ordinance to end this type of senseless violence.

We will pass an ordinance containing four common sense gun control measures, but St. Paul will be prevented from enforcing these widely popular protections by a state law from 1985. Despite the state’s preemption, passing this ordinance serves two purposes. First it will send a clear message to the state where St. Paul’s values stand. We are committed to protecting our children and each other from gun violence. It also means that should the state preemption ever be lifted; our city will have those common sense gun protections ready to take effect immediately.

We deserve to feel safe in our city. Our children deserve to feel safe in their schools. We will never achieve that safety as long as weapons of war are allowed to exist freely.

In other parts of the Ward our work continues on the future of transit on West 7th. We are grateful to our colleagues at the State and Met Council for their continued partnership and commitment as we explore what’s possible for our street in a challenging budgetary environment. 

Highland Bridge construction continues to reawaken as more parcels move through and towards our planning processes. 

Finally our Budget season is soon coming to a close as negotiations continue with the Mayor and our Council colleagues. It’s been a challenging budget season as we face cuts from state and federal programming and rising costs and burdens from inflation. Our office will always work to balance providing the services our community expects and deserves with the careful consideration of the cost.

Our office can be reached online at [email protected] or by telephone at 651-266-8630. Thank you for being a good neighbor.