Written Remarks
Good morning, City Council members, department directors, staff, state legislators, members of the press, and everyone committed to building a healthy, thriving Saint Paul. Thank you for joining me.
I am honored to stand before you just over 100 days into my term as mayor. In public service, you rarely know everything you are stepping into until you sit behind the desk, and these first months have reminded me of that truth.
Less than a week after I was sworn in, ICE agents killed Renee Nicole Good and shortly after that, Alex Pretti. Painful tragedies that drew national attention adding profound grief to the fear our community was already enduring from the months of occupation, targeting immigrants, refugee, asylum seekers, and BIPOC Minnesotans.
Today, I am speaking to you from the International Institute where so many new Americans start their journey and join us as neighbors. A fitting venue as they stand for everything Minnesotawas built on, welcoming the tired, poor, and huddled masses. The Institute provides resettlement support, English education, workforce and leadership development, college preparation, and immigration and citizenship assistance. The impact of the work they do is all the more crucial given what we have faced as a community.
Thank you to Jane for having us here.
Over the course of these past few months, we have faced trauma and impossible circumstances. Instead of withering, we have met them together, supporting one another, rebuilding together, loving our neighbors, and fighting, together. Minnesotans’ love for one another is unmatched which is why we are receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. I cannot thank you enough for showing up the way that you did.
In your program today, and at other events this week, you will see our team using a moon motif. My name, Kaohly or in Hmong, Nkauj Hli, means song of the moon. The moon has always been an inspiring force to me. Often overshadowed by its Yang, the Sun representing energy and growth, the moon - the Yin, is associated with passiveness and rest. What is overlooked is the quiet pull, a force of inward energy and intuition. Though its influence is subtle, it guides our world with a delicate yet undeniable strength, ensuring balance, continuity, and calm.
Saint Paul: I stand with you today to say the state of our city is strong – and like the moon,rising.
100 days ago, I stood before you and pledged to focus on the basics: running government well, being responsive, and building economic vitality. I am proud of how our department directors, Mayor’s Office team, and city staff have stepped up to deliver on that promise.
Execution that is only possible because of the first decision I made during our transition. Like no administration before, I changed the Mayor’s office structure from one Deputy Mayor to four Assistant Mayors. In doing so, we did not add additional staff to the office but rather changed portfolios so that they align with the lines of businesses in the city.
The First Assistant Mayor of Safety and Justice, oversees police, fire, Emergency Management,City Attorney, and Office of Neighborhood Safety.
Assistant Mayor of Housing, Economic Vibrancy, and Infrastructure, oversees Planning and Economic Development, Safety and Inspection, Public Works, and Financial Services.
Assistant Mayor of People and Neighborhood Vitality, oversees Parks and Rec, Libraries, Human Resources, Technology, and Water.
Assistant Mayor of Staff and Strategic Partnerships, oversees the Mayor’s Office operations.
This change allowed for streamlining processes, greater opportunities for efficiencies, cross-department collaboration, faster decision making and a more hands-on approach to oversight and management.
In the face of a great crisis, this team, and their departments, came together to respond and keep the city's work moving forward despite the challenges.
As we mark 100 days, I share with you our progress and outline our priorities for the year ahead.
While we work to return economic vitality downtown and revitalize commercial corridors across our city, we must first grapple with the unprecedented economic damage done by the Trump Administration during Operation Metro Surge.
At its height, we gathered business leaders from impacted communities to hold closed-doorlistening sessions. Fear was palpable, and we were doing everything we could to hear people and respond. We heard from business after business that they saw sales drop as much as 60%, if they could even open at all.
We engaged community partners like the Immigrant Defense Network along with our Saint Paul Police leaders to strengthen our ground game and ensure we were all working collaboratively to protect our neighbors’ safety when it mattered most.
I went to many of our cultural markets, including Hmong Village and Mercados on the East and West Side. People wept as they shared how their customer base dried up overnight. I encountered many who told me that they were more scared now than they were at the end of the Secret War fleeing communism.
So, in the wake of the operation, our Department of Planning and Economic Development created a survey and sent it to businesses to get a grasp on the overall financial impact of thesurge.
Based on our survey, we can conservatively estimate that Saint Paul businesses lost over 129 million dollars in January and February alone. We feel this economic pain deeply in our city, but as the Capital city, it will echo throughout the state.
That’s why I have been at the Capitol frequently, including just last week, to advocate for relief for our businesses and housing support for our residents. To stabilize our state’s economy, our legislature must prioritize easily accessible, quick-moving grants through trusted partners like foundations and local governments.
I’ve also taken this same pitch to Washington, DC, and I am grateful to our Congressional delegation members who met with me. Our entire city is grateful to know that you are in our corner, fighting for relief. To many, things may seem back to normal, but our impacted communities have not recovered; families are still at risk of losing their homes and many places remain on the verge of closing. That is why lawmakers must act now.
Responding to this crisis takes many forms, and demands creativity
Within weeks of taking office, Saint Paul, at my direction, joined the City of Minneapolis and the Attorney General’s office in suing the federal government to end the occupation. As Donald Trump so often does, he retaliated by subpoenaing my office—possibly a record for how quickly one can receive a federal subpoena after being sworn in.
But that did not intimidate us. City budgets are tight as they are. But, in partnership with the City Council, we made some strong decisions that will demand more accountability and provide emergency assistance to those affected. We enacted three new ordinances that focused on bringing accountability to federal agents operating in our city: banning identity-obscuring face masks, requiring identification, and blocking them from using our parks and libraries as staging locations. We also took steps to free up and repurpose funds for emergency rental assistance. With our Housing and Redevelopment Authority chair, Councilmember Johnson, we redirected 1.4 million dollars to fund and increase operations for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which has already begun delivering dollars to our most impacted residents.
Our response to the federal occupation is far from over. We will have to work intentionally for years to overcome the pain the Trump Administration inflicted on our city, but that’s not the only place we will have to work to rebuild our economy. Our downtown core is in desperate need of recovery, and with the hard work of the City, my administration, and our key partners, I am more optimistic than ever that we will see it.
Last summer, our downtown became a food desert after Lunds closed its location at the Penfield. Thousands of residents and workers were suddenly without an accessible grocery store. I am extremely proud to welcome Aldi to fill that gap.
I am grateful for their commitment to downtown and investing in our vitality.
Speaking of tackling long-term problems, I am proud of the work our departments did with Councilmember Coleman to demolish the long-standing blight of the former CVS on the corner of University and Snelling. This will not sit as an empty lot. We are in current development negotiations and look forward to announcing plans for this site in the weeks to come.
You may recall me saying on the campaign trail, one of the most important tools a mayor has in their toolbox is the power to convene. I could not be prouder of the group of people we have brought together, representing a diverse set of backgrounds and interests, who share a common purpose in seeing our city grow and prosper.
We are already seeing results from this shared investment. Ramsey County just announced over 300 million dollars toward housing creation, public spaces like the river balcony, small business support, and beautification downtown. It is the largest single investment the county has ever made. Our city departments are ready and able to ensure this investment is successful.
As an honorary co-chair of the Saint Paul Downtown Alliance, I want to call out the work our public-private partnerships are already doing to make downtown safer and more vibrant. Last year, the downtown Street Crew, which you may see around on the streets or in the skyways wearing green vests and jackets, did nearly one million actions to make our downtown cleaner and safer. Their important work includes helping people access resources, picking up trash, cleaning sidewalks, and even lending a hand at a parking meter, like they did for me. This year, we built upon that with the opening of a skyway level Safety Communication Center. It centralizes communications and coordination among Downtown Ambassadors, outreach workers, and cross-jurisdictional public-safety partners.
These partnerships are critical to how we build a better downtown. The Downtown Development Corporation announced that institutional investors like the Bush Foundation and Securian arecontributing $30 million to an investment fund that will support future development.
On the topic of downtown investments, one of the key things my administration is working on, is funding the renovation at Roy Wilkins Auditorium, RiverCentre, and Grand Casino Arena. There are a few things I want to be absolutely clear on: First, these are city-owned facilities that we need to keep up. It is our duty to maintain and improve these assets before costs rise even more.
Additionally, these buildings are aging. The Roy Wilkins Auditorium is nearly a century old,built long before any ADA standards. For example, there is a tiny step up into the bathroomswhich become impassable for those with accessibility needs. The basement, where many of ustested for COVID during the pandemic, is ripe for activation and a refresh.
Activating this space will open the door to more events and cultural activities, spurring our local economy and strengthening our public-private partnerships.
The Grand Casino Arena is now over a quarter of a century old. Built before 9/11, the facility has a number of security concerns that need to be addressed. Other changes need to be made to accommodate more artists performing in the arena, especially as we face competition from US Bank Stadium and Target Center across the river. Right now, we do not have a loading dock that can properly accommodate their tour trucks. That needs to change.
Before I was even sworn in, my goal was to secure a balanced deal that does not raise property taxes, with sustainability built in. Within the first six weeks, we did exactly that.
My administration delivered an agreement with the Wild that is positive for our city. The team will provide a third of the upfront cost of construction, pay rent, make an annual payment In Lieu of Taxes, in essence, paying property taxes on a building that is exempt and they do not have ownership in, and most importantly, for the city’s future financial stability, the team and the city put a contribution annually toward a capital expenditure and maintenance fund. This ensures we do not need to return to the Legislature to ask for future funding.
The city will fund its third of the project through its own bonding authority. The mechanism to pay the debt on the bonds would rely on the same half cent sales tax that currently exists to service the debt on the Grand Casino Arena. This will require a legislatively approved extension of our half-cent sales tax that has been in place since the ‘90s. This sales tax extension captures revenue from visitors and anyone spending money in our city . Using this funding mechanism, we do not raise property taxes and will expand the revenues coming into our city from increasedeconomic activity.
This tax is beneficial beyond the arena complex. While 40% of the tax goes to servicing debt on the arena; the rest is invested into housing, transportation, the STAR grant program, and projectslike our state-of-the-art, green energy powered North End Community Center.
The remaining third of the project is what we are asking the state to help fund through state bonding.
I am grateful to the legislative partners we have coordinated with across the aisle and in both chambers. A special thank you to our bill authors, Representatives Hollins and Perez-Vega and Senators Pappas and Oumou [OOO-MOO] Verbeten.
I’ve been at the Capitol meeting with dozens of legislators to move this project forward. We cannot wait any longer. Every year we delay, the cost of the project increases by millions of dollars. Now is the time to act.
During the campaign, I pitched an idea to expand the tax base and reduce reliance on residential property taxes by establishing an Urban Wealth Fund. An Urban Wealth Fund takes our city's assets, puts them to work, and generates revenue for the city. Thanks to the work at the Office of Financial Empowerment and Director Marcus Owens, the McKnight Foundation is funding the first step.
This is really exciting for me as a data and finance nerd. Our Real Estate team started conducting an assessment of our assets to identify development opportunities, this is the data-driven first step of the Urban Wealth Fund. Another assessment the city is working on is to identify all deferred maintenance in our city. These are assets, like properties, vehicles, and technology, that, as the name indicates, have had their maintenance put off. We likely have a billion dollars in deferred maintenance in our city, and I intend to develop a full picture of our finances. Saint Paul residents value transparency and they deserve to have a complete understanding of what is needed to turn this cycle of deferred costs around.
As many of you know, improving processes and systems is very important to me. The better the city does its job and the more available and communicative it is, the better we all are for it.
That’s why, when I took office, I pledged to start a two-year budgeting cycle, as we do at the Capitol, so that the city and its residents know the plan for the future long before it shows up for a vote at city council. Tomorrow, I am conducting an all-day retreat with my directors to begin that process. I am sure they are all very excited about it! I know I am!
The work our departments do is critical to your day-to-day life. I want to lay out a few things we’ve done to connect better with residents
In Public Works, we expanded our ability to patch roads this winter by buying a machine that can reuse and recycle asphalt into “hot patch” to be used in the coldest times of year, when ourasphalt plant is closed. I went out with Public Works to try it out myself, when it was below zero,and I am looking forward to joining them again now that it is warmer.
This winter was a tough one for snowfall. Mixed precipitation and fluctuating temperatures madeice ruts that were challenging to navigate by car or by foot, despite our employees' best efforts. That is why we conducted alternate-side parking pilots in two areas. If we want our roads cleared better, we have to be open to trying bold new things.
I am looking forward to seeing the results of the pilot and learning more about the possibilities going forward.
I have also learned a ton about plowing in the last four months. When we plow during snow emergencies it can take up to three passes to clear a street curb to curb. Often people move their cars back before the process is completed. I am exploring adding a public tracking system that shares operational plowing and pothole patching updates across the city.
When the public has greater understanding and access to our processes, residents will be far more appreciative of the sheer amount of work our city staff does, each and every day.
My office is also looking at ways to improve and track resident responses across the city. It is important to me that constituents hear from us. My constituent services team has responded to over 2,500 correspondences just in the mayor’s office since January. If we track that information more effectively across the city departments, we can be more responsive when people reach out. Knowing that information could help us coordinate hot topics across departments and ensure people receive the best response.
That is why I am so excited the Office of Technology and Communications launched our new City website in the first week of my mayorship and will soon be able to broadcast our City Council and committee meetings live on YouTube. A huge step forward that outsiders may not realize the work it took to accomplish, but that we are all better off with more accessible options.
In continuing our accessibility push, the Office of Technology and Communications teamed up with the department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity to complete a massive update of tens of thousands of city documents to make them ADA-accessible. To date, they have completed over 90% of the total work.
As we improve internal systems, we are taking a hard look at how we responded to the cyberattack last summer. I'm committed to executing on the recommendations of the After Action Review to identify changes that need to be made going forward. We cannot afford to defer technology maintenance indefinitely, and we are taking that responsibility seriously. The City's network and core infrastructure have been past end-of-life for years. We are currently in the middle of a 4 to 5 million dollar Network and Infrastructure Modernization initiative. We also advocated for and secured reimbursement from the state by designating the cyberattack as a natural disaster to cover a large portion of the cost.
This past year, I heard from countless people that Saint Paul was difficult to do business in. We have been working on a few initiatives to make it easier and more welcoming for people who want to invest here, because more investment means less burden on your property taxes. Businesses pay a far greater share of property taxes per square foot than residential. While commercial properties make up 1.9% of our zoned land, they contribute nearly 10% of our property tax base. These are not smokestacks but technologies of the future that create jobs.
At the end of last year, the city rolled out a new enterprise-wide software, led by our Department of Safety and Inspections, called PAULIE, which is a system for permitting and other license transactions. PAULIE has greatly expanded the amount of permits and inspections that can be facilitated online. Earlier this month, we converted hundreds of thousands of historical records into the PAULIE system with 24/7 access, making it an even stronger tool for those doing business in Saint Paul.
While we look at how the public does business with us, we are also taking a look at how WE do business with the public. We’ve been working on streamlining permitting across the three departments they primarily touch: Public Works, Safety and Inspections, and Planning and Economic Development. Breaking down silos that caused frustration, headaches, and delays in getting a permit approved. This work is just beginning and will be the basis for powerful investments. Along with our City Council partners, we are looking to update our sign code. Right now, signs in our city are designated to 17 different districts, each with its own set of rules. Removing simple barriers like this makes for one less complicated thing a developer or small business needs to worry about.
In the last election, the city gained a new tool to hold people accountable for violating our ordinances: administrative citations. My administration is building a strong implementation plan, ensuring it works the way voters intended, and putting our city on the same level as other cities with a similar mechanism to enforce their ordinances.
And when it comes to law enforcement, Saint Paul is rising to the top due to its innovative approaches to community safety. Our ground-breaking non-fatal shooting unit and ASPIRE program continue to drive down gun violence. In 2025, we were able to clear 71% of non-fatal shooting cases and gunshot wound incidents were down 32%. By dedicating resources to focus on non-fatal shootings, we have also been able to drive down our homicide rate by 50%. And,because of their determined efforts, our officers were able to clear 100% of those cases, almost twice the national average. I want to thank my predecessor, Mayor Melvin Carter, and County Attorney John Choi for their leadership in establishing the unit and securing initial funding to make it happen. Since those resources are sunsetting, I have been at the Capitol advocating forfunds to continue our success and replicate it in other communities across our state, and there is strong momentum for it.
We’ve also continue to make progress on fully staffing our police department. We are currently at the highest number of sworn officers we have had for the first time since 2023, while cutting overtime costs by over $1 million. These are real, measurable wins. We will continue to invest in proven programs that keep our neighborhoods safe.
On the public safety front, there is always more work to do. Last year, the City Council passed gun violence prevention measures that have good, commonsense action in them, like banning guns from recreation centers. Unfortunately, State pre-emption prevents us from enacting them. Gun violence prevention is deeply personal to me. That is why I testified at the Capitol in strong support of repealing this pre-emption. Local communities should decide for themselves how bestto keep their communities safe. I will keep advocating every chance to enact our ordinances.
One of the benefits about being the Capital City is that people travel from all around to come here, have their voices heard, and influence legislation that affects them, but that also comes at a cost. From various protests to the over 100,000 people who attended the No Kings rally a few weeks back, these events incur public safety costs, like opening our Emergency Operations Center, closing streets, and increasing officers to keep people safe. We are asking our state partners to help us cover these additional costs so they are not borne solely by Saint Paul residents.
It is important that when we think of public safety, that we remember our Fire Department is a critical part of the equation. As one of the only cities in the state where emergency services are delivered through our Fire Department, we are conscious of the cost of running these services and how we need to sustain them. Last year, our firefighters went on over 65,000 runs. With federal cuts to health care causing more people to lose their coverage and rely on emergency care as their primary care, incurring more costs to fill the gaps. Before I got into the office, I broughtthe issue of how we bill insurers to our firefighters which lead to the action of increasing our rates at the end of 2025. With this change, our rates better reflect our costs. Since then, we have continue to review our billing process and look for other savings and opportunities to grow revenues.
I want to lift up one additional example of how fire is working with me to operate more efficiently. In January, we developed a floating shift to improve our flexibility in scheduling. Adding this shift has reduced overtime costs, saving more than $236,000 in the first quarter of this year, alone.
I’ll say one last thing about public safety before sharing what to expect after these 100 Days. The Office of Neighborhood Safety is a department with a broad reach. From youth interruptionprograms, to violence intervention, to our unsheltered work, this department touches the lives of some of our most vulnerable residents. The Office of Neighborhood Safety is convening a group of city department leaders to implement a cohesive strategy in supporting our unsheltered homeless population. This strategy will consist of a coordinated, proactive, and relationship-driven approach to engage individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness, grounded in dignity, safety, and shared responsibility. Our focus is to rapidly connect people to housing, treatment, and supportive services through direct, persistent engagement. We will coordinate our resources across City departments and ensure strong collaboration with our service providers and Ramsey County.
The unsheltered issue in our city is a regional matter, driven by national and state-wide systemic problems. Responding to encampments in our city with care and providing alternative housing options to those who are currently residing there demand that we work as a region. Since manyof Saint Paul’s unhoused people come from outside of our city, we have begun having conversations with neighboring cities and counties to seek out effective solutions.
Now, let us turn our attention to what to expect going forward.
Major sites of development and investment across our city will power our comeback. Construction at The Heights and Highland Bridge have restarted.
I am excited for the progress being made in adding retail, commercial, and multi-family affordable housing. Hundreds of new families will have the opportunity to live here. These sites are not the only place construction is occurring. Just in the first few months of my administration,buildings are going vertical at the United Village site. A new office building, a boutique hotel, and restaurants will bring vibrancy to the Midway area and provide further momentum to the neighborhood. There is more to do and my team is prepared to do it!
From Earl Street on the East Side to Pelham Boulevard in Desnoyer Park, our Public Works and Parks departments are working hard on making our streets safer, greener, and fit for moving our residents across our city by foot, bike, bus, and car. We are tackling needed construction projects on our main thoroughfares and collector streets that are woefully behind schedule by using the voter-approved Common Cent funds. My administration is committed to tackling these kinds of deferred projects and doing so with maximum community engagement and transparency; it's the only way these projects can or should move forward.
With the city’s new Common Cent sales tax, we’ll soon break ground on projects across Saint Paul that push our park system even further: upgrading baseball fields, expanding green space at Osborne Plaza, rebuilding the futsal court near Hamline Avenue, installing renewable geothermal energy at the zoo, and revitalizing the Mississippi River Gorge trail. This funding is already on the move: we are breaking ground on Baker Field improvements today!
Whew! I think this is the longest speech I have ever given. You will be happy to hear, I am wrapping up now!
Saint Paul, we have big things on the horizon. This year, we have begun the transformation of the Hayden Heights library and are debuting the Hamline Midway library.
All the services we provide to residents matter, but libraries open the door to so much more. Earlier this year, I took part in the library’s Read Brave program—a citywide book club where we invite all residents to read the same book and talk with each other. This year, we distributed 5,000 copies of Lobizona [LOW-BIH-ZON-AH] by Romina Garber. It was selected before Operation Metro Surge, but it proved to be the perfect choice.
The story follows an undocumented girl in Miami who discovers she is superhuman. Through stories like this, grounded in different communities and perspectives, we build understanding and empathy, even when they come through something as unexpected as magic.
At the end of Read Brave, we hosted a panel that stayed with me. We began talking about safe places, where each of us goes to feel secure. It made me think about how many kids in our city, just as I did growing up, rely on libraries as places to go, to be, and to dream. That’s the power of local government, and it is why we show up to do this work every day.
Our powers may be limited in the face of a federal occupation, but we still have the power to create places and deliver services that make people feel safe and supported. Places where a child can slip into story time, where a resident can finally get the pothole at the end of their driveway fixed, where a small business owner can celebrate receiving their final permits, and where families across Saint Paul can have their lead service lines replaced, which the city has completed nearly 5,000 of so far, so their kids can drink safely from the tap.
I do not take these stories or the importance of our city government lightly, whether you knowwe are behind it or not.
I hear you, I see you, and I am fighting for you.
That means smart maintenance, strong partnerships, and modern systems that save time and money. It means standing up for our community when outside forces threaten our safety and values, and it means expanding opportunities so more people can live, work, and thrive here.
None of this happens from one office, one department, or one elected official. It happens when residents, businesses, nonprofits, and the government lean in together. I am grateful for the leadership across our city and for the people who are stepping up, and we are only 100 days in!
Together, we will keep repairing what’s broken, investing in what matters, and seizing the opportunities ahead. I am honored to do this work with you: to listen, to act, and to lift Saint Paul higher by rising to our full potential.
Thank you.