The neighborhood group that serves as liaison between St. Paul City Hall and downtown residents, business owners and workers is going through some major changes.
The CapitolRiver Council’s executive director left a few months ago and new director Paul Bengtson took the helm in February. Also in February, board chair Joann Hawkins stepped down — reportedly as a result of increased job responsibilities. Interim board chair Wayne Mikos is soon moving out of state, once again opening up the seat.
But for the Scoop’s money, the biggest change may have taken place on Tuesday, June 17, when downtown art gallery owner Bill Hosko — a vocal board member and frequent critic of City Hall — arrived at the Bedlam Theatre for board elections. He showed up with several handpicked recruits in tow.
“I recruited a number of new people that were elected. When you look at our bylaws (board of directors application), that’s what’s expected of us — to recruit more participation within the organization,” Hosko said.
When all was said and done, the 11 positions were filled, and 8 seats held new faces.
“Some new people got elected,” said Hosko, one of the most vociferous critics of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s administration and the city’s planned regional ballpark. “Eight new people got elected. I think there were as many as 20 candidates.”
At least three sitting board members who had reapplied for their positions lost seats in the process. They include Jim Ivey, a Lowertown resident and political organizer with the Green Party; Joan Mathison, who does community outreach for the St. Paul Athletic Club; and Julio Fesser, a Securian employee.
Will the new make-up of the CapitolRiver Council have much impact on the group’s collective stance toward City Hall and the mayor’s office? (Currently, 25 of the 35 seats are occupied). Will the new group be anti-Coleman?
With 35 members — including up to 10 of them appointed representatives of institutions such as the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and BOMA, the Building Owners and Managers Association — it’s tough to tell. There are currently seven appointees on the council.
“Every year, 11 of the seats are up for election, so there’s always a change with the board,” Bengtson, the executive director, points out.
So what’s the Hosko / new blood agenda?
“I think the number one thing that the group that was elected (wants), they want more transparency at the CapitolRiver Council,” Hosko said. “They don’t want to see a ban on the recording of meetings. These are publicly funded meetings. They don’t want to see any more closed door meetings. They want to see a shift back to the roots of the district council — to be a liaison between the residents and City Hall.”
“The people who were steering the CapitolRiver Council feel we are not subject to Open Meeting laws, and myself and others feel we are.”
“It was being dominated by people who work downtown, versus people who live downtown, or are business owners or property owners,” Hosko continued. “It’s shifted a little bit more towards the residential. We gained two residents on the board.”
Some of the new blood would also like to see the number of appointees, and the overall size of the council, trimmed. Hosko notes that the 35-member council is 1/3-larger than the city’s 16 other neighborhood district councils. “I and others think that number’s too large,” he said.
Hosko is no stranger to controversy. His plans for a downtown velodrome — a bicycle-racing track atop the light rail’s new operations and maintenance facility — became the subject of scorn and ridicule at City Hall.
Hosko, in turn, has been equally critical of how the Coleman administration handled citizen input on the future home of the St. Paul Saints, a 7,000-seat regional ballpark under construction next door to the Green Line operations center.
“The ballpark meetings — they were largely a fraud how they were conducted,” Hosko said. “People’s opinions were dismissed left and right.”
“I had a brief conversation with (Saints owner) Mike Veeck recently,” Hosko said. “He said ‘I hope there were no hard feelings.’ I said, ‘with you there aren’t.’”
“We’ve squandered a historic opportunity for this city. We’re going to end up with a ‘nice’ ballpark with a tremendous view of the traffic on the Lafayette Bridge.”
Of course, not everyone agrees with Hosko’s assessment. The new ballpark drew plenty of curious fans to a “Taste of the Ballpark” event in January, and the layout has also gained special notice from advocates for the disabled.
Veeck in particular has praised the sunken, open-air design as forward-thinking and original. In February, an informal online poll on TwinCities.com showed that 38 percent of respondents said that once the Lowertown ballpark is constructed, they would probably go to even more games than they’ve seen at Midway Stadium. Another 26 percent said they would visit the ballpark. There were 881 respondents as of June 24.
Among Hosko’s new recruits to the CapitolRiver Council board is Sandra Erickson, the co-owner of the Allen Building. She could not immediately be reached for comment, but her husband has been an outspoken critic of the regional ballpark, and she apparently shares some of his views.
Karen Brennan, another new CapitolRiver Council board member recruited by Hosko, is a co-coordinator of the Friends of Mears Park, and she takes a less openly critical stance toward City Hall.
Nevertheless, “there’s always a time for new blood, new ideas,” said Brennan, who has lived in Lowertown’s Airye Condominiums for 10 years. “It’s our neighborhood that we’re very concerned about.”
Case in point: She’s spoken with many residents who take issue with the city’s recent decision to relocate a bus stop from 6th Street, by the Park Square Building in front of Mears Park, to the corner of 6th and Wacouta in front of the River Park Lofts.
“The bus stop issue is a real concern, because a lot of Friends of Mears Park live over at that River Park Lofts,” Brennan said. “I’m on the 35th floor. I can see that from my condo, where the buses stop.”
Brennan, however, had no gripe against the recent 6th Street sidewalk expansion in Lowertown, which angered some traditionalists. “It looks beautiful. It complements Mears Park,” she said.