At the suggestion of my husband, I’m going to skip wards 2, 4, and 6 (all of which have incumbents — they all have opponents, but none of them are likely to unseat them regardless of what I think) for now and do wards 3, 5, and 7, all of which are open seats with much more competitive races. I will hopefully get through everything, but the open seats are more important to cover sooner.

Ward 3 has been represented by Chris Tolbert since 2012. He’s now retiring from the job. This is my actual ward, so I have been paying attention since the endorsement phase.

On the ballot:

Saura Jost
Isaac Russell
Troy Barksdale
Patty Hartmann

Troy Barksdale

Troy is a current Macalester student who will be graduating in December. He’s opposed to rent control, and deeply clueless about the positive aspects of density. (“As it pertains to the development of West 7th, I would not want to see many apartment complexes erected. The larger the buildings we have in this area translates to greater strain on the environment, which is critical given this area’s proximity to the river.” Dense cities are an environmental net positive.) According to his website: “Though I specialize in writing, my great love is for public speaking. This is something, I believe makes me uniquely qualified to represent Ward 3 on the city council. When Saint Paul is looking for accountability from its government, I will be ready to stand and deliver an earnest message.” This, among other things, makes me think that his sense of what politics involves may have been shaped by things other than engagement with politics. Anyway, he has no endorsements and has raised no money, so I don’t think he’s actually a factor in the race.

Patty Hartmann

Patty ran against Chris last time and is endorsed by Republicans (ETA: I said “by the Republican Party,” this turns out not to be correct. Apparently the site is run by one or more Republicans who watch the debates and pick a candidate based on their take. I think they are absolutely correct that Patty is the most conservative person in the race.) Last time she was basically a single-issue candidate (against organized trash collection, insisting that we could cancel the contracts even after the Minnesota Supreme Court said there was no getting out of it) and this time she’s running against the Summit Avenue bike lane. She also hates density. She’s also a climate change denier. I would absolutely not rank Patty.

Isaac Russell

I liked Isaac when I met him during endorsement season; he was my first choice at the convention. Part of what swayed me was his extremely compelling biography, which includes a period of homelessness as a child — a friend of mine from Minneapolis said she’d vote for him out of class solidarity, which is a legitimate take but she’d probably rethink that now that he’s campaigning with Luther Ranheim (there was a Tweet about the fundraiser they shared that I now can’t find because Twitter search is so broken these days — frustrating, because there were some other people involved who I also didn’t like and now I can’t remember who it was.)

Also, I’m on his e-mail list and here’s an excerpt from a recent e-mail: “St. Paul’s activist establishment is determined to get Isaac’s opponent elected. Super PACs which backed a failed Minneapolis Question to eliminate the police department have committed to ‘knocking thousands of doors’ this fall. We need the resources to fight back. This seat will determine if the city council takes a pragmatic direction or not.” So a couple of points. (a) Hi, it’s me, someone who backed the “failed Minneapolis Question,” good to know you see me as a threat. (b) The phrase “activist establishment” is hilarious. (c) Oh, woe, your opponent’s supporters have committed to doorknocking and you need money to fight it off, huh? Huh. As a general rule, I’m more excited by people who think they can win through going around the neighborhood talking to people than people who think they can win through raising money to inundate us with ads.

But basically — after doing his best to talk a progressive line during convention season, he’s now aligned himself with the centrists. And calling himself a “pragmatist” which is funny because his opponent is literally a civil engineer.

Saura Jost

Saura has the support of the “activist establishment,” which is to say, a bunch of organizations I like (plus some I’m meh on, but whatever), as well as a long list of elected officials ranging from (MN House Rep) Dave Pinto to (Congresswoman) Betty McCollum to (Ramsey County Attorney) John Choi. She’s got a background as a civil engineer. When I got doorknocked for her months back (I think during convention season) I asked her volunteer what drew her to Saura and her volunteer said something like, “I met her and talked to her and she is just so exactly the sort of person we need more of in politics,” and at this point, I’m convinced that’s accurate. She’s a committed progressive who is also deeply knowledgeable about a lot of stuff — specifically, I’ll just note again, civil engineering, which is a legitimately useful thing to have on the City Council in this city where the streets, for real, are falling apart.

I am going to rank Saura Jost first. I’m going to rank Isaac Russell second, because while I think it’ll come down to Saura vs. Isaac, in the (hopefully unlikely) event that it comes down to Isaac vs. Patty I would take him over Patty, and there’s no way it’ll come down to Patty vs. Troy but I might as well vote Troy third just to express my intense opposition to Patty.

---

I have a book coming out this fall, in November! Liberty’s Daughter is near-future SF about a teenage girl on a libertarian seastead. A lot of it was originally published as short fiction in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. You can pre-order it in either book or ebook format from whatever you like.

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, so if you’d like make a donation to encourage my work, check out this music teacher at Washington Technology Magnet in St. Paul, who is raising money to buy guitars so that students don’t have to share 1 guitar between 4 students.