St. Paul City Council Gets Things Done Behind Closed Doors

In the United States, the city is the basic unit of government. The stated goals of the St. Paul city council are to find the best solutions for the problems of St. Paul and to make government accessible to residents. After learning about the superficial details of the council, I attended a weekly council meeting, a public hearing, and I interviewed Councilman Pat Harris in order to understand the day to day workings of the council.

The organization and procedure of the council are simple. The city of St. Paul is divided geographically into seven wards. Each ward elects one representative who lives within the boundaries of the ward to serve on the city council. St. Paul city council members are elected in the same election every four years. The city council's purpose is to serve the legislative functions of the city. It has the ability to pass ordinances and resolutions (local laws). When four city councilmen and the mayor agree on an ordinance or resolution it becomes a law. The city council can also override a Mayoral veto with the vote of five city councilmen. Another significant power of the city council is the responsibility of voting on and modifying the budget proposed by the Mayor of St. Paul. The city council meets at 3:30pm on the first four Wednesdays of every month and holds public hearings two to three times each month. The City Council holds hearings twice a month on "proposed ordinances, public improvements, property acquisitions, special assessments, utility charges, and the City budget." Hearings on other issues are optional.

With this procedure in mind, I watched the weekly council meeting on local television one Wednesday. I was ready to witness the lively debate and discussion of issues that are the textbook evidence of American Democracy. Instead, I found seven council members rush, in less than thirty minutes, through more than thirty items of city business without any discussion. They were going through what is called a "consent agenda" which they read through quickly before voting yeah or nay unanimously on every issue. When they reached the issues for "discussion" nobody had anything to discuss and the issues were resolved almost as fast as the consent agenda issues. The politicking had apparently happened behind closed doors.

A few weeks later I drove to downtown St. Paul for a public hearing. After going through the airport-style security checkpoint, I entered a vast marble hall. The council's meeting room was wood paneled and featured four frescos of historical Minnesotans. I wondered whether taxpayer dollars were being wasted on such opulence. I was intimidated by the way the city council members' chairs were situated in a circle with their backs to the public viewing space. The value of open participation in local government was damaged by the way the room's set up excluded the public. This impression was not changed when the public hearing started and I noticed that the citizens addressing the council were two feet lower on the ground than the council members. While the nonpartisanship of the city council was comforting, I felt like the members were more interested in the performing of the bureaucracy of the position then in helping the people. Their compensation of "half of the mayor's annual salary" (about $30,000 per year) might contribute to their lack of interest, I thought. While one resident was talking, I noticed a city council member showing his colleague a cartoon on his PDA while they both laughed. Another resident, who needed a tree removed that was growing into his house, asked, "Will this be done in five business days?" The city council member responded with a small chuckle and the resident skulked away from the podium understanding that nothing in city government takes only five business days.

Despite the bureaucracy and boredom, the city councilmen were still politicians and were quick to try to curry the favor of myself and the other two Macalester students who were sitting with me. As we arrived, Ward Three Councilman Pat Harris beckoned me to him and, while a resident pleaded her grievance earnestly, asked if I was a student, from where, and for what class was I attending. As soon as the resident had stopped talking, Harris announced to the Council that three Macalester students were here and that they had better be on their best behavior.

After the public hearing, Harris approached us and asked us our names and other questions to create a connection. At this point I felt that his pretended interest was little more than vote seeking. When we asked if we could meet with him to talk about how he sees the City Council I was apprehensive of whether we would learn anything interesting.

However, after talking with Harris for an hour, he had won me over and I realized that I had misinterpreted much of what I saw. I gained a new respect for politicians and for the job of city council members.

Harris was a smart, opinionated, blunt man whose harsh language made him seem like a realist. I felt like he had a deep sense of commitment to the community and to progressive politics. He explained why he will be seeking the DFL endorsement when he runs for his third term even though he has been nonpartisan in the last two elections. "I'm tired of people asking, 'Are you the Republican?' just because I'm not DFL endorsed," he said, "I've been leading the issues of homelessness, the environment, affordable housing, green spaces, and local libraries." He gained my respect when he explained that "95 percent of the things we do here are non-partisan" and the other five percent would be non-partisan as well if the City Council kept out of resolutions with nationwide implications. He said that he doesn't have access to all the information that U.S. Senators and Representatives do and he should not be required to take the time out of running the city to make a decision about the Iraq War. I think it is a step in the right direction toward streamlined government for a progressive in a city that is very liberal ("we're all liberals," he said) to move towards non-partisanship and focus on the technical issues that St. Paul faces instead of trying to encroach on the responsibility of higher levels of government.

Harris painted himself as a maverick about partisanship as well as other issues in a somewhat exaggerated manner but he truly seemed concerned about dealing with issues that would improve St. Paul. He said he spends more time in the office of his day job at an investment firm than at his city council office because there is "too much chin wagging" and "shooting the breeze" going on in city hall and "not enough work." This concerned me as it seemed to fit along with what I witnessed at the meetings.

The most interesting part of our discussion with Harris was the opportunity to meet his legislative aide, John Marshall (no relation to the Supreme Court Justice). If the City Council was, as Harris said, the "nuts and bolts" of government, Marshall was the guy who bought the bolts and screwed in the nuts. In addition to being Harris' go-fer and policy assistant, Marshall's job centered around assisting constituents in dealing with the bureaucracy of local government. He helped residents who wanted stop signs to be put up and who needed help negotiating speed traps. He helped neighbors resolve disagreements. He helped citizens and organizations get proper permits for events. He called his job, "the interpretation of city government." Harris said that Marshall's job was necessary because "council members don't physically have the time to meet with every constituent when we have a city to govern and a budget that runs hundreds of pages." I was impressed with the dedication to public service exhibited by civil servants like Marshall. "The things I deal with are minor," he said, "but the city couldn't run without them." He also is involved with putting public records online and making them more accessible to St. Paul residents. But instead of simplifying his job, this increase of information for citizens has made, as he said, "complaints increase exponentially."

Overall, meeting with Pat Harris changed my first impression of overworked bureaucracy into what I feel is a more correct view that the City Council is a basic unit of government that tries to cope with the large amount of work involved in running a city. While some council members engage in political posturing and ignore the individual pleas of citizens, for the most part it seems that St. Paul's council is devoted to progressive causes and ensuring the city operates smoothly.