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Earlier this week I attended a ceremony celebrating our beloved Rondo educator, historian, and community elder Professor Mahmoud El-Kati with the renaming of a street in his honor. With Election Day just around the corner, El-Kati’s speech has stuck with me:
“Democracy is a process and not a static condition. You don’t have a democracy. You do a democracy. You are a democracy. It’s not something you put on a mantle piece. It’s a victory and every victory won requires other victories. Its essence is its eternal struggle.”
With Trump pushing his fascist agenda and escalating his attacks on our democracy, the stakes are high this year for all of us. Make your plan to vote by Tuesday, November 3rd! Saint Paul has two in-person early voting locations open all weekend:
- Arlington Community Center (1200 Payne Ave, Saint Paul, MN 55130)
- Friday October 30 from 8:00am to 4:00pm
- Saturday October 31 from 9:00am to 3:00pm
- Sunday November 1 from 9:00am to 3:00pm
- Monday November 2 from 10:00am to 4:00pm
- Ramsey County Plato Building (90 Plato Blvd West, Saint Paul, MN 55107)
- Friday October 30 from 8:00am to 4:30pm
- Saturday October 31 from 9:00am to 3:00pm
- Sunday November 1 from 9:00am to 3:00pm
- Monday November 2 from 8:00am to 5:00pm
Get all the details on voting and voting locations from Ramsey County Election Services at the link here.
-Council Member HwaJeong Kim
RECLAIM will be hosting an Open House on the evening of Wednesday, November 4 at their office in Saint Paul, starting at 6pm. RECLAIM's mission is to increase access to mental health care for queer and trans youth so they may reclaim their lives from oppression in all its forms. Anyone is welcome to stop by and learn more RECLAIM, whether you’re looking for mental health services, community, volunteer opportunities, professional development or otherwise! RSVP at the link here for the door code.
RECLAIM Open House
Wednesday, November 4, 2026 from 6:00 - 8:00pm
RECLAIM Office (2446 University Ave W, Suite 104, Saint Paul, MN 55114)
Join the Rice & Larpenteur Alliance for their next Lunch and Learn for networking opportunities with local businesses leaders, business resources and neighborhood updates, all while supporting Nepali Kitchen! Speakers will include Ramsey County Workforce Solutions, Ramsey County Open to Business (MCCD) and BizRecycling to share information about free resources and grants for local businesses. Please RSVP at the link here.
Rice & Larpenteur Alliance Lunch and Learn
Thursday, November 19 from 11:30am - 1:00pm
Nepali Kitchen (1700 Rice Street, Maplewood, MN 55113)
Home looks different for everyone. It can be an apartment, a manufactured home, a shared house, public housing, or a place still being imagined. Join the East Side Freedom Library for a two-day Housing Summit about what home means, who gets access to it, and how we can build better housing futures together. Come share your story, learn from others, and help imagine what our neighborhoods could become. Register at the link here.
Day 1: Thursday, November 20 from 6:00 - 9:00pm at the East Side Freedom Library (1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN 5510)
The evening begins with a shared dinner, followed by a performance from zAmya Theater Project that asks us to rethink how we see social and public housing. A short community conversation after the show will start the dialogue we’ll continue the next day.
Day 2: Friday, November 21 from 12:00 - 5:00pm at the East Side Freedom Library (1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN 5510)
We’ll start with lunch, then do a creative activity to imagine better futures for our neighborhoods. Next, attendees will split into breakout groups to dig into the housing issues they care about most. We’ll close by coming back together to share what each group discussed and reflect on the day.
Saint Paul Public Library is partnering with the Minnesota Timberwolves to offer a special edition library card! Cards are available while supplies last at any Saint Paul Public Library location.
The library card—designed by Delia Touché, a local Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Assiniboine printmaker, bookmaker, and fiber artist—reflects on the meaningful relationship between basketball and the Native American community and its history dating back to the Boarding School Era. It combines Touché’s personal archives of their own community’s basketball tournaments with Indigenous iconography to reflect on the ways basketball has become intertwined with cultural identity.
You can learn more about the design and artist and how to get a card at the link here.
Saint Paul Public Schools district leadership is proposing mid-year cuts to English language teachers. In the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge, we need to be supporting our immigrant students more than ever—not laying off their teachers in the middle of the school year. I joined the Saint Paul Federation of Educators last week in opposition to these cuts. Ward 5 schools will be particularly hard hit if district leadership moves forward with English Language cuts. The Saint Paul School Board postponed the final vote to Friday October 30 at 4:00pm.
Council Member Kim with parents and SPPS students in solidarity with our Saint Paul educators!
Last week we held our technofascism panel! It was a fantastic conversation about surveillance technology, data, big tech, and civil liberties. We discussed Flock cameras, police drones, and more with a panel of government leaders, academic experts, and community organizers who are fighting for equity and justice in the context of modern technofascism. You can listen to an audio recording of the full panel here. Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for this important conversation! I'm excited to take the discussion from this event into our legislative work to rein in mass surveillance in Saint Paul.
From left to right: Council Member HwaJeong Kim, Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley, State Representative Athena Hollins, Mitchell Hamline School of Law Professor Jessica West, Anna Madison from Women Against Military Madness, John Boehler from ACLU Minnesota. Matthew Guariglia from the Electronic Frontier Foundation joined virtually on the projector screen.
Last week I attended the book launch for The Clothing My Family Wears by Pawku Hser at Rice Street Library. Look for this new children’s picture book on the shelves at our Saint Paul Public Libraries at Rice Street and Arlington Hills! Find a copy to read yourself from our libraries at the link here. It was a wonderful read-aloud and Q&A with author Naw Poe Hser and illustrator Dah Kyi Poe.
From left to right: Council Member Kim, author Naw Poe Hser, illustrator Dah Kyi Poe
Earlier this week I attended McDonough Rec Center's Halloween Party. Thank you to Washington Tech ROTC and our Park and Rec staff for organizing a wonderfully spooky event!
Council Member Kim with Washington Tech ROTC students
Last week I joined Our Streets for their annual fundraiser at Dual Citizen Brewing. Our Streets has been organizing for years to make our streets places where everyone can easily and safely walk, bike, roll, and use public transit. From the ongoing organizing to save Evie and Hourcar, hosting the beloved Open Streets festivals, and the long-term fight against highway expansion on I-94, Our Streets has been a leader for better transportation across the Twin Cities. Great to support them in continuing their important work!
From left to right: Our Streets Executive Director José Antonio Zayas Cabán, Council Member Kim
Encampment evictions have failed everyone who calls Saint Paul home, whether you live in a house or in a tent. Mayor Her’s eviction of the Pig’s Eye encampment cost the city $440,000 and only shifted people from one block to another. Instead of a plan to actually connect people with housing, we’ve been told to fear our neighbors who have turned to living in tents and cars because they can't afford their homes.
For me, homelessness is a deeply personal issue. I’ve had several family members and loved ones experience homelessness. My brother-in-law was living outside in Saint Paul and I’ve lost contact with him since the eviction at Pig’s Eye this summer. If family members can’t find each other after encampment evictions, we can’t expect service providers and social workers to have success connecting our unhoused neighbors with housing resources.
Our residents expect solutions from City Hall and delivering on that requires the Mayor’s administration to be a partner with our City Council. Our City Council brought together Ramsey County leadership, State Legislators and service providers to outline a three-phase blueprint on how our city should respond to encampments with winter fast approaching:
- An intentional 60-day strategic investment period with a Navigation tent before any encampment closure.
- Creation of a temporary low-barrier shelter to operate for six months over the winter to expand shelter capacity.
- The development of a permanent low-barrier shelter that operates on the indoor village model, like Avivo Village in Minneapolis and St. Cloud.
Thank you to Council Member Anika Bowie, Ramsey County Commissioner Mai Chong Xiong, State Rep Leigh Finke, Jason Lopez, Jody Emmings of Interfaith Action, John Tribbett of Avivo, Justin Lewandoski of Open Hands Midway, John Slade of the Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing and Josh Mcmillen of End Slavery in Minnesota for joining me last week to speak on the importance of this plan from City Council. Everyone can agree what we’re doing now isn’t working for anyone. What is clear is that Saint Paul needs a plan and I’m proud City Council is providing a blueprint for how Saint Paul should move forward.
Earlier this week I joined several of my colleagues to tour Avivo Village in Minneapolis and learn more about why the lack of low-barrier shelters is a key gap in Saint Paul’s response to homelessness. I’m committed to working with my colleagues to move forward a Navigation tent at existing encampments and securing funding in the 2027 City budget for the temporary low-barrier shelter and pre-development of a permanent low-barrier shelter.
Key Votes: City Council voted unanimously to pass a resolution outlining a three-phase blueprint on how our city should respond to encampments. You can read the resolution at the link here.
From left to right: County Commissioner Mai Chong Xiong, Justin Lewandoski of Open Hands Midway, Council Member Kim, Jason Lopez, Josh Mcmillen of End Slavery in MN, State Rep Leigh Finke, Council Member Anika Bowie, Jody Emmings of Interfaith Action, John Tribbett of Avivo and John Slade of MICAH.
Saunas are a key tradition for our Minnesotan winters. Saint Paul residents love our parks. It’s time we bring those passions together! I'm authoring an ordinance to finally allow mobile saunas in our parks. The ordinance will allow mobile sauna operators to run public saunas at designated park locations through a dedicated permit program.
Key Votes: The ordinance to allow mobile saunas to seek permits to operate in Saint Paul parks was introduced for the first reading earlier this week. City Council will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, November 4 at 3:30 pm at City Hall. You can read the introduced ordinance at the link here.
Earlier in September my office welcomed Luke Mielke as my new legislative aide! Luke joins Janie Vang to complete our Ward 5 team. Luke brings a decade of policy, communication and political experience to City Hall—as well as great baking skills. Luke used to be a sous chef at Saint Paul’s Marc Heu Patisserie!
From left to right: Luke Mielke, Council Member Kim, Janie Vang
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