Randy Kelly

After retiring from the legislature in 2002, the most significant changes in my life came about with the help of first, Mayor Randy Kelly, then Judge Jim Swenson, and finally attorney Marshall Tanick.

Randy Kelly was State Rep. Randy Kelly when I got elected in 1987.  He was thought of as a conservative, pro-life, law-and-order Democrat – and, well, you know me, I tended more liberal.  Yet we both represented Saint Paul neighborhoods plagued by poverty, crack houses and crime.  Focusing on the lack of home ownership, the abundance of absentee landlords, we found common ground.  When he became a State Senator a couple years later, he was the Senate author of much of my agenda – and I appreciated his work ethic and ability to get things done.  (Caption below:  Randy and I announcing one of our housing initiatives.)

When he ran for Mayor in 2001, his opponent was City Council Member Jay Benanav, the liberal in the race.  Benanav’s aide and campaign manager was my friend Jane Prince.  Jane had been my 1993 campaign manager (see Jane Prince Tribute above).  Maybe the hardest thing in politics is choosing between friends.  In this case it was choosing who could best get things done, and that’s what I explained to my neighbors, and what I tried to explain to Jane by choosing Randy.  This led to a real rupture in Jane’s and my relationship, but to her credit we once again have come to greatly admire each other and we’re back to best friends.

Randy won, and after Jane was elected to the City Council, she served under the administrations of Randy Kelly, Chris Coleman and Melvin Carter.  She recently told me, “You know, Randy was the best – he actually made things happen, like the Housing 6000 program.”  Many Saint Paulites consider Jane one of our best City Council Members ever, including, apparently, the former Mayor.  Jane tells me she ran into Randy the other day, got a big hug, and Randy says, smiling, “Who would have thought you’d end up being the most sensible member of the Council?!”

For me, the upshot of Randy’s victory was being appointed the City’s Director of Neighborhood Housing – coinciding nicely with my retirement from the legislature.  This marked my entering my third branch of government:  First the judicial branch as a landlord/tenant attorney; then the legislative branch writing landlord/tenant laws; and now in the executive branch enforcing the very landlord/tenant laws Randy and I wrote.  One of those laws was “City Initiated Tenant Remedies Actions,” which so got under the skin of the City’s slumlords that they sued us to stop enforcement in a case that went all the way to the US  Supreme Court.

caption:  one thing that particularly galled the slumlords we sued is that they had to put their tenants up at the Embassy Suites while repairs were made to make their properties habitable

The full story about that case can be read by clicking <Here> or in the Archives scroll to both “1,131 Police Calls in One Year” and “The Case Goes On … and On …”.  Suffice to say, we won that case, and I’m forever grateful for Randy’s believing in me, giving me that job when I needed one, and hanging in there with me through thick and thin.  On too rare an occasion, I run into Randy around town, but he’s kept a low profile since losing his mayoral re-election bid.