{"id":1390,"date":"2023-08-28T01:18:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1390"},"modified":"2023-08-08T10:22:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T10:22:27","slug":"randy-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1390","title":{"rendered":"Tribute # 16: Randy Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Randy<\/strong> Kelly<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

Randy<\/b> Kelly<\/b> was State Rep. Randy Kelly when I got elected in 1987.\u00a0 He was thought of as a conservative, pro-life, law-and-order Democrat \u2013 and, well, you know me, I tended more liberal.\u00a0 Yet we both represented Saint Paul neighborhoods plagued by poverty, crack houses and crime.\u00a0 Focusing on the lack of home ownership, the abundance of absentee landlords, we found common ground.\u00a0 When he became a State Senator a couple years later, he was the Senate author of much of my agenda \u2013 and I appreciated his work ethic and ability to get things done.\u00a0 (Caption<\/em> below<\/em>:\u00a0 Randy<\/em> and<\/em> I announcing<\/em> one<\/em> of<\/em> our<\/em> housing<\/em> initiatives<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When he ran for Mayor in 2001, his opponent was City Council Member Jay Benanav, the liberal in the race.\u00a0 Benanav\u2019s aide and campaign manager was my friend Jane Prince.\u00a0 Jane had been my<\/em> 1993 campaign manager (see Jane Prince Tribute above).\u00a0 Maybe the hardest thing in politics is choosing between friends.\u00a0 In this case it was choosing who could best get things done, and that\u2019s what I explained to my neighbors, and what I tried to explain to Jane by choosing Randy.\u00a0 This led to a real rupture in Jane\u2019s and my relationship, but to her credit we once again have come to greatly admire each other and we\u2019re back to best friends.<\/p>\n

Randy won, and after Jane was elected to the City Council, she served under the administrations of Randy Kelly, Chris Coleman and Melvin Carter. \u00a0She recently told me, \u201cYou know, Randy was the best \u2013 he actually made things happen, like the Housing 6000 program.\u201d\u00a0 Many Saint Paulites consider Jane one of our best City Council Members ever, including, apparently, the former Mayor.\u00a0 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?!”<\/p>\n

For me, the upshot of Randy\u2019s victory was being appointed the City\u2019s Director of Neighborhood Housing \u2013 coinciding nicely with my retirement from the legislature.\u00a0 This marked my entering my third branch of government:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 One of those laws was \u201cCity Initiated Tenant Remedies Actions,\u201d which so got under the skin of the City\u2019s slumlords that they sued us to stop enforcement in a case that went all the way to the US\u00a0 Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\"Embassy<\/a><\/p>\n

caption:\u00a0 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<\/em><\/p>\n

The full story about that case can be read by clicking <Here<\/a>> or in the Archives scroll to both \u201c1,131 Police Calls in One Year\u201d and \u201cThe Case Goes On \u2026 and On \u2026\u201d.\u00a0 Suffice to say, we won that case, and I\u2019m forever grateful for Randy\u2019s believing in me, giving me that job when I needed one, and hanging in there with me through thick and thin.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3085,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions\/3085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}