Nadia Elnagdy
Randy Stille
The special election for a seat on the St. Anthony City Council will be held Tuesday, Aug. 13. Vying for the position are newcomer Nadia Elnagdy and Randy Stille, who hopes to regain a seat on the council. A candidate forum, hosted by the New Brighton Area League of Women Voters and the St. Anthony Chamber of Commerce, was held Thursday, July 26 at St. Anthony City Hall. Answers have been edited for space.
Opening statements
Elnagdy: I have served in Hennepin County prosecutor’s office for 14 years. The first three years were spent prosecuting property crime, then in gun crimes coming out of North Minneapolis and the last seven years prosecuting violent offenders with specialty in child abuse. I’ve served on the board of directors of the Junior League of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Citizens League. I am no stranger to strategic thinking.
Stille: I’ve served as planning commissioner, city council member and mayor of St. Anthony during the last 25 years. In my day job, I manage investment relationships of up to $300 million. My work responsibility charge is to evaluate, mitigate and get paid for risk. With regard to the proposal to resume police service for Falcon Heights, the current council agreement has only enough money to cover expenses. We should not expose the city to undue risk. We must get paid for it, something better than just a cost-neutral arrangement.
What do you like best about St. Anthony Village?
Elnagdy: I like that it is an actual village, and my kids can’t do anything without the neighbors seeing it.
Stille: We are the City of St. Anthony Village. I like our proximity to downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. It’s a place that people strive to come here to enjoy the parks and safety provided by police and first responders. We’re clean — our streets are plowed.
What does transparency in city government mean to you?
Stille: It means that everybody can understand what’s going on. At a city council level, it’s hard to be transparent because people don’t have the ability to come to every meeting. There’s an element of trust woven in there. People have to trust the council that they’re going to do the right things. An example is the Falcon Heights police contract. It was not put in the yearly goals established in January. It sorta got slid under the rug.
Elnagdy: It means that your residents have ownership in the decisions that their council members are making. Our elected officials cannot vote on their own opinion. That’s not why we elect them. We elect them to represent our interests. In order to do that, they need to be open-minded to constituents. Just because city council meetings happen twice a month and people can’t always make it to the meetings, it’s on us to increase the line of communication. How else can we get the word out? How else can we make sure every single resident in St. Anthony is well aware of the decisions their government is making, whether that’s better use of social media or taking conversations out of this council chamber and out into the streets.
Please describe your community involvement in St. Anthony, and the length of your service:
Elnagdy: We haven’t been in St. Anthony for very long – March of 2020, the day after the stay-at-home order went into effect. Since that time, my husband has coached three years of T-ball; this is my first year coaching soccer; I organized story telling at my childrens’ preschool. Once my son started at Wilshire Park, I was in school on Mondays, reading, and on Fridays I was in the library helping with whatever needed to be done.
Stille: I moved here in 1989. I served five years on the planning commission, then ran for city council. I won, and served for the next 16 years. After that, I ran for mayor and served four years as mayor. I’ve been in Kiwanis, Family Services Collaborative, the Historical Society, Chamber of Commerce, and Sister City Committee. I currently represent St. Anthony as the chair of the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization.
How will you work with and use the recommendations of your city commissions?
Stille: Commissions are only recommending bodies. They’re not elected officials, there’s not a direct tie to the public. We take those recommendations, and we may or may not accept them. That’s because we may know more than the commission: Maybe there’s a monetary issue that the commission wasn’t privy to, or by the time the recommendation gets to the city council, we’ve learned more. Commissions are a very necessary filter so that councils can make well informed decisions.
Elnagdy: It’s unrealistic to think that your council members will be experts in all elements of city government. Commissions exist to provide you with the necessary frame of reference so you can make the appropriate decisions with adequate information.
If a neighbor wants a change in a city code, how would you resolve his or her problem?
Elnagdy: If there’s a problem in St. Anthony, what do you do with your complaint? As far as I’m aware, you would email somebody and hope that it gets to the right person. Where are those complaints being tracked? How do we know how many are coming in about a specific issue, and how are we holding ourselves accountable to actually solving these problems? There needs to be a lot more information about how to connect directly with the problem solvers.
Stille: We have a city manager form of government. If a resident has an issue, he or she should contact the city manager or a city council member, and the city manager would keep the tally on an issue. If the city manager brings it to the council, it may be sent to a commission. Things get vetted out, and sent back to the council for a code or ordinance change.
Give examples of how you have been able to work productively with those with whom you do not share your opinions.
Stille: The city council has five people. If you get a 3-2 vote or a 4-1 vote, and you’re on the side that doesn’t win, it’s still the body that decides how to move forward and you have to be responsive. Sometimes you have to swallow your pride.
Elnagdy: I’m a litigator, I’ve had a lot of experience working with people who disagree with me. Recently the [Minnesota] Legislature made some changes with regard to records and statutes. I went to the Legislature and had lots of conversations to try to get some things made easier and ran into a lot of walls. In those instances, my goal is to get as much as I can and go as far as I can go.
How would you balance the city’s long-term and short-term strategy goals, and how would that affect infrastructure and tax base?
Elnagdy: Our residents – what do they want – need to be always top of mind. What is the budget? What does it look like now? How much do we have in our reserves vs. what sort of expenses do we have coming down the line? All those moving pieces work together to best meet the current needs of our community. If we bring in more businesses, that would increase the business tax base and lower the tax burden for our residents.
Stille: How do you balance short-term and long-term debt and goals? Long-term bonds should be used for long-term street projects – we do 15-year amortizations on our street projects because in 20 years, we’re going to have to touch that road again. You have to match maturity with the length of the asset. Five years ago, we put a 10-year loan on a firetruck.
What are your thoughts about cost-sharing agreements with another city or a public or private partnership?
Stille: It’s a good idea to share costs. We already do that as a city, where there is little risk. An example is Birchwood. We provide utility billing service for them, make a little money. The Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, we provide financial help to them – bookkeeping, along with human resources support. We used to do property inspections with New Brighton.
Elnagdy: I’m open to it. I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t consider lowering the burden on our residents if it’s beneficial to both parties.
Are you in favor of continuing a partnership with Falcon Heights on a police contract? What might be pitfalls vs. benefits?
Elnagdy: I can’t answer that question. It’s too early in the process to have a yes or no. It would be irresponsible to not explore the various options. There are many unknowns. Our current facilities are inadequate. Our fire department had to clear out a storage room so they could make an office. Our police department is looking to recruit new officers but has no space. They have no evidence room. If we need to have these buildings no matter what, let’s explore how to bear the full brunt of that cost.
Stille: The contract talks about “net neutral.” The current council has said that this won’t cost us any more money. We should be making money, getting paid for our risk if we’re going to do this. I’m concerned about the officers and being able to hire eight or nine more officers. How’s that going to work in today’s climate? What if we can’t hire them? What if we have to go back to extreme amounts of overtime? That’s costly, and that’s stressful on our cops.
What are the pros and cons of Local Government Aid (LGA)?
Stille: You take what you get. What they giveth, they can also taketh away. One needs to be judicious when that money comes in and realize you may not get that same money next year. Meanwhile, the city council is trying to balance the tax levy so it doesn’t have spikes. You have to manage it as if it might not be there and have enough liquidity to manage it if it goes away.
Elnagdy: I have to agree. When you’re working with funds like LGA, you need to be judicious about how you’re structuring your budget. You have to be a little more reserved in the decisions you’re making to insure you have an overage at the end instead of a deficit.
The tax increment financing district associated with the Ruby apartments is set to expire in 2031, resulting in a large amount of revenue coming back on the tax roll. What would be the best use of those funds?
Elnagdy: I would love to build up our reserves so we can plan for future infrastructure maintenance without an additional tax impact on our residents. If they don’t have to bear the burden of these regular assessments, I’d rather go down that road.
Stille: The Ruby is a $550 million project. What we’re talking about is what it used to generate and what it will generate in seven years. That’s a long time and [Doran] could have a hard time getting the second phase of the project built. If it works out, we need to throw it back into the infrastructure. It’s not shiny new toys we’re gonna buy, but borrowing less and using fewer bonds and more cash if possible.
When considering redevelopment and revitalization, how would you maintain existing opportunities and present new ones?
Stille: When I think of redevelopment, St. Anthony doesn’t have a lot of land. We’re locked in terms of new development. As far as redevelopment, there’s the office building on the northwest quadrant, the city owns a parcel on 39th and Stinson. Then there’s the industrial area east of Hwy. 88.
Elnagdy: With our owner-occupied affordable housing, we can encourage that by putting city land in a perpetual trust and building accessible townhomes, we could protect the housing that does exist by offering alternatives to selling to new owners and get some grants for renovation. Walmart is an example of a missed opportunity. The old gas station on 37th, the large open parking lot by the library – there is space for new development. We need to make sure the infrastructure is there.
See page 14 for voting instructions.