Star Tribune
St. Paul picks 5 finalists for police chief job
A citizen-led search committee on Monday selected five finalists for the St. Paul police chief post, only one of whom comes from outside the department.
Now the hiring decision falls to Mayor Melvin Carter, who plans to make an offer to a candidate later this fall, after a pair of community forums and private interviews. Carter’s selection will require approval from the City Council.
The finalists are Jacqueline Bailey-Davis, a 25-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department currently serving as police staff inspector in the standards and accountability division/audits and inspections unit; Pamela Barragan, St. Paul police’s unit commander for community partnerships; Kurtis Hallstrom, senior commander of St. Paul’s eastern district; Axel Henry, commander for St. Paul’s narcotics, financial intelligence and human trafficking division; and Stacy Murphy, St. Paul’s assistant chief of police.
“Selecting a police chief is one of the most critical decisions a community must make,” Carter said in a statement. “While I look forward to learning more about all of the finalists, our city is blessed to be served by a department with such strong internal candidates.”
Only two candidates from outside the department have been hired as chief in the past century, according to the St. Paul Police Historical Society. The city has never appointed a female chief, though Kathy Wuorinen filled the role in an interim capacity for two months in 2016.
The public will have the opportunity to engage with candidates at upcoming forums, at Washington Technology Magnet School at 6 p.m. Oct. 11 and the St. Paul Event Center at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 12. The events will be livestreamed on the city’s Facebook page. Residents can provide feedback and submit questions for candidates ahead of time by emailing mayor@ci.stpaul.mn.us.
The hiring process, which is laid out in the city’s charter, has been on the minds of many in St. Paul since last fall, when former Police Chief Todd Axtell announced he would not seek a second six-year term at the department’s helm.
Carter appointed Jeremy Ellison, formerly a deputy police chief overseeing support services and administration, to serve as interim chief once Axtell retired in June. Ellison did not apply for the permanent role.
The new chief will inherit a department prioritizing its gun violence prevention and response efforts, a reaction to escalating crime trends in recent years. Carter has proposed a 2023 budget of $130 million for the department, which continues to face a staffing shortage in the wake of a pandemic hiring freeze and uptick in officer departures.
About two dozen members of the search committee — which was appointed by the City Council and includes representatives of nonprofits, businesses, the NAACP, other public agencies and the police union — met for two hours Monday to vote on the finalists. The candidates were not named during the meeting.
According to city staff, about 40 people applied for the job, but only 18 met the job posting’s minimum qualifications. Last month, the search committee winnowed the candidate pool to eight contenders, six of whom work for St. Paul police.
One external candidate withdrew from the contest last week after receiving another job offer, according to the city’s human resources staff. A Texas-based search firm hired by the city recorded interviews with the remaining seven for search committee members to view before Monday’s meeting.
“I think the questions that were posed focused on the kind of city we both are and that we want to be — thinking about diversity and inclusion, procedural justice, the kinds of communities that exist in St. Paul,” said Sasha Cotton, co-chair of the search committee.
The group’s conversation ranged from members’ personal interactions with applicants to their responses to interview questions, particularly one about how the candidates would groom more women and people of color for leadership roles within the department.
“I don’t have any doubt in my mind that any of the five will be a great chief,” said Kathy Lantry, the committee’s other co-chair.
The first year of the new chief’s six-year term will be considered a probationary period of sorts, meaning the mayor can remove the chief with council approval. After that, a chief can be fired only for cause by the mayor with the votes of at least five of the council’s seven members.
The new chief will be paid $130,000 to $182,000 a year, depending on his or her experience and qualifications.
Last week, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey nominated a veteran law enforcement official from Newark, N.J. — whom he heralded as a “change-maker” — to be the city’s next police chief. The appointment of Frey’s pick, Brian O’Hara, will be contingent on approval from the Minneapolis City Council.
Star Tribune
On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds
Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.
Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.
But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”
When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.
The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.
Priore criticized his opponents’ stance on TCAAP. “On the one hand, you have two candidates, Kurt Weber and me, with a forward-thinking, fresh perspective and strategic vision,” he said, arguing others want to defer and delay the city’s long-term needs.
Priore listed his other priorities for the city as public safety, and comprehensive planning for more and better trails.
The most recent campaign finance reports do not cover the fall and show little raising or spending for any candidate. Priore’s report indicates he received $600 from Fabel’s campaign fund.
David Radziej was appointed to the Arden Hills City Council in 2022, and has been involved with the city for more than a decade through work on its Economic Development and Finance councils, as well as TCAAP planning groups. He lost a reelection bid in 2022.
In an interview, Radziej raised concerns that the new density limit for TCAAP is out of character for Arden Hills and said he fears adding housing units at the expense of commercial development will harm the city’s tax base.
“I’d like it to be developed. I’d like to hold harmless the current taxpayers,” he said in an interview.
Two months after getting a ticket for being on her phone while driving, a woman was on her phone again when struck a motorcyclist at an Anoka county intersection and killed him, according to a newly filed search warrant affidavit.
The crash occurred on Oct. 5 in Oak Grove at the intersection of Viking and Lake George boulevards NW., the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Sheriff’s Office identified the motorcyclist who died at the scene as Kelly Matthew Linder, 49, of Albert Lea, Minn., and the SUV driver as Jessica Marie Pietrzak, 31, of St. Francis. Court records show that Pietrzak was ticketed in August by a St. Francis police officer for driving while on her phone.
According to state Department of Public Safety statistics, distracted driving was a factor in 132 traffic deaths in Minnesota from 2019 through 2023.
Linder was stopped shortly before noon on eastbound Viking Boulevard and waiting to turn left onto Lake George Boulevard when Pietrzak hit the motorcycle from behind, the Sheriff’s Office said.
A search warrant affidavit this week from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office disclosed that a witness who stopped to help Pietrzak after the crash told law enforcement that Pietrzak said “she was not paying attention and had been on her phone.”
Then as more people stopped to help, Pietrzak “began telling people that the sun was in her eyes, and she did not see the motorcycle,” read the filing, which led to the court allowing investigators to collect data from her cellphone.
The filing pointed out that the sun at that time of the day was not in a position for it to affect her vision. Also, the filing continued, Pietrzak’s entire front windshield has a dark tint. She’s been ticketed twice for that dark windshield in recent years, according to court records.
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