Mary Argos says she prides herself on being politically left of center and community-minded, the type of person who embraced the neighborhood off Lexington Parkway and Selby Avenue in St. Paul as her own. Still, after seven years of living in the capital city, the retired Catholic Charities case manager found she had enough.

Argos, previously of Seattle, grew tired of clearing discarded cigarettes and empty potato chips from her front lawn, tired of being ticketed for parking in front of her own home — which had no alley — during snow emergencies, and tired of paying roughly $7,000 in combined city, county and school district property taxes.

“I absolutely loved my house and neighborhood, but I couldn’t afford to live there anymore,” said Argos, 63, who also weathered a difficult divorce and a career change late in life.

In 2021, she sold her Hague Avenue property, which was1,600 square feet on one-tenth of an acre of land, and moved to a smaller house on Summit Avenue in South St. Paul, spanning 910 square feet on a half-acre of land. That was four years ago, and despite some recent increases, her property taxes remain around $3,600, or about half what she paid in St. Paul.

“It’s a lot smaller, but I have more property, and I have all the same services,” she said. “I’m on city sewer. … And they do a good job with snow removal, much, much better than St. Paul.”

‘Sense of stagnation’

As property taxes creep up in the capital city, her experience underscores a concern more and more elected officials are hearing from friends and neighbors, one that looms large over St. Paul’s November mayoral election and a special referendum over a proposed school district tax levy. It’s the same concern that likely helped block funding for an early childcare initiative that went to public ballot in St. Paul a year ago.

In short: City living is getting too expensive, even for many diehard residents who can measure their roots in the capital city dating back generations. For some, broader concerns about city services, quality of life, homelessness and general perceptions of public safety are feeding into something akin to an existential angst, even as homicide numbers and other crime statistics fall to a 10-year low.

On Friday, the St. Paul Area Chamber’s political action committee said it had interviewed four of the five candidates for mayor and chosen not to endorse any of them, given the need for a “transformative leader” to turn around “a sense of stagnation.”

“High taxes, declining commercial property values and limited results at the (state) legislature for funding critical infrastructure projects have left businesses and residents struggling,” according to a statement from the political action committee.

Demographics

Demographic forecasts compiled for the Metropolitan Council, the metro’s regional planning agency, show St. Paul’s residential population is projected to grow by about 8.7% from 2020 to 2050, adding some 27,000 people to an initial population of 311,000. That’s not a trivial increase, but it’s still modest growth compared to many Twin Cities suburbs.

Cottage Grove, in contrast, is expected to grow its population by 35%. Rogers is predicted to grow by 90%. In rural Hennepin County, Corcoran’s population of 8,500 may more than double.

“I have tons of friends who I’ve tried to get to move here for the six years I’ve lived here,” said Adam Dullinger, a candidate for St. Paul mayor in the November election, during a candidate forum last Wednesday at Johnson High School. “No one wants to live here. They either want a big city (like) Minneapolis, or they can move to the suburbs for cheap housing.”

Tax hikes on tap for next year

Adding to fiscal pressures for some of the most vulnerable homeowners, the combination of proposed St. Paul, Ramsey County and St. Paul Public Schools levies, as well as a special school district operating levy, could leave some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods facing double-digit tax hikes next year.

That could mean an additional charge of $500 for a typical homeowner in Frogtown, the North End, Payne-Phalen and the West Side.

Rising sewer and water charges could add another $120.

“People are concerned. Property taxes are a big thing for people,” said Bob Hindel, an East Side resident, music director and founder of the new grassroots group Fairtax, which hosted the second in a series of planned forums on tax trends Thursday night. Speakers included mayoral candidates Yan Chen and Mike Hilborn, as well as former mayoral candidate John Mannillo.

“Our group is all about reducing property taxes — at least to reduce the rate of increase,” Hindel said.

School district levy draws strong support, opposition

Early voting in St. Paul’s Nov. 4 mayoral election began Friday, and questions around rising property taxes and quality of life loom large in that and other areas of the ballot.

To stabilize school funding at a time of growing costs and declining enrollment, city voters will be asked whether to approve a special school district levy increase of about $1,000 per pupil, or $37.2 million annually for 10 years, which would go up with inflation. That could help avoid the dire fiscal situation the school district weathered in June by dipping into reserve funds and eliminating more than 140 full-time positions.

School advocates have said that even after approval, the amount St. Paul Public Schools would bring in per pupil from voter approved levies is still around the regional average.

If approved, the owner of a median-value St. Paul home — about $289,000 — would see a $309 increase to their property taxes in the first year as a direct result of the levy. The goal, according to the “Vote Yes for SPPS!” coalition, is to “prevent devastating cuts and keep classrooms strong for students and families across our city.”

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and state Rep. Kaohly Her, his most high-profile challenger in the mayor’s race, were scheduled to join St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Stacie Stanley at St. Paul Federation of Educators headquarters on Empire Drive Saturday to officially launch the “Vote Yes for SPPS!” campaign.

Organizers have noted that across Minnesota, 124 school district levy questions will roll out before voters amid rising costs, state funding that has not kept pace with inflation and declining federal grants. They say failing to fully fund St. Paul schools would set the city back even further.

“St. Paul voters have consistently shown up for public school students, because we as a city know it’s so important to value education,” said Teresa Mozur, a parent and campaign manager for the effort, in an interview Friday.

“Now more than ever we have an erosion of federal support,” Mozur said. “We’re dealing with decades of fiscal policy set by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2003 that gutted state funding and removed ties to inflation. As costs have gone up, we’ve never come close to filling that gap. We need this referendum to pass to keep this city strong.”

In addition to Carter and Her, elected officials expected at Saturday’s launch include state Rep. Samakab Hussein, City Council Member Molly Coleman and SPPS School Board members Halla Henderson, Carlo Franco and Uriah Ward.

The levy campaign has not drawn the support of Hilborn, who owns a power washing and snow plowing company in St. Paul. He said his landlord recently increased his commercial rent from $17,000 to $22,000 per month, based largely on property tax increases.

“Enough. Enough of this taxing,” said Hilborn, the most conservative of the candidates in the five-way mayoral race, in an interview Friday. “I don’t want to put all this money into bureaucrats and all the extra staff that doesn’t actually go into teaching kids. We’ve got to get down to the basics — reading, math — and not all this administrative and ideological stuff that we’re doing. It’s time to focus on efficiency.”

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