Kaohly Her put her doctoral studies on hold and declared her candidacy for mayor of St. Paul in August, just three months before the upcoming Nov. 4 election, a decision that would put her on an immediate collision course with Mayor Melvin Carter, her former employer.

It’s not a choice she made lightly, she tells voters. But when July arrived, “I hadn’t seen any lit pieces, any door knocking,” said Her, 52, a state representative for the area spanning Mississippi River Boulevard to Cathedral Hill, in an hour-long interview Wednesday. “I called (Carter) up about what he was going to do differently in another term.”

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She was unsatisfied with the response. “With all the issues I was seeing in our city, there had to be something that needed to change,” said Her, who lost a close friend and ally in the June shooting death of Melissa Hortman, a fellow state representative with whom she had knocked countless doors. “If I lost, I made him a better mayor, because he had to go out and talk to people.”

In a matter of weeks, Her has emerged as a strong fundraiser and one of Carter’s most vocal and aggressive critics in the five-way mayor’s race. She’s said economic development has stalled and the mayor’s office has been too removed from state lawmakers and the general public on key issues, from a push for major state funding to remodel the Grand Casino Arena, which seemed to unfold haphazardly, to the demolition of St. Joseph’s Hospital, which drew little visible opposition from city leaders.

Responsiveness of city hall

The “number one issue they’re having is the responsiveness of City Hall,” said Her, during a recent League of Women Voters forum. “We are letting businesses close, and not having conversations with them, and then we are surprised when there is blight in our city.”

The city has been saddled with the challenge of picking up the pieces after the death of James Crockarell, principal of Madison Equities, who left behind at least a dozen vacant or partially vacant downtown, some of which have fallen into foreclosure after years of deferred maintenance. Years ago, “we could have worked with renters to put their rent in escrow, and in order for Madison Equities to get that rent, they would have had to fix their properties,” said Her, during a recent Minnesota Public Radio forum co-hosted by the Pioneer Press.

Her said she voted against a rent control ordinance approved by voters with the mayor’s backing in 2021, which she said has made the city less attractive to housing developers. She’s been equally critical of delays in city business permitting, and she’s raised concern about the planning process around the proposed Summit Avenue bikeway, a downtown Mississippi River boardwalk and other major projects the city may not have funds to maintain.

Her, who emphasized that revaluating those projects doesn’t necessarily mean canceling them, has waved away criticism that she’s failed to come down firmly as a “yes” or “no” on much of Carter’s parks agenda.

“You have to ask a lot of questions,” Her said. “Some people see that as a cop out, as I’m not giving an answer. But it’s not. It’s truly the way that I operate, is to bring people together.”

“For me, it’s not a matter of whether I like a project or not,” she added. “We have hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance that we have no plan to pay for. Libraries themselves have over $200 million (in backlogged maintenance needs).”

With regard to the downtown boardwalk, she asked, “will it generate the revenues that we need from it in order to maintain that asset into the future?”

Gun control, other issues

Following the recent shooting deaths of schoolchildren in a Minneapolis Catholic school, Carter has been bullish on a proposed city ordinance that would ban “bump stocks” that convert firearms into semi-automatic weapons, ban guns in municipal buildings like libraries and recreation centers, and require every firearm in the city to have a serial number. The mayor aims to effectively shame state lawmakers into allowing the ordinance to move forward.

Her said she would be happy to carry a state bill to better regulate ammunition, but Carter’s citywide proposal is unenforceable under current state law and will simply draw pricey lawsuits from gun rights advocates. “To pass ordinances that you know will be legally challenged … is super performative,” said Her, during the MPR forum. “You know that will not actually move the needle.”

Critics have argued that overall, a vote for Her is effectively a vote to continue much of Carter’s legacy under a different administration. Both candidates are urging a “yes” vote on a ballot question that would lock in a 10-year, $37 million per year levy increase for the St. Paul Public Schools, adjusted annually for inflation.

Both candidates support a “yes” vote around amending the city charter to allow the city council to impose administrative citations, or a fine ladder for ordinance violations. Both candidates have opposed President Donald Trump’s growing immigration crackdown. Her said she lacks sufficient information to criticize the mayor’s proposed 5.3% tax levy increase for the coming year.

Her’s campaign has received the backing of St. Paul Firefighters Local 21 and Teamsters Joint Council 32, City Council Member Nelsie Yang, Women Winning and a number of fellow state lawmakers. The St. Paul DFL, which is reconstituting itself, and St. Paul Area Chamber have chosen not to make endorsements in the race.

Her said she’s the only candidate who has proposed a new revenue source for the city — an “Urban Wealth Fund” she’s seen utilized successfully in Hong Kong, Copenhagen and Hamburg, Germany to activate vacant city spaces or acquire and redevelop underutilized properties from the private sector.

“It is not a new financial instrument that I just came up with,” said Her, who is still studying how it would be configured. “It’s a tried and true financial instrument. We can’t keep relying on the backs of our residents in order to generate the funds to run our city’s operations.”

Given looming federal funding cuts and the state’s “fiscal cliff,” Her said she would take a closer look than the mayor has at areas of overlap with nonprofit partners, as well as Ramsey County, especially with regard to libraries and rec center programming.

“We have duplicate services when we think about libraries,” said Her, during a recent mayoral forum sponsored by FairVote Minnesota and the Highland District Council. “We have libraries in schools. We have county libraries. We have city libraries. … For these next three years at least, we have to tighten our belts, and what might we have to do to streamline some of these services to save some money?”

In an interview Wednesday, she clarified she had no intention of shutting down any of the city’s libraries, but through process improvements, she would redeploy resources. For instance, she said, even some library workers had questioned why the Carter administration hired its own social workers to staff certain libraries when Ramsey County maintains a department of social services that could possibly perform the same task.

A refugee story

Her, who is Hmong, arrived in the Midwest as a refugee when she was three years old. As newcomers to Minnesota, her parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles found themselves shut out from traditional business loans, so they pooled their money with other Hmong refugees and started what she recalled as the region’s first Southeast Asian-themed food distributor, as well as a restaurant off Rice Street and University Avenue that served its cuisine.

“Nobody would loan them money and they had no credit … so it was a whole bunch of my family that came together to create that,” said Her, recalling how her grandfather, aunt and uncle would each go a city-driven auction to buy three homes, each of them for $1, which helped them move out of public housing.

The city, she notes, has 1,600 vacant homes on its vacant building registry, and could unload them just as easily, but has set up too many procedural roadblocks.

Her grandfather, who had served as a colonel under famed General Vang Pao during the CIA’s “Secret War” in Laos, worked with other Hmong leaders to start the Lao Family Community of Minnesota, a nonprofit instrumental to early waves of Hmong refugees.

Professional career

Her went on to spend 15 years in the private sector with Minnesota Life (now Securian) and American Express, managing 401(k) plans and obtaining her license to sell securities and offer investment advice. She would later become a grants director for the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation and then a board administrator with the St. Paul Public Schools, where she led the search that hired Superintendent Joe Gothard.

Then came her first foray into public life as a policy director for Carter. She worked closely on efforts to establish a citywide $15 minimum wage and college savings accounts for the city’s newborns, but soon found herself spending more and more time away from City Hall after winning election to her second job — that of state representative.

The overlap in public duties drew some public scrutiny, and Her soon informed the mayor it was time for her to move on. “We didn’t have any kind of falling out,” said Her, in an interview Wednesday. “I just told the mayor it was best for the cohesion of the team and the work to have someone who could be there year-round.”

Her, in a candidate questionnaire, said the primary role of government is to bring people together around challenges and opportunities, “and to invest in the things none of us can do alone. This includes safe neighborhoods, strong schools, affordable housing, resilient infrastructure and an economy that works for everyone. … At its best, government doesn’t just deliver services. It builds the foundation for shared prosperity and a city where everyone belongs.”

Kaohly Her on five key issues

Age: 52

Family: Married; two adult daughters.

Education: Master’s of Business Administration from Northeastern University in Boston; doctoral candidate in Education Leadership at the University of St. Thomas; B.S. in investment and finance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

On the proposed remodel of Grand Casino Arena

Her said she was not opposed to efforts to remodel the Grand Casino Arena and its adjoining spaces, even though she was critical of how funding requests were presented to state lawmakers.

“Roy Wilkins Auditorium, the civic center, the Grand Casino Arena, those are all city assets,” said Her, in an interview. “I’m really disappointed that we had this city asset and (from its inception) there was no plan. This is not necessarily Carter’s fault. … A lot of people see it as belonging to the Wild, but it actually doesn’t. It belongs to the city and the people.”

“We’re in a conundrum,” she said. “It’s going to have to be a combination of some things. That’s something I would have to dig deeply into figuring out: Who can we partner with?”

On declining downtown property values and downtown revitalization

In addition to launching an Urban Wealth Fund to manage underutilized properties, Her has said the city needs to do a better job getting permits and licenses approved, as well as answering emails and phone calls from prospective business owners.

“We are hearing over and over that (business owners) are leaving our city because when they go to Roseville or Bloomington, the red carpet is being rolled out for them,” she said, during a recent mayoral forum hosted by DFL Senate District 67 and other East Side groups.

She supports the work of the Downtown Alliance, which has created a nonprofit development corporation to help reposition some downtown properties, which could lead to more office-to-residential conversions. Still, “some buildings will have to come down,” she said. “We have to do the cost-benefit analysis.”

On administrative citations

Her has said she supports a “yes” vote on the November ballot that asks voters whether to amend the city charter to allow for administrative citations, or non-criminal fine ladders, for ordinance violations. She noted the city’s earned sick and safe time ordinance would provide for paid sick leave for workers even if a new state requirement were abolished, but only if city rules are enforceable.

“We see how fast the winds of political change can blow,” she said, during a public event to support a “yes” vote.

On the St. Paul Public Schools special levy referendum

Another question on the ballot asks whether to raise property taxes by $37.2 million per year, adjusted for inflation annually for 10 years, to fund the St. Paul school district. Her, who raised two daughters in the St. Paul Public Schools and previously worked for the school district, said she will vote “yes.”

On housing

Her, who said she voted against rent control, said the city could be doing more to get its 1,600 registered vacant homes in the hands of contractors, including minority contractors who have hit roadblocks in efforts to acquire them. “There are a lot of partners in this space, and we can work on that together,” she said. “Just last week I went to look at one property the city owns that has been sitting there for two decades. … I met with a group of 12 Black and brown developers who said we’ve been wanting to develop these properties, but the process has not been in place.”