St. Paul City Council to choose among four finalists for interim Ward 4 seat
The St. Paul City Council will choose from among four finalists to temporarily fill the Ward 4 seat vacated by former Council Member Mitra Jalali, who left city employment on March 8. The candidates are artist and community organizer Sean Lim, artist and neighborhood advocate Lisa Clare Nelson, clean energy advocate Matt Privratsky and nonprofit consultant Melissa Martinez-Sones.
The council will interview the candidates on Wednesday and vote on an interim appointment on March 26. The candidate will be sworn into the seat in April and serve through a special election likely to be held Aug. 12. The city council will finalize the date of the election on Wednesday.
Jay Willms, chief budget officer and interim director of operations for the city council, reviewed 20 applications and culled them down to four after conferring with City Clerk Shari Moore and other council staff.
The ward spans Hamline-Midway, Merriam Park, St. Anthony Park and parts of Macalester-Groveland and Como.
What makes these four applicants qualified to represent Ward 4 through at least mid-August? Resumes, cover letters and media coverage reveal the following:
Lim, an artist and community organizer, is the director of community outreach and engagement for the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute in Minneapolis, which is working to convert the Roof Depot warehouse into an indoor urban farm. He is also a graphic designer for electoral campaigns, including Omar Fateh for Mayor of Minneapolis and Marvina Haynes for Minneapolis City Council Ward 4. A leader at an art collective, he's contributed to Art Shanty Projects, and called for a moratorium on tearing down homeless encampments. He got his start in organizing with the Minnesota Youth Collective, based at the time in Ward 4's Spruce Tree Building, and was active during the pandemic in St. Paul Camps Support, which regularly distributed supplies to 50 unhoused residents.
Nelson, a painter and art conservator, is a board member with the Union Park District Council, where she co-chairs the transportation committee. She was previously a project conservator for the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Brooklyn Museum in New York City before becoming a stay-at-home mom active in neighborhood planning around Allianz Field. She has worked with the St. Paul Police Department to improve the permitting process for recurring block parties, organized neighborhood clean-ups and written 10 Capital Improvement Budget project proposals, several of which were funded. She's working to launch the Snelling and University Alliance, a collaboration with the Hamline Midway Coalition, Midway Chamber of Commerce and African Economic Development Solutions.
Privratsky, director of government affairs for Nokomis Energy, is a clean energy advocate and former legislative aide to Jalali. He's the former director of public affairs for Fresh Energy and launched his career at the Minnesota Rural Electric Association after serving as news director for a Morris radio station. To support clean energy campaigns, he's led lobbying efforts at the State Capitol and partnered in local and statewide initiatives. He's the editor and founder of Equal Time Soccer, which covers women's soccer, a broadcaster at women's games and co-founder of Minnesota Aurora FC. After the May 2020 riots, he biked the entirety of the University Avenue corridor in St. Paul documenting damage, and in 2017 led an effort to install 176 street signs directing pedestrians to the Green Line by walking distance.
Martinez-Sones is the co-owner of Mighty Consulting, a 15-person, St. Paul-based consulting firm that provides executive search services and interim leadership for nonprofits in transition. She is the former director of the CapitolRiver Council and former executive director of the Macalester-Groveland Community Council. She spent several months as an interim legislative aide to Russ Stark when he was on the city council, and she spent almost 11 years with Roger Meyer Consulting before founding her own company in 2021. She has served as interim executive director of nine organizations, including St. Paul Smart Trips, Transit for Livable Communities and Rainbow Health. Around 2000, she was a community organizer in the Minneapolis Seward neighborhood and in Frogtown.
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