Hwa Jeong Kim
Name: Hwa Jeong Kim
Public Office Sought: St. Paul City Council Ward 5
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 651.302.6028
Campaign Website: HwaJeongKim.com
Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/HJKforWard5
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/people/HwaJeong-Kim-for-Ward-5/100088740578067/
Candidate Bio
I am an organizer, a former Legislative Aide, a Korean American, and a non-profit executive director. I’m the DFL and TCDSA Endorsed candidate for Ward 5 Saint Paul City Council. I’ve spent the last several years working with my neighbors on community issues, finding creative solutions, and advocating for policy change across different levels of government. I’m running on a platform informed by thousands of conversations with Ward 5 residents and I’ve been building trusted relationships along the way. In Ward 5, we want everyone to have stable housing, a thriving neighborhood economy that provides all our basic needs, strengthened workers' rights, community safety that moves away from solely relying on policing, and to heal our planet by combating climate change.
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
Our communities are one of our greatest assets because they are collectively intelligent, and I am a collaborative ideator deeply rooted in co-governance. Through trusted relationships, we can bring forward policy platforms that benefit us, immigrants, communities of color, and LGBTQIA2S+. To me, co-governance and our people-centered democracy have the power to create new worlds together. My campaign continues to build a big coalition across labor, issue-based organizations, community leaders, families and youth. We are excited to bring our policy platform and ideas to city hall.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Housing: I’ve spent about half my professional career in affordable housing. Increasing housing costs are the most significant barrier to individuals and families accessing stable housing. In addition to stabilizing rent, we must revisit tenant protections and offer relocation assistance for displaced tenants from rent hikes, reconsider the new construction and affordable housing exemptions, and eliminate full vacancy decontrol. I am committed to learning and improving upon the rent stabilization ordinance to reflect our renters' needs. Lastly, my priority is to increase investment in our Homelessness Assistance Response Team. They focus on connecting folks experiencing homelessness with personalized approaches and resources that meet their needs in the moment. Along the spectrum of housing needs, creating solutions centered on compassion and resources ready to respond to crisis has been working to transition folks who need safe and decent housing.
Addressing our climate crisis: Shifting to 100% clean electricity by building out the city’s green infrastructure through investing in wind and solar energy generation paired with significant energy storage options. We also have an opportunity to generate revenue through franchise fees, increase the costs of connecting to fossil fuels, and decrease the cost of connecting to electricity. Significant housing stock in the ward is old and needs weatherization assistance. I want to partner with non-profit developers and connect families to home improvement loans.
Workers' Rights: I will partner with the labor unions representing our city employees to ensure our frontline City workers get fair contracts. I want to revisit pieces of the $15 minimum wage ordinance. Since the passage, some folks aren't earning $15 right now because of the phased rollout and other exemptions. In addition to ensuring we have dedicated staffing to support implementing and reporting our minimum wage law, I will help the city finally pass Administrative Fines. We still lack the mechanism to enforce laws that protect workers, like Earned Sick and Safe Time and our Minimum Wage Ordinance (as well as Banning Conversion Therapy). I will push for a municipal Paid Family Leave policy.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in St. Paul?
A frequent touchstone I use in my work is bell hooks. She talks about leading from the margins—the fringe as the place for resistance, a radical edge. I am an organizer because I am committed to helping forge our culture and political landscape forward. Our greatest challenge is to continue building and creating space for communities to lead from the margins. When we allow the community to lead and disrupt the status quo, we create a culture of care and inclusion. The legislature delivered on passing 20 years in the making Driver’s Licenses for All, enshrined abortion rights for childbearing people, and we also won historic protections for queer and trans people; all of these create a culture of care.
Our opportunity is a reframing of our challenge. We have untapped creative problem-solving that we are unwilling to consider because of our inability to believe that another world is possible. Our communities can and must be trusted to co-create solutions for the issues impacting them the most. Our most significant opportunity is electing representation to elected power that matches the will of the people.
How would you characterize the business climate in St. Paul and what role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs and new businesses in St. Paul?
In Ward 5, one of our most distinct commercial corridors is Rice Street. Even though we have vacant buildings, something special is happening in the North End. The North End Development Team (NEDT) comprises neighbors, city staff, North End Neighborhood Organization members, and Ward 1 and Ward 5 City Council representatives. They apply for Neighborhood STAR dollars and regrant funds into neighborhood businesses. It focuses on supporting women and people of color in opening businesses that create local jobs and grow the neighborhood's economic vitality.
Along Rice Street, we have Karen and Hmong grocery stores, a union printing shop, an arts organization, a community health organization, and a neighborhood mercado that sells homemade recipes across the street from an African Market. There is an incredible Hmong Elder Center, a new event center, and a Jamaican restaurant. We have a vibrant neighborhood economy. Many new business owners along Rice Street are people of color and immigrants, building new construction and revitalizing old troubled spaces. The most recent example is the former Lamplighter Lounge, now a Karen and Nepali grocery store.
Our local business community is motivated to invest in our city’s vitality. We need to ensure the process to open is easy to follow and owners can move through the review, permits, and approval processes swiftly. Through the city’s Strategic Investment Fund, we have resources for businesses to move to Saint Paul, an assistance fund to support growth or improvement, and additional designated funds like Sales Tax Revitalization programs. Our role is to continue to increase investment in programs like NEDT, Commercial Vitality Zone funds, or any of our assistance funds. Supporting local businesses creates local jobs, and hiring from their neighborhoods maintains their positive presence while serving our multicultural neighborhood needs.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
No single profession can do it all. Our most significant crime deterrent is investing in people through resourced programs that ensure everyone in Saint Paul has their basic needs met. We must at least invest equally in stabilizing communities with housing programs across the spectrum of needs, culturally relevant addiction services, expanded mental health resources, and providing more youth and adult employment opportunities with access to healthcare. We also need accountability on all levels. People must be accountable when they cause harm, police when they use excessive force, and elected officials must be responsible to taxpayers and voters when our current solutions aren’t working.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
The lack of housing stock, low vacancy rates, and limited land for development make finding and creating affordable housing challenging. Single-family homes take up most of the current residential land use in the city and multi-unit parcels are limited. I support zoning changes that would increase the number of housing units on a lot. Zoning policies and practices have a harmful history of racial and economic exclusion. We need to continue building inclusivity with density, and paired with programs like the Inspiring Communities program; we can ensure affordable housing as we scale.
We need to build permanent housing options for folks experiencing homelessness and expand the number of beds and programs we currently provide. Limited beds force apart families crisis. I will partner with the county to support the creation of permanent housing that can house large and multigenerational families experiencing homelessness.
St. Paul candidates only: Do you support the rent stabilization ordinance in its current form? If not, what would you like to change?
I signed the ballot initiative and voted yes to adopt a residential rent stabilization ordinance in Saint Paul. Saint Paul voters passed a 3% rent stabilization ordinance. Safe, stable, and affordable housing is a human right. The kinds of funds or financing used to construct the building or how long ago it was built should not determine a person's right to stable housing. We are already hearing the negative impacts of vacancy decontrol. Paired with low vacancy rates, we are creating a predatory environment that encourages irresponsible landlords to push tenants out to raise rents. Lastly, to ensure we implement the law with integrity, like many worthy programs in the city, it needs funding to ensure oversight, robust education, and enforcement.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
Being connected with resources, people, and places of enjoyment is an important pillar of neighborhood and community stability. In my area, 18% of my neighbors do not have vehicles in the house, and 38% are single-car households. Building reliable and resilient transportation methods is essential to combat climate change. And I am interested in centering how public transportation fosters happiness through planning and design. Studies at the U of MN show that walking and biking are the happiest ways to commute and are our most environmentally friendly. Public Transportation is important to me because we have the powerful opportunity to build infrastructure that helps create a culture of care and happiness.
One of the Transit Fare Elimination Pilot Routes is the 62, which runs through the heart of my neighborhood and Ward. I would support expanding the pilot in other areas and neighborhoods that benefit from free fares. Public transit systems are a public good and I would love to co-create ideas for incentivizing ridership beyond free fares. Once transit is free, we must ensure it continues to be networked and create perks and incentives for ridership.
While employed in the Ward 5 office as a Legislative Aide, I was privileged to serve on the Safe Routes to School Taskforce, which focused on sidewalk infill on school walking routes and partnered with Public Works to identify and prioritize filling sidewalk gaps. I also have had the opportunity to engage as a neighborhood advocate for the diets on Dale Street and Rice Street, which are poised to increase pedestrian safety with a protected bike lane on Rice Street. In addition to filling in our sidewalk gaps, I will continue to expand and connect bike lanes throughout the city to create a reliable network of protected and well-maintained bike infrastructure.
What will you do to expand St. Paul’s tax base?
Being strong stewards of city resources means finding ways to alleviate the toll on taxpayers. A portion of our tax base does not contribute to property taxes. I would support a Payment in Lieu of Taxes program and reconsider the criteria for Tax Increment Financing. In addition to the city, our schools suffer by allowing exemptions from paying property taxes. We also rely on Local Government Aid to fulfill our core city functions, and we will continue to advocate for greater assistance from the state. Lastly, we need to find small but consistent ways to grow our taxable base through the development of vacant lots, vacant buildings, and brownfield sites.
Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
Our services create a culture of care for the residents of Saint Paul. How we fund our city reflects what we care about, whether basic needs are met or if we uphold a certain quality of life. Our services create a culture of care for the residents of Saint Paul. The services we provide to our neighbors are worthy of funding because the people we serve are worthy of our support. Cutting or eliminating anything when we can continue doing so much good feels like a step backward.
Public Office Sought: St. Paul City Council Ward 5
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 651.302.6028
Campaign Website: HwaJeongKim.com
Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/HJKforWard5
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/people/HwaJeong-Kim-for-Ward-5/100088740578067/
Candidate Bio
I am an organizer, a former Legislative Aide, a Korean American, and a non-profit executive director. I’m the DFL and TCDSA Endorsed candidate for Ward 5 Saint Paul City Council. I’ve spent the last several years working with my neighbors on community issues, finding creative solutions, and advocating for policy change across different levels of government. I’m running on a platform informed by thousands of conversations with Ward 5 residents and I’ve been building trusted relationships along the way. In Ward 5, we want everyone to have stable housing, a thriving neighborhood economy that provides all our basic needs, strengthened workers' rights, community safety that moves away from solely relying on policing, and to heal our planet by combating climate change.
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
Our communities are one of our greatest assets because they are collectively intelligent, and I am a collaborative ideator deeply rooted in co-governance. Through trusted relationships, we can bring forward policy platforms that benefit us, immigrants, communities of color, and LGBTQIA2S+. To me, co-governance and our people-centered democracy have the power to create new worlds together. My campaign continues to build a big coalition across labor, issue-based organizations, community leaders, families and youth. We are excited to bring our policy platform and ideas to city hall.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Housing: I’ve spent about half my professional career in affordable housing. Increasing housing costs are the most significant barrier to individuals and families accessing stable housing. In addition to stabilizing rent, we must revisit tenant protections and offer relocation assistance for displaced tenants from rent hikes, reconsider the new construction and affordable housing exemptions, and eliminate full vacancy decontrol. I am committed to learning and improving upon the rent stabilization ordinance to reflect our renters' needs. Lastly, my priority is to increase investment in our Homelessness Assistance Response Team. They focus on connecting folks experiencing homelessness with personalized approaches and resources that meet their needs in the moment. Along the spectrum of housing needs, creating solutions centered on compassion and resources ready to respond to crisis has been working to transition folks who need safe and decent housing.
Addressing our climate crisis: Shifting to 100% clean electricity by building out the city’s green infrastructure through investing in wind and solar energy generation paired with significant energy storage options. We also have an opportunity to generate revenue through franchise fees, increase the costs of connecting to fossil fuels, and decrease the cost of connecting to electricity. Significant housing stock in the ward is old and needs weatherization assistance. I want to partner with non-profit developers and connect families to home improvement loans.
Workers' Rights: I will partner with the labor unions representing our city employees to ensure our frontline City workers get fair contracts. I want to revisit pieces of the $15 minimum wage ordinance. Since the passage, some folks aren't earning $15 right now because of the phased rollout and other exemptions. In addition to ensuring we have dedicated staffing to support implementing and reporting our minimum wage law, I will help the city finally pass Administrative Fines. We still lack the mechanism to enforce laws that protect workers, like Earned Sick and Safe Time and our Minimum Wage Ordinance (as well as Banning Conversion Therapy). I will push for a municipal Paid Family Leave policy.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in St. Paul?
A frequent touchstone I use in my work is bell hooks. She talks about leading from the margins—the fringe as the place for resistance, a radical edge. I am an organizer because I am committed to helping forge our culture and political landscape forward. Our greatest challenge is to continue building and creating space for communities to lead from the margins. When we allow the community to lead and disrupt the status quo, we create a culture of care and inclusion. The legislature delivered on passing 20 years in the making Driver’s Licenses for All, enshrined abortion rights for childbearing people, and we also won historic protections for queer and trans people; all of these create a culture of care.
Our opportunity is a reframing of our challenge. We have untapped creative problem-solving that we are unwilling to consider because of our inability to believe that another world is possible. Our communities can and must be trusted to co-create solutions for the issues impacting them the most. Our most significant opportunity is electing representation to elected power that matches the will of the people.
How would you characterize the business climate in St. Paul and what role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs and new businesses in St. Paul?
In Ward 5, one of our most distinct commercial corridors is Rice Street. Even though we have vacant buildings, something special is happening in the North End. The North End Development Team (NEDT) comprises neighbors, city staff, North End Neighborhood Organization members, and Ward 1 and Ward 5 City Council representatives. They apply for Neighborhood STAR dollars and regrant funds into neighborhood businesses. It focuses on supporting women and people of color in opening businesses that create local jobs and grow the neighborhood's economic vitality.
Along Rice Street, we have Karen and Hmong grocery stores, a union printing shop, an arts organization, a community health organization, and a neighborhood mercado that sells homemade recipes across the street from an African Market. There is an incredible Hmong Elder Center, a new event center, and a Jamaican restaurant. We have a vibrant neighborhood economy. Many new business owners along Rice Street are people of color and immigrants, building new construction and revitalizing old troubled spaces. The most recent example is the former Lamplighter Lounge, now a Karen and Nepali grocery store.
Our local business community is motivated to invest in our city’s vitality. We need to ensure the process to open is easy to follow and owners can move through the review, permits, and approval processes swiftly. Through the city’s Strategic Investment Fund, we have resources for businesses to move to Saint Paul, an assistance fund to support growth or improvement, and additional designated funds like Sales Tax Revitalization programs. Our role is to continue to increase investment in programs like NEDT, Commercial Vitality Zone funds, or any of our assistance funds. Supporting local businesses creates local jobs, and hiring from their neighborhoods maintains their positive presence while serving our multicultural neighborhood needs.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
No single profession can do it all. Our most significant crime deterrent is investing in people through resourced programs that ensure everyone in Saint Paul has their basic needs met. We must at least invest equally in stabilizing communities with housing programs across the spectrum of needs, culturally relevant addiction services, expanded mental health resources, and providing more youth and adult employment opportunities with access to healthcare. We also need accountability on all levels. People must be accountable when they cause harm, police when they use excessive force, and elected officials must be responsible to taxpayers and voters when our current solutions aren’t working.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
The lack of housing stock, low vacancy rates, and limited land for development make finding and creating affordable housing challenging. Single-family homes take up most of the current residential land use in the city and multi-unit parcels are limited. I support zoning changes that would increase the number of housing units on a lot. Zoning policies and practices have a harmful history of racial and economic exclusion. We need to continue building inclusivity with density, and paired with programs like the Inspiring Communities program; we can ensure affordable housing as we scale.
We need to build permanent housing options for folks experiencing homelessness and expand the number of beds and programs we currently provide. Limited beds force apart families crisis. I will partner with the county to support the creation of permanent housing that can house large and multigenerational families experiencing homelessness.
St. Paul candidates only: Do you support the rent stabilization ordinance in its current form? If not, what would you like to change?
I signed the ballot initiative and voted yes to adopt a residential rent stabilization ordinance in Saint Paul. Saint Paul voters passed a 3% rent stabilization ordinance. Safe, stable, and affordable housing is a human right. The kinds of funds or financing used to construct the building or how long ago it was built should not determine a person's right to stable housing. We are already hearing the negative impacts of vacancy decontrol. Paired with low vacancy rates, we are creating a predatory environment that encourages irresponsible landlords to push tenants out to raise rents. Lastly, to ensure we implement the law with integrity, like many worthy programs in the city, it needs funding to ensure oversight, robust education, and enforcement.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
Being connected with resources, people, and places of enjoyment is an important pillar of neighborhood and community stability. In my area, 18% of my neighbors do not have vehicles in the house, and 38% are single-car households. Building reliable and resilient transportation methods is essential to combat climate change. And I am interested in centering how public transportation fosters happiness through planning and design. Studies at the U of MN show that walking and biking are the happiest ways to commute and are our most environmentally friendly. Public Transportation is important to me because we have the powerful opportunity to build infrastructure that helps create a culture of care and happiness.
One of the Transit Fare Elimination Pilot Routes is the 62, which runs through the heart of my neighborhood and Ward. I would support expanding the pilot in other areas and neighborhoods that benefit from free fares. Public transit systems are a public good and I would love to co-create ideas for incentivizing ridership beyond free fares. Once transit is free, we must ensure it continues to be networked and create perks and incentives for ridership.
While employed in the Ward 5 office as a Legislative Aide, I was privileged to serve on the Safe Routes to School Taskforce, which focused on sidewalk infill on school walking routes and partnered with Public Works to identify and prioritize filling sidewalk gaps. I also have had the opportunity to engage as a neighborhood advocate for the diets on Dale Street and Rice Street, which are poised to increase pedestrian safety with a protected bike lane on Rice Street. In addition to filling in our sidewalk gaps, I will continue to expand and connect bike lanes throughout the city to create a reliable network of protected and well-maintained bike infrastructure.
What will you do to expand St. Paul’s tax base?
Being strong stewards of city resources means finding ways to alleviate the toll on taxpayers. A portion of our tax base does not contribute to property taxes. I would support a Payment in Lieu of Taxes program and reconsider the criteria for Tax Increment Financing. In addition to the city, our schools suffer by allowing exemptions from paying property taxes. We also rely on Local Government Aid to fulfill our core city functions, and we will continue to advocate for greater assistance from the state. Lastly, we need to find small but consistent ways to grow our taxable base through the development of vacant lots, vacant buildings, and brownfield sites.
Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
Our services create a culture of care for the residents of Saint Paul. How we fund our city reflects what we care about, whether basic needs are met or if we uphold a certain quality of life. Our services create a culture of care for the residents of Saint Paul. The services we provide to our neighbors are worthy of funding because the people we serve are worthy of our support. Cutting or eliminating anything when we can continue doing so much good feels like a step backward.