Saura Jost
Name: Saura Jost
Public Office Sought: St. Paul City Council Ward 3
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 612-389-0364
Campaign Website: saurajost.com
Twitter handle: @sauraforward3
Facebook Page: facebook.com/saurajostforward3
Candidate Bio
I’m a mom, engineer, community leader, and the DFL endorsed candidate for Ward 3. I’m a proud graduate of St. Paul Public Schools and live with my family in Macalester-Groveland where I also grew up. I’ve been organizing for DFL endorsed candidates since high school. Most recently I was a Women Winning Political Leaders of Tomorrow (PLOT) intern for Senator Ann Johnson-Stewart’s campaign and had the opportunity to volunteer for and learn from Senator Erin Murphy’s campaign. I also served for almost four years on the Macalester-Groveland Community Council Board to increase inclusion and engagement on the issues that shape our neighborhood.
As a civil engineer, I design the infrastructure we rely upon every day, and I am also an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota where I teach engineering to architects. St. Paul has a unique opportunity, with most of our city council seats open, to set a clear direction for the future of our city. My deep neighborhood roots, technical and practical expertise in building infrastructure, and strong progressive values will help me be a critical voice at City Hall and a valuable leader on the issues we face together.
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
Being a member of a small governing body like the seven-member city council in a strong mayor St. Paul city hall requires a great deal of collaboration, strategy, and partnership. It also requires you to be able to maintain those dynamics under intense public scrutiny when dealing with complex, nuanced issues that may not have a simple answer. Those characteristics are all things I’ve not only had to experience in my professional and neighborhood roles, but things I’ve been able to develop as true strengths as a leader.
As an individual, I will be thoughtful and strategic in doing my homework, fully utilizing council and department staff, and maximizing my understanding of each issue put before me. As a council colleague and leader in city hall, I will be a trustworthy, consistent partner who is both grounded in principle and willing to learn from others’ expertise.
I also bring my background in engineering to the table. I will insist on seeing data to drive decision making and not just from traditional sources but also from firsthand accounts of our community members. I will ask questions to make sure I have a full and thorough understanding of the issues. I also like to take deep dives into programs to make sure we build them to be effective, efficient, and transparent.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
There are so many challenges and opportunities St Paul’s next city council will need to tackle, but the top of those priorities will include:
Transportation and Infrastructure: With $1 billion in local sales tax on the ballot and millions more in metro sales tax for transit set to be deployed during the next city council term, we need council leaders who fully understand public infrastructure. We need our roads, transit, and basic systems to not just be functioning, but thriving, and that means planning with an eye to the future to meet our growing needs and our obligation to climate justice. As a civil engineer, I will bring unique, technical qualifications to city hall as dozens of key streets are reconstructed, several new bus rapid transit lines are planned and built, and as hundreds of millions in parks maintenance and construction take place in every corner of St Paul.
Housing and Local Businesses: The way St. Paul supports its families and local businesses will significantly impact its future. All of us deserve a safe, stable place to call home. We need to add more homes so that families have a place to live. This means encouraging density, affordable housing, and making modifications to our zoning code. We need to reshape city services to best serve our small local businesses that make our neighborhoods the wonderful places they are. We also need to partner with our school, county, state, and federal partners to ensure the services and resources our families and businesses require are best serving their needs.
Connecting with Community: As a community member with a family that does not look like many of the families in our Ward, I understand the importance of having a seat at the table when decisions are being made and to feel represented and heard by leadership. I also believe that our public leadership should be responsive and engaged with its community. Our next city council could end up being entirely made up of women. It could have a majority of members who are women of color. That creates a real opportunity to reshape the way we do public engagement and broaden our conversations to represent our community more fully.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in St. Paul?
I see housing as our biggest challenge. We need to expand our tax base by building more housing, including additional units of affordable housing, maintain our aging housing stock, and continue to make St. Paul a great place for anyone to raise a family. We also need to shape our zoning strategy to meet these needs and improve rent stabilization laws to work for all of us. I look forward to bringing my expertise in building design and project management to city hall to take on this challenge together.
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?
I want to make sure that St. Paul is a great place for everyone to start or relocate a business. As council member, being a partner to our business community is essential to help foster economic growth, development, and community building. I have heard from many business owners that increased transparency and responsiveness is important to them, and I’m going to continue to build on those relationships. Overall, we need to make sure that our zoning and permitting processes are fair, consistent, swift, and transparent. The city council can support the business community by encouraging more mixed-use developments in commercial areas and helping connect businesses with grant opportunities and other assistance available to them. In addition, making sure that, as a city, we do an excellent job providing basic services and being a welcoming and sustainable place for families is how we can attract businesses and expand our tax base.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
All our neighbors, regardless of their background, deserve to feel safe in our communities. That’s why I’m for an “all of the above” approach to public safety – police and emergency first responders are asked to do so much, and we need to continue to expand our safety strategy with a clear delineation of duties and funding that reflects those specific programs, roles, and responsibilities. We are also safer when we make investments in our community’s basic needs and in community programming, especially for our youth. Improving public safety starts with focusing on preemptive resources and tools that can help prevent safety challenges before they occur. I’m particularly excited to collaborate with County Attorney Choi’s office in getting crisis services to our young people and their families. I support more community programs like this to make sure that we continue to take a proactive and not merely a reactive approach to making our city safe for all of us.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
To facilitate more housing construction and to foster affordability, we need to make it easier to build. Particularly along transit corridors, we need should be fostering more density, and allow greater density to be built in other neighborhoods, too. When we’re making decisions with our affordable housing funds, we need to also keep in mind building units that are accessible, sustainable, and able to meet a variety of needs, whether it be for young families, multi-generational families, or seniors. Our planning department could also streamline building by creating pre-approved project templates to facilitate more construction. We also need to make sure we are tackling this problem by working with our state and county partners. I’ve been developing relationships with the St. Paul delegation including our current state senator and representatives in this district, so that we can advocate for increased state funding for housing here in St. Paul.
St. Paul candidates only: Do you support the rent stabilization ordinance in its current form? If not, what would you like to change?
Our rent stabilization ordinance is a work in progress. Some changes I would like to see are making the exemption process more transparent and consistent. Both our renters and our landlords deserve to have consistent expectations for what may count and not count. As a former renter, I also know the challenges and struggles that our renters are facing. We need to re-visit tenant protections more broadly to ensure that vacancy exemptions cannot be excessively used. More importantly, I think we will need to keep examining the policy over time to make sure we are addressing trends as they emerge. With my background in commercial building construction and my community building experience, I’m well positioned to navigate and facilitate the discussions moving forward.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
No matter if you chose to walk, bike, bus, or drive, our city should have infrastructure that works for you that is safe and efficient. On its most basic level, our infrastructure is at a point where we need a significant investment to maintain and protect what we have before even more expensive bills come due. With this investment, we can revisit our processes to make sure maintenance and replacement are done efficiently and sustainably, and I’m excited to bring my engineering expertise to this challenge. I’m also excited to be working with our county and Met Council to look at how we might be able to expand some Bus Rapid Transit routes. I’m also looking forward to approving our updated bike plan to be able to look at expanding as we’re repairing our roads while also taking an opportunity to improve pedestrian safety.
What will you do to expand St. Paul’s tax base?
Expanding our tax base is essential to help reduce our need for increased property tax levies. The first way we can do that is to allow for greater density and development to occur, which will spur not only construction, but get us a better return for the space. I want to also be more proactive in our policies toward empty lots to make sure our land is being used efficiently and avoiding blight. We also need to continue reshaping our zoning code to allow missing middle housing in every corner of our city.
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?
I believe there are areas for improvement for efficiency in our city services. Greater collaboration across St. Paul can help us find some redundancies and allow some programs to consolidate between departments and become more efficient. In addition, I believe we need to be working in concert with our partners at the State and County government to make sure that we’re being as efficient as possible with the programs and challenges that we take on independently, and which ones we believe are handled at a different level.
Public Office Sought: St. Paul City Council Ward 3
Email: [email protected]
Campaign Phone: 612-389-0364
Campaign Website: saurajost.com
Twitter handle: @sauraforward3
Facebook Page: facebook.com/saurajostforward3
Candidate Bio
I’m a mom, engineer, community leader, and the DFL endorsed candidate for Ward 3. I’m a proud graduate of St. Paul Public Schools and live with my family in Macalester-Groveland where I also grew up. I’ve been organizing for DFL endorsed candidates since high school. Most recently I was a Women Winning Political Leaders of Tomorrow (PLOT) intern for Senator Ann Johnson-Stewart’s campaign and had the opportunity to volunteer for and learn from Senator Erin Murphy’s campaign. I also served for almost four years on the Macalester-Groveland Community Council Board to increase inclusion and engagement on the issues that shape our neighborhood.
As a civil engineer, I design the infrastructure we rely upon every day, and I am also an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota where I teach engineering to architects. St. Paul has a unique opportunity, with most of our city council seats open, to set a clear direction for the future of our city. My deep neighborhood roots, technical and practical expertise in building infrastructure, and strong progressive values will help me be a critical voice at City Hall and a valuable leader on the issues we face together.
What style of leadership would you bring to this position?
Being a member of a small governing body like the seven-member city council in a strong mayor St. Paul city hall requires a great deal of collaboration, strategy, and partnership. It also requires you to be able to maintain those dynamics under intense public scrutiny when dealing with complex, nuanced issues that may not have a simple answer. Those characteristics are all things I’ve not only had to experience in my professional and neighborhood roles, but things I’ve been able to develop as true strengths as a leader.
As an individual, I will be thoughtful and strategic in doing my homework, fully utilizing council and department staff, and maximizing my understanding of each issue put before me. As a council colleague and leader in city hall, I will be a trustworthy, consistent partner who is both grounded in principle and willing to learn from others’ expertise.
I also bring my background in engineering to the table. I will insist on seeing data to drive decision making and not just from traditional sources but also from firsthand accounts of our community members. I will ask questions to make sure I have a full and thorough understanding of the issues. I also like to take deep dives into programs to make sure we build them to be effective, efficient, and transparent.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
There are so many challenges and opportunities St Paul’s next city council will need to tackle, but the top of those priorities will include:
Transportation and Infrastructure: With $1 billion in local sales tax on the ballot and millions more in metro sales tax for transit set to be deployed during the next city council term, we need council leaders who fully understand public infrastructure. We need our roads, transit, and basic systems to not just be functioning, but thriving, and that means planning with an eye to the future to meet our growing needs and our obligation to climate justice. As a civil engineer, I will bring unique, technical qualifications to city hall as dozens of key streets are reconstructed, several new bus rapid transit lines are planned and built, and as hundreds of millions in parks maintenance and construction take place in every corner of St Paul.
Housing and Local Businesses: The way St. Paul supports its families and local businesses will significantly impact its future. All of us deserve a safe, stable place to call home. We need to add more homes so that families have a place to live. This means encouraging density, affordable housing, and making modifications to our zoning code. We need to reshape city services to best serve our small local businesses that make our neighborhoods the wonderful places they are. We also need to partner with our school, county, state, and federal partners to ensure the services and resources our families and businesses require are best serving their needs.
Connecting with Community: As a community member with a family that does not look like many of the families in our Ward, I understand the importance of having a seat at the table when decisions are being made and to feel represented and heard by leadership. I also believe that our public leadership should be responsive and engaged with its community. Our next city council could end up being entirely made up of women. It could have a majority of members who are women of color. That creates a real opportunity to reshape the way we do public engagement and broaden our conversations to represent our community more fully.
What do you consider the biggest challenge and conversely, the biggest opportunity in St. Paul?
I see housing as our biggest challenge. We need to expand our tax base by building more housing, including additional units of affordable housing, maintain our aging housing stock, and continue to make St. Paul a great place for anyone to raise a family. We also need to shape our zoning strategy to meet these needs and improve rent stabilization laws to work for all of us. I look forward to bringing my expertise in building design and project management to city hall to take on this challenge together.
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?
I want to make sure that St. Paul is a great place for everyone to start or relocate a business. As council member, being a partner to our business community is essential to help foster economic growth, development, and community building. I have heard from many business owners that increased transparency and responsiveness is important to them, and I’m going to continue to build on those relationships. Overall, we need to make sure that our zoning and permitting processes are fair, consistent, swift, and transparent. The city council can support the business community by encouraging more mixed-use developments in commercial areas and helping connect businesses with grant opportunities and other assistance available to them. In addition, making sure that, as a city, we do an excellent job providing basic services and being a welcoming and sustainable place for families is how we can attract businesses and expand our tax base.
What are your strategies to address public safety challenges in your community?
All our neighbors, regardless of their background, deserve to feel safe in our communities. That’s why I’m for an “all of the above” approach to public safety – police and emergency first responders are asked to do so much, and we need to continue to expand our safety strategy with a clear delineation of duties and funding that reflects those specific programs, roles, and responsibilities. We are also safer when we make investments in our community’s basic needs and in community programming, especially for our youth. Improving public safety starts with focusing on preemptive resources and tools that can help prevent safety challenges before they occur. I’m particularly excited to collaborate with County Attorney Choi’s office in getting crisis services to our young people and their families. I support more community programs like this to make sure that we continue to take a proactive and not merely a reactive approach to making our city safe for all of us.
What ideas do you have to address housing shortages and affordability?
To facilitate more housing construction and to foster affordability, we need to make it easier to build. Particularly along transit corridors, we need should be fostering more density, and allow greater density to be built in other neighborhoods, too. When we’re making decisions with our affordable housing funds, we need to also keep in mind building units that are accessible, sustainable, and able to meet a variety of needs, whether it be for young families, multi-generational families, or seniors. Our planning department could also streamline building by creating pre-approved project templates to facilitate more construction. We also need to make sure we are tackling this problem by working with our state and county partners. I’ve been developing relationships with the St. Paul delegation including our current state senator and representatives in this district, so that we can advocate for increased state funding for housing here in St. Paul.
St. Paul candidates only: Do you support the rent stabilization ordinance in its current form? If not, what would you like to change?
Our rent stabilization ordinance is a work in progress. Some changes I would like to see are making the exemption process more transparent and consistent. Both our renters and our landlords deserve to have consistent expectations for what may count and not count. As a former renter, I also know the challenges and struggles that our renters are facing. We need to re-visit tenant protections more broadly to ensure that vacancy exemptions cannot be excessively used. More importantly, I think we will need to keep examining the policy over time to make sure we are addressing trends as they emerge. With my background in commercial building construction and my community building experience, I’m well positioned to navigate and facilitate the discussions moving forward.
How would you work to improve transportation options in your community, including improved safety for transit riders, pedestrian/bike, and drivers alike?
No matter if you chose to walk, bike, bus, or drive, our city should have infrastructure that works for you that is safe and efficient. On its most basic level, our infrastructure is at a point where we need a significant investment to maintain and protect what we have before even more expensive bills come due. With this investment, we can revisit our processes to make sure maintenance and replacement are done efficiently and sustainably, and I’m excited to bring my engineering expertise to this challenge. I’m also excited to be working with our county and Met Council to look at how we might be able to expand some Bus Rapid Transit routes. I’m also looking forward to approving our updated bike plan to be able to look at expanding as we’re repairing our roads while also taking an opportunity to improve pedestrian safety.
What will you do to expand St. Paul’s tax base?
Expanding our tax base is essential to help reduce our need for increased property tax levies. The first way we can do that is to allow for greater density and development to occur, which will spur not only construction, but get us a better return for the space. I want to also be more proactive in our policies toward empty lots to make sure our land is being used efficiently and avoiding blight. We also need to continue reshaping our zoning code to allow missing middle housing in every corner of our city.
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?
I believe there are areas for improvement for efficiency in our city services. Greater collaboration across St. Paul can help us find some redundancies and allow some programs to consolidate between departments and become more efficient. In addition, I believe we need to be working in concert with our partners at the State and County government to make sure that we’re being as efficient as possible with the programs and challenges that we take on independently, and which ones we believe are handled at a different level.