It was interesting to note, but all too telling, that St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s State of the City address the other day was attended by mostly city workers and longtime campaign supporters. All of us might have attended, and were certainly welcome, but the event at the Oxford Community Center was scheduled during the day. 
Many of us were busy and could not accommodate another mayoral matinee. All mayors seem to do it that way, take their victory laps during the day when the only people who can be counted on to attend are grateful for knowing where their bread is buttered.
The rest of us are just wondering what is going on.
The city is in great shape? We have no discernible evidence that the city is chugging along smoothly and leaving a wake of accomplishment and a feeling of general well-being.
Yes, by all accounts Carter believes the city is practically a shining beacon on the hill, if only he can win his request of yet another tax, a 1 percent increase in the city’s sales tax, which would have to clear the Legislature and the voters. Carter would use the new money to work on the streets and delayed maintenance on the parks. The street maintenance is so delayed that Carter acknowledged that Summit Avenue, for example, was last significantly repaired when William Taft was president. That would make it about 1910.
In fairness to Carter, all mayors celebrate great achievements during a State of the City address. It would be bad for the resume if they came out and said, “man, are we in trouble.” Thus, Carter looked to the future and saw a bright horizon of sustainability, vibrancy and innovation.
And in additional fairness to Carter, he alone cannot be responsible for generations of mayors not taking care of the basics. But he is in his second term. The city is raising property taxes by 15 percent. And yet Carter proposes a new tax to cover the most basic of city needs, just fixing streets, which have gained national attention for their decrepitude.
If not for streets, parks and public safety then where is the money we already pay going? We can only presume it is going to build a bigger city government, 4,488 employees as of 2021. When our property taxes cannot cover the basics, then we are spending our treasure at a rate that suggests no sustainability, no vibrancy and no innovation.
And spending on what exactly? We demand to know. The 2023 city budget is $781.5 million and still a new tax is proposed to fix the streets. Nothing empirical mind you, but anecdotal evidence is starting to surface that the citizens are having it finally dawn on them that we are being taken to the cleaners. A fellow just wrote a letter to one of the neighborhood newspapers suggesting we withhold our property tax payments until we get some answers. A kind of modern Tea Party without the harbor. That might work if 20,000 people held back, but if one or two gave it the old college try, they’d end up in jail.
The day after Carter spoke, Gov. Tim Walz took the podium and crowed about the $17.5 billion surplus he plans to use to expand state government, meaning we have to come up with $17.5 billion more every year from now until eternity.
Walz said we are on the cusp of another “Minnesota Miracle.”
The only miracle we can hope for is that guys like Carter and Walz come to their senses before the city and state go bankrupt.
