Metro briefs: Five candidates to vie for vacant St. Anthony City Council seat

Five candidates will be interviewed next month for the at-large St. Anthony City Council seat to be vacated by Randy Stille when he moves to the mayor's post on Jan. 6.

The candidates are Dave Colling, executive director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition; Joe Lofgren, development specialist for the North Memorial Health Foundation; attorney Dan Payne; attorney Nancy Robinett, who lost to Stille in the Nov. 5 mayoral election; and Wendy Webster, community services director for the St. Anthony-New Brighton School District.

They will be interviewed Jan. 8 by the City Council, which will name one of them to the vacant seat on Jan. 14. The appointee will fill out the final two years of Stille's remaining council term.

kim hyatt

The Maplewood City Council has disbanded its Police Advisory Commission, formed nearly two years ago, with plans to replace it with a more flexible Multicultural Advisory Committee.

The committee, to be established in 2020, would meet regularly with police leaders to discuss community relations. But Mayor Marylee Abrams said the new group would be more nimble and interactive than the advisory commission, which conducted formal meetings more akin to the Planning Commission.

Officials want the new committee to include more community members and provide additional opportunities to share ideas. "What we really want is more of a dialogue," she said.

St. Louis Park Mayor Jake Spano was elected to the National League of Cities (NLC) board of directors at the organization's 2019 summit last month. He will serve a two-year term.

Spano, who has been mayor for three years and sat on the City Council for four years before that, said he wants to learn from other city leaders and "elevate the strategic priority of race equity in [NLC] member cities, just as St. Louis Park has."

Board members are selected by a 15-member nominating committee and confirmed by a vote from the organization's membership at the annual meeting. The league aims to be a resource and advocate for its more than 2,000 member cities and their leaders.

Mara Klecker

Brian Sturgeon has been appointed West St. Paul's new police chief, succeeding longtime Police Chief Bud Shaver.

"He certainly showed that he was capable and competent in leading the department," City Manager Ryan Schroe­der said.

He added that Sturgeon has done a good job launching the police effort to communicate better with the public. The plan is based on feedback received this summer from residents and city workers.

Sturgeon just marked his 30th year in law enforcement and has been with the West St. Paul police since the early 1990s. The department has 42 full- and part-time employees.