St. Paul’s city attorney, Lyndsey Olson, resigned last week, one of the only city department heads to leave as Mayor Kaohly Her takes the reins from former Mayor Melvin Carter. Olson said she had decided not to seek reappointment after the mayoral election.
So far, Olson is the most prominent Carter appointee to announce her departure. A spokesperson for Her said other department heads have been offered the chance to stay on while they and the administration figure out if they are still a fit for their jobs.
Irene Kao, general counsel of Minnesota Housing, will be appointed city attorney on Wednesday. Kao previously worked for the League of Minnesota Cities.
Olson served as city attorney since February 2018.
She led St. Paul’s participation in the Just Deeds Project, forging a partnership between St. Paul and the Mitchell Hamline Law School to help homeowners remove racial covenants from their deeds, and worked with other cities in lawsuits against the Trump administration.
The City Attorney’s Office under Olson also defended St. Paul in a public records related to the planning of the Summit Avenue bike lane. A judge has ordered St. Paul to pay $30,000 but the city has appealed.
“I was honored to be the longest-serving director in the Carter administration and the second longest-serving City Attorney in the City’s history — time that allowed us to do meaningful work together in service of the rule of law, constitutional governance, and evolving how justice is experienced in our community,” Olson wrote in a statement posted to LinkedIn, thanking the office staff. “We did this work through a pandemic, profound civic reckoning, sustained protests, and a recent cyber attack, moments of real challenge, and this team showed up every day with integrity, professionalism, and care for community and for each other.”
The heads of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and the Office of Financial Empowerment, both departments created during Carter’s tenure, also left after the election. Her named their replacements Monday.
