St. Anthony mayor should resign, say protesters at City Council meeting

The official business at the St. Anthony City Council meeting Tuesday night took exactly 18 minutes.

Then, one by one and for the next two hours, residents who packed the council chambers came to the microphone to call for the resignation of Mayor Jerry Faust. Some called for other council members and Police Chief Jon Mangseth to resign, too.

The community cannot heal with the current leadership in place, they said, citing the death last summer of Philando Castile at the hands of former St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez and the forced eviction by June 30 of low-income residents of the Lowry Grove mobile home park.

Before the meeting, organizer Sandi Sherman said, "The City Council has consistently been unresponsive to all our requests and appeals. We wanted to talk to them about racial profiling. We wanted to have a joint committee to work together to discuss how to improve police accountability and police-community relations. They rejected that.

"We asked them to organize town hall meetings, because our community was extremely torn apart about what happened," she said. "It never happened."

At the meeting, Sherman listed grievances and asked for Faust's resignation.

All of the speakers had harsh words for the mayor. At several points, the crowd chanted, "Resign! Resign!"

"You have shown you are a leader for some, but not a leader for all and that is nowhere near enough," Julie Pierce of New Brighton told Faust.

Nona Kennedy Carlson, of St. Anthony, read the last line from a statement from the city about reaching a $3 million settlement with Castile's mother, Valerie: "The important work of healing our community continues," it said.

"Really!?" Kennedy Carlson said. "I see a community divided. You are a bully, a liability and you should absolutely step down as mayor."

Steve Hanson said he has lived in St. Anthony for 30 years. "I'm deeply ashamed of this city right now," he said.

Although Faust had told the crowd at the start of the meeting not to applaud, many of the speakers received standing ovations. Among them was Curtis Avent, who said, "You have a beautiful community here. It's too bad their concerns have fallen on deaf ears." The city has fallen short in implementing reforms in both policing and affordable housing, Avent said.

Nancy Gonzales, a 31-year resident of St. Anthony, led off the speakers. She said she had just come from a wake for her friend Frank Adelmann, who lived at Lowry Grove and knew he'd be homeless as of Friday. He committed suicide June 20, she said through tears.

"He was not some carpetbagger from some far off place," she said. "He was ours."

As Faust adjourned the meeting, he was asked if he had any comment on the speakers' demands for his resignation, he said simply, "No."

Pat Pheifer • 612-673-7252