When John Harrington moved to St. Paul in 1977, he recalled the most predominant foreign language spoken in St. Paul being German.
This is no longer the case: New immigrant groups have settled in the city, and Spanish, Hmong, Karen and Somali now top the list of dozens of non-English languages spoken here. And as St. Paul has grown, one constant has been the Winter Carnival.
Harrington, the former St. Paul police chief and co-founder of nonprofit Ujamaa Place, was crowned as the 88th King Boreas at the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s Royal Coronation on Jan. 24.
For him, the Winter Carnival is, and always has been, central to making people feel at home in St. Paul, no matter how long they’ve lived here.
As Boreas, he said, his goal is for the Winter Carnival to continue building relationships between the Winter Carnival and communities that are new to the city or have historically not been as engaged with carnival events, and to use the carnival as “a vehicle for welcoming them to St. Paul.”
“What affects one of us directly affects us all,” he said. “If you believe that, which I do, then every member of the community — the new Karen, the new Ethiopian, Eritrean, the old Irish, the old Italian, Scandinavian, German and everybody in between — we need to all link arms together to make this a great St. Paul. It’s the only way it’ll work.”
Aurora, Queen of the Snows Tessa Westlund and Boreas LXXXVIII (88th) John Harrington stand with their royal court during the 2025 Winter Carnival Royal Coronation at the St. Paul RiverCentre on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
‘I’d heard about St. Paul’
Before landing in St. Paul, Harrington, a Chicago native, graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
RELATED: As Queen of the Snows, Tessa Westlund joins the Winter Carnival she grew up loving
His dream was to join the New York City police department, he said. But the city’s near-bankruptcy crisis in the mid-1970s meant the NYPD was shrinking, not growing, so he’d have to start somewhere else. He had relatives in Stacy, Minn., so he figured he’d call the Minneapolis Police Department. They weren’t hiring, they said; ask St. Paul.
“I’m sure I’d heard about St. Paul on a geography test of some sort,” Harrington remembers thinking. But he applied and ultimately got a job with the St. Paul Police Department in 1977.
State Sen. John Harrington, formerly St. Paul’s police chief, recited the Pledge of Allegiance on the first day of the legislative session on Jan. 4, 2011. He said Monday that two years in office was enough. “It was far more frustrating than running a police department,” he said.
He was selected as chief in 2004 and served till 2010, when he was elected to the Minnesota State House. After one term, he left to become chief of Metro Transit police, then from 2019 to 2023 served as commissioner of the state’s Department of Public Safety, a cabinet-level position under Gov. Tim Walz.
At the top of both the St. Paul and Metro Transit police departments, Harrington was credited with significant increases in bilingual officers and officers whose ethnic backgrounds represent the communities they served, according to previous Pioneer Press reporting.
In 2010, he also co-founded Ujamaa Place, which connects young Black men with resources to build stable families, careers and lives outside the criminal justice system. Whereas nationally, nearly 70 percent of those convicted of crimes re-offend, that number is around 4 percent for participants in Ujamaa Place, the organization says.
“Kids like getting to be kids, but they need those walls to bounce off against, gently, and I don’t think the police department is necessarily always the right wall for kids to bounce off of,” Harrington said. “So how do we find other walls, whether it’s ministers or coaches or other ambassadors, who can help redirect? We’re not locking you up; we’re pushing you back into play. We’re going to do it nicely, and with good grace, in a way that says, ‘We want you to be successful.’”
Lights On
During Harrington’s tenure as Metro Transit police chief, in 2016, Philando Castile was killed by a St. Anthony police officer after being pulled over for a broken tail light.
“What would’ve happened during that traffic stop if, instead of getting into this thing about what he had in his pocket, the officer had said, ‘Hey, your tail lights are out and we want you to drive safely, so here’s a coupon to get them fixed.” And had walked back to his car,” Harrington said. “The world would be a different place.”
This is the concept of the national Lights On program, which Harrington now oversees as CEO of MicroGrants, the local nonprofit that supports it. Instead of traffic tickets for broken turn signals or tail lights, officers in departments affiliated with Lights On can give out vouchers for free replacements. Nearly 180 departments in 22 states have adopted Lights On, and more than 10,000 vouchers have been redeemed, according to the organization.
Or, what if police departments and community organizations held neighborhood events so people could get those free coupons without having to be pulled over at all? Lights On has hosted a few such events in the Twin Cities, and Harrington said he believes they’ve been successful at helping community members of all ages to think more deeply about their role in public safety.
“I don’t want them to have the only time they ever see the cops be when something bad has happened in their neighborhood, because that gives them no good reason to call the cops when they do need us,” Harrington said. “And there are times when you do need the cops. I’d like to live in a world where that wasn’t the case. I’ve been trying to work myself out of a job for about 50 years. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still hopeful.”
‘The lore of St. Paul’
Boreas LXXXVIII (88th) John Harrington shakes hands with guests during the 2025 Winter Carnival Royal Coronation at the St. Paul RiverCentre on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Admittedly, Harrington said, he was apprehensive when first approached about serving as Boreas, but he quickly came to realize how the Winter Carnival fits into his lifetime of work trying to build safer, stronger communities.
“This has been a city that has been welcoming people that other cities would not have welcomed, and I think that’s part of the lore of St. Paul,” Harrington said.
“I’m hoping that, as (the Winter Carnival) reaches out to other communities, that they will bring their traditions and we will be able to find where that common ground is. I think there’s room for growth, and I think it should be fun to try and find it.”
Fast Facts: King Boreas Rex LXXXVIII
Who: John Harrington
Age: 69
Hometown: Chicago; now lives on the East Side of St. Paul
Occupation: CEO of MicroGrants, a Twin Cities nonprofit. Formerly, St. Paul police chief, Minnesota state senator, Metro Transit police chief and state public safety commissioner
Boreas motto: CHIEF, which stands for “community history inspiring equity and family fun”
Boreas charity: Lights On, a program that works with local law enforcement to offer vouchers for tail light or turn signal replacement instead of issuing a ticket
First carnival memory: Directing traffic around Winter Carnival events as a St. Paul police officer
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