School board member Chauntyll Allen is the fourth candidate to declare for the Ward 4 seat on the St. Paul City Council this August, and a former chair of the Hamline-Midway Coalition has raised the ire of its nonprofit board by allegedly using its slogan and pictures of himself with staff in his campaign materials.
Chauntyll Allen
Allen, a nonprofit organizer, former school worker and renter, announced her candidacy on Thursday. She said she has lived in the ward for 23 years and has “personally experienced many of the most pressing issues our city is facing,” from the displacement of her family from the Rondo community to “seeing my former students on the streets to difficulty finding affordable housing for me and my wife.”
She said her campaign will focus on community safety, economic prosperity, housing stability and workforce and youth development. She was elected to the school board in 2020 and is the founder of Love First Community Engagement, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities and chair of the End Slavery in Minnesota campaign.
Her campaign spokesman, Jerome Richardson, said Friday she planned to continue to serve on the school board throughout her campaign for the Ward 4 seat.
Other candidates
(Left to right) Molly Coleman, Cristen Incitti, and Cole Hanson. The three have announced their candidacies for the Ward 4 seat on the St. Paul City Council. More candidates are likely to announce their intention to run for the seat being vacated by former Council President Mitra Jalali. (Courtesy of the candidates)
Candidates who have previously announced their intent to run include former Hamline-Midway Coalition board chair Cole Hanson, nonprofit founder Molly Coleman and Cristen Incitti, president and chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity of Minnesota. The winner of the Aug. 12 election, which will be ranked-choice, is expected to serve on the city council through 2028.
Nine board members with the Hamline-Midway Coalition have signed a letter officially distancing the coalition from Hanson’s campaign activities.
The letter, signed March 31 by nine of 11 board members, accuses Hanson of putting the neighborhood district council’s nonprofit status in jeopardy by engaging in “partisan political activities” using the coalition’s website and slogans without permission, while also featuring a photo of himself and a staff member in his campaign materials.
Under the federal tax code, 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofits are prohibited from engaging in partisan political campaigns.
Hanson noted on Friday that the organization’s executive director, Jenne Nelson, had taken a leave of absence to work in the Ward 4 office at City Hall, leaving much of the organization’s day-to-day management on the shoulders of a single staffer.
“It is a disaster over there right now,” said Hanson, who was board chair for 2 1/2 years before stepping down in March. “It’s just sad, man. It’s all weird internal politics that could have been resolved by an email. … I’m looking forward.”
The board members accused Hanson of modifying the coalition’s website to remove its longstanding slogan, and then using the same slogan in his campaign materials. They also accused him of using a photo featuring himself and coalition staff on his campaign website without consent, “creating the appearance of an implicit organizational endorsement.”
The letter “affirms that these actions were unauthorized and contrary to HMC’s policies and legal obligations” and serves as “a formal notice of HMC’s disavowal of his activities.”
Hanson said he had removed the language in question from his campaign website weeks ago, and he said the picture in question is one of himself with his daughter at a community event, where he is wearing a Hamline-Midway Coalition t-shirt.
A disorderly transition
Some members have accused Hanson of continuing to serve as board president after his first campaign launch party.
“When I tried to transition out, we tried to do an orderly transition,” Hanson explained. “It didn’t work. All of a sudden you had staff getting upset about this perceived slight. I’ve said any number of times on social media that I’m not part of HMC. I haven’t been involved with HMC in any formal capacity for over a month now.”
“There’s no rules in HMC for how to do these transitions,” he added. “There’s no bylaws on what to do. Everyone was improvising the entire time, and I think they still are.”
In their March 31 letter, the board resolved to adopt a new bylaw provision requiring that any board member or staff member who announces their candidacy for public office must immediately take a leave of absence for the duration of the campaign or resign outright “to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure organizational neutrality.”
They also resolved to strengthen their conflict-of-interest policy and expand board member education “to provide clearer guidelines and comprehensive training on nonprofit compliance.”
The letter seeks to “reaffirm the coalition’s commitment to nonpartisanship in elections,” which extends to not involving themselves in any candidate forums related to the Aug. 12 election, though they reserved the right to promote forums organized by neighborhood partners.
The letter was signed by board president Grace Liu, board secretary Anna Best, co-vice presidents Ilya Garelik and Melissa Tallman, and Gunnar Aas, among others.
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Officials said that the full board discussed their concerns around Hanson’s campaign activity at two meetings, and the executive committee discussed it at least once before that.
“There’s a lot of work that HMC does that is really important to the neighborhood, and anything that could put those things at risk is something we really take seriously,” said Grace Liu, who became board president toward the end of March. “I think there were many conversations with Cole early in the process.”
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