Adam Dullinger’s politicizing moment arrived in the mail one day last spring, in the form of a letter from the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections. The lawn grass and assorted plantings at his North End home had grown too high, it said, and he had 72 hours to cut them or DSI would do it for him, at considerable cost to his wallet.
Armed with information about a state law that allows pollinator-friendly native landscaping to grow more than 8 inches tall, Dullinger appealed the order to the city’s legislative hearing officer, who saw things his way. The officer said she would recommend to the St. Paul City Council that his appeal be approved.
It didn’t help. Three days later, he came home to find the city had mowed his front lawn down to the grass nubs, pollinator plants and all. The mower had found its way into his fenced-in backyard and made short work of his milkweed, bellflower and white Dutch clover, even destroying several ankle-high tree saplings.
Alarmed, Dullinger returned to City Hall to testify before the city council — “I was like, ‘Hey, this process needs to be fixed’” — which approved his appeal, but the damage was already done. Rather than simply grumble about the episode, Dullinger took the most dramatic practical step he could think of: he filed to run for mayor.
‘I’m a quick learner’
Dullinger, 29, is the youngest and arguably most politically inexperienced of four candidates vying to challenge St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter for his seat as the mayor seeks a third term in the Nov. 4 election, which will be decided by ranked-choice ballot. The winner will serve three years due to the city’s transition to even-year elections.
Some might call Dullinger an unlikely candidate. Given his work as a mechanical engineer, he said he’s never served on his neighborhood district council or on a City Hall board like the Planning Commission or Capital Improvement Budget Committee, which are often gateways to understanding municipal processes.
“I’m a quick learner,” said Dullinger, a licensed professional engineer who helps design fire safety equipment for a company based in South St. Paul.
In mayoral forums, Dullinger, who said he bikes most everywhere he goes whenever he can, has been the most bullish in favor of expanding the city’s cycling infrastructure, especially the proposed five-mile bike path along Summit Avenue.
He calls the avenue an essential east-west connection in the city’s bike network, and has sometimes criticized fellow candidate Kaohly Her in forums for not coming down more decisively for or against the project.
“If I become mayor, I won’t be running for another office,” said Dullinger in a recent interview, in a dig at Her, who currently holds the position of state representative.
Issues
Dullinger, who grew up in a semi-rural town outside St. Cloud, recalled spending long hours biking trails that would take him far from home at a young age. The isolation and anxiety that young people feel today, he said, might have a solution as simple as building better bike paths to keep them safe cycling city streets, as well as investing in public transit and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure.
On some other issues, he’s still feeling things out. He recently proposed that the city use eminent domain to acquire and tear down the vacant CVS at University and Snelling avenues, which has become an eyesore property, but he’s since discovered that the building carries a $3 million valuation, which would make it a pricey purchase for the city.
In interviews and political forums, he’s stressed the need to reform DSI and have police focus on non-fatal shootings. The latter issue, which also is one of Carter’s favorite talking points, came to Dullinger’s attention when he served on a jury in a murder trial involving a man who had sought vengeance after his son was shot in the face.
The trial opened his eyes, he said, to the importance of having police get ahead of revenge shootings by thoroughly investigating non-fatal gun crimes.
“To me, that says the police department needs to be run better,” he said.
Public monopolies
Dullinger said he is not seeking political endorsements or campaign contributions, and he said he’s steered clear of involving himself with advocacy groups by design. Some have called Dullinger a single-issue candidate, overly focused on expanding the city’s bike network. He sees things differently.
“Specifically for things like utilities, I think it’s important for government to be involved in those, like trash and water. Things that have a public utility need to be run by the city, and the city needs to make sure they benefit the entire public,” Dullinger said.
“I think it would be cool if they ran internet and electricity and composting — anything that benefits from a public monopoly,” he added. “As with electricity distribution, it’s good to have a singular network. In other industries, it’s important that government stay out of the way. Beyond basic regulation, they don’t need to be involved in the nitty-gritty.”
Adam Dullinger on five key issues
Age: 29
Family: Single; no children.
Education: Bachelor of science degree from the University of Minnesota in mechanical engineering; minor in product design.
On the proposed remodel of Grand Casino Arena
Dullinger has said he’s adamantly opposed to the city proposing $200 million in local funds — $400 million total — to renovate the home of the Minnesota Wild. “$200 million over 300,000 people? That’s $600 per person,” he said. “Especially when we’re talking about cutting the budget in so many ways, that doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The Wild, he pointed out, are under contract at the arena for the next decade. “We have the leverage,” he said. “We should put the public’s interest first.”
On declining downtown property values and downtown revitalization
“I think the most important thing to do is making the city a more livable place, and to make those spaces places people actually want to spend time in,” said Dullinger, in a recent mayoral forum. “Downtown has been very built. They’ve got multiple highways that run directly through it that the city doesn’t get to control.”
“In the spaces that we can control, we need to prioritize more pedestrian spaces … and make it possible to be able to bike down there, so that way you don’t have to bring your car,” he added. “It’s the people that are the vitality of our city. … If we don’t make it so that they want to live here, then we’re lost.”
On administrative citations
A question before voters on the Nov. 4 ballot asks whether to amend the city charter to allow the city council to create administrative fine schedules for those who break city ordinances. Dullinger said he will vote “yes” because “there’s a lot of benefits,” though he acknowledged, “I haven’t dug into it too much.”
On the St. Paul Public Schools special levy referendum
Another question on the ballot asks whether to raise property taxes by $37.2 million per year, adjusted for inflation annually for 10 years, to fund the St. Paul school district. Dullinger said he will vote “yes,” though “in my ideal world, the state would take over all the (school) funding.”
He recalled growing up in a comfortable school district that frequently approved levy referendums to fund amenities like laptops, while a poorer district next door to his own voted down referendums “because they can’t afford it. That’s tragic to me.”
On housing
Dullinger said the city has focused too heavily on encouraging private developers to build affordable rental housing, and it should put more energy into encouraging homeownership through housing co-ops, condominiums and other under-explored options. He said the city could build its own public housing, including market-rate units that would subsidize affordable units.
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