Swayed by public outcry, the St. Paul City Council recently voted to decline to extend the terms of a state grant awarded to a three-year-old microelectronics subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor.
In May 2023, the city accepted an $800,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to support the arrival of a new technology company, ForwardEdge ASIC. The start-up manufacturer creates reprogrammable semiconductor microchips for missiles and F-35 military bombers, as well as temperature sensors, plug-in modules and other micro-electronics used by the aerospace industry.
In exchange for financial backing from the Minnesota Investment Fund program, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin promised to create 113 jobs at 2340 Energy Park Drive by the end of 2025, with positions paying between $40 and $127 per hour, in addition to benefits.
In recent months, ForwardEdge requested an extension of its compliance date from March 2026 to March 2027 to give them more time to meet their job creation requirement. To date, they’ve installed about 83 jobs, leaving them about 30 jobs short of goal. Otherwise, the state would reduce their grant on a prorated basis, which city staff estimated could add up to as much as a $200,000 reduction in their grant award.
DEED indicated to the city that it would approve a one-year extension if formally requested by the city council. A Feb. 4 public hearing on the proposed grant extension drew at least 30 speakers to council chambers against that proposal, as well as at least 32 emails in opposition to the request.
Defense contractor ties
Many cited the defense contractor’s ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military’s bombing of Gaza and the Palestinian people.
“You are making us accomplices in murder,” said one of the speakers.
“Living in Saint Anthony Park, I am not comfortable knowing I share the neighborhood with a business that creates the computer chips for warplanes used in the brutalization and destruction of the Palestinian people,” reads a letter.
“I will not have my tax dollars funding anything related to ICE, Israel or any other political organization/body that supports the oppression of others,” reads another letter.
Speakers noted the Minneapolis City Council voted in December to cut funding for the city’s $500,000 contract with Zen City, an Israeli tech company that specializes in surveillance technology.
Under pressure from protesters who attended multiple meetings of the Board of Water Commissioners last summer, St. Paul Regional Water Services plans to issue a request for proposals this spring for a cyber-security vendor, allowing it to study potential alternatives to its current contract with Waterfall Security Solutions of Israel, which provides a combination of hardware and online services.
Council vote
Meanwhile, St. Paul Council Member Molly Coleman, who represents Ward 4, asked for the grant extension request for ForwardEdge to be laid over for a week, allowing her more time to inquire from the city attorney’s office whether a one-year extension was guaranteed as part of the original contract. Her request drew boos and yelling from the audience.
Coleman withdrew her motion after fellow council members also objected and said they were ready to reject the company’s request. Council Member Nelsie Yang tearfully described the fear gripping the Hmong community under Operation Metro Surge, decades after today’s Hmong elders lost everything after assisting the CIA with the failed “Secret War” in Laos.
“We have to be firm on what we are against,” said Council Member Anika Bowie, noting her husband, Jamael Lundy, was recently arrested by heavily-armed federal agents in their home for his role in a non-violent protest at a St. Paul church. “We have witnessed, experienced, helicopters, military-grade officers on the streets. We as a state decided that it was OK to invest into a manufacturing company that is producing terror and has a hand in this violence. … It is very easy for me to vote no.”
Bowie thanked the citizen advocates in the room for calling attention to a matter she and others on the council might have glossed over as a routine extension request, and Yang said she felt embarrassed to have voted to approve the DEED grant in 2023.
After some discussion, Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim motioned to deny the contract extension. Her motion was approved by the council, 6-0. Council Member Cheniqua Johnson is away on an extended maternity leave.
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