Mayor of Saint Paul
Kelly was the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota from January, 2002 through January, 2006. He won the office in 2001 by just 403 votes in a tight race with Jay Benanav, a city councilman. As mayor, he was noted for his efforts to increase the minimum wage and create and retain high-paying jobs.
During Kelly's term in office, his political views and several appointments generated controversy. In 2004, he rankled fellow Democrats by endorsing and campaigning for President George W. Bush's re-election. According to critics, his conservative views, which may have been intended to garner support from Republicans and independents, undermined his constituent base in the Democratic Party. An unsuccessful grassroots campaign to recall him was launched shortly after his announcement in support of Bush's re-election effort.
In 2005, one of Kelly's appointees, Sia Lo, head of the criminal division of the city attorney's office, was reported to be at the center of an investigation into alleged corruption in a city development deal which focused on a new Hmong funeral home on the city's West Side. Lo was never charged.
Read more about this topic: Randy Kelly
Famous quotes containing the words mayor, saint and/or paul:
“when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!”
—Gregory Corso (b. 1930)
“A few hours’ mountain climbing turns a rogue and a saint into two roughly equal creatures. Weariness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity—and liberty is finally added by sleep.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 11:11.
In v. 9, Paul wrote “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”