Green Party Candidate
for Mayor of St. Paul
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Green Party Candidate |
For Immediate Release June 27, 2005
Activist Elizabeth Dickinson Enters St. Paul Mayor's Race St. Paul, MN – Tuesday, June 27, 2005 – Activist and former city council candidate Elizabeth Dickinson will announce her candidacy for Mayor of St. Paul at a press conference tomorrow, Tuesday, June 28. The event will take place on the blufftop along Prospect St., just west of where Hall Ave. runs into Prospect, at 11:00 a.m. Dickinson is a founder of the Clean Energy Now coalition which successfully pushed for conversion of Xcel Energy's urban High Bridge and Riverside power plants from coal to gas — two of only five such conversions nationally to date — and the installation of pollution controls on the larger A.S. King plant near Stillwater. She has also been highly visible as a spokesperson on other issues: she narrated and coproduced widely-distributed videos on Wal-Mart and on AIDS, as well as one on the power plant conversion. She is leaving her position as Community Affairs Manager and lobbyist for the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) to enter the race. Dickinson's campaign will focus on city government collaboration with St. Paul's neighborhoods — especially cooperation with the city's District Councils — and honoring the voices of individual citizens; on environmental and clean energy issues including the opportunity to give St. Paul a national profile as a clean-energy leader; on firmly establishing the city's current living wage policy as a requirement for businesses seeking significant financial help — such as tax-increment financing — from city government; and on vigorously supporting small businesses, which create over 75% of new American jobs. A Co-Chair of the Green Party of St. Paul, a boardmember of the West Side Citizens Organization and of Clean Water Action, and a member of the St. Paul Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Dickinson has worked tirelessly with numerous like-minded groups and individuals to maintain city environmental standards, back the INS/Police Separation Ordinance and the Code for Corporate Responsibility, and work for Instant Runoff Voting and other progressive causes. Dickinson's motivation for running includes a strong awareness that many St. Paul voters have been dismayed by the absence to date of a strong progressive voice in the mayoral contest. "I've had people come up to me and ask if I'm running, because they don't feel they're represented by either of the current candidates," she says. "Many of them became very excited when I began privately telling people I had decided to run." She felt strongly enough about the need to give voters a real choice, she says, that she was willing to risk her household's primary income by leaving her job at MAP. Her campaign will lean heavily on the grassroots outreach Dickinson strongly believes in — in her 2003 Ward 2 race for city council, she nearly took the second spot in the open primary by knocking on nearly every single-family door in the ward, while spending less than 20% of the eventual winner's total campaign outlay — and less than 10% of the budget of the ultimate runner-up. St. Paulites can expect to become familiar with her face, as Dickinson anticipates knocking on doors in every city ward before the September 13 primary. Contact Elizabeth Dickinson, (651) 235-1208 (cell) Christopher Childs, Communications Coordinator, (651) 312-1216 Elizabeth Dickinson for Mayor 384 Hall Avenue St. Paul, MN 55107
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Click here to read Elizabeth's June 28, 2005, address.
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