Jack, the Good Deed Doer
Jack’s Impact on City Law and Policy
by Jane L. Prince, Ward 7 City Councilmember
Back in 2002, then Saint Paul Mayor Randy Kelly decided to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Norm Coleman, in shifting street maintenance expenses paid for through property taxes to right-of-way assessments paid for by assessing the cost per front-foot against every property in Saint Paul. My then boss, City Councilmember (and attorney) Jay Benanav, when voting against this property tax sleight of hand, said assessing property owners for snow plowing based on street frontage, “just doesn’t pass the smell test.”
Fast forward to Jack’s decision to fight City Hall on behalf of two downtown churches whose ROW assessments were exorbitant. Perhaps what I most appreciate about Jack’s protracted battle with the city was that his opening gambit was a very modest settlement offer for his clients, which the city chose to ignore.
Between Jay opining about ROW assessments and Jack’s suing the city in the case named First Baptist, I became a lawyer myself, attending Hamline on weekends while serving as a council aide. I watched the progress of the case closely, noting that Jack had taken on this Herculean fight while trying to limit expenses and court costs, with the help of law student interns.
The Supreme Court announced its decision in First Baptist when I, now a member of the Saint Paul City Council, was attending a budget meeting. The news that Jack had prevailed hit us like a ton of bricks; we now had to figure out how to fill a $30+ million street maintenance funding hole in the budget. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel deep respect, admiration, and gratitude for a lawyer who served his clients – and city taxpayers – with such thorough dedication (and so little personal gain).
After that, I was blessed – as a lawyer and as a city councilmember – to get to know Jack as a friend through Saint Paul STRONG. Jack’s knowledge and wisdom helped guide STRONG on several projects, forums, and opinion editorials it authored calling for open, accessible, and authentic public process at every level of municipal government. These ranged from city charter issues to historic preservation, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to the rent stabilization initiative on last year’s ballot.
When reviewing my “Hoeschler File,” I was touched by a response Jack sent to some of our good-government cohorts needing his help last year: “Unfortunately I am temporarily up to my ears in other good deeds.”
Jack was a good deed doer. And for our entire city, Jack aptly served us in the role of “loyal opposition,” defined in Merriam Webster as one “whose opposition to the party in power is constructive, responsible, and bounded by loyalty to fundamental interests and principles.” Underlying Jack’s exceptional success as a real estate, finance, land use, and public interest lawyer was his deep and abiding love for our city and his commitment to make its governance transparent, fair, and just.
When the city decided not to appeal the last of Jack’s successful ROW lawsuits in June, the assistant city attorney assigned to the case told me that she was truly honored to be able to reach Jack in his final days to congratulate him on his hard-won success. This is a profound acknowledgement from opposing counsel of the esteem in which the city held him.
Native of Brockton Mass, Jane moved to the Twin Cities with a college friend on a whim in 1976, landing her first job with the Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority. She spent the last six years of the Latimer Administration on the staff of Saint Paul Planning & Economic Development, where she came to believe in the power of regular people to make local government work. Shifting into politics, she managed Andy Dawkins DFL endorsed campaign for mayor in 1993, chaired the Saint Paul DFL from 1995 to 1997 and served as legislative aide to Saint Paul City Councilmember Jay Benanav until 2007, before running for city council in 2015. Now in her second term.