When the St. Paul City Council appointed Kassim Busuri this year to fill out the unexpired term of Dan Bostrom, the 32-year-old business owner was hailed as the council’s youngest member and its first Somali-American.
These days, following his decision this month to run for the seat in November, he’s being described as a “lone wolf” most members would like to get rid of.
When Busuri was interviewed as a candidate to fill out Bostrom’s remaining term, he promised not to run in the coming election. As the interim council member, Busuri will have a built-in platform and audience other candidates for the seat won’t have.
City Council President Amy Brendmoen, who had inquired about rescinding Busuri’s appointment with the city attorney’s office, said there isn’t a method to remove Busuri.
“But there’s plenty of things that are council priorities that we also don’t need to include him on,” Brendmoen said.
This week, council member Mitra Nelson asked Brendmoen to take Busuri’s place on a new public safety committee that the council has organized at her request. Nelson, who chairs the group, said the Public Safety Work Group held its first meeting on Wednesday without him.
“In the last several days, council member Busuri chose to violate his professional obligations and commitments,” Nelson said. “We just felt it was only appropriate that he no longer be able to serve on it. I think that when you violate your professional commitments, there are professional consequences. It’s as simple as that.”
‘I BELIEVE HIM’
Busuri said Friday that he will continue to campaign for the Ward 6 seat while holding the interim seat, and he urged his fellow council members to focus on more important issues such as organized trash collection.
“I will continue to work for Ward 6,” Busuri said. “If my colleagues decide to put pressure on me, they’re only taking away the voices of the East Side. They’re taking away the voices of Ward 6, and I’m pretty sure the public does not appreciate what they’re doing.”
Bostrom, who had represented East Side neighborhoods on the city council for decades, stepped down from his position last December, drawing even more candidates to the growing field already running for the Ward 6 seat.
As they looked for Bostrom’s temporary replacement, council members made their intentions clear — Busuri was among 15 candidates for the interim position who pledged not to put their names on the ballot for a four-year term in the November election.
On May 16, Busuri announced that he had changed his mind. His decision to run for the Ward 6 seat was prompted, he said, by voters who had encouraged him to enter the race anyway. He has declined to step down from the interim position while campaigning.
His about-face has offended many voters. But it’s also piqued the interest of longtime friends and supporters.
“I have known Kassim Busuri for years. He served on the board of the nonprofit for which I work and he supported me when I ran for office,” said Shirley Erstad, a former candidate for the Ward 4 seat, in a social media post Wednesday.
“I know him to be a man of honesty and integrity, willing to listen to others, learn from them, and ask tough questions,” Erstad said. “When he says he had no intention of running when he accepted the City Council Ward 6 appointment, I believe him.”
On social media, Rich Neumeister, an advocate for government transparency, called the council members’ negative actions toward Busuri “penny-ante,” “shallow” and “small-minded.”
“With campaign promises, politicians have sworn on their grandmother’s grave that they’ll do this and that, and then changed their mind,” Neumeister said in an interview Thursday. “Just let him run. The more people that run, the better.”
‘A LONE WOLF’
Council members say it’s unfair that as an acting council member, Busuri will have access to certain public resources that other candidates don’t, giving him a competitive advantage in what’s presently a five-way race.
Under the ranked-choice voting option, the number of candidates could still grow.
“Terri Thao doesn’t get to be on the Community First Public Safety Work group, and Nelsie Yang doesn’t get to be on it,” said Brendmoen, naming two Ward 6 candidates who have been organizing for months. “We put Busuri on a couple work groups just as a courtesy, but it’s a courtesy and a privilege. (Nelson) decided she didn’t want to work with him anymore in that capacity.”
Brendmoen noted that under the city’s “strong mayor” system, the council serves as a counter-balance to the power of the mayoral administration, which appoints department heads, drafts the city budget and has veto power over council ordinances.
“Our power is really in our majority and the ability to work with each other,” she said. “Busuri is really acting more like a lone wolf right now.”
Also Wednesday, Busuri’s name was removed from an agenda item before the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority, which is chaired by Council Member Chris Tolbert. Instead, Tolbert replaced Busuri’s name with his own regarding an apartment project at 848 Payne Ave., which is in Busuri’s ward.
“Kassim pledged and promised, and now he’s broken the trust of the people that appointed him, as well as the people of St. Paul,” Tolbert said.
