St. Paul City Council creates reparations committee

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·1 min read
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Following months of work by a city committee, the St. Paul City Council voted 7-0 on Wednesday to establish the St. Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission, an 11-member commission dedicated to the question of racial reparations.

The ordinance, sponsored by all seven council members, sets up a long-term advisory commission to make both short-term and long-term budget, program and policy recommendations to the mayor and city council.

The ordinance indicates the commission will evaluate city expenditures using quality of life metrics as indicators of progress on reparations, create an annual work plan that will notify city officials about commission priorities, and review city programming and budgeting related to reparations.

The stated goal is to address “the creation and sustainment of generational wealth for the American descendants of chattel slavery and to boost economic mobility and opportunity in the American descendants of chattel slavery community.”

Council Member Jane Prince began studying the question of reparations after joining a reading group at the East Side Freedom Library, where she got to know Trahern Crews, a reparations advocate who would go on to co-chair the city’s reparations committee in 2021.

In June, the committee recommended the creation of a long-term commission.

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