St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali announces resignation

St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali announced Friday she will step down next month, after one year leading St. Paul’s first all-women council, and six years on the City Council.

“I have made the difficult decision to prioritize my health and begin a transition out of City Hall,” Jalali wrote in a statement posted on Facebook. “I will be proud for the rest of my life to have been part of our Council, and I know my colleagues will carry the torch forward in their work ahead with the foundation we’ve built in our first year together.”

Jalali’s last council meeting will be Feb. 5, after which she said she would begin a leave of absence and transition out of the City Council. The other six council members will appoint an interim Ward 4 representative until a special election will be held to finish Jalali’s term, which is set to end in 2028 after St. Paul’s switch to even-year elections.

Jalali, who had been working in then-Rep. Keith Ellison’s office, won the three-way special election with the endorsement of Mayor Melvin Carter in 2018, after her predecessor Russ Stark took a job in Carter’s administration.

Jalali’s ward covers neighborhoods in the northwest corner of the city, including the Hamline-Midway, Merriam Park, St. Anthony and Como neighborhoods, as well as much of Macalester-Groveland and parts of Highland Park.

The first Asian American woman to sit on the St. Paul City Council, Jalali was the only renter on the council when she took office and the first member to openly identify as part of the LGBTQ community. In 2023, she helped recruit young women of color to run as part of a campaign bloc, paving the way for what Jalali described as “potentially the most diverse, representative, progressive council that we’ve ever had.”

She has been a leader as the council has taken bolder progressive stances on issues from rent control to tenants' rights to a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

She was also a leader in Minnesota’s “uncommitted” movement, which sent protest voters to the Democratic National Convention to call on the party to support a ceasefire.

After major turnover in the 2023 election, Jalali is the second-longest-serving council member, after Ward 2 Council Member Rebecca Noecker.

But during that 2023 campaign, Jalali said in her statement on Facebook, years of public service — particularly during the pandemic and civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd — were taking a toll on her health.

“It is important for me to live out the truth that powerful women of color do have limits, are not superhuman, and will not break themselves in the name of the work continuing,” Jalali wrote.