Energetic Bob Long hopes voters like his experience, ideas

On a recent day, St. Paul mayoral candidate Bob Long waved at drivers from a street corner for an hour, shook hands with coffee-shop patrons, chatted with people at two recreation centers and clipped campaign literature to dozens of doors at a public-housing high-rise for seniors.

"I get tired just looking at him," said Gretchen Wolf, a 21-year-old campaign volunteer who watched the energetic Long dash from table to table at a crowded coffee shop making a rapid-fire pitch for votes in the Sept. 11 primary.

The former City Council member, who is confident he'll advance to the November general election, said his high level of energy would be an asset for St. Paul if he becomes mayor.

"I think people want an energetic, hard-working man who will tirelessly advocate for the city," said Long, a DFLer who flip-flopped on whether to abide by the party's endorsement, which went to current Council Member Jay Benanav.

He said his supporters urged him to stay in the race. "I became convinced that people don't care about party endorsement; they just want the best person for the job."

Long, 43, emphasized to potential voters that his enthusiasm and years of city government experience make him the best candidate to succeed Norm Coleman, who is not seeking reelection.

At the Hillcrest Recreation Center in the Highland Park neighborhood, the heart of the ward he represented on the City Council from 1988 to 1994, Long told a group of card-playing seniors that working to build the center was one of his proudest accomplishments. As mayor, Long said, he would give top priority to issues important to seniors -- such as assisted housing.

His remarks helped convince Peter Terwilliger, a retired chemical engineer, that he should vote for Long. "He got things done on the council," Terwilliger said. "He's a fairly good politician, and he'll be good [as mayor]."

During that recent day sprinting through neighborhoods from Highland Park to the East Side to the Midway, Long shared his message of neighborhood revitalization, entrepreneurial development and fiscal responsibility in hopes of persuading undecided voters to support him. He met several backers, but others were less receptive when he interrupted bridge games and private conversations over coffee to deliver his spiel.

Long, who has worked as an attorney, entrepreneur and marketing-firm owner, and after failed races for mayor and Ramsey County Attorney during the 1990s is unapologetic about seizing a good opportunity to promote the politician in quest of a comeback. Leaving a downtown building recently, he stumbled across a group of residents from the W. 7th Street neighborhood protesting the city's handling of complaints about the Gopher State ethanol plant. He sided with the residents, and quickly positioned himself within range of a TV camera.

"I think like a marketer," Long said later. "And the mayor is the No. 1 marketer of the city."

While on the City Council, Long rose to prominence after promoting a plastics-packaging ban in St. Paul that spurred recycling programs. He was an early advocate of a part-time council and pushed for a half-cent sales tax to pay for neighborhood improvements -- now called the STAR program. In those years, he was at once lauded as a hard worker and accused of being a political opportunist.

Long, whose mayoral campaign also is targeting voters through direct mailings, said he wasn't always interested in politics. A self-described hippie who says he lost his way in the mid 1970s, Long said he didn't even vote in the 1976 presidential election. It wasn't until after he'd spent six months traveling through Europe by train that he realized how little he knew about how the government worked at home.

"European students knew a lot more about my own country than I did -- and they all spoke a second language," Long recalled. "I came back determined to get involved in politics."

He got his feet wet at the state DFL convention in 1978, and was elected student body president at Macalester College after moving to St. Paul from his native St. Peter, Minn., in early '79. Before entering the University of Minnesota Law School, he worked as an aide to former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer. He also learned Spanish along the way.

Latimer has thrown his support behind Benanav, but he said Long probably would be an effective mayor. "He is bright, very likable, very personable," Latimer said.

Long's other major opponents are Republican City Council Member Jerry Blakey; former City Council Member Bobbi Megard, a DFLer; state Sen. Randy Kelly, also a DFLer; and independent Bob Kessler, former city licensing director.

Like most of the other leading candidates, Long gives high marks to Coleman for enriching downtown. But he said it's time to shift the city's attention to largely neglected neighborhoods.

Although he isn't the only mayoral hopeful touting the virtues of neighborhood redevelopment, Long has produced one of the meatier proposals to create jobs and housing. He wants to form a neighborhood redevelopment corporation to leverage private and nonprofit capital to finance commercial and housing development, much like the successful St. Paul Riverfront Corporation did for the downtown core.

His plan calls for St. Paul to develop close ties with businesses, foundations and various associations to raise "millions of dollars of private investment."

Among his initiatives are offering financial incentives for developers to build housing for working families and seniors, and providing loan guarantees for banks issuing below-rate mortgages to first-time home buyers.

Another top priority, he said, would be to lure a mix of entrepreneurs to the city. He wants to make St. Paul "the high-tech, small-business start-up capital of this Midwestern area."

Ethnic businesses would benefit under his proposal, Long told restaurateur Keng Young. The business owner, who also works as a third-grade teacher, asked Long how he could go about securing a low-interest city loan to expand his Asian eatery on University Avenue.

"If I was mayor, I'd have a small-business office for you," Long assured him. When Young said he lived in Blaine, the candidate responded between bites of egg rolls: "But your business is in St. Paul," and gave him a city number to call for assistance.

Outside, Long greeted a man selling Hmong-language CDs. "I want to turn this area into an international village," he told the man. "I want to work closely with Hmong business owners."

Later, Long said he already has pulled together a group of University Avenue entrepreneurs to advise him on the best way to accomplish that goal. The concept of an international or Asian village has been discussed for years without tangible results.

"If we take a fraction of the money we're spending on bricks and flowers for the downtown core, we can beautify University Avenue," Long said. "I want to make it a destination location."

That's not to say he wouldn't keep building on the triumphs of downtown development, Long said. He proposes creating a "Great Mississippi Trail" -- akin to the Freedom Trail in Boston -- that would link popular downtown attractions with historic sites, natural areas and public art throughout St. Paul.

Long also pledged a fiscally responsible administration that would hold the line on property taxes. The candidate's plans include forming a commission with members of the City Council and the Ramsey County Board to consider consolidating city and county services to avoid "double taxation of St. Paul residents."

And he wants the mayor's office to take a stronger role in education. As the city's leader, Long said, he would call an "education summit" of school officials, community groups and business people to explore ways to improve the education of the state's future work force.

"The responsibility for educating our kids goes way beyond the School District," Long said. "We've got to have a community fully engaged in understanding that it's a communitywide responsibility."