Choi resigns as City Attorney to focus on County Attorney race

The following text is from a letter sent to Mayor Chris Coleman regarding John's decision to resign from the City Attorney's office to focus on his campaign for Ramsey County Attorney.

 

April 2, 2010

 

The Honorable Christopher B. Coleman

390 City Hall

15 West Kellogg Blvd. 

Saint Paul, MN  55102 

 

Re: John Choi Letter of Resignation

 

Dear Mayor Coleman:

 

I am writing to inform you of my decision to resign as City Attorney for the City of Saint Paul effective April 16, 2010.  This was a very hard decision for me to make but I am convinced that my decision is what is best for the City of Saint Paul and the City Attorney’s Office.

 

Good public leaders consistently do what is best for others and the public.  This is my leadership moment and I am choosing to step aside and focus my attention on getting elected County Attorney and allow for new leadership in the City Attorney’s Office.

 

Your decision to appoint me as City Attorney in December of 2005 has changed my life in a profound way.  You have given me the opportunity to lead and make a difference in our community.  My family and I are so grateful to you for giving an immigrant like me a chance to contribute so greatly to our community.

 

You recently mentioned to me that I have exceeded all of your expectations as your City Attorney.  I am really humbled by and take great pride in your confidence and assessment of my performance as a public leader.  I have capably met the many challenges of running a public law agency and prosecution office and it was a great honor to have been recently recognized by my colleagues from around the country for my leadership as the Saint Paul City Attorney.

 

Over the past four years, we have been successful in making Saint Paul a more safer and livable community for all people.  I am most proud of our accomplishments in the following areas:

  1. Being the first city to initiate successful civil gang injunction lawsuits against criminal gangs in the State of Minnesota
  2. Developing a “Blueprint for Safety” in Saint Paul for handling domestic abuse cases.  Because of this initiative we have dramatically cut down the time it takes us to charge “gone on arrival” cases.
  3. Establishing an effective Driver Diversion Program without direct expense to taxpayers to better deal with the revolving door of people who are driving without a valid license.  Because of this initiative more than 500 people are now driving legally with insurance and are on a responsible path toward paying off all of their outstanding fees and fines.
  4. Establishing a bad check diversion program without direct expense to taxpayers that has resulted in significant victim restitution that otherwise would never have been recovered.
  5. Establishing a National Multi-City Litigation Working Group on Foreclosures that has resulted in strategic information sharing among cities across America on stemming the tide of foreclosures and getting vacant properties occupied again.
  6. Reducing Obstructing Legal Process arrests in Saint Paul by 30% and utilizing restorative justice to make our community and police department stronger.
  7. Providing leadership by bringing people together to help form the new Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity.
  8. Developing affirmative litigation strategies to recover significant taxpayer money such as the Merrill Lynch case and pursuing public nuisance cases such as the one against Diva’s Lounge.
  9. Leading a successful effort to ban imitation replica guns that threaten the safety of police officers and residents.
  10. Effective management of the City’s tort liability and outside counsel budgets that resulted in historic lows over the past four years.
  11. Reorganization of the Criminal Division to add two supervisor positions and a senior prosecutor classification to provide more opportunities for career prosecutors, expansion of the community prosecution program and the establishment of the first elder abuse unit in Minnesota.
  12. Successful negotiation of a landmark city services agreement with the 2008 MSP Host Committee resulting in a $10M insurance policy for police professional liability during the RNC that was not paid for by taxpayers. 

In addition, to all of these initiatives, I am most proud of the fact that overall morale of the office and its performance is exceptionally high and labor management relations are at an ideal place.  This, I believe, was my greatest contribution to the City of Saint Paul during the past four years.  It will be sad to no longer have the honor and privilege of serving the men and women of the City Attorney’s Office.  I will miss the City Attorney’s Office and the important work that we do very much.  But at the end of the day this is not about me, it’s about what is best for the City Attorney’s Office and the public and I have great faith in the future of this organization under your leadership.

 

In closing, I want to personally thank you, your staff, my fellow department directors, and the City Council for all of the support and encouragement each of you have provided to me and the City Attorney’s Office.  I am also indebted to my dedicated staff who worked so hard over the past four years to achieve so many great things.

 

The City of Saint Paul is a great city and your leadership has made all of the difference.  Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

 

Sincerely,

 

John J. Choi

City Attorney