St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has tapped a longtime member of the city council to serve as his environmental policy director.

Ward 4 City Council Member Russ Stark will resign his seat to join Carter’s administration under the title of chief resilience officer, one of 13 internal positions the mayor’s office announced Wednesday that it had filled through staff appointments.

Rather than appoint a chief of staff, Carter has created three positions to serve as his top aides alongside Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher. Joining Stark will be Toni Newborn, chief equity officer, and Tarek Tomes, chief innovation officer.

Stark, who worked last year on Carter’s mayoral campaign, was on the council for 10 years and recently spent three years as council president.

Under former Mayor Chris Coleman, the environmental policy position was held by Anne Hunt, who was not kept on with the change of administration in early January.

Several, but not all, of the mayor’s 13 staff appointments had been previously announced.

The line-up includes Naomi Alemseged, constituent outreach coordinator; Kaohly Her, policy director; Ikram Koliso, policy associate; Peter Leggett, director of communications and marketing; Noel Nix, deputy director of intergovernmental relations and community engagement; Chris Rider, senior aide to the deputy mayor; Camille Tinnin, VISTA leader; LyLy Vang-Yang, policy associate; Liz Xiong, press secretary; ThaoMee Xiong, director of intergovernmental relations; and Daniel Yang, senior policy adviser.

AN APPOINTMENT AND AN ELECTION

In a Ward 4 newsletter announcement to constituents on Wednesday, Stark said he had “mixed emotions” about leaving the office after a decade of service.

“I will have the opportunity to serve the city in a new capacity focused on issues that I am passionate about,” he said.

“The questions I am already asking include: What more can St. Paul do to lessen our carbon footprint? What will make our city more resilient to coming changes? What future climate-related changes could affect St. Paul, and what should we start doing now to get ahead of these issues?”

Stark’s departure creates an unusual opening on the seven-member council. Ward 4, which borders University Avenue’s Green Line corridor from Minnesota 280 to Lexington Parkway, includes all or part of five neighborhoods — Hamline-Midway, Merriam Park, St. Anthony Park, and parts of Mac-Groveland and Como.

Members of the St. Paul Charter Commission say the city council can appoint a member of the public to fill the opening for a few months. A special election to fill the two years remaining on Stark’s unexpired term will likely be held at the time of the gubernatorial political primaries in August.

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The St. Paul DFL will set the date for the Special Ward 4 Endorsing Convention at a Feb. 13 meeting of its Central Committee, said St. Paul DFL Chair Libby Kantner.

Delegates and alternates to the special endorsing convention will be the same as those elected last year to the 2017 Ward 4 Convention.

Stark will begin his new role on Feb. 16. The city council will begin accepting applications for a temporary or interim council member on Friday.