St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie filed for office using wrong address, owes $1,200 in parking, traffic tickets

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
Updated ·3 min read
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St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie has more than $1,200 in unpaid parking and speeding tickets dating back to 2021 as well as questions around her sworn affidavit of candidacy, which lists a home address at which she does not reside.

Bowie’s affidavit of candidacy, filed last August with the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, lists her home address as 839 Aurora Ave. in St. Paul. The duplex was one she had attempted to buy but did not ultimately purchase. “She never lived there, no,” said recent property owner Rodney Mulholland, who sold the duplex to a different buyer around April 1.

She won her eight-way race for the Ward 1 seat in November with 40% of the vote, elevating her to a key position to advocate for the Summit-University and Frogtown neighborhoods, as well as parts of adjoining areas.

In a recent interview, Bowie said she lived at 839 Aurora Ave. under a previous landlord when she ran for office in 2019, but later moved to Roseville and currently resides down the block in the house her parents have owned for more than 15 years. She said her family’s roots in the neighborhood go back 100 years.

“I live in Ward 1. My address is (the 800 block) of Aurora,” she said. “I don’t know why that would be in question. I live with my parents.”

Parking violations

Meanwhile, state court records show Bowie was convicted of overstaying a parking meter 11 times last year, with each incident occurring in Minneapolis. On Aug. 18 and Aug. 15, the dates of her latest citations, she also was charged in Minneapolis with having expired license plates, another petty misdemeanor.

Together with a May 2022 speeding ticket at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and a December 2021 parking ticket in downtown St. Paul, she incurred more than $1,330 in fines and late fees in the past three years, all but $75 of which remains unpaid, according to state court records.

The court records show all but two of the tickets have been sent to a collections agency.

Bowie said last week that she had been unaware of the debt but would pay it off.

“This is being brought to my knowledge about parking tickets,” Bowie said. “I can pay my parking tickets.”

Roseville home address

The citations list her home address in the 2700 block of Lexington Avenue North in “St. Paul,” though the address actually corresponds to an apartment and townhome community located near Central Park in Roseville and the Roseville License Center, about two miles north of St. Paul. She registered her political consulting firm, Run Like Harriet, at that address in 2021.

Bowie, who ran for St. Paul’s Ward 1 seat in 2019, said she lived at the Roseville residence after that campaign ended and until the end of 2022, around the time her campaign for St. Paul City Council launched again in earnest.

“It sounds like I haven’t received my tickets because I haven’t changed my address on my driver’s license,” said Bowie, in a recent interview. “I have no problem paying. My taxes go to my (Ward 1) address. My health insurance is connected to my address. Checks in the mail go (there). My most valuable and important documents go to my address.”

Bowie is engaged to Jamael Lundy, who is a campaign worker, attorney and lobbyist for Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office, and recently bought a house in Minneapolis. Bowie last week said the two “obviously spend time” together but “we don’t live together.” She said she was in the process of buying a home in St. Paul.

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