2026 Election: West St. Paul City Council

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We talked with candidates running for West St. Paul City Council and mayor—races that are all uncontested. Our candidate questionnaire covers priorities, uncontested races, prevailing wage, city facilities, and more.

• More: See our full voter’s guide for information on other local races.

Race profile: West St. Paul City Council is a non-partisan position elected to a four-year term. The mayor is a two-year term. Council candidates represent one of three wards while the mayor represents all of West St. Paul.

Who’s running:

• Mayor: Dave Napier (no website) – An incumbent first elected in 2018 as mayor and 2012 as Council, Napier is the general manager of a plumbing and HVAC company.
• Ward 1: Pat Armon (no website) – An incumbent recently elected in 2022 and previously served 2013-2016, Armon manages a unit at DEED that implements capital projects.
• Ward 2: John Justen – An incumbent first elected in 2018, Justen is the owner of Eclipse Music.
• Ward 3: Wendy Berry – An incumbent first elected in 2018, Berry works as the interim co-president of Literacy Minnesota.
• Editor’s note: Napier missed our deadline for candidate responses, but we’re including them anyway to be helpful to voters.

Note: All four races are uncontested.

Candidate Questions

We asked the candidates a series of six questions and asked them to respond in 250 words or less. The questions cover priorities, the increase in uncontested races, prevailing wage, housing, city facilities, and immigration response.

Priorities: What are your two to three top priorities and how will you address those issues to actually accomplish something?

David Napier: My top priorities are fiscal responsibility, infrastructure, and protecting our local revenue tools. First, I will keep our tax levy increase as low as possible each year by limiting new programs and finding efficiencies, while continuing our track record of securing grant funding rather than relying solely on property taxes. Second, I will keep our street and sidewalk improvement plan on schedule, because well-maintained infrastructure protects property values and keeps residents safe. Third, I will work with our state legislators to extend our local sales tax, which is dedicated specifically to funding local road projects and lets us tackle street improvements without placing that burden on property taxes. Delivering on these means staying actively engaged with our legislative delegation, holding staff and myself accountable to budget targets, and continuing to pursue outside funding before asking residents for more.

Pat Armon: Promote redevelopment, retain businesses and attract new ones.  I will continue to support city financing and any other financing tool to accomplish these goals.  The city does not have control over lower interest rates, but hopefully those are coming as that will be the single largest way that further development, business retention and growth will progress.  As a virtually fully developed city, redevelopment is by far the best way for the city to expand our tax base. 

I have been very clear over my 8 years in office that a clean city is level 1 for Maslow’s Hierarchy of city needs.  I have done all I can to spread the word about pitching in to keep litter down and support additional measures to keep Robert Street and the city as clean as possible.     

If a city gets a reputation for being run down or dirty, it is very expensive and tough to turn that label around.  A negative judgment would impact property values and businesses wanted to relocate or stay in town. 

Per the Facilities question below: We need to look at all options for financing, potential partnerships and even locations to address facility needs.  This would include looking outside of the normal boxes. 

John Justen: My top priorities are:

•  moving forward with the 150 Thompson Park project, including the amphitheater/bandshell feature.
• Maintaining control of levy growth in the near and far term.  

Meeting these priorities requires thoughtful, strategic work to ensure balanced economic policy. City staff and the council are prepared and ready to accomplish this. One example of this was finally hiring a grant specialist to minimize city costs in many areas. I also personally advocated to find a cost effective way to approach the West St. Paul Pool renovation, prioritizing keeping the pool open over adding amenities that would have added considerable cost. 

Wendy Berry: Continuing to move forward with 150 Thompson is at the top of my list. We’ve been through the wringer with that spot of land, and I want the city to be proud of how it ends up without increasing the levy. We’ll need to be creative with outside funding to make sure the park can hit a lot of the things residents prioritized during the engagement process, which can look like grants or establishing new partnerships. My other priority is planning for the larger-scale projects that need to happen and making sure we have a sensible plan to pay for them. In order to continue providing the level of services our residents are used to while balancing larger capital projects like a fire and/or police station and increased costs to labor and supplies, we need to make sure we’re continuing to keep an eye out well into the future so we’re not met with large costs all at once. We’ve started on this approach with city staff, and continuing to keep it in mind is important.

Uncontested: 39% of West St. Paul’s elections have been uncontested going back to 1988 and all four local races are uncontested this year (possibly a historical first). What does that say about civic engagement and what (if anything) should the city do about it?

David Napier: I think it’s likely a combination of both, but I lean toward the first: our current elected officials are doing a good job, and residents generally feel the city is being run well and their voices are being heard. That said, low contest rates shouldn’t be mistaken for low civic engagement. I see strong turnout at community events, open houses, and neighborhood gatherings. We have seen record amounts of applications to serve on committees and boards. This level of engagement should lead to more people stepping up for an elected position. I will keep making sure residents feel informed and connected, so that whether or not a race is contested, people still feel invested in local government.

Pat Armon: This is a question more for those who have thought about running and have not followed through.   Campaigning is expensive, time consuming, and having to put oneself out there in a climate of heavy social media attention can be far from appealing for many.  I think that is the largest problem.  Currently we have a council and mayor where everyone contributes, adds great value, respect each other’s differences, and have campaigned for office for the right reasons.  I don’t see uncontested races as a problem until that dynamic changes.  I would be more concerned about people being motivated to run who have axes to grind, do it on whim, overestimate the role and power of council or mayor in the city charter, or have agendas that take precedence over what is best for the city.    

John Justen: I don’t think that uncontested elections are the only litmus test for if a community is civically engaged. In fact, I believe that our City is exceedingly civically engaged. West Saint Paul’s Commissions and Committees are made up entirely of volunteers and fully staffed. Our community showed up for their neighbors and schools during the ICE occupation, organizing, donating, and delivering food, Explore West St Paul days has grown. As a council member, residents call, email, stop me at the grocery store to share their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. These are all indications of a civically engaged community. We can only guess why this election is uncontested. It could indicate that, overall, residents feel that the council and city are moving in a good direction. It could also be that the compensation rate for serving on City Council makes the position less tenable or desirable to residents. There may be other reasons. I just don’t think that a lack of civic engagement is one of them.

Wendy Berry: An uncontested ballot doesn’t equal a lack of engagement, especially not in West St. Paul. If you look at how many people apply for our committees and commissions, show up at events to engage with their neighbors, and even come to council meetings to provide comments on something, you see that we have an unparalleled community when it comes to civic engagement. Other cities don’t have that. The escalated level of public discourse is something that’s become a deterrent to people being interested in holding a public office. Threats of physical violence and harassment, not only for a candidate or elected official, but for their families is something people take note of and can easily decide it’s not worth it. This certainly isn’t unique to West St. Paul, and cities around the county have seen the same thing. To boost engagement to a younger demographic, I rolled out the junior councilmember program two years ago for high school students to sit on our council and be a part of the process. I think we can continue to lift up the work our committees do, so people can see how big of an impact can also be made there.         

Prevailing wage: West St. Paul is one of the few cities in the state that require prevailing wage for projects with local subsidies, and this became a flash point during the 150 Thompson project. Why should West St. Paul take this stance when most of our neighbors don’t? Do you support prevailing wage?

David Napier: I don’t believe the city should be involved in dictating what private contractors pay their employees, that’s not our role, and it’s why most neighboring cities don’t have an ordinance like ours. On the 150 Thompson project, holding the developer to our ordinance reduced the public benefit we could negotiate, including a beautiful public park.

Pat Armon: I continue to support our current policy of negotiated exceptions to the prevailing wage to be possible for high value projects on a case by case basis. 

John Justen: To be fair, I think the real question is why many of our neighboring cities do not support prevailing wage. If you support the workers in your community on paper but not in reality, that is a problem. Prevailing wage standards have been part of WSP for a long time, and I’m very proud of that. Regarding the 150 Thompson Park project – due to fiscal constraints I had long conversations with both labor leaders and city staff to negotiate a compromise. The result of those conversations both protected prevailing wage and decreased costs for West St. Paul taxpayers.

Wendy Berry: Yes. I support it, and have since the first time the idea to repeal it was brought up a few years ago. When I make decisions on behalf of our city, my first priority isn’t to do what our neighbors do or don’t do – it’s to do what’s right for West St. Paul. When we put public money into a project, it’s important that we have a stance on what we expect from a partner. As someone who’s spent over 15 years in HR and labor relations, my expectations will always include a job site where people are paid and treated fairly and are safe on their worksite, especially when those things are taking place in a community I call home. When we’re looking at multi-million dollar projects, we deserve to have it done right with as little risk as possible. The recent council decisions on this allowed us to enhance the protections we can enforce as a city when it comes to people working in our city on the projects that are making an impact on our community.

Housing: How do you evaluate housing projects and determine what’s realistic and worth supporting? Do you support more affordable housing in West St. Paul?

David Napier: I evaluate housing projects primarily on whether they grow our tax base and fit the character and needs of our neighborhoods. Given how much affordable housing West St. Paul has already added, I don’t currently support new multi-family affordable housing developments. I think we’ve done our share. That said, I remain a strong supporter of our current and future Habitat for Humanity projects, which build homeownership opportunities in a way I think fits our community well.

Pat Armon: Our first priority in housing should be preserving and improving the housing we already have.  I evaluate all housing projects on a case by case basis.  There are a myriad of factors to weigh for housing and each project has different factors to consider.  My priorities in the vetting process focus on tax base impact and what is best for the respective neighborhoods and city after the myriad of factors I referred to are taken into consideration.  

John Justen: Unfortunately, the current state and federal rules regarding affordable housing development are not effective when it comes to creating actual affordable housing. Commonly, rent in an “affordable” apartment building is only $100 or less per month than rent in a market rate apartment with higher finishes and amenities. This system simply isn’t working for tenants. It is working for developers. We need large scale changes at the state and federal level, which I have advocated for. To address the question specifically, “realistic and worth supporting” often falls outside of the city’s purview.  The city and council are held to strict legal parameters when it comes to what we can and can’t do when approving or denying a project. It’s often frustrating, for residents and for those of us at the table. 

Wendy Berry: Yes, I want more affordable housing in West St. Paul, but I want something that’s deeply affordable for the service professionals, students, or teachers that want to live in West St. Paul. As we continue adding housing stock in general, it helps our work toward creating more naturally evolving affordable housing, but that’s still not a solution for everyone with the current formulas that are setup to determine what affordable actually means. Locally, this is a hard fix because we’re relying on federal, state, and even county entities to make a shift in how they approach the programs that define what’s “affordable”. We can’t finance this sort of housing on our own, despite trying to figure out a way to make it happen by exploring multiple partnerships and being creative with our LAHA dollars. The amount of buildable space in our city continues to decrease, so the projects I want to go to bat for are ones that include partners that have a record of working collaboratively with cities, not only during the initial planning phases but after people start to call it home.

Facilities: The city is exploring new facilities for the fire department, police department, and city hall, with decisions likely being made in the next term. There are no project specifics yet, but other cities have seen huge costs and lots of resident pushback. How will you balance the needs of the city and the cost for residents?

David Napier: We’ve clearly identified facility needs, and as a first-ring suburb with aging buildings, keeping up with them is a real challenge. Meeting current safety standards for police and fire isn’t optional. Falling behind puts our officers and firefighters at risk and hurts our ability to recruit and retain quality staff. We have a great team today, but that won’t last if we don’t act. I’ll balance resident cost concerns with these safety needs by being transparent about trade-offs early, phasing projects where possible, and pursuing grants and partnerships to reduce what falls on the tax levy, but we can’t keep deferring facilities that affect public safety and the safety of our police and firefighters.

Pat Armon: We need to keep our facilities up and can do it without some huge costs that other cities have seen.  Unfortunately, the facilities mentioned are old and not acting soon will just lead to even more costs in the future.  Any homeowner can tell you that putting off repairs into the years ahead never makes things less expensive.  Right now, our firefighters are not being provided with enough gear to keep them safe, and our police department was built for a smaller population and less demand for service.  We should continue to look at ways to partner with our neighboring communities on sharing services to make things more affordable, while still being something worthy of today’s standards. 

John Justen: First things first, it’s important to remember that costs do not go down over time. Delaying necessary updates to city infrastructure has never been an effective cost-saving strategy. The fire station is at a critical stage and needs attention for the safety of our first responders. The police force is operating to the best of its ability in the current station despite significant limitations caused by the facility. A top concern for our residents is public safety and we need to respect that. As for city hall, we need to consider what is fiscally responsible by examining the cost of maintaining an older building versus the cost of incorporating it in a potential future project.

Wendy Berry: I was in favor of moving forward with a facilities study because it makes sense. We know we’re behind in the updates that are needed for our police and fire departments, and our city hall is already a tight space. We all have opinions on how we should prioritize things, and a facilities study will take it from guessing to truly understanding what we’re up against. We already know it won’t be a small investment based on how we’ve seen construction costs rise on smaller-scale projects and watching the math add up in other cities. At the same time, our police and fire departments run 24 hours a day, and not having safe, functional facilities for those folks isn’t acceptable given the expectations we have of our public safety people. Knowing a levy impact will be likely to fully fund what we’ll need, it will be crucial for us to lean on partnerships, which we’ve already seen big wins with over the past several years by combining training opportunities or sharing equipment. In my 8 years on the South Metro Fire Department Board, we’ve gotten ahead of this by studying response times and how they’re impacted by things like fire station location and firefighters per shift. Because of that, I’m confident any decisions we make will take those things into consideration. We also can’t stop doing everything else while we explore this – roads will still need work and routine maintenance can’t be ignored. Balance will be vital.

Immigration: West St. Paul saw significant impacts from the increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations earlier this year, including closed businesses, students missing school, protests, and law enforcement conflicts. How do you rate the city’s response and what should the city do in future conflicts?

David Napier: I am committed to making sure all our residents feel safe, respected, and able to go about daily life. I also support our police department working with federal agencies to catch criminals, including those who are in this country illegally. We have always worked with our federal partners, and that has been our practice. In future situations, I’d want the city to keep communicating clearly with residents and businesses and make sure our schools and community organizations have the support they need. Overall, I think the city responded reasonably to a difficult situation, and I’ll keep listening to residents and law enforcement to refine that response going forward.

Pat Armon: The city was put in an extremely difficult position with something never seen before and hopefully will never be seen again.  Many in the community thought that the city had resources and power to respond to the worst of the surge that we simply did not have.  That misunderstanding simply added to the challenge.  I was hoping for more state, regional and philanthropic assistance during metro surge and hope that more of it would come if this nonsense ever happens in the future. 

John Justen: I am proud about the city’s response to the ICE occupation. After all emergency events, the City should complete an after-action review, to identify what went well, and what we need to better prepare for in the future. That is emergency management and the best we can do for such an unprecedented event. “What should the city do in future conflicts” is an unanswerable question. We keep our policies and procedures updated to meet current circumstances, and remain responsive to our community as needs arise.

Wendy Berry: Our police chief put it best. ICE came into town with a playbook nobody knew – not in West St. Paul, or anywhere in Minnesota. I’d say the city handled it well. Our staff got clear information out fast, to us and to the public, which mattered enormously when there were so many other communication channels people were using to share information. The part I’m proudest of isn’t the official city statement or what we voted on during meetings. I was most proud of how our community stepped up for one another, and that often included city staff, council, police, and fire, but it was because they care about their neighbors. I have no clue what might show up next or how big it could be, but seeing the relationships continuing to stand strong between the city, ISD 197, churches, residents, and our business community tells me that those partnerships have only grown stronger.

Lightning Round

We asked candidates a series of 10 simple questions and asked them to respond briefly in 25 words or less.

1. Do you have a library card? When did you last use it?

• David Napier: Yes my wife has one; I use it too. Last used it just before the recent renovations.
• Pat Armon: Yes. On August 26 at the Wentworth Library to check out “Revenge Prey” by John Sandford.
• John Justen: Yes; I used it today. I have 33 items checked out right now, if that’s any indication of my library usage.
• Wendy Berry: Yes. I used it last week when a memoir I’d been waiting for became available.

2. Do you support the ISD 197 voter levy? 

• David Napier: Not relevant to my role.
• Pat Armon: I always have in the past.  My current attention is focused on city issues and budget.  I will determine my vote closer to election day. 
• John Justen: I do personally, but it’s always important to remember that the city and the school district are distinct and separate entities.
• Wendy Berry: Yes, especially as a parent of two kids in the district.

3. Have you volunteered in your community in the past year? Where?

• David Napier: Yes cleanup days, litter pickup at bus stops, food shelf meal packing, and serving 400+ military families twice a year.
• Pat Armon: Yes.  Community litter pickup efforts over 8 years. I do dishes for church meals along with other church volunteering and keep my neighborhood clean.   
• John Justen: I routinely provide sound equipment at no charge to a variety of community and school events.
• Wendy Berry: Yes, with WSP Pride, Moreland PTA, Knock Out Hunger Border Battle, other political campaigns, several spots during Operation Metro Surge.

4. Did you support taking down the Flock cameras? 

• David Napier: 80% Supportive
• Pat Armon: Yes, but I am open to the cameras coming back if concerns with accuracy, misuse of the data and data sharing are rectified.   
• John Justen: Yes I did. I have absolute faith in our police department and their conduct, but Flock is not the answer, now or in the future.
• Wendy Berry: Yes, and I want to reiterate that my mistrust was not with our police department at all. It was squarely with Flock.

5. Have you attended city events in a non-campaign capacity in the past year? Which ones?

• David Napier: WSP Days, ribbon cuttings, WSP Rider, Night to Unite, neighborhood gatherings, project open houses, and senior events at Thompson Park Activity Center.
• Pat Armon: Yes.
• John Justen: I am a sitting councilmember, local business owner, parent, and neighbor. Any event I attend I carry these identities and happily engage as needed.
• Wendy Berry: Yes, as I have for the last 8 years. I go to connect with my neighbors as a person.

6. Do you support more pedestrian and bike access?

• David Napier: Generally, yes.
• Pat Armon: Yes.  The city continues to work on this wherever it makes sense and is economically viable. 
• John Justen: This won’t shock anyone, but absolutely. I think my voting record shows my commitment and that has not changed.
• Wendy Berry: Yes.

7. What’s your favorite local park?

• David Napier: Marthaler Park.
• Pat Armon: Marthaler, especially in the fall and for sledding in the winter. 
• John Justen: Call me biased, but the new Kennedy Park is fantastic.
• Wendy Berry: Marthaler has turned into my favorite with the upgrades made to the south side of the park.

8. Do you support displaying the new state flag at city buildings?

• David Napier: We are flying it
• Pat Armon: Yes
• John Justen: Yes.
• Wendy Berry: Yes.

9. Who is someone that inspires you?

• David Napier: My wife, Suzie.
• Pat Armon: Anyone who steps up to help the city and its people.  Especially those who do not call attention to themselves in the process. 
• John Justen: Honestly, our entire staff inspires me. They care deeply about this community and without them I couldn’t do this job.
• Wendy Berry: My kids, my wife, my neighbors, my fellow councilmembers in WSP and across the state.

10. Do you use social media to connect with the community?

• David Napier: I don’t use it to communicate, but I monitor it for birthdays, obituaries, and community happenings.
• Pat Armon: I am not very active with posting on social media.  The city has enhanced its social media and can reach many more people. 
• John Justen: I have a campaign social media presence, but honestly most people either call, email, or stop by the store to connect with me.
• Wendy Berry: Intermittently. I’d rather pick up the phone, send an email, or talk in person than try to read something into a post.

More Information

See our full local voter’s guide for information on more races and candidates.

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