# Reparations Commission *Advisory commission of the City of Saint Paul, established by ordinance in 2023* The Reparations Commission is an advisory body of the City of Saint Paul, [[Minnesota]]. The Saint Paul City Council established it by ordinance on February 13, 2023.[^1] The Commission recommends, evaluates, and writes work plans. The City's own reparations page states no amount of city funds appropriated to it.[^1] The ordinance followed Resolution 21-77, which the Council passed on January 13, 2021. In it the City apologized for "the City's role in institutional and structural racism."[^1] The earliest substantial funding reported for the Commission was not a city appropriation. It was a $100,000 private donation from a church, and the city announced that it had accepted the gift as "historic."[^2] Taken together, the record shows a resolution, an ordinance and an advisory body, with no published city line item. The milestone the city announced was a third party's gift.[^1][^2] A project note on the St. Paul city record, dated June 18, 2026, describes the Commission as seated in 2023 and its harm report as still unwritten.[^1] ## Who The Saint Paul City Council passed Resolution 21-77 on January 13, 2021, and established the Commission by ordinance on February 13, 2023.[^1] The record carried here does not name the Commission's members, and it does not record the party affiliation of the council members who voted on either instrument. ## What The City states its purpose in the language of Resolution 21-77: an apology for "the City's role in institutional and structural racism."[^1] Under the 2023 ordinance the Commission's functions are advisory. It recommends, evaluates, and writes work plans.[^1] The project's record lists no power for the Commission to appropriate money or to direct city spending.[^1] ## When - January 13, 2021: the City Council passes Resolution 21-77.[^1] - February 13, 2023: the City Council establishes the Reparations Commission by ordinance.[^1] - As of June 18, 2026: a project note on the city record describes the harm report as still unwritten.[^1] ## How much The City's reparations page states no amount of city funds appropriated to the Commission.[^1] The earliest substantial funding reported was the $100,000 church donation, which the city announced as "historic."[^2] Saint Paul levies property taxes across 55 square miles. The reported figure is a third party's contribution, not the taxing authority's.[^2] The record carried here gives no date for the donation or the announcement. ## In the at-issue record The project's at-issue register pairs the Commission with two federal anchors. The first pair sets Resolution 21-77 and the 2023 ordinance beside the City's own reparations page, which states no appropriation. The project summarises this pair as an ordinance, a commission and no line item, all published by the city itself. Its federal anchor is the January 2025 presidential action on DEI programs and preferencing.[^1] The second pair sets the $100,000 church donation, which the city announced as "historic," beside the absence of a reported city contribution. Its federal anchor is the March 2025 presidential action on fraud, waste and abuse.[^2] Neither anchor names Saint Paul. They are the project's federal reference points, not findings about the Commission. The record does not establish why the city framed the gift as it did. It records the sequence. ## In the Minnesota record The project's catalogue places the 2021 St. Paul resolution in a Minnesota genre it calls [[Acknowledgment theater]]. In the project's own description, this is a state document stamped with a moral verdict and delivered without the machinery that would let the verdict be tested. That characterization is the project's reading, not an established fact. The earliest entry in the lineage the project traces is the 1919 report of the [[Minnesota Commission of Public Safety]]. That report called the Commission's constitutional override "a little rough usage" and filed it under the chapter heading *The Suppression of Disloyalty*. It closed by saying that Minnesota "may justly be proud."[^3] Governor [[Joseph A. A. Burnquist]], who served from 1915 to 1921, chaired that Commission's anti-German enforcement during the First World War.[^4] The project's lineage also includes several later items: - a [[Minneapolis]] "Truth and Reconciliation" process, which the project records as downgraded from "Commission" to "Process" without producing a report; - the University of Minnesota's 2023 TRUTH Report; - [[Executive Order 26-05]] of March 25, 2026. None of these entries is supported here by a citable primary URL. ## Notes [^1]: Executive Office of the President, *Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing* (January 2025). This is the federal anchor the project pairs with the Saint Paul record (at-issue pair AI-Ramsey-045). The Saint Paul facts cited to this note rest on the project's reading of stpaul.gov documents, corroborated by history row HE-0241 and the project's city-record note [40]: Resolution 21-77 of January 13, 2021; the ordinance of February 13, 2023; the advisory functions; and the absence of any stated appropriation. No stpaul.gov URL is among this article's citable sources. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/ [^2]: Executive Office of the President, *Protecting America's Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse* (March 2025). This is the federal anchor the project pairs with at-issue pair AI-Ramsey-046. The $100,000 church donation, the city's "historic" announcement and the 55-square-mile figure rest on the project's reading of stpaul.gov documents. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/protecting-americas-bank-account-against-fraud-waste-and-abuse/ [^3]: Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, *Report of the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety* (1919). Establishes the phrases "a little rough usage" and "may justly be proud," and the chapter heading *The Suppression of Disloyalty*. https://archive.org/details/reportofminnesot00minnrich/page/n5/mode/2up [^4]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, *Joseph A. A. Burnquist* (legislator record). Establishes that Burnquist was Minnesota Governor from 1915 to 1921 and chaired the Public Safety Commission's anti-German enforcement during the First World War. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=10074