I live here,” Jim Kordiak, 67, said recently from behind his desk.

Now, the tax business has been sold, and the office where sundry hobnobbing and deal-making unfolded for decades will go dark once Jim Kordiak’s term ends in January. Longtime county employees say the younger Kordiak continued his father’s legacy in his own way, from pro bono work helping seniors with property tax credit forms to his dogged commitment to boost the county’s recycling efforts.Ĭountless locals have ventured into their Columbia Heights office looking for help from the industrious, well-connected Kordiaks, who never lost sight of their working-class voter base, according to city and county officials interviewed for this story. In 1986, Jim was elected to his dad’s County Board seat and has held it ever since, also marking 32 years in the job. “They are basically an institution.”Īl Kordiak held up a copy of a newspaper he and his wife Millie were featured in during their younger days.Īl Kordiak, sometimes called the “Godfather of Columbia Heights,” controlled the County Board seat for 32 years and is perhaps best known for his role in creating the Anoka County parks system, the first of its kind in the state. The Kordiaks “were virtually unbeatable,” said former Columbia Heights Mayor Gary Peterson. Jim Kordiak announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election to the board, throwing open his Fourth District seat in a way it really hasn’t been for 64 years.

It also doubled as their Anoka County Board office, where since 1954 the father and son have represented the county’s most urban and diverse pocket, anchored by Columbia Heights and Fridley.īut come November, voters here won’t find a Kordiak on the ballot for the first time in more than half a century.

The boxy brick building on Central Avenue is easy to overlook, upstaged by the pizazz of the historic Heights Theater just across the street.ĭon’t let the dime-a-dozen facade fool you: For decades, this has been a seat of power in Columbia Heights.Īl and Jim Kordiak, father and son, long have run their real estate and income tax business out of the garden-level workplace, where a window sign bears the last name that for years was shorthand for influence in Anoka County.

Dozorcovia by Lukáš Kordiak