According to this obituary, Kordiak died at his home in Florida on February 5. He was 93.
Following his loss in an initial bid for a State House of Representatives seat in 1950, Kordiak won election to the county board in 1954. He’d run across both Anoka and Isanti Counties for the state house district.
“I came down real strong in the south end of the county,” he told an interviewer with the Anoka Co. Historical Society as part of an oral history recording in 2009. “That’s why…I ran for county commissioner.”
Photo Courtesy: Anoka Co. Historical Society
He held the seat for 32 years, and, along the way, he took credit for helping create the county administrator and county engineer positions, and he helped start the county parks system. Al Kordiak Park bears his name in his native Columbia Heights.
Al and his son, Jim, who succeeded him on the county board in 1986, ran a tax business in Columbia Heights for many decades before the family re-located to Florida upon Jim’s retirement in 2018.
“I worked pretty hard,” said Al about his time on Board of Commissioners. “If Jim hadn’t agreed to run, I probably would have run again.”
When he retired in 2018 (succeeded by current County Commissioner Mandy Meisner), Jim Kordiak said voters always knew how to rely on the Kordiaks to have their voices heard.
“They always knew, throughout these many decades, that the Kordiaks–collectively–would do whatever we can to serve their needs and interests,” Jim Kordiak said.
Services for Al Kordiak were held on February 17 and he was buried at Saint Anthony Cemetery in Minneapolis.
