Personnel Committee Interview and Council Agenda Session - May 8, 2025
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Personnel Committee Interview and Council Agenda Session - May 8, 2025
The Duluth City Council’s Personnel Committee met on May 8, 2025, to interview Patina Keppers for appointment to the NQT2SLGBIA (LGBTQ+) Commission. Following the interview, the full council convened an agenda session to review resolutions, ordinances, and other items scheduled for the May 12, 2025 council meeting. No final votes were taken during this session.
Personnel Committee Interview
- Applicant: Patina Keppers (she/her) – former chair and six-year member of the Duluth Human Rights Commission; graduate of UMD in anthropology and criminology; 20 years of DEI work including children’s rights in Ethiopia and 10 years at Marshall School leading DEIB programming; co-facilitates the school’s LGBTQ+ Spectrum group; member of the Motherpuckers hockey group.
- Interest: Keppers noted the commission has four vacancies and has struggled to achieve quorum. She wants to help make the commission functional and strengthen LGBTQ+ representation in Duluth.
- Responses to Council Questions:
- Greatest challenge: Quorum and lack of visibility into past work; plans to start by working with the city to assess strengths and weaknesses.
- Homelessness and housing discrimination among queer/trans youth: Believes community-building and compassion are key, not just policy. Suggested partnering with organizations like Life House and Trans Northland, and cited a trans experience panel she helped organize at Marshall School.
- DEI example: Creating a new social entrepreneurship, justice, and law program at Marshall School grounded in DEIB work.
- Conflict of interest: None.
- Outcome: Chair Nowl confirmed Keppers’ appointment resolution will appear on the next council cycle, with a vote expected on May 26 or 27, 2025.
Council Agenda Session – Discussion Items
The following items were read into the record and discussed briefly. Several councilmembers requested additional information before the May 12 meeting.
- Resolution 404 (Cannabis fees): Amends 2025 fee schedule for cannabis license registration and temporary event fees. Micro business registration is $0 initially, rising to $1,000 at second renewal. Fees are state-mandated. (Counselor Mayo clarified.)
- Resolution 410 (EPA freshwater mission): Requests EPA and Federal Administration preserve Duluth’s Office of Research and Development and its freshwater mission. Councillor Durwachter emphasized the unique research on Lake Superior and St. Louis River.
- Personnel items (Res. 355, 395):
- Sustainability officer classification update – no material change in duties; grade and pay adjusted after civil service review. Position currently filled by interim; will be posted after approval.
- Appointment of Nicholas Bayouke to Planning Commission.
- Public Works (Res. 400–408):
- Permanent easements from University of Minnesota in Chester Park/UMD neighborhood (items 7-8, pulled for abstention by someone).
- Sole source purchase of natural gas regulator heater from Nelson Technologies ($339,366.55).
- Lead service line replacement contract awarded to Mincom Utility Construction (Mora, MN) for $1,165,250.50 – competitively bid, lowest bid.
- Settlement in Habhager v. City of Duluth for $33,000.
- Recreation, Libraries & Authorities (Res. 399–405):
- Amendment to Spirit Mountain snowmobile trail contract – increase of $242,421.28 due to pandemic cost spikes and federally declared disasters; funded by FEMA and state legacy parks & trails funds.
- Demolition of Norton Park Community Center ($78,950).
- Three-year agreement with Campbell Productions to operate Park Point Beach House: Campbell retains 80% of event rental revenues, city receives 20%, net financial impact identical to prior arrangement (city staffed before). Public bathroom access question deferred.
- Ordinances (2nd reading):
- Item 15: Rezoning parcel from R1 to RP in the Kenwood area. Questions raised about “material adverse effects” and “spot zoning”; administration promised written answers before May 12.
- Items 16-18: Electric line easements to Minnesota Power for nominal consideration.
Key Outcomes
- Patina Keppers’ appointment to the NQT2SLGBIA Commission will proceed to a council vote on May 26 or 27, 2025.
- All agenda items will be formally considered at the May 12, 2025 council meeting. Additional information requested by councilmembers will be provided before that meeting.
- Cover memos on agenda items were praised by councilmembers for improving clarity.
Meeting Transcript
To the issues of homophobia and transphobia to provide consultation to the Office of Human Rights on complaints that involve gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and conversion therapy to encourage and attract uh NQT and queer businesses to the city of Duluth to assist those businesses located in the Duluth and to promote economic development, especially job creation in the city, and to provide consultation and support on improving healthcare accessibility, gender affirming care for the NQT2 spirit LGBT, LGB AI community. The regular meetings of the commission are held typically on the first Wednesday of the month at City Hall. And with that, currently we have four vacancies. Thank you so much, Ms. Keppers, for coming in today to interview with us. My name is Azre Nowl. I serve as an at-large uh city counselor for the city of Duluth. I will be going through some kind of pre-written questions, uh set questions that we have, and then we'll open it up to counselors to ask for further questions. Um and before we begin, would you just like to introduce yourself? Um just a j generic uh just generically introduce yourself. We're gonna get into your kind of your background and your experience later. But yeah, I'll give you the mic. Sure. Just yeah, very briefly, Patina Keppers, she her pronouns. Um I've worked in like DEI B related work for two decades now since I started my career in children's rights, and have served the city before on the human rights commission as chair for a couple of years and then total of six years uh and stepped down from that recently. So um looking to re-engage in city work, and that's very brief, but that is me in a nutshell. Thank you so much. Um why are you interested? Well, let's start with your educational background. Uh please give a brief outline of your educational lived experience, work experience. How will your background experience and your lived experience be a benefit and potentially your personal strengths that you would bring to the NQT commission? Sure. So um human rights has been my focus since university. I studied at UMD over 20 years ago now. Um push the mic forward as well. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Can you hear me now? Can you uh bring it a little closer? Is this good? Yes. Okay. So um, yeah, so I'm a graduate of UMD. I studied anthropology and criminology at the school with a cult with a focus on cultural anthropology and really like international human rights. I did Europe work there, so I took on additional research, worked with professors there, and really studied on human rights with a concentration on children. Um so professionally, I actually entered the workforce right away with my dream job working internationally. Uh, started in Ethiopia with a nonprofit there, um, securing children's rights, particularly children who were outside of parental care, so working with orphan and vulnerable children specifically. So I did similar work to that for about 10 years, so working to secure um the right of kids to be in family care and outside of institutional care and really trying to guarantee safety. So I've been based out of Duluth now for the past gosh 16 or 17 years, um, while I continue to work internationally and travel for that work, and I've been at Marshall School for the past almost 10 years now, working with international students and also um working to expand its DEIB programming over the last 10 years. So I'm leading that work now with the institution. Um I co-facilitate our LGBTQ group and have done so for the past five or six years with um a faculty member and have worked with human rights as far as the city goes for six years again with the human rights commission. Um I really enjoyed that work. Um I enjoyed um just being able to be in community with people who were focused on similar things and similar ideologies and having similar ideologies, I should say. Um, as far as um educational background specifically, I continue to you know learn as we all do through literature and lived experience myself as a member of the queer community. So um, yeah, I'm just always looking to expand my knowledge base about what it means to be human, and yeah, I'm looking to step up in this particular way right now. Thank you, Miss Keppers, for your um just your brief um background and education, and thank you for your service on the human rights commission and your continued service um with the city as you're interested in serving on this board. Um, if you could further elaborate on why you're interested in serving on this particular board. Sure. Um well I see that there's a need for positions, and so um in looking at um my interests and just kind of like my personal lived experience.
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