Good afternoon.

My name is Oreen Chowdry, and I'm the Vice Chair of the Committee of the Whole.

I'm going to call our call to order our regular committee meeting for Tuesday, September 9th, 2025.

Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase accessibility of our proceedings to the community.

Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

We ask all speakers to moderate their speed and clarity of their comments.

At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify a presence of a quorum.

Councilmember Payne present.

Wandsley.

It's absent.

Rainville.

Present.

Ellison is absent.

Osman.

Present.

Cashman.

Present.

Jenkins.

Present.

Chibtai.

Present.

Koski.

Present.

Palmasano.

Present.

Vice Chair Chowdhury.

Present.

Chair Chavez.

Present.

There are 11 members present.

Let the ref record reflect we have a quorum.

Today we will begin with reports of our standing committees before we take up our agenda.

We will begin with the administration and enterprise oversight committee chaired by Councilmember Wandsley.

Oh.

Never mind.

We will go to the Vice Chair, Councilmember Palmasano.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I she might walk in any moment here.

Um the Administration and Enterprise Oversight Committee is bringing forward 25 items this cycle.

The first is the surveillance technology contracts ordinance.

The next one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Items two through eight are all gifts acceptances for things like registration, transportation, and lodging for different city staff for professional to professional organization meetings.

Item number nine is a contract with Karen Scow doing business's access resource for real-time video captioning services.

Item number 10 is a contract for ERP planning.

Uh item number 11 is a contract with the CUNY on behalf of John Jay College for technical assistance providers for our group violence intervention program.

Item number 12 is a contract with cornerstone advocacy to operate our 48-hour domestic violence crisis hotline.

Item number 13 is a contract with Darcy Loma for newly elected orientation for four years.

This item was sent forward without a recommendation.

Item number 14 is a utility easement agreement with Northern States Power.

Item 15 is a contract amendment with group health plan and summit orthopedics for pre-employment testing and occupational health services.

Item 16 is a contract amendment with Sheehe for Royal Stone Roofing and Skylight Repair.

Item 17 is a contract amendment with short Elliott Hendrickson for the Nicolette Avenue Bridge over Mini Haha Creek Rehab Project.

Item number 18 is a contract amendment with Stantech for Engineering and Design of Upper Harbor Terminal.

Item 19 is a contract amendment with Hillcrest for public works parking.

Item number 20 is a bid for the federal courthouse parking ramp security improvements project.

Item number 21 is the bid for alley snow plowing.

Item number 22 is public towing services for two of our zones.

Item number 23 is a Minneapolis Convention Center upgrade to the art wall lighting item number 24 is election judge and deputy city clerk appointments for the upcoming election, and item number 25 is a workers' comp claim.

Um, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

And we also have the chair back.

I want to know.

Yes, we'll recognize Councilmember Wandsley uh to the meeting.

And then we do have a couple speakers in queue.

Councilmember Cashman.

Thanks.

Um, Vice Chair Chowdhury.

I wanted to pull the ABM industry groups parking services, Confederate.

We will also be taking that up in our discussion today.

Great on item number five.

And same with item number six from AO and a couple other items.

Wonderful.

Madam Chair, I just want to point out I believe it's because we lost microsphone service at the actual committee.

So we weren't able to properly consider those and forward them for approval, but it's just because we haven't been able to talk about those in public yet.

Thank you.

And I will also note for other members and the public, we will also be taking up items from the public health and safety committee and the intergovernmental relations committee as an addendum due to technical difficulties.

Councilmember Osman.

Yes, I have a question about the violent interrupters and I.

That will also be in our discussion.

Okay, is it a item number six?

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Yes.

Awesome.

Anybody else?

Great.

We will next go to budget.

Um the report will be presented by its chair, Council Vice President Chuck Tai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The budget committee is bringing forward one item on Thursday for the body's approval, which is adopting findings, approving the establishment of and approving the salary schedule for an appointed position in the 311 Service Center Department of Deputy Director 311 Service Center.

I will stand for any questions.

There are no questions.

We will next go to the business housing and zoning committee presented by Councilmember Osman.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

The business committee will be bringing 19 items to this week's city council meeting.

Item one through three, our liquor license for broader North Star Delhi and Minneapolis Motormarked.

Item four is approving the 2025 license fee schedule.

Item five is uh liquor license approvals.

Item six is liquor license renewals, item seven is gambling license approvals.

Item eight is gambling license renewals.

Item nine is a street name change obligation submitted by councilmember Chowderry to change the street name to Edmund Boulevard between 32nd Street East and 42nd Street East, between 44 Street East and 46th Street East to Lane Lena Smith Boulevard.

Item 10 is a new American workforce services grant for employment and training services.

Item 11 is a family housing fund board of directors appointments.

Item 12 is approving the local historic landmark designated to the Nelson House located at 2628th Avenue North.

Item 13 is an update of administration administrative fine schedule.

Item 14 is certified local government grant for preserve MN 2025 conference.

Item 15 is 2025 Hennebean County Transit Oriented Community Award and authorization to multi-juridictional agreement.

Item 16 is the rescue effect of campaign grant for adoption fee waivers.

Item 17 is the zoning map correction ordinance.

Item 18 is returning to the Shoreland Overlay District Mabbing Ordinance.

Item 19 is comprehensive plan amendment related to the minimum height flexibility.

With that, I will stand for any questions.

Thank you.

There are no questions.

We will next go to Climate and Infrastructure Committee and hear the report from its chair, Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Vice Chair Chowdhury.

The Climate and Infrastructure Committee is bringing forward seven items.

Item one is approving appointments to the Shingle Creek Watershed Management Commission.

Item two is approving appointments to the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission.

Item three is a resolution adopting revisions to the snowbound cart policy.

Item four is approving a resolution related to the Lowry Avenue Southeast Street Project.

Item four is sorry, item five is approving the concept layout for the 18th Avenue South Bridge project.

Item six is approving the concept layout for 9th and 10th Street Corridor Improvement Project.

Item 7 is approving the concept layout for Park Ave and Portland Avenue Safety Improvements.

And I'll stand for questions.

There are no questions.

We'll next go to the Intergovernmental Relations Committee and hear the report from its vice chair, Councilmember Rainbow.

Thank you, madam chair.

The Intergovernmental Relations Committee is bringing forward one item for approval.

The Minneapolis St.

Paul International Airport Noise Oversight Committee appointment.

And that is approving the appointment of Lauren Olson as alternate alternate to the Minneapolis St.

Paul International Airport Noise Oversight Committee for a two-year term beginning June 26, 2025 and ending June 25th, 2027.

I'll stand for questions.

Thank you.

And then we would typically go to public health and safety committee, but due to the technical issues at this cycles committee items from that meeting were either postponed or referred to this meeting.

So there is no formal report from the public health and safety committee.

With that, our first four items on the agenda are consent items from last week's public health and safety committee, which again could not meet due to those technical issues.

Item number one is accepting a grant to purchase a clip-on single gas monitors for the fire department.

Item number two is approving a legislative directive related to case clearance rates.

Item number three is approving a legislative directive related to impervious surfaces authored by Councilmember Wandsley.

Regarding this item, I'll note that Councilmember Wansley has a revived revised version of this directive in front of us today.

And finally, item number four is receiving and filing two external appointments to the public health advisory committee.

With that, are there any questions or discussions from committee members?

I will recognize Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chadgery.

As you noted, I just wanted to give context for item number three, which is the impervious surfaces legislative motion.

Of course, you highlighted that I'm bringing a substitute, which is included in the limbs file, and that is technically before council members.

This version was based off of a feedback we received from staff and expands on their original question uh regarding environmental concerns tied to impervious surfaces.

Um since this will not come back until uh 2026.

Uh we have noted that it should return to the proper committee that will be designated at that time since we don't know what that will be, um, as next council gets to shape uh the subjects of you know committees.

So with that, I will ask for a second for that motion to uh amend.

Second.

Great.

Thank you.

That has been motioned and seconded.

We will go to councilmember Cashman.

Thank you.

I wanted to note the police department case clearance rates legislative directive that I'm bringing this cycle.

Uh we've been working on it for quite some time and going back and forth on a date, and ultimately on Thursday, I'll be bringing a version with a date at the end of October for us to understand this information.

It's really important that we have information on our investigations and case clearance in time for our budget proceedings so that we can make um decisions with the data in front of us.

And I'm really interested in creating a culture of accountability around investigations in the city.

We know that someone is less likely to break the law if they know they'll get caught, and that only happens if we have effective investigations in case clearance.

I've seen how timely investigations can break the cycle of retaliatory violence.

And while, on the other hand, repeated unsolved cases can erode the public's trust in our city's public safety system.

So we do have a lot of data published on the city dashboards around crime and other public safety topics, but we do not have data published on investigations and clearance rates and how we're actually solving crime.

So that's why I'm asking for this data to come before the council and again to have this information in a timely way so that we can use it to make decisions about our public safety budget for 2026.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there any other discussion?

Seeing none, I will move approval of the consent agenda on that motion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

No any abstentions.

The ayes have it, and the motion has carried.

Now we will go to the discussion portion of our agenda.

Items five, six, and seven are all from last week's AEO committee.

The first item is a contract agreement with ABM parking services for a municipal parking system.

I believe that some of my colleagues had some questions and comments if they would like to get back into queue for that.

That'd be helpful.

Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Um this contract is for professional management services for our municipal parking system.

It's up to 182 million dollars for a five-year period.

So that's up to 33 million dollars a year.

So the high number on this budget line is what initially caught my attention, and was able to have a good meeting with public works on the topic, and they have since sent over a memo that answers some questions of what's involved in this contract.

So that is now up on limbs for you to view as well.

So a few things that I was struck by.

Um this contract includes the DID assessment that the city pays for our parking ramps.

I wasn't originally aware that public buildings do pay into that assessment, so that was interesting to learn.

And then nearly a million dollars annually in off-duty police time that our parking contract is paying for, which I think we know better traffic control or the private security firm that we already work with should be doing this work.

And then I also note that we used to transfer about 10 million dollars from our parking revenue to the general fund uh to lower property taxes, and that has depleted in recent years.

Um, so I believe that we're not managing these contracts as effectively and efficiently as we could to be supporting our city budget.

Um furthermore, I'm just concerned that the council isn't able to weigh in at the point of RFPs for these types of contracts and rather we get this information once the contract negotiations have happened, and it kind of puts us in this sticky situation where I know that they need to pass a contract in order to keep maintain levels of service by October 1st, but there's not much time for us to have uh these conversations.

So I um wanted to bring this to the council's attention because we're in a tough budget year, and I'm really concerned with this amount of spending on this service.

Um, I wanted to note that Councilmember Palmasano and I are working on a staff direction to our policy research team to look at how other cities are managing their parking assets in a post-COVID world and what Minneapolis could be doing to better manage these assets and bring in more uh revenue to lower our taxes.

And then I also would like to ask that our public works bring back a revised version of this contract with a shorter duration because committing to three to five years at this level does seem uh irresponsible at this time, and I'd be much more comfortable passing a one-year version of this contract, so that our research can actually inform how we proceed in the years to come.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Cashman.

We'll go to Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chadri.

Uh, first, I do want to thank Council Member Cashman for following up on this item and getting more information around the full costs related to this contract.

Um, as Councilmember Cashman also noted.

Um, I think it's important for our colleagues to know that the memo that um was attached to this item did highlight a significant cost related to off-duty work here, and which the city pays for essentially increasing taxpayers' costs related to off-duty.

Um especially since there's already a 1.1 million dollar cost annually that taxpayers subsidize at the city that's related to off-duty.

And in this contract, they would be essentially receiving 1.1 million dollars to essentially manage traffic on the street, as council member uh Cashman highlighted, I would like to know why we can't explore the integration of traffic control to do the similar function, and they're also uh being paid to provide security in Skyways.

And this just seems very much like a financial oversight, somewhat financial poor planning on the city's part.

And I don't believe I'm alone and wanting uh more time to understand how this total came to uh to be how off duty was integrated into this, and as council member cashman highlighted, also uh being able to address um potential pathways of modifying this contract uh so that we can have some time to address uh immediate and urgent concerns um in the meantime while also looking at uh other options we can pursue um in the long term because once or should we pass this contract, this locks us into a binding agreement with this vendor for three years, which basically takes that alternative, you know, pathway off the table.

So, with that said, I actually will like to refer this item back to committee uh for additional um uh conversation with staff that can uh hopefully get us to a place where we can have something before us uh that is amendable and supported by a number of us on this body, and with that I'll ask for a second.

Second, that has been moved and seconded.

We will then go to council member Palmasano.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um first I wanted to point out that in conversation with Councilmember Cashman and in a memo she sent to myself and the chair, um, she's asking a very big question here that deserves to be looked at, broadly speaking, about the future of our parking assets and how they're used and how they're used in a post-COVID environment and how that is changing.

Um that's why I offered to assist her with a policy and research division request, which I rarely do on our legislative side.

Um I have it in front of me.

It it's not 100% ready to go, but I think it will end up also as part of AEO next week.

Um, just briefly.

It covers, you know, a national landscape analysis of parking management practices and comparable municipalities.

It's about um the available research on the future of parking demand downtown in other cities and in ours, and it um is about identifying potential opportunities in our parking management practices.

Um that's a pretty broad brush.

Um and I think that that's uh perhaps due.

But in terms of this contract that's before us today, that ends October 1st.

And some of the things that were pointed out, like the city's downtown improvement district assessment.

Yes, we keep ourselves accountable to our own policies.

In this case, what I assume frontage of the downtown district within uh an improvement district that we have put in place and control.

Um, second, I think that traffic control agents or other kinds of security are probably a very real possibilities here.

Um, I mean, I'd keep in mind that traffic control agents can't access some of the additional information about vehicles that uh uh a sworn officer can.

Um that might help with public safety downtown.

I I really do appreciate Councilmember Cashman's point that council ends up backed into a corner on contracts based on start dates.

And could we have a different way of doing this and be more proactive on more things in the future?

Um but to that end, with this contract, I have a couple of questions for public works.

And one of them is it is my understanding we would not at this point in time be able to do a shorter term.

So is it possible for us to do a shorter term?

That is part of the RFP, in my understanding, and renewals or extensions here are always at city discretion.

But I don't think that at this point in the RFP, without restarting the entire RFP, we can shorten the length of this contract, which would be a reason why we should move forward this cycle.

Is there anybody that is willing to help answer that question?

And then my other piece is are there any concerns about evaluating and potentially shifting duties away from off-duty work and toward other types of security and traffic control agents, and is that something we can still do within this term of this parking contract?

We'll recognize Mr.

Alan Klugman.

Good afternoon, Vice Chair Chowdery, members of the committee.

Again, my name is Alan Kluckman.

I'm the director of the trafficking parking services division of public works.

This contract folds up through our division.

Um I think there's two questions we want to address here.

Number one is the question regarding the RFP terms and the solicitation we did.

Um, in short, uh what Councilmember Palmazano said, that is absolutely our interpretation.

The contract is for a minimum of three years.

It has two one-year extensions.

If we enter into this contract and then exercise the extensions, each of those would come back to this body for approval.

So there would be that checking at that point.

Um I do not know any way that we could do less than three years with the current RFP that we issued and the responses that we received.

We received responses from two different firms.

Um they both proposed on the same thing.

I don't know how we would go back to one firm and change the terms that um were in the RFP.

So short answers, I agree with our councilmember said I do not believe we can change the terms.

Uh second question I think had to do with um the delineation of work between off-duty police, traffic control agents, other security.

Maybe if I can just speak for a moment about that.

Um, there is nothing in the contract that specifies the number of hours for off-duty police or security or traffic control or whatnot.

It gives us and the operator the flexibility to choose the methods we feel best to operate our ramps, both from a safety point of view from a traffic and parking management point of view.

Um we do employ security.

The biggest portion of our security expense, and um I believe it was in the memo that we submitted to Councilmember Cashman.

The biggest expense for security over the course of the year is to a private security firm.

I'm very proud of the work we do in the security realm, and I don't want to get on too far of a tangent, but just say um our ramps are very well received in terms of their safety and security.

That's why they're popular.

That's why the sports teams have put our names of our ramps on their websites to direct their uh customers and visitors and attendees to come to ramps.

So we put a lot of attention to security, it's very close to our heart.

Uh, but we use private security for that.

We supplement that with off-duty police.

Um it's a it's a small fraction of the total security bill that we play over the course of the year.

And then relative to the total amount of money that goes to off-duty police, I just want to make sure we understand the flow of that work and the flow of that money.

Um, they are essentially employees of our parking operator.

Minneapolis taxpayers are not paying the off-duty police officers.

All the payments for all of our expenses, including to any security personnel or traffic management personnel, that comes from the revenue in the parking fund.

So that's the flow of that money.

Um if you look at the total amount of money that our parking operator pays to off-duty police for their two functions.

One is security, one is traffic management.

About 20 percent roughly, is for traffic management.

That's principally managing the exits of the parking ramps during busy times, and about 80 percent is security.

Um, I do believe we could enter into discussions with regulatory services and the traffic control folks in terms of could we make use of traffic control agents for that traffic management portion?

I will just note that historically traffic control did not have the uh personnel resources to provide that service.

That's why historically we've gone with off-duty police to provide that service, we've stayed with it.

There's nothing in the contract that mandates we have to do that.

Um, in terms of using traffic control agents for any of the other security work, which is about 80% of the operators' payments to the police, I don't think that would be possible.

Um we are using sworn officers to supplement our security team for the expertise and abilities they bring to the situations.

Uh primarily they're used in our busiest ramps during peak events and those sorts of times, and that's when we bring them in to supplement our security folks.

Madam Chair, uh Director Klugman, thank you so much for all of that information.

Um I think it's really important that this is paid entirely by parking revenue, that there are not taxpayer impacts happening here.

And colleagues, I sincerely appreciate the concern here about how we do our RFPs and our contracts.

And I also wish that it were different, but I think that this putting this off another cycle puts people's jobs on the line.

They will get notice, probably through our contractor, that they won't have a job starting October 1st because they will have 14 days notice that they would not have a job.

So to make I think to make your point and put people's livelihoods in a risky position is not really worth it here.

Um, I'm happy to take on and continue the discussion about a shift to potential traffic control in the future, but I don't think that we should take the people that are employed in these ramps in different ways of just their maintenance workers and staff.

I don't think that's a fair position to put um jobs in our city um in right now.

I would prefer that we move forward with this contract considering we cannot go back and change the term of it this cycle.

Thank you.

I'll recognize councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chowdery.

Um, just following up on some of the things that staff just mentioned, I did want to give a little bit of context to the memo that was shared based off of what we just heard.

So the reason why I'm proposing uh referral back also highlight and I highlighted my main concern around the off-duty usage.

Right now, the expense that we're assigning to this contract just for security alone, you highlight that, is a total of 8.2 million dollars.

Of that 8.2, 900,000 of that is going to off-duty, which I will say is a little bit concerning that we're providing 900,000 to a private vendor to then go pay for MPD officers officers to do security.

You just highlighted also about 80 percent of that is going to another security firm.

So it really feels duplicate like duplicate to have two separate security firm and then private officers doing the same function.

Um so it I do want to provide clarity.

There is security.

If we remove off-duty from this, security is still being provided at a pretty substantial like funding amount in this contract.

And then, in addition, 200,000 is just for traffic control, once again, relegated to off duty.

That's where the 1.1 million dollar total came from.

That were paying a private vendor to then go pay officers to offer this security services in their like side hustle time.

That is really concerning, um, especially as we're hearing about staffing challenges repeatedly from MPD.

So for me, that does feel like that should be something amendable in this contract.

You're still getting security that's being paid for through another vendor.

It does not make sense fully to me as to why 1.1 million dollars of off-duty work needs to be integrated into this contract.

In regards to the point raised by Councilmember Palmasano about amending a contract, I from my understanding, especially since we've seen this with other departments like neighborhood safety department, where they've gone back and forth with the vendors after our RFP has been assigned.

Um, it's really at the discretion of negotiations between the city and the vendor whether or not they would be able to amend a contract even to a different date.

So I I believe this body has seen a president's where that has happened, where a different contract has come or amended contract has come forward with different different stipulations around the timeline.

So I'm confused as to how that's possible for other departments, but not in this case with public works.

And I don't know if city attorney's office has the ability to shed some light.

If there's a reason why that's not applicable, uh attorney, under chair, uh council members.

So I don't know anything about this particular contract, but sometimes the answer depends on what the RFP provided and and the terms of the RFP if they're very specific and um then the contract would have to obviously comply with the terms of the RFP, or would have to start all over with RFP process.

I just don't know anything about this particular contract, but that's one of the reasons why sometimes there's less fuck flexibility.

And we'll love then a follow-up memo on that because we've I'm just referencing neighborhood safety department, where in their contracts for let's say group violence intervention services, they had a also start date of April 1st.

We've had multiple amended contracts come before this body with uh uh different date starts since then that they negotiated with the vendor, even after the RFP had went forward, and there was a uh scope of work included in that and a particular change or like start date.

So it does really seem it's at the discretion of the the department and the vendor um to have that negotiations, and it's not necessarily locked in by the council vote.

So again, we've seen that.

We've voted on contracts for neighborhood safety department to start in April 1st, and that has not happened.

We were told negotiations were still happening.

So again, seeing the presidents where negotiations can happen.

And thank you for flagging that.

This contract technically expires by September 30th, allowing us time to maybe bring amended version forward either by Thursday or by the next cycle, still puts us on track if the body had the will to pass it before the expiration date because we meet before the expiration date.

So I did want to flag that concern that there is still time to get this resolved before that ultimate expiration date that's currently stipulated.

So I would like the time to make sure that we're providing a contract that addresses these concerns, and it does seem like there is space, hopefully, willingness.

So that is why I'm supporting the motion.

Councilmember Wandsley, would you be able to just reiterate what you wanted an administrative follow-up on for the clerks?

Yes, and this is probably for the city attorney.

So uh essentially note the difference here between public works contract, neighborhood safety.

If there's any provision that prohibits um negotiations after council approval um changing terms and conditions of our RFP.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you.

Um, would it be alright if I recognized staff ahead of you?

Okay, great.

Director Klugman.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Charter, thank you.

Um, Vice Chair Charlie members of committee, Councilmember, I I think with with what you just discussed.

I wrote down two points.

One is a contract, not gonna speak about that.

I think the other one had to do with um the use of security.

And I just want to be very clear to this body um how us and our parking operator use the MPD.

Um, we do spend a substantial amount of money on private security, that's that's a fact.

Um, I would suggest that the magnitude of that number is reflective of the size of our operation.

15 ramps, eighteen thousand spaces.

You know, it's a big operation, it's a very big operation, one of the largest parking operators um in downtown.

And that's why the numbers are, you know, at first glance they're very high, but I think you know that's that's just the size of operation.

But I guess I want to be very clear that um, again, there's nothing in this contract that mandates who does a security, but it's been our judgment as parking rent operators, um, you know, ourselves, our professional opinions working with our management company, discussions with MPD, discussion with council members who have an interest in downtown.

Um, and I do not believe that some of what's been talked about today in terms of assigning additional security duties to the private security would be the right way to go or would even be possible.

Um we have several benefits of having MPD on site.

We use them again.

I've kind of said this, but I think it's bear it bears repeating.

Um we use them on the busiest nights on the busiest days for the largest events.

We use them at bar clothes, we use them on weekends.

A lot of things happen.

You know, it's a lot of people coming in and out of those ramps.

Um we have situations we need to deal with.

Um we are very comfortable having police on site where they can respond immediately rather than the lag time if we need to place a call.

So I just want to be very clear, it's our opinion that the police play a vital function in supplementing our our private security uh team, and I do not believe that there's duties that we would want to transfer away from the police or could to some of our private security.

So I just, regardless of contract structure and things like that that we're talking about.

Um I just want to say that we feel the police have very much helped our partnership with our downtown stakeholders in terms of providing safe, secure ramps that provide a very good visitor experience for the people coming to our ramps when they come to enjoy downtown.

Thank you.

Now I'll recognize Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Madam Vice Vice Chair.

I did want to add to the follow-up memo if we could understand what either the city governance city charter governance ordinance says about our ability to see RFPs when they go out again to have these conversations about the scope of work that we're asking for, like way before it all gets negotiated, because I do think that is unfortunate in this circumstance that we're having this contract once so much work has already this conversation once so much work has already gone into it.

Um then I just wanted to note that in the memo, and I said this earlier, the memo does share that for five years we were putting 10 to 12 million dollars of revenue annually into our general fund to lower the levy, and this year it's been just two million.

So there is like an eight to ten million dollar deficit.

And that is, I mean, we have a 7.8 levy increase this year.

And I think many of us are interested in getting that levy down, amending this scope of services, or at least taking some of it out of what we're paying to ABM, seems like a good way to try to lower our our tax levy and have eight million extra dollars to put towards that.

I think that would be a significant um change.

And so I would really like to see us strive for efficiency in this contract.

And I guess this is a question for you, Mr.

Clugman, is why does the DID assessment and the off-duty costs go through ABM?

Why are we giving all this money to ABM and not just paying each of these budget lines as separate contracts to who they're supposed to be for?

Okay.

Um, Vice Chair Chowdhury, Councilmember Cashman members, I think there's two questions that you just raised.

If I may, I'd like to first speak to the first one, which is um historically the parking fund contributed um several million dollars in some years as much as 10 million dollars to the general fund.

Um I have a graph here, I don't know if you can see it, but I look at this quite often in my office.

Um this is what happened in March of 2020.

Our parking counts went down.

Maybe we can enter this in so others can see it.

Oh, thank you.

Like right side up or I get that right.

I can't see the screen.

Is this right?

That looks great, Mr.

Clugman.

Okay, thank you.

Go ahead.

Um, yeah, I mean, I'll try to be brief here, but this is one that's close to our hearts because our teams worked really hard about this.

Um in 2019, the off-street parking revenue was 48 million dollars.

In 2020, it was 19 and 2021 was 18.

So actually in 2020, we had a couple months pre-COVID.

Um, and the heart of the matter is is that um, you know, the parking ramp system, these are complex building structures with a lot of equipment.

There um they take a certain amount of work to keep them to keep them in good shape and to keep them running.

Some of those expenses continue on even when our our um our traffic volumes, our counts went down.

And really, the single reason why this fund is not contributing is is strictly due to the um the number of people visiting downtown.

So I I take great pride in the management work that our team has done in partnership with our operator.

I think we run a terrific system of ramps.

And I I won't go too long about that too too long.

I just want to make the point that um when the parking volumes decreased in downtown, when COVID hit, we lost 88% of our parking volume.

And it's kind of been as you see in the charts kind of been ticking up since then we're now at a point where um for day-to-day compute commuters we're at about sixty percent of pre-COVID overall we're about eighty percent of previous numbers because events are really back in their back strong so um you know long story short I think the reason we've not been transferring the the big dollar amounts lately are just because of um you know the different uh characteristics of downtown parents I just want to say a few more things about that um historically the parking fund contributed to the general fund um that's more of a discussion between finance upper levels of public works management some of that predates my time in this role but I just want to note that for the first couple years um after COVID the pro formas had those large transfers being made to the general fund from our parking fund and we essentially depleted our cash reserve in our parking fund and we deferred very important maintenance work and modernization upgrade work because we are transferring money to the general fund.

I'm very proud of the work we've done now Mr.

Drew and Mr.

Clough and their team have done a terrific job of marketing the parking ramps, working with downtown stakeholders and employers on creative tools, because like the old fashioned monthly contract doesn't make sense anymore for a lot of people.

We have a lot of hybrid products we've worked with the venue operators we've done everything we can to bring people back in our ramps.

We're seeing an increase in revenue we're starting to put back the money that we need to do for maintenance of our ramps and kind of protecting them into the future.

So um I I just want to be very clear about that that I I have to acknowledge that the dollar transfer has gone down.

I don't think it's due to poor management.

I think it's due to the the volume of people coming downtown and we we really worked our hardest to be good stewards of these parking ramps and run the system in a in a in a very um high level way.

I think your question second question had to do um why pay a parking operator to then pay others I appreciate the question.

I just want to be very clear that this is a really tight contract we negotiated last contract very tight um 98.5% of the expenses that are paid by our operator are going directly to different vendors and service providers it's repairs, it's maintenance it's construction it's everything from paying sales tax on when you pay to park their sales tax we have to remit that to the state it's the um the utility bills and on and on and on.

They are not getting any sort of overhead or um commission on that.

They are serving as our agent to process those payments.

The fee that they get from a management point of view is it's in their notes.

I think it's $28800 last year.

It's a very modest fee.

So I don't believe we have any financial inefficiency or loss by using this operator who's integrated in with our operation they are working on our behalf they're paying our bills.

Obviously that's a cost I would have to bear with staff if we were to pay those bills directly.

So I don't believe that using the operator is introducing a financial inefficiency for us.

Thank you, Mr.

Clogman, this is really helpful data and I think it will inform the policy and research look towards the future I've certainly heard from operators that with less demand we could potentially and other private operators could sell some assets to then increase demand because there wouldn't be so much so those are some that's another solution too just given how many more folks are now living downtown or using transit.

I mean the demand has certainly changed and then also in the ABM part I I respectfully disagree I think ABM is using our big upfront costs to then invest that in the marketplace and that's how that company that tech company is getting their returns on this and if this were to be brought in-house we would be able to do the same with with this revenue to invest it in things that benefit us instead of an out of state uh tech company.

Yes.

Go ahead, Mr.

Clugman.

Vice Chair Charlie and members of committee thank you again.

I just you know obviously we could have a long discussion if if this goes to some sort of um uh you know policy and review exercise will you know happily take part in that of course I I just want to note that there are probably some efficiencies and benefits to the city that don't are not apparent on first glance.

And one of the benefits, and I know I think we spoke with with you about this last week.

One of the benefits of using our private operator as national footprint.

Some of our costs become much more efficient.

We used to do our credit card processing in-house.

The fee we now pay because we are part of a bigger pool with this vendor um it's it's a much lower rate on each credit card transaction.

There's a thing in the parking industry, which I always forget the exact acronym, it's PCI.

I think it's payment card industry standards.

That's a very strict audit process before we can even use these cards.

That's something we had to undertake ourselves.

That's now something we've offloaded to the veteran.

There are several efficiencies built into this contract that I don't think are initially apparent that do help it provide a very good value to us.

I just want to note that there's some things that we are taking advantage of, economy as the scale and national expertise and are part of some bigger pools that really have benefited us.

So I do think that's in I think that's an important thing to note.

Noted, thanks.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Palmasano.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um this graph doesn't surprise the couple of people up here that were in these seats back in 2020.

We saw this back in 2020.

We didn't get to see the recovery part though.

Um it created a huge gap that we are still recovering from.

Also, in terms of these transfers, I want to point out this is not up to public works.

It how much gets transferred to the general fund.

That's a budget discussion, and that's a discussion that we get to have and try to find balance in that.

But I don't think it's appropriate to automatically presume poor management here.

Um if we want to have a conversation about transferring more money out of this fund, I think that's a finance issue, and we should have that issue.

Um I don't disagree that Councilmember Cashman that we should review in public at times these RFPs at an earlier point.

Um we're past that here.

Um public works is absolutely saying that we can shift our security procedures during the time of this contract.

I also want to recognize something that wasn't said yet, that there would be a steep curve to define hire, train, et cetera, the necessary staff for traffic control to take on supervision of up to 18,000 parking spaces.

Um this is not something that we can just make a quick modification up here willy-nilly and get done in the next cycle.

Um but in terms of Garda security, in terms of the janitorial services here as outlined in that response memo, these are union jobs.

Let's not hold up this renewal at this time to make a point like this.

If I were one of those workers, seeing what this city council wants to do on a whim and push that out, I would be trying to look for other employment.

So I would suggest we move forward with this today and we continue these discussions about finance, about how we do other types of security here.

Um public works will be involved in some of those discussions.

Um, and they're very happy to be part of our policy and research study.

But I I also want to appreciate Chair Wansley, probably wanted to have this entire discussion at AEO next week.

But now we've had it here on the Dais, and I suggest that we just go ahead and move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next I'll recognize Councilmember Jenkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I I guess I mean we've had a lot of discussion, and I too am sorry that allegations of mismanagement have been forwarded.

But I'm just curious um about traffic flow and how that is managed and would it be different if there were I don't know, some unnamed people doing it versus MPD helping with with traffic management in these.

Having been downtown on many nights when there's thousands of people exiting these ramps.

Um how would that happened.

Vice Chair Childry, Councilmember Jenkins.

Um, I think if I understand the question, um, you know, I just want to, again, probably repeating myself for the hundredth time.

Uh, there's nothing in this contract that stipulates who does the traffic management.

So we have that flexibility.

We're absolutely you know, taking in your input relative to that.

Um the traffic management part is a very small part of this contract.

It's about $200,000 over the course of the year.

I'll just note that.

Um, currently with city ordinance, the only people who can do um traffic management on the street in the public right away are sworn officers or the traffic control agents.

And I think I noted previously, historically the traffic control agents did not have the the resources to do that.

That's why we relied on the officers.

Um I think if I understand your question, could others do it?

Um, you know, I do think that's a fair point to talk about.

It's come up on other projects.

Um is there a mechanism I'm you know, just saying, you know, thinking here if I may, you know, could other people be trained in?

Could other people be certified?

Um we're absolutely willing to explore those.

And I think that's more of a citywide downtown wide discussion than than this contract.

But um, you know, we will work with any, you know, um person who's qualified and certified to do traffic management to help uh expedite the ins and outs of our ramp.

So hopefully I answered your question.

Yeah, no, for sure.

I mean, my personal opinion, I think people respect MPD more so I mean they're frustrated that they're waiting, et cetera, et cetera.

I think that um there is much more deference given to MPD than other folks trying to direct.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chadgery.

Um just once again, with just the line of inquiry that people will be out of jobs should we not approve this.

We have had several contracts that have come before this body that had a start date, and we were very much in real time learned that deliberations and negotiations having approved that contract still proceeds afterwards.

So this idea that there is no negotiation period is is not a thing.

We've seen this, we've been through them in the contract processes before, and you still have a cycle before the contract is expired for us to consider something that actually addresses the off-duty piece.

And this is where I will actually challenge or have the disagreement with you, uh, Mr.

Klugman.

Why not consider the buyback program then?

Um we literally have a centralized program that essentially I think addresses the same concerns that you're mentioning of the need for or the desire for um sworn personnel to fulfill a security position, but that actually is for external agencies or entities to then request a contract with the city, so it goes through a public process, and they pay for it up front.

Um so we approve buyback contracts with all sorts of vendors, some of which will support downtown interests like the downtown improvement district.

Why not proceed with that?

What is prohibiting a buyback to still have the MPD or sworn officers on site as an option while maintaining the fact that we still have a decent funding amount allocated to security uh personnel or professionals at this site.

So why not go through the buy buyback process?

Vice Chair Charlie, Councilmember Wansey, I I must admit I'm not very familiar with the buyback process or contract mechanism.

Um and I don't know if if if we want to or need to discuss that today.

Um I think what I'd be looking for is what do we feel fits within the contract RFP that we've issued?

And if there are suggestions on how we operate within that, for example, the buyback program and how we secure our services, we're absolutely willing to listen to those.

Um I'm just I'm not clear myself how that would, does that affect the contract RFP we've issued, and how that would enter into the negotiations with our selected vendor.

So I'm sorry, I'm just not clear on that program.

No, that's good clarity, and I will say in the memo you mentioned in your comments that it doesn't designate whether you know a security professional has to perform a function or sworn MPD in your memo, it does note 900,000 goes to off-duty for security services.

For traffic, it doesn't just say anyone, it says $200,000 off-duty MPD.

So that gives the assumption that, once again, there is in mind where a portion of these funding appropriations are going towards, and we literally have another program that's designed to do what you're talking about to offer sworn officers to a centralized program where it's tracked, because I'm also questioning how did you even get to the figures of $900,000 worth of off-duty when we're literally going through that process and they don't even have fees yet around tracking how hours happen.

So this uh buyback actually has that infrastructure in place.

So I don't understand like how that got overlooked when you have major downtown interests constantly use utilizing that program for similar functions.

So I'm saying in a modified contract, you could actually highlight that piece.

If we approve something today, and just bank with a pinky promise that something will, you know, be changed, I would rather see it be documented in the contract itself.

Because here it's saying once again, the contract says this, but we have the flexibility to do that.

Why not just have it reflected in the contract language, which we could have some time to like have that be reflected.

Um, so that again, you know what the buyback option is.

That takes off $1.1 million off of this contract that the company itself could pay for up front themselves, as opposed to us including that.

Um Vice Chair Charlie, Councilman Rose, I'll be brief.

I think I'm saying I understand.

I just want to clarify one thing.

Um, we noted that the um the within the security cost, you know, 900,000 for MPD and then $200,000 for traffic management for off-duty MPD.

Um that's not stupid in the contract, and maybe we're in clear that that's what we spent last year.

I just want to note that.

So that's not a term of the contract where we're mandated or required to do it.

That was our expense last year for that line item.

And then um, just very specific, you asked about the kind of the how we're able to come up with the numbers or possibly MPD's not able to track that.

Um we track that through the expenses that we pay out.

Um, you know, we spoke with Councilmember Cashman on Friday, and by Monday we had those numbers, you know, through our bookkeeping system to know for each of our line items where you know, through our parking operator, where have we spent the money?

So that's how we knew is 900,000 for um security, 200,000 for um traffic management last year.

So I just want to state that's not a term of the contract or guarantee or stipulation, it's that's what our expense was.

I completely understand that.

Just noting in the memo, it said this is where it was designated to.

And also the question around tracking, the figure or expenses that you got is that three officers that charge $300 an hour.

Like, can you share because that's how the expense came about?

It's around what the officer charged you as a per hour rate to get to whatever you paid last year, if it's that $900,000 figure or the combination of both security or off-duty.

That is where I said what is the tracking, because we don't track there's no no standardization in which rate, unless MPD gave you a standardized rate.

Um, uh Vice Chair Travel, Councilmember Umsley and committee members, I might speak beginning and I might even call one of my colleagues to um to film in, but if I just give you an overview, um, that is a again.

Our parking operator makes the payment.

Um the off-duty police are working as employees or contractors to that vendor.

Um the vendor has negotiated a price with MPD for this particular service.

Um, and then they track it in terms of hours hired, right?

And dollars paid.

So that that's where those numbers come from.

Um we are not part of say a bigger buying pool or other entities like restaurants or bars or businesses that might be hiring MPD off duty.

Um this is our parking operator, you know, us working together with the parking operator on what we think a game plan is for use of security, it is under parking operator working with MPD on an agreed upon rate.

Um, and then we get the personal hours that we need.

And so the vendor negotiates, which could still be a rate of $300 per hour with the individual MPD officer.

You all don't know what that rate is.

Yeah.

Um, Vice Chair Chowder, Councilmember Wandsley, members of the committee, um, it's it's not $300.

Um my recollection is that it's in the range of about $110 to $150 dollars.

I think it's closer to $110.

And if um, and that's the rate that we the our team through our parking vendor negotiated in a multi multiple year um agreement.

So um that's the rate we're paying.

And do we have a per rate for security?

I for me, again, the difference with off-duty is again the officer and I use $300 as a rhetorical figure because we don't know typically on average how officers are charging.

They have full discretion to negotiate a rate with the vendor, and that's why also as why not just go through a buyback process because that is a central it centralized thing.

The vendor still has to apply through a public process to then give us, because it sounds like what you just said, the vendor tracks it, they negotiate with MPD.

This through a buyback process allows the city to do that direct negotiation, make sure that staffing is being inministered in a way that doesn't put other city services in a compromise position, and other external entities have used this.

So that's why I'm also concerned why buyback was not offer as an option.

Okay.

Thank you.

I will also just say that um we have had members now three times in queue, and just to be fair to everyone, we're gonna limit everyone at three so we can continue moving to our agenda through our agenda.

Uh but we do have quite a few members uh currently waiting to speak.

So I will recognize uh councilmember Rainbow.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Klugman and I see Mr.

Drew.

I am impressed at the way you manage the the parking in all facets here, not just the ramps, but the street parking.

So thank you for your expertise.

And I'm going to vote today to move this forward.

I do believe that you negotiated the best contract.

Uh and and I don't think we should delay.

And in particular, uh Mr.

Klugman, thank you for explaining the loss of uh parking revenue that is directly tied to the COVID, that we're a different city today than we were in 18 and 19 when the revenues were flowing.

And uh once we get these office towers back, I'm sure that that will happen again.

So I I again I encourage our colleagues to push this forward today into the full council.

And this is not a time uh to suggest that we should take this in-house.

Uh this is not a time to increase city staff.

This is a time to be as efficient as possible.

That's just not a good idea to take this in-house.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Koske.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just was wondering if we get some clarity.

I know Councilmember Cashman, one of the thoughts or ideas she had was just to change the timing on the contract.

And so I feel like I'm still a bit not clear on if we can or cannot do that.

Um if we, you know, I believe you were requesting it would to be a one-year contract so that we could do the work and do a little bit more research on this.

Is that a possibility or is that completely off the books?

I just need a clear answer on that.

To either our CAO or to you, Mr.

Clinton.

I mean, I can say it depends on what the RFP said.

So if the RFP was an RFP for a three-year contract, then changing it to a one-year contract would be a material change, and we'd have to start over.

And that is different.

We have done this in the past.

Can you describe why this is different from other contracts or negotiations that we've had?

Yeah, and and again, it just depends on what the RFP says.

Some RFPs are silent on term.

I mean, it just isn't.

This one has a clear.

I don't know.

That's what I'm saying.

I have not seen the RFP, so I don't know what the RFP says.

If we can just get clarity if the RFP does states the years, that would be helpful, and I'm happy to go back.

Yeah, and if you don't have it quite yet, there's a couple people in queue.

So if you can if you want to get that together, we can move to other comments that you might have, Councilmember Koske, or we can go to other council members.

That was all that I had, so happy to.

Okay.

I think we're trying to find the RFP.

Thank you.

As we speak, thank you.

Once we have that, we can we can go forward.

Um, I will next recognize Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clugman.

Thank you for your expertise.

I really do appreciate um, and and you know, as a as a staff person, you do a really great job.

I appreciate your expertise in parking in particular.

And look, you had this graph just right on hand to pull out and show to us how parking looks.

And as a person who understood um, you know, being on the city council that the the dollars in parking has shifted dramatically through COVID and through how people use downtown.

I also understand the safety component of that, whether it's perception or reality.

People want to see police officers in parking ramps and in parking lots, and uh that makes people feel safer.

That makes a person feel like their car won't be stolen if they see a police officer near a parking ramp, or that it's dark outside.

You come out two o'clock in the morning and you see a police officer.

So, regardless of how some individuals may feel about police, there are people who feel safer in the presence of police, and I appreciate us having that for people.

These numbers are gonna go back up because of that, because of actual safety and safety perception.

I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with people over the past four years about how unsafe downtown is and how they're scared to come and park in a parking ramp, and then say, no, there's a police officer there, or you know, there's whomever there.

And I definitely understand the difference between security officers and police officers.

There are things that the police officers can do that a security officer cannot do, like make an arrest for someone who is being unruly or doing whatever in a parking lot right then and there.

Lots of violations happen to people in parking ramps, lots, lots of things, unsavory, on everything in parking ramps that I, for one, am happy that a police officer is on site to handle.

And so I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind this 30-year contract.

I'm not saying that this isn't something that shouldn't be revisited, but it is my understanding that this is a 30-year contract.

And then oh, three.

Three no, I mean the term that that it's been in effect is about 30 years.

Like we've been in partnership 50 years, 50 years.

So, 50-year contract that's been in um in the works with the city of Minneapolis.

I'm not saying there's not a better service, there's not a better way, but what I do know is these sources 50 years of work does not change in two weeks.

Never have, never will.

This is not gonna be worked out in a council cycle.

And so for me, it's not worth it if there's the potential of folks losing their jobs over two weeks where we know we won't accomplish what's happened in 50 years.

And if people have particular issues or specific things that they need to work it out, work it out.

You got three years.

This is a three-year contract.

Work it out.

There's I thought this was about general funds transfers, then it turned into an MPD thing, then it turned to buyback versus whatever.

I don't know, but this is not gonna happen in one council cycle.

It's not worth the risk of somebody watching this meeting right now and thinking their job is on the line because we can't work something out that's not gonna be worked out.

You all have done a phenomenal job.

And and let's stop acting like negotiating a contract happened last week or last cycle.

People have been working on negotiating this contract for I don't know how long.

I'm sure well over a year to come to the terms of a three-year contract.

So you don't go back in one council cycle because somebody doesn't like MPD and say, let's go fix it now.

In two weeks.

No one never said a dislike of MPD.

Just correct.

No ascribing motive.

We can see we're not gonna do that.

We can hear what's going on.

Like I said, we're not gonna fix it in two weeks.

Let's save these jobs.

Let's save the security of this community, the people that are gonna be downtown going into parking ramps who wanna be safe with their families, and then y'all figure it out later.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Klugman.

You are so professional and so wonderful, and I appreciate you.

So it might look like Mr.

Klugman has the answer to the RFP question.

I will remind all members that no one should ascribe motive to other members unless that's a statement that they have clearly made.

We have a lot of items that we need to go through.

Yes, I will recognize you, Mr.

Klugman.

Vice Chair Chowdery and members of committee.

Um is Director Sexton just kind of whispered in my ear.

Um our team confirmed that is very clear in the RFP it's for a three-year minimum term with the option for two one-year extensions, but the three-year minimum is a prime feature and requirement of the RFP.

Thank you.

And I will just um ask our city attorney Anderson to clarify with that information what that means.

Um, Council Chair, Council members, I mean, given that the term was a prime feature of the RFP, that's you know, that's a material term of the of the contract, and if we were to switch to uh shorter term, I I think we'd have to start over in the RFP process.

Great.

Thank you.

I put myself in queue for a question.

Um I wanted to see has this last uh AEO committee.

Was this the first time that this contract was on the agenda?

I'm getting a nod yes from council member Wandsley.

Uh with that in mind, I wanted to get a clarification.

If this was laid over for a single cycle, would it have impacts on individuals' jobs?

Would they get a notice that was stated before up here?

I want to get factual information in regards to that.

Um, Vice Chair Chowdery members of committee, I I'm not sure what our operator would do.

I mean, what they would do if um if we laid this over for two weeks and didn't approve the contract, I um we could check and report back to you.

I don't know what their operational game plan would be if they learn that this does not go forward today.

We've not asked them that.

Am I answering your question?

I try to do that.

I think it answers the question.

The answer is yeah, you're not sure.

Um I will just say like I think it's important um if we have contract.

Contracts, if they come before a council committee, that a delay is always possible.

It's never guaranteed, especially uh when the committee itself is an oversight committee, right?

There could be questions at any given contract, and if one two-week cycle where the vote comes forward is going to make or break it, that's not realistic as it comes to our business in City Hall.

Oftentimes items are delayed an additional cycle.

Um, it would be a different story for me personally if this was on the agenda multiple times over, and we're at a point where it's like we just need to take action.

Um I'll state for myself, I don't I I personally don't support us entirely reinventing the wheel for a contract and bringing everything in-house.

I just don't think that we have the capacity within our staff and our council body at this moment to achieve such a legislative feat um with the accuracy that's necessary.

Um I will uh note, for me, it's it's not about having police officers or not.

I I I understand the perspectives up here about um having officers present and visible downtown on um big event days.

And I think it's more so about um if we have uh officers who are paid with our taxpayer dollars already on the payroll, why not have them do that work on payroll through the systems that already exist rather than using public dollars to go to off-duty, essentially privatizing our own public safety force.

Um that's why I I think that buyback comment is actually really helpful because it would go through the MPD payroll rather than um something that is off to the side away from uh public and city oversight.

Right.

I think that's a that's an interesting thing for us to take on and discuss.

And I I one question that I have, and I don't think we'll have an answer for it today, but I think it would be interesting for us to explore is if there's a policy resolution or a standard that this body could set about if we are using public dollars for a contract for safety.

Um that if MPD officers are requested that it goes through a buyback process rather than an off-duty process.

I I don't know the legality of that or that consideration, but I'll just I'll just put that forward.

Um I don't think it's a bad conversation to have about doing a system that is already going through public oversight versus one that is known to be uh more obscure and less consistent that uh the city of Minneapolis as it goes to off duty across multiple mayors have been trying to reform and change, and even this body has taken on efforts to address.

I think that's a fair thing for us to discuss, and it's it's been something that councils before us have been trying to figure out.

Um those are all my comments.

I'll go to Councilmember Osman.

Thank you.

I'll be quick.

I have been listening, and um there are many questions the committee made or ask the city attorney.

They have asking you, and you know, our job, and the reason we're elected is to oversight is to look into details, and and I think that is just we're doing our job, and that's you know, not saying I'm against this or anything like that, but uh for council members who are doing their job and looking at this that a lot of things are not clear.

Um and many questions have been asked, and I think um you know, um I support the motion to delay uh I guess one more cycle if that's the stuff the motion council member made to come back together to you know hopefully answer those questions uh the council members had and uh come back to this on the table.

I don't think that's an issue, and I don't think that's anything not supporting the MPD or or supporting the MPD.

We want our officers to uh be safe and we want them to have a parking and space and and also provide the best services to to downtown businesses and area.

So um just just want to take take make that very clear.

Uh we're doing our job and council members who are asking, looking into the details and and doing their job, which is oversight.

Uh I support their motion.

Thank you.

Thank you, members.

Are there any additional comments?

Seeing none, that motion has been made and properly seconded.

Clerk, please call the roll on this item.

Uh Chair Chowdhury, before I call the motion, could I clarify um council member wandsley hadn't moved to refer it back to committee?

I'm assuming she uh meant the next meeting of the administration and enterprise oversight committee.

Which is September 15th.

Yes.

Yep.

Fantastic.

Just wanted to clarify that before calling the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville.

No.

Vita.

No.

Osman.

Aye.

Cashman.

Aye.

Jenkins.

May.

Chuktai.

Aye.

Koske.

Nay.

Promisano.

No.

Vice Chair Chowdry.

Aye.

Chair Chavez.

Aye.

There are seven ayes and five nays.

That item carries, and then we'll be referred to the AO meeting on September 15th.

Next are the 2025-2028 violence prevention service contracts.

The AO committee was in the middle of discussing this agenda, so that's why it's here.

Um again, staff is on hand to answer any questions that council members get on cue if they would like to have discussion.

Oh yes, I I saw that.

I thought that I saw Dr.

Herrington.

Um but just wanted to, no, not here.

Okay.

Just wanted to get more details of what you know what areas.

Oh, here we go.

Thanks, Doctor for for coming.

Um just wanted to go overall.

If you can give us the overview, because I'm not a member of the committee that it came through, but if you can give us overview, you know whether what these contracts are and also um what area are they covering, uh, and also specifically for me, what services are being provided, not just this, but in general.

Uh Elliott Park and Stephen Squirt, if you can kind of highlight those two, that would be helpful.

Thank you so much.

Um, Vice Chair Chowdhury, Councilmember Osman.

The contracts that are before you are the violence prevention services program, otherwise known as the Violence Prevention Master Contract.

This is, I believe, the fifth um batch of contracts to come before City Council.

We have always had violence prevention contracts in neighborhood safety.

This year we decided to take a page out of the playbook of the health department, and instead of doing RFPs for very specific contracts, to do an RFP that would pre-approve a larger pool of community organizations that could be providing services throughout the city.

And then as the need arises throughout the city, we could issue work orders to activate those services.

And so there are I think a total of 30 two contracts, 35 contracts, I believe, that have um will, if this latch bastard is approved, be pre-approved for us to activate.

Right now we have only activated one of those contracts.

Somali Youth Link had a contract that was executed and and two work orders that were issued.

They are hoping to begin services this week, and their service area is um Dinky Town, the Stone Arch Bridge, around Carmel Mall, Stevens Square neighborhood around the YMCA on Blaisdale.

I think I got all of them.

Portions of Whittier obviously are within that.

The rest of the contracts are still being negotiated.

Um, not the contracts necessarily.

The contracts are going to be executed, but the work orders are being negotiated.

And so it would be premature for me to stand here and list out where all of those will be, but we have a number of earmarks that are funding some of these contracts, and so some of them are known.

They will be in areas that council members have already indicated, and the rest we are using data to determine activation needs throughout the city.

Okay.

So this is a little bit different than violent interruptures, traditional violent interrupters we had, which is you know, people got used to it.

They are there five days, seven days a week, whatever, consistently.

So this groups here, the one you mentioned, let's use some other link as an example.

Um, are they when you say activate?

Are they just being going there when they are called when there's a trouble, or do they have some kind of set schedule where community members expect them to be there whether they're Friday, Saturday, or something similar to that?

How do we get that information, or if that information is available to the public where those folks will be at?

Vice Chair Chowdery Councilmember Osmond.

Somali Youth Link in particular is working on their schedule right now, given the diversity of areas that we're asking them to cover.

We are purposefully writing the work orders to be flexible so that it can the organizations can go to the areas of need based on their individual needs.

So the Stephen Square neighborhood may not have the exact same needs as the Stone Arch Bridge, for example, and they won't have the exact same hours and teams there.

And so it's really going to be up to the team to figure that out, and I believe that is what they've been working on this week.

But each of the contractors that are approved within this pool brings something different to the neighborhoods and would be activated for different reasons.

So Somali Youth Link does a lot of street level um activation, kind of a safety ambassador model.

There are some other organizations that provide services directly to single fathers, for example, those services will look differently and be activated through a work order based on the needs of a specific area.

Okay.

All right.

I think it's it's helpful to get that information and just uh the overall the the violent interrupters that we traditionally had, those were consistent, timely, and this are just uh not a full service to the community, but they're there to help out, and um, you know, it's really it's really great to have that, but I I hope to hopefully uh have uh full services like the ones we have seen on Lake Street or see the riverside and Broadway, different areas where they're there consistently.

Uh this uh what do you call the master plan?

Uh it's uh you'll need to unlock your iPhone first.

Um yeah, so thank you.

Thank you so much for your work.

And uh I know it's uh you have been doing great to uh uh getting this contract to move forward and um we'll see how this master plan works, and I'm hoping that uh spaces that are that have bigger issues uh mainly um you know uh Stephen Square or Elliott Park or different areas of my district.

Hopefully uh in next year or so we can have uh traditional violent interrupters uh uh doing services there.

We'll we'll see how this master plan works in those areas.

Thank you so much.

Vice Chair Chowdry.

If I may just add one more comment.

Councilmember Osman.

Um I appreciate you trying to make that distinction between the violence interrupters and these violence prevention services because they are very different and they're intended to complement each other.

Violence interrupters aren't the right fit for every problem that we have in our city or every neighborhood necessarily, and so adding on these violence prevention services allow us to be a bit more nimble and um focus the solution to the needs of of organizations, and so this should not take away from what violence interrupters are doing within their neighborhoods, but add to it within the rest of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next I will recognize Councilmember Wansley.

Thank you, Chair Chowdery.

I did want to know for committee this item was actually pulled by Councilmember Vita, so if there's any deference to her for director Harrison, I know this was something that was pulled in committee before we had a crash.

So wanted to make sure if you have contacts for Director Harrington for why it was pulled.

Oh, I you just clarified it for me, Director Harrington.

I just wanted to make sure that it was on the public record that these are separate than a violence interrupter contract, and that these contracts are specific to uh the needs of the contractors, that those people uh develop work plans and they speak uh specifically to what they're gonna do in the areas that they're targeting, and it's not the people that you see walking outside as um the Minneapolis strategic uh outreach or some of the other outreach initiatives we have.

I think there's just been a lot of confusion and specifically because this may be like um the fifth time that these um contracts have come before the council, and and that was what I wanted.

I just want to uh clarification on the difference between the service providers and that every one of these service providers may do something completely different from each other.

It's not like a one-way situation, and it may not be that we go into a contract with a dollar amount for each one of these people either.

It might be like something comes up and we need to enter into a contract with the dollar, you know, with a specific dollar amount attached to it.

That was the clarity that I wanted you to specify in um committee because it's just been a lot of questions about there's more violence interrupter contracts, and that's not what this is.

Great, thank you, members.

Are there any other questions or comments?

No, seeing no further discussion, I'll make a motion to approve these.

Uh clerk, could you please call the role on this item?

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Greenville, aye, Vita.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Cashman.

Aye.

Jenkins.

Aye.

Chip Time.

Aye.

Koske.

Aye.

Pomasana.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chowdhury.

Aye.

Chair Chavez.

Aye.

There are 12 items.

That item carries.

Now we will have a presentation related to the acquisition of properties for a public works water distribution maintenance facility.

I will welcome up presenters, Director Annika Bankston, Director Barbara O'Brien, and Matt Hannon for more information.

Good afternoon, Vice Chair Chowdray and Council Members.

My name is Barbara O'Brien.

I'm the director of property services for the City of Minneapolis.

The um RCA that is in front of you was first brought through the committee AEO committee, and because of technical issues, we were transferred here today.

So we are prepared to talk about the RCA specifically for the acquisition of uh 1505.

I'm sorry the 2705 University Northeast.

This happens to be a piece of property that is uh um adjacent to the public works newest uh facility, also known as the East Yard Storage and Maintenance Facility.

Um we have been searching for just about two years now for a piece of property that would accommodate uh the water maintenance yard.

This particular function, this critical function for the city has always been uh included in the Hiawatha expansion project until recently um the city had made the decision uh to cease with that master plan and and we were then sent out to seek um a new location for this critical city function.

Um so today we would like to present uh some uh pieces about what happens at a water yard.

What is a water yard?

Uh like to talk about some community engagement that has already happened around this, and then talk about next steps uh in the process for the acquisition of this property.

Um so with that I'm gonna turn it over to my partner and colleague in public works, uh Director Annika Bankston to talk about what is a water yard and what are the functions that happen in the uh uh proposed on this site.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director O'Brien.

Uh once again, uh my name is Annika Bankston.

I am the division director of public works water treatment and distribution services.

Uh so I want to take this opportunity just to provide a quick uh overview of uh what our division is and who the people are uh that will be working at this proposed facility, why they need why we need a new home and how this proposed acquisition is the right fit for for our division.

Uh again, uh the division of water treatment and distribution services is the drinking water uh utility within the Department of Public Works.

Uh we provide drinking water to the 500,000 residents uh of the city of Minneapolis and our wholesale customers.

Uh we take about 20 billion gallons of water from the Mississippi River each year and treat it at our two water treatment campuses in Fridley and Columbia Heights.

Specifically before you today is the facility that houses our distribution operations.

The distribution system that sends water throughout the city consists of over a thousand miles of water main and the associated numerous valves, hydrants, uh, as well as all the uh water meters uh that deliver water into all the properties of the city.

Uh the water distribution staff specifically, is about a hundred people of drinking water professionals.

A number of those, a large portion of those are actually certified Minnesota water supply operators, um, and then all the support functions that go with us.

I'll talk a little bit about what each of them uh do.

Um so in the office functions of a water distribution facility.

Uh we do all of our customer service.

We have a call center, uh, that we field calls from people seeking um information about water services, permits, permit reviews, as well as planning and scheduling, making sure those hundred people that are doing the water distribution work have accurate job plans, have all the materials that are needed and are able to go out and do work efficiently every day.

We have large GIS mapping and records keeping functions that are done at this facility, as well as administration and management.

So those are what I would call the front office type operations at this facility.

Out in the streets, it's all the water system work.

Again, of those hundred water distribution staff, about 80 of them are going out into the field throughout the city every day.

They're inspecting and repairing valves, finding and repairing leaks, working with private properties as well as public water mains, working on the water pipes, installing taps for new services, and turning water services on and off as development happens throughout the city.

We also perform extensive locates, marking all that water main infrastructure to make sure that construction can happen safely throughout the city, a lot of inspections, and then also all the disinfection and testing of those water mains as we're doing that work.

Where we do the work.

Really, our water uh work happens throughout the entire city, obviously.

This is just a map showing the work orders for a given day from earlier this month.

A couple things to note, um, the green star is the location of our current facility that we'll talk about in a little bit, and then the red star is the location of the proposed new facility, about uh a little over just about two miles to the north-northeast.

Um, so again, our crews are deploying out into the city everywhere every day.

Um, so why we do need a new home?

Um the existing facility at 935 Fifth Avenue, it's 5th and Hennepin, just over in Marcy Homes across the river, is uh undersized and woefully outdated.

We've actually been there for over 125 years.

The building itself was constructed almost 100 years ago.

Um we have staffs that are housed in temporary construction trailers.

Uh we have insufficient space for all the materials that we need.

Uh we're leasing parking at an annual cost of 88,000 a year just to be able to have places for our employees to come to work each day.

Um, and uh as mentioned, as uh Director O'Brien mentioned, it's been a long-term need and a long-term plan to basically get a new home for our operations.

Um, just to kind of uh some more of the challenge that we have, um outdated and inadequate restrooms and sufficient locker rooms.

Um, this is a photo literally of where our uniform service comes and goes at the edge of our garage area because um that's the only space we have to do that.

We have just a single small conference room.

Nothing is ADA compliant as you can imagine in a facility that's over 100 years old.

There's obsolete workshops as well as just the general inadequacy of HVAC and building structures.

The photo on the bottom is one of our actually is our main break area that's located in a wood shop or in a workshop, along with lockers and old furniture such that we can find and have uh another challenge we have is warehousing.

Um, as mentioned, with all the water distribution infrastructure, there's a lot of needs for material storage and pipe storage.

We are literally storing things in an old barn and in a hay loft.

Um so we really only have enough materials, storage space for materials that we need to do kind of day in, day out, or maybe a weekend, week out.

So we're having to store materials off-site, generally up at our treatment campuses and move those in and out in order to do our regular operations.

Um, and even with the hayloft, that's becoming more of a challenge for us to use because the crane uh can no longer be used and can't be certified.

The yard storage of the facility, we do have things like hydrants, large spools, large sticks of pipe, as we like to say, um, larger valves and things like that that need to be stored outside, and um we basically that space is in not only insufficient in size but also inefficient layout because we're having to manage moving all of our equipment and vehicles around the facility as well.

Um, so we undertook at the beginning of this effort to make sure we were moving into a space that's going to meet our needs to update a facility space need study.

And what we uh worked with an architect and identified that we need about 1.6 acres for the actual office shops and warehouse, additional 1.4 acres or so for the yard, and then parking for the fleet that we have, the employees and the visitors is about two, is it about two acres?

So all in all, we're looking for about 4.9 acres and make sure we have space for best management practices for stormwater management.

Um so again, that's the summary about five acres of land, making sure that it's zoned uh for utility operations.

And then again, since we're traveling throughout the city, we're looking for a location with convenient roadway access uh to be able to move out and get to where we need to go.

And so um when this particular property became available, it checked all those boxes for us.

It has adequate land, it's zoned production and processing, it does have reasonable access uh on university and Lowry to get to the interstate.

Um, and then it's very exciting because it is adjacent to the existing east side maintenance facility, which allows for some future synergies.

Uh, one of which uh that's that's obvious from the very beginning is uh that we'll be able to use that single fuel island.

Uh we won't need to build a separate fuel island for um the the future equipment that will need that will still need to be fueled.

Um the other opportunities as far as electric vehicles and uh solar and renewable energies, all those types of things are going to be um incorporated into this facility.

We're gonna be able to build a sustainable facility at this new site because we have the space we need to do it.

So with that, I will turn it over to uh Mr.

Haynan to talk a little bit about next steps and the specific matter uh before you today, the acquisition of the property.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Chowdery, members of the committee, Matt Hannon finance property services.

Uh so property services has been discussing a potential acquisition with the broker of 2705 University of Northeast.

And just for quick point of clarification, because on the action it's actually it's listed as four different properties.

The there are four different parcels comprising this property that's kind of commonly referred to as 2705 University of Northeast.

Uh so we have signed a non-binding letter of intent that outlines the term of a potential sale of the property to the city.

Uh we also have a finalized draft purchase agreement uh with the owner as well.

If this action is approved by council, we will forward move forward with execution or signing of a purchase agreement after that time.

Uh the city has 90 days to perform due diligence work on the site.

Um this work would include items like phase one and phase two environmental testing as well as other site evaluation.

Closing on the property would occur on or before December 31st, 2025.

Uh, this tight timeline uh to close is a requirement of the seller and why we're bringing this RCA through on relatively short notice.

Uh there's an existing tenant in the space, bag tape closures.

They have a lease that runs through January 31, 2028.

Uh the tenant has expressed to the building owner and to the city that they're not interested in uh staying in the space and signing a long-term lease to stay there, which is ideal for us.

If the city purchases the property, bag tape would remain as a tenant in the space until January 2028, unless they would agree to some type of early termination of their lease.

Property services has been in contact with them about our interest in acquiring the site and notifying them of the potential for early termination if they're interested.

If the city purchases the property, the existing buildings would be demolished to make way for a new water maintenance facility to be built on the site.

We don't yet have a design consultant working with us on the project yet.

Uh so we don't have any kind of renderings of what that might look like at this time.

I believe with that that concludes our presentation, and staff from public works and property services will remain for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Hannon.

Um we have a few council members in queue.

I'll first recognize Council President Payne.

Thank you, Vice Chair Chowdry.

Just uh want to express my thanks and gratitude to the Finance and Property Services team.

Uh I think we're all aware of the background on this facility and the the reason we're seeking out a new facility.

Uh the location is in my ward, and it happens to be directly adjacent to uh a facility that also had a fairly complex history with our community.

There are if you may recall some years back, there was a don't dump on Northeast campaign because that that was originally the site of a proposal for a hazardous material uh waste transfer site, and that evolved into what is now the East Side maintenance facility as a result of some community backlash to that proposal.

And so it was really critically important to me that my community had an opportunity to learn about this project and weigh in before there was a vote that was moving this forward.

Um Finance Property Services worked really hard along with public works leadership to get that community meeting together.

And uh it wasn't the most attended meeting, but we did have some important community representatives, particularly from our local newspaper, who are gonna be able to help share the vision for this.

And I think one of the things that was also really eye-opening was seeing the physical constraints of the existing uh building meant there was actually more vehicle traffic because they had to do daily um warehouse transfers from the Fridley facility.

This new facility not only has the capacity for more warehousing space, so you don't need those daily deliveries, but it's also like right up the street from the Fridley uh facility.

And so I think that this is landing in a good place, and I'm just really grateful that uh staff were so accommodating to be able to bring some transparency to this process.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Wansley.

Thank you, Chair Child Jeremy.

Um I will be voting in support of item number seven so that the city can move forward with this location for the water distribution maintenance facility.

Uh many of us are aware that for several years, actually, uh the Fry administration insisted that there was only one viable option for this facility, and that was uh the Roof Depot site in East Phillips.

And we were repeatedly told that you know we had to move forward with the site in spite of it violating multiple.

I'm not ascribing motive.

These are actually facts, and I'm going to continue on with my facts.

Thank you, Councilmember Rainville.

Um, so we were told we had to move forward with this, even though that it did not align with many of the city's policies and goals.

And again, told that there was no option, and we had to override the needs of black and brown and indigenous residents.

And I'm glad that this proposal or item that we're considering show that Roof Depot was never the only option for our water yard.

And really glad that there was a number of us um on this body who did not accept that line and actually did a great deal to work with many stakeholders across uh the city and state uh to advance other options that we're considering today.

And I want to say thank you to our staff for being creative and for being uh resilient and bringing forward that other option.

Um I also know that there's been some rhetoric from the dais around the process of selecting a new water yard facility being unnecessarily costly, and I absolutely agree with that.

Um it is expensive to try to force something on the community that they may clear they did not want to proceed with, and that was harmful to them, and we could have saved lots of money over 10 years had we moved forward with an alternative location, which we're doing ultimately today.

Um, and that would put us in a more efficient process of acknowledging the needs of our communities while also acknowledging the needs of the city.

Um but that said, I think all of us saw the outcome of the legislative state legislator this past session.

Um it's very clear that we don't have a pathway, straight pathway forward uh with advancing the Roof Depot site that we're currently in a purchase agreement around.

Uh we know the state legislator failed to make good on their uh financial commitment, but I am proud that the residents around East Phillips did raise over 10 million dollars to support their half of the bargain, and I really hope that the administration will come to the table and work with those residents so that we can ultimately complete that purchase agreement and make that transfer of the roof depot site into community ownership possible.

Um and that said, I'm really happy that we're in some ways closing one chapter and hopefully, again, doing so with a further collaboration with the community so that we can make their uh vision a reality as well.

So thank you all.

Thank you.

Is there any other discussion on this item?

Seeing none, I will move this motion for approval.

Um all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

The ayes have it, and the motion is carried.

We have another item under discussion before we go on to our addendum.

It is related to the council's standing committees and its membership.

The item is a resolution revising memberships and quorums of various committees and was continued to date to today's meeting as our previous committee meeting.

Um, I will first recognize Council President Payne.

Uh thank you, Vice Chair Chowdry.

As you all recall, this was originally brought forward in the last cycle.

It was after Councilmember Ellison had indicated that he was going to be uh moving on to a fellowship and was going to still be engaged in the work, but wanted to notify me that he was not going to be able to be consistently able to uh participate in committees in person.

And after consulting with the city clerk uh and kind of recalling uh members who rolled off the body last term, uh my original proposal was to just streamline the process and uh just reduce the number of members that and each of those committees so that we could have a cleaner management of quorum.

Uh councilmember Vitaw had expressed a lot of concern around making sure that the North Side was represented.

We held this for a cycle, and my hope was to be able to have deeper conversations with folks.

Uh that was during the um ward week when uh the annunciation school shooting happened and uh obviously all of our attention was drawn elsewhere.

I did get an opportunity to meet both with um councilmember vitae and council member Ellison to talk about some of the uh challenges that we were trying to navigate, especially with North Side representation.

Um I got a better understanding of Councilmember Ellison's uh continuing work that he is doing serving the North Side right now, including continuing to work on policy and continuing to work along with his staff on addressing constituent concerns, and so um I put together a motion today that reflected and and council member uh Vita had very strongly expressed the importance of having Northside representation in Councilmember Ellison had expressed that he's very engaged with this work and is always gonna be staying on top of what's happening in committee and reaching out to committee members.

Uh and so I brought forward a motion that just kept him as a member of the committee, but transferred uh the vice chair role to Councilmember Chowdhury so that we just knew that we had that reliable seat at that table.

Um I see that Councilmember Vita has brought forward a motion to add her to the the committees.

Uh the one thing I uh that gives me pause is that uh after those conversations, a number of other council members have also reached out to me expressing their interest in joining some of these committees.

And based on my original conversation with the clerk, this is kind of the the sequence of events.

Once you start changing committee assignments, there's a cascade of other things that may unfold, including uh appointments to outside bodies like the Transportation Advisory Board and any number of other uh uh roles.

And so I was trying to streamline still how we move forward.

So I've had those conversations with other council members who had expressed interest in these committee assignments and asked that they hold that back so that we could have a path forward.

Um that now goes unresolved with what Councilmember Vita has brought forward.

Um I still recommend uh moving forward with keeping Councilmember Ellison on these committees because he is still engaged in the work.

But um obviously this is a uh a choice up to the body, and so uh my recommendation would be to pass what I've brought forward or to at least forward this topic without recommendation so that we could um try to get these issues resolved in the next uh couple days.

Thank you, Council President Payne.

I'll next recognize Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

Um I feel like uh the council president's recollection of what happened is disingenuous, and I just want to start by saying that I was blindsided by what was brought forward the last cycle in that um council member Ellison was going to be removed from committees, and there was not going to be any representation from the North Side.

That's what sparked me.

I think that's unacceptable.

I've had conversations with President Payne since um he was appointed president about north side representation on committees, and so I had another conversation.

We met by teams on Friday, and he told me that he um thought that it should just go back to its original state.

And I will say that what was brought before us was said that it was we were doing exactly what we did for council member Johnson.

That is not factual.

What we did for council member Johnson is what I'm asking for here today.

Councilmember Johnson was taken off committees and replaced by councilmember Osman and replaced with chairs that he had been mentoring on those committees.

That is what happened.

That was unanimously voted on, and that is what I asked the council president to do in the case of council member Ellison not being on these committees and not just removing him and not having north side representation because we deserve that.

I have talked to council member Ellison, he is in support of me being appointed to these committees.

I he is in support of talking to me through these committees because we do it anyway, as with him being assigned to the committees, issues that come up on the north side.

And so what I've brought before you today, colleagues, is more work for myself because I believe the north side deserves to be represented on these committees.

There's a lot of issues that come before the north side and that are important to biz and important to public health and safety, and I want to be there to make sure that we are represented on the north side, and there's somebody from the north side who can have conversations with folks about these things while they're in committee, and I asked the council president to support me in doing so.

He had every opportunity to bring forward what I've brought forward as an amendment today, and he chose not to.

He told me that he was gonna go back to the original um committee members with adding Ellison, and that he would figure out if Councilmember Ellison would be here or not.

Again, I spoke with councilmember Ellison.

He says he will be here Thursday to support me in being appointed to these committees, and I'm asking you all to do so now.

Thank you, Councilmember Vita.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Osman.

Thank you, uh Chair.

I uh as council first of all, Councilmember Ellison has served the city of Minneapolis for long time.

He's one of the seniors in the body here.

Uh he has been the vice chair of Biz for like I think the last eight years.

Uh before I became a chair, he was a vice chair for um former council member Lisa Goodman, and he's also vice chair here for me as biz committee, as you know, this committee is very busy, it's very knowledgeable, and I appreciate uh the commitment and the service he has done uh for Northside and he continues to do his work over there.

Uh it will be uh uh big miss uh you know not to have uh Ellison in the committee.

He's been uh uh a champion for housing uh for tenants' rights, and he continued to be that.

I really, as a chair of this committee, I really want to have him.

Um, so maybe I'll ask City Clerk is the virtual option, is the virtual for him to be state and a member an option for him to join us.

I have heard, I I don't know, I have heard uh even after the COVID, the state uh committees or boards have um uh continue to do virtual.

Uh don't have that information.

That's what I heard.

I don't really have super details, but if they stays doing it, state boards are doing uh virtual meeting, what's uh stopping us?

Thank you.

Through the chair, council member Osman.

There are a few points to keep in mind.

First and foremost, council rules require that council members be present physically in the chamber in order to count cast a vote, and no proxy voting is allowed.

That would be one.

The state law, open meeting law was amended and changed last year to provide uh a more permissive uh use of interactive technology as they refer to it in the statute for the use of uh remote participation in public meetings.

However, we here at the city do not have the processes or systems in order to meet what is required.

So the statutes require that if you're using interactive technology, you must be able to see and hear all the participants at the same time.

And so we don't have the system in place that would allow us for uh Councilmember Ellison on one end to see and hear every single one of the body here and for us to see him at the same time and for the public to be able to see and hear everybody in this room and councilmember Ellison from any remote location.

So there is a technological challenge uh that would prohibit us from fully complying with the state open meeting law, and then there are the council rules that say uh councilmember must be present in the chamber in order to cast a vote.

Okay.

Thank you so much for clarifying that that will be a big miss.

Uh uh, and I wish there was a way for him to uh um be and stay in base committee, the whatever six uh meetings that we have left.

But with that being said, like I say, Biz Committee is very, very busy and uh and it's a committee that has a lot of items come through, and I would love to have, I would love to have someone, and I'm glad Councilmember Fita has offered her time to serve and uh join the committee, and I I welcome that.

Uh, but also I really want to make sure um, and hopefully I can get a commitment from her uh that you know I want to be able to advance policies that comes through the committee.

I I want, and this is what council member Allison also wants.

I want to forward policies and not killing the committee, especially what happened last week with Councilmember Jason Chavez and Council Feist president.

Um we need to be able to give opportunity and time for all council members.

And if councilmember Fita can commit publicly that she will be advancing policies that she might not agree without recommendation to the full council, I will welcome her, I will support her motion, and I really want you know um that because that is something that I want to carry as a as a committee chair.

I want to be able to uh have give everyone an opportunity, even if you don't agree uh with uh with some of the balance policies that come through it.

So I that's what I'm gonna leave it, but uh I would love to have Councilmember Fita join on the Biz Committee if she's able to answer that question.

That's broad.

I don't I don't I don't I'm not even sure what the question is, but if it's about my perfect attendance, I'll be at the Biz Committee and I will work through the issues of Biz.

My question is 100%.

Will you support policy?

Let's let's alter the chair, please.

So I will I will take the chair.

Um why don't we have Clerk Carl take a stab at that question?

Sure, thank you, madam chair, and to council member Osman, I would say uh obviously, as I've said before at previous meetings, this body gets determined its structure.

It has the exclusive power to decide its officers, its committees, the jurisdiction of those committees, the membership of those committees, including the leadership of those committees.

And so it is a decision of this body which members are on uh the various committees, and there is no conditioning upon that service uh in terms of I will or I won't support things.

Every single member here is given one vote, and they use that vote to represent their constituents in voting on all proposals that come before the body.

And so every single one of our committees, as I've said before, we we sometimes throw this this term around that this is an oversight committee or this is a standing committee.

All committees are standing committees, all committees exercise oversight of certain spheres of municipal policy within the jurisdiction of the city enterprise, and in exercising their duty of care as an elected official, that vote is what they uh use to represent not just their position but the position of their wards as duly elected members of the body.

So uh if it is the decision of this body that council member uh vita is to be uh substituted in for those assignments on committees that currently Councilmember Ellison serves on, then certainly that's a decision for this body, and it would be a majority vote to make that happen.

Thank you.

So it feels like that question is asked and answered.

Do you have any further comments, Councilmember Osman?

Just uh preiterate um my point is that uh I want to be able to have the opportunity for um very important policies come through this committee that affect people's lives.

And we I want to be able to, you know, consider that on I don't really like to see, and I'll be honest with you what happened last week.

I don't agree the motion that was coming through for Councilmember uh Jason Shravis' motion on the policy, but I still was able to vote on that.

So, as the committee chair, um that is my point, and we'll see how this this turns out to be on the vote.

But you know, uh again, Councilmember Allison will be will be a big miss, and I'll look forward to whoever joins on this committee.

Thank you.

I'll next recognize council member Jenkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and um I I guess I I thought this conversation was a different conversation.

I thought it was the elephant that's in the room that that I've been hearing from many of my constituents and other people around the city, other taxpayers, um, ward five residents that feel like Councilmember Ellison's acceptance of a fellowship, which is a wonderful opportunity for him, is in conflict with his duties at the City of Minneapolis.

Um people have suggested that it is ethical concern.

I um that he is collecting a paycheck from multiple sources.

Um, yeah, I I thought that was going to be the discussion today.

It seems like we are not really concerned about that aspect.

I I guess, you know, I I went through a Harvard uh fellowship during my term in the office, and um they requested that I not do any work related to my city work, um, phone calls, emails, etc.

And I read through the low fellowship, which I know many people who have been through that fellowship, many, many of politics who have been through the low fellowship, and they have all been required.

I've read that Harvard has created an exception for Mr.

Ellison.

Councilmember Ellison.

I I unfortunately don't feel like Councilmember Ellison's fellowship in particular is germane to the discussion.

Today we're discussing the committee standings and also.

I just I respectfully disagree.

It is absolutely the reason why we're having this conversation.

We would not be having this conversation if he has not doing a fellowship in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So I disagree, ma'am.

I'll just respectfully say bringing this issue.

He is unable to answer any of the questions that are being brought up here.

And so I understand that it's related to the President.

The questions are for this body.

It is not up to Mr.

Ellison.

We related this to past term when Mr.

Johnson took a job.

And he did not begin his work while he was on the city council.

We also had this very same situation in the previous term, when Mr.

Warsami, Councilmember Wursami at the time, took a job at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.

He stepped down from his position.

So I thought that's what this conversation was about.

Clearly it is not.

It's about the committee structure, which I 100% support Councilmember Vitao's proposal to join the BIS Committee.

But I think we need to have a real discussion about the efficacy of his fellowship versus his work here on the City Council.

Thank you, Councilmember Jenkins.

And just a point of privilege.

I I'd agree with you that the fellowship certainly is a reason why we are in this position.

However, the item is not about uh councilmember's ethics, and that's why it's not a part of the discussion.

And that's that's where I felt.

No ascribing motive, please.

You just said you don't care.

Madam Madam Chair.

I will recognize Clerk Carl.

Thank you.

Um just to sort of reiterate where we are, and notwithstanding all the the other discussions that have happened, uh we have seven cycles left in this year and this term.

And in order to reflect the will of the body, as I have mentioned to the council president a few times, getting these committees done is important.

Um we have to reprogram our legislative information management system.

That's going to cost money and take time.

So not to put a fine point on it, but we have seven cycles left, six regular council meetings, that includes this one on Thursday this week.

Um, and if we are to have the time needed and money to pay to reprogram limbs, we will need an action from the council uh soon, maybe even as early as Thursday.

I will reframe for us that the council rules 4.1 specifically say it's the council president's job to bring forward a recommendation for forming committees that it is then subject to a ratification vote by the council.

So, in this particular case, I would suggest you do have a proposal.

It's in the form of a resolution amending the existing resolution which created our standing committees for this term uh in front of you.

The Council President has expressed uh what his recommendation is.

Uh Councilmember Vita has also offered an amendment to that proposal, which would substitute her name in place of Councilmember Ellison's name on two of those committees, specifically the Business Housing and Zoning Committee and the Public Health and Safety Committee.

And so I think the first thing to decide is for the body whether or not you will take up the amended version that has been requested by Councilmember Vita as a change to the proposal brought forward by the Council President in line with the council rules.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Vice Chair Chowdhury.

You know, I'm also disappointed that Councilmember Ellison didn't communicate with us before his departure, that we couldn't have worked this out before he took he didn't communicate with me.

And so that came as a you know information to me when he wasn't here in the council meeting where a new organizational structure was put forward.

I was not informed that he was leaving the committee that I serve on, biz, and that there would be a new vacancy on the public health and safety committee, which I have since let the president know that I would like to serve on in councilmember Ellison instead, because I have a legislative directive which we just passed uh earlier today for investigation and clearance rates policy work that I would like to move forward through that committee.

So I'm not comfortable replacing both of his positions with councilmember veto when there are other folks who would like to serve in those capacity and advance policies in those committees as well.

I at this point I think the best course of action is to leave the committees as they are and let him have the expectation, which is my expectation, that he attends as many of them as possible, which is what his residence and what his colleagues deserve.

In that case, I'll move Payne's version, which keeps them all the same with him on them, and say on the record here that he needs to be here, that us as council members and him as and his Ward 5 constituents deserve a council member who shows up, so he should be showing up.

Like you said, there's only seven cycles left.

Make the effort to be here.

Do your fellowship after.

That's my position and motion.

Second.

Councilmember Palmasan, I'll recognize you next.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, to clear up speaker management, perhaps with some of the words from our city clerk.

Um I will second the revision that Councilmember Vita is making to Councilmember Payne's motion.

Does that make sense to this body?

I thought she'd made that motion.

I don't believe a motion was made until Councilmember Cashman made a motion.

Could the clerk just clarify for us?

Yeah, Madam Chair, my my understanding there would be the original motion on the floor is Council Payne's revision.

So it would be an order at this point for Councilmember Palmasano or Vita to move to amend that version.

So then we would vote on the body would vote on whether or not to accept Councilmember Vita's amendment, and then we would return to the original motion, either in its original form or as amended by this body.

So Madam Chair, I'd like to make my motion to amend.

And it sounds like you would like to second.

I'll go ahead and second.

Thank you.

Great.

The motion is on the floor.

Do you have any further comments?

I do.

Thank you.

This is germane to this motion, I believe.

We have no representation from the north side on these two important committees, business and housing and also public safety.

If council member Ellison is being removed from those committees, the solution would be to appoint another member.

Ideally, Councilmember Vita to these committees, not reduce membership and quorum of committees, and also not to leave it as is, which would mean that then this would be vacant.

Per Councilmember Ellison's admissions himself.

But this is about providing day-to-day on the ground representation for Ward 5.

Councilmember Ellison cannot do that from Massachusetts.

He cannot effectively helicopter in once in a while to vote on important city issues.

This is what an executive consultant does, not a sitting city council member.

A neighbor of mine suggested after watching some of the footage or reading some of the articles in the paper that maybe he would get a couple city council jobs and string them together as a traveling gig.

I think we all know how ridiculous that sounds.

You cannot not be present and do this kind of a job.

And I have heard, similar to Councilmember Cashman, from a lot of residents concerned that he's being paid to do both.

To me, this is about council leadership not taking the lead and managing this reassignment because I only found out about it recently, that past cycle.

And I am curious how long leadership has known about this.

But this action is to not allow Councilmember Ellison to participate in council activities, but still collect a paycheck.

And I don't think there are other city employees who are given that privilege.

We once had to terminate employment of the best audit person I believe we ever had because she moved her family to Kansas City when her husband got a job there.

This was during COVID when we were all working remotely.

She could have done her job, but we let her go per our remote remote workforce policy.

I get that doesn't apply to electeds, but it should.

I think we should apply the same standards that we put on our workforce to ourselves in every instance that we can.

The suggestion of taking the easy way out here, that's on council leadership.

But to me, this shows a complete lack of regard for equitable representation across our entire city.

But I must say that what feels just as disturbing is what I just heard another council member on the land use committee say.

The chair of that committee, in fact, just said he would invite and support her only if Councilmember Vita supports the things he wants her to.

And that is a litmus test I've not heard of before.

Thank you, Councilmember Palmasano.

Next on queue is Councilmember Vito.

Thank you, Chair.

I I just want to say again that this is not a one-issue thing for me to be appointed to these committees.

I um just heard Councilmember Cashman speak to a legislative directive that is passed, clearly without her being on committee.

And that's not what this is about.

This is not about me having a legislative directive that I want to get passed for why I want to be on these committees.

This is about the north side having representation and having someone that they can come to and talk about the many issues that are on these committees.

There has been so many conversations about the work being done in committee.

We deserve someone who is going to speak with folks and explain, take the time to explain the things that are happening in these committees, the complexities, the folks who walk up to you during these meetings that are from the North Side that want a north sider to explain what just happened in the committee that they sat through, the folks who are watching from home that have multiple questions, and despite what councilmember Cashman believes, she's not that person.

She's not a north sider.

Councilmember Ellison and I have always worked together on these things.

We've always had these conversations, despite what's happening now.

We've always talked about the issues across committees, both of our committees that we sit on, we sit on one committee together.

We discuss these things for the North Side and we discuss how we're going to discuss them with the North Side.

That is important.

There is no reason why we shouldn't do it.

And again, this whole conversation started because it was supposed to be a replication of what happened for Councilmember Johnson.

And all I'm asking for everyone to do is exactly what we did for Councilmember Johnson.

Replace the seats with someone else.

And that's someone just happens to be me because the North Side is not represented.

That is it.

That's all I'm asking for.

I'm not asking for special favors.

I'm not asking for anybody to, you know, give me advice on how I should be or shouldn't be in the committee.

I'm gonna do my job in these committees like I've done in every other committee I've sat in.

I'm gonna continue to have conversations with councilmember Ellison about what's important to and for the North Side, as we always do.

Now, if we want to make this a personal thing, because it's starting to feel really personal to me about me.

If we want to make this a personal thing about I want to be on the committee instead of you and people not understanding that the North Side is already underrepresented.

There's only two of us here.

That's I don't know how many Southsiders here.

There's only two of us on this entire council, and to ask for six more cycles.

The number of cycles were minimized to six.

I think that's a lot of cycles, especially for the north side.

For six more cycles for another North Sider to be on the committee so that I have an opportunity to discuss with Northsiders what's happening, what's going on at the very complicated city council level about things in their community.

What else is needed here?

It's clear what we have to do here.

Now people can vote however they want to, and people can make it about them and they want to be on this.

This legislative directive is passing already.

So you can do that however you want to do it.

But we don't have representation.

And as I said, I've spoke to Councilmember Ellison.

We've talked through this, we have a plan.

If you all want to text them or call them, I'm sure some have already, do so.

But we deserve representation.

Period.

Next, I'll recognize Council President Payton.

Thank you, Vice Chair Chowdry.

Um, two things.

I mean, I think all of us recognize this isn't a nine to five job.

Uh our time in the on the dais is some of the most important work we do, but from a time perspective, we are a 24-7 role.

Uh when a school shooting happens, we are on the phone.

When you're walking your neighborhood, you are answering questions about rental licenses.

There is not really a moment off.

Um, and so the boundaries of um what we do day to day probably are a little bit unhealthy, I would say, in terms of our time commitment.

Uh I would suggest that today, if we want to take action, we pass my motion because as I said, there are other members that are interested in these positions.

Councilmember Cashman shared publicly, but there are other members interested.

We would have to quickly start reshuffling a lot of roles here to try to make sure that we're getting to the right.

Um geographic equity, economic equity, demographic equity.

Um, it is a it's a it's a very delicate balance of all of those uh forces.

Uh otherwise I would suggest that we forward this without recommendation so that we can take this up at full council because there has been some ideas around how we might arrive at that balanced place, and that I think would at least give us the time to do that.

Next, we'll recognize councilmember Rainville.

I remember vividly how we allowed uh Councilmember Johnson seems to be replaced by Councilman Rosman so that that representation is this is the same thing that Councilmember Vita is asking for.

We have to be equitable to the North Side.

And uh I would ask uh Councilmember Vita, are you amenable to uh having this forward without recommendations?

We could get Councilmember Ellison here to get his opinion?

Sure, whatever.

I mean, I really do.

Councilmember Rainville, I really would like us to vote on this.

I mean, people, this is this was literally thrown at us three weeks ago, and people were ready to vote.

And there were no conversations had.

I'm still waiting on the question to be answered by council leadership.

How long have they known about this?

I mean, what are what is the what is the way here?

The council president has thrown everyone under the bus, the clerks, Ellison, everyone.

How long have we been waiting for this and now we're gonna recommend that it gets delayed instead of taking a vote?

So to just to clarify it, you asked a question about if you if you were amenable to making your motion be without recommendation.

And Councilmember Vita, did you accept that?

I say it no.

I want to vote on my motion.

Okay, all right.

Councilmember Rain, would you like to continue?

Yes, I would, thank you.

I I really do think that if we move forward without recommendation, let Councilmember Ellison come and express his views on having the North Side be represented to and support your position.

I do think that's the best way to go forward today.

So I will second Council President Payne to move forward with our recommendation.

All right.

Clerks, why don't we get this in order?

Chair Chowdhury, the the Vita's amendment is before the body now.

And it sounds like the auth like the entire body would need to agree to pull it, and it does not sound like there is that agreement.

Why don't we think we probably need to vote on the amendment?

I will ask Councilmember Vita if she is willing to withdraw her amendment so council member pay and council president pay and and council member uh Rainville can make that motion uh forwarding without recommendation.

You you can vote on my amendment.

So that's a no.

So then council members council member vita's amendment is before us.

Next I will recognize council member Chavez.

Uh thank you, uh Chair Chaudry.

I'd just like to bring attention as we're talking about equity.

I started analyzing the council structure, and I realize that businessing that the business housing and zoning committee is actually represented by three council members that represent at least part of downtown.

And as we're looking at the council structure, I think we need to analyze deeply what representation means when we have one of the most important committees of this body that talks about business housing and zoning reform, and we have downtown representing 50 percent of the committee, then we completely need to restructure the committee and figure out what we're gonna do to make sure that we're being equitable.

I wanted to point that out.

And I'm hearing about so much finger pointing to Council President Payne, but I want to remind the public last year, which was led by no last council term, which was led by a different council president and a different council vice president in the public health and safety committee.

There was no one from Phillips or the Southside Green Zone represented in that committee.

That committee was Vita as chair, Payne as Vice Chair, Wansi, Rainville, Elson, and Pamasano.

And that question about equity was not talked about last term, and I was frustrated too.

So I want to talk about how it's hard to have this conversation when some folks I guess don't matter in this conversation.

But if we're gonna be restructuring our committee structure, let's start with biz that's reflected with 50 percent of folks from downtown.

And let's address that concern there too.

So I believe in equity, but I think if we're gonna be equitable, we need to be fair throughout all the committees.

Thank you.

Next I'll recognize Councilmember Osman.

Yes, I I support Councilmember Rainville's uh suggestion.

I think it's really smart to have Councilmember Ellison not speak for him.

You know, he's still at the office, his staff are here, he's here, he's coming tomorrow.

He did not sign off like Johnson did, he's he's still here.

So um the brilliant idea that you brought, thank you, Councilmember uh uh Rainville.

Uh I support that, and um I'm hoping that uh that's what we will vote for.

So we can we can have Councilmember Allison come in and join us.

He has done a lot of work for City of Minneapolis for the last eight years, and he's a uh uh you know someone who who is super experienced in the committee, so we'll love to have his opinion and what he thinks on how to move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Osman.

I put myself in cue.

Um throughout the duration of this conversation.

For me, I will just speak for myself.

Um I don't personally feel like I have a consensus on what to do here.

Um I think uh some may feel that I have one position or another.

I truly, after this conversation, do not.

Um I think the point about equity that council member Chavez brought up about 50 percent of the BIS committee being represented by downtown council members is really well taken.

Um it's just a matter of fact.

It is.

I that's a factual statement that we have before us, and I agree that there should be north side representation also on this committee.

I would welcome Councilmember Vita being on this, but I don't think the amendment that's before us has a reflection of that equity issue that Councilmember Chavez named.

And so if we want to do equity across the board, and that's something that it sounds like we care about as a body, then we should structure the business housing and zoning committee to do so.

Um and I I don't know if uh the council member Vita, who's the author of this amendment, wants to make a suggestion to change it, or if we should just take this up into full council, and then council council president Payne uh brings another version, or other people bring amendments to that day, that might be the thing that we need to do.

But personally, I am at a uh at uh not at a consensus consensus point as to what we should do here without a discussion about the restruction of the restructure of the business housing and zoning committee.

And so I just wanted to put that on the table for us to discuss further if other members had any suggestions or ideas to that point.

Next, I will recognize council member vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I I again can we get the answer to the question though of how long has council leadership known that we were going to need to restructure these committees or that council member Ellison wasn't gonna be here.

I mean, the proposal that came before us was to just eliminate the membership of council member Ellison from these committees.

So I'm trying to understand how long has this been the issue for council leadership, or how when were they made aware of this?

You want to?

Okay.

So I I will let Council President Payne or Council Vice President step in and decide who wants to address it.

I'll first speak from my perspective because I think that led ultimately to my conversation with uh the clerk.

Um my recollection is that councilmember Ellison had shared with me his interest in this program many, many months ago.

Uh, but I hadn't had any follow-up conversations with him about whether he was applying, whether he got accepted, or any of those types of logistical details until essentially the week before the original motion came back.

And the immediately when I discovered that he was accepted and he was gonna be starting the program, I went to the clerk's office and we had a uh conversation about what would be the best path forward.

So that that's from my perspective.

So a week before so a week before so I I'm just trying to get I didn't understand the answer.

Okay, Madam Chair.

Go ahead and follow.

So a week before the action that the clerk brought before us is when you found out that he was actually formally accepted and though he was starting the program.

That's correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Now I'll recognize Council Vice President Chug Tai.

Yeah, uh, thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh Councilmember Vita.

Um, a couple things.

First, um, I I I can't remember exact dates.

Um we had me and Councilmember Ellison spoke in person.

I'm sure he also made you aware that he was potentially pursuing um uh an opportunity a prestigious opportunity.

Um he made me aware when he was applying.

Um I believe him and I had a conversation once he learned he was accepted into the program just to talk about how that would affect his schedule.

Um, and I believe that uh myself, the council president and the city clerk had a conversation um, you know, a couple of council meetings ago just around hey, this is coming up, we should start putting uh figuring out um what what the impact on committee structure is going to be.

Um there were you know I think there was a conversation around um the exact can of worms that's now open with you know several members wanting to move around committee structure, and so at the time um the the council president brought forward a motion um as as you recall uh to to just eliminate council member Ellison's um committee assignments um and leave those spaces vacant and reduce the membership down to five members.

Now, I just want to clarify just in case this isn't being tracked correctly here, um, the the the resolution from council president Payne that's before you today um leaves Councilmember Ellison on the committees he's a part of, um, which is informed by you know council member Ellison just mentioning his interest in staying on committees and wanting to um wanting to uh be a be present whenever he is able to.

Um and uh hopefully that that answers your question.

Kind of, but I did have a meeting with Council President Payne on Friday, who said something completely different than what he's saying today.

He told me he didn't know that he knew the day that I knew when that action he with his name on it came before us that he had no idea the clerk was bringing that forward on that day.

That is exactly what he said to me.

He told me he had no idea that was coming before us on that day that he thought maybe it would come at a later date.

I I am gonna recommend that we move this forward without recommendation because I would love for council member Ellison to be here to have a conversation about that part because that part is not truthful, and I and what there is like major, major discrepancies in what the council president said to me versus what he is saying up on this diet right now and definitely in the language that he's using around the action he brought forward versus what I'm bringing forward and why I brought it forward.

Why I brought it forward is because he said he'd rather see um council member Ellison stay on it and hadn't said anything about Councilmember Ellison wanting to stay on it.

So I am gonna recommend that we move it forward without recommendation until Councilmember Ellison is here.

We'll get back to the clerks on how we should do that, but first uh President Payne has a point of order.

Uh just uh if there was a point of clarification, uh the what we had discussed on Friday was that me and the clerk had had a conversation on what our path to move forward would be, and I think we had finalized that conversation on the Monday before the cow.

I had assumed that we wouldn't take that item up until the next cycle, but we happen to have a very hard-working clerk who was able to get that onto our agenda the very next day.

What so I'm gonna ask our city clerks to help us figure out how we should move forward on moving a recommendation without moving this without a recommendation as a body.

Madam Chair, if there's no objection, we can simply just close the speaker management column with uh Councilmember Vita's amendment, and then we can move back to the original proposal and uh accept a motion to send that forward without recommendation.

Great.

If there is no objection, that's what we can have at the table.

Okay, no objection.

So that's what's before us.

I will ask the oh, do we have others in queue?

Councilmember Rainville.

Are you in cue?

No, okay.

Just have an old cue before us.

Are there others that are in queue just so I can make sure I'm not missing anybody?

I will just formally move that we forward this without recommendation and ask for a second.

Second.

Great.

I will have the clerk call the roll.

On the motion to send the item forward without recommendation.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Nita.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Cashman.

Aye.

Jenkins.

Nay.

Chuktai.

Aye.

Koski.

Aye.

Promasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chowdhury.

Aye.

Chair Chavez.

Aye.

There are 11 ayes and one nay.

That motion carries.

It has been forwarded without recommendation.

Colleagues, next we have two addendums that were added this morning as a result of tech issues at our IGR committee meeting.

First, we will have Lauren Olson come back and conclude her update regarding the federal level legislative update.

Feel that this is rather important given our current climate at the federal level to hear fully what our IGR department has to share.

And then I will remind folks we do have another item that we will need to vote on following this presentation.

All right, madam chair, council members.

Uh I'm Lauren Olson, senior government relations representative from the IGR committee.

I know it's been a very long day.

If anyone wants to stretch, I won't take offense to it.

And I will also try to get through this expeditiously, but we do want to make sure you have the information.

So the focus today is the federal budget process.

We did discuss this earlier in IGR committee, so I won't go over this in detail, but the fiscal year ends on September 30th.

And so there's active discussion happening right now about the budget.

The normal budget process requires that or six 60 votes in the Senate to bring a budget to the floor.

Ms.

Olson?

Yes.

That you ended because captioning is available.

So I believe you were in the big picture portion when we uh ended off.

Thank you.

Yes.

I won't re I don't intend to repeat everything, but I do want to generally remind folks of a couple things here, but I'll of course expeditiously move forward.

Um so yes, this is going to be an active discussion over the next month, so we want you to be aware of it.

Um bills are, you know, each bill is uh passed through a committee and then they're put together in big omnibus.

So these bills are at different stages and within the house and the senate.

So when we talk about some of these numbers coming up, just be aware that it might be something that's passed through a subcommittee, it might be through a house, it might a few bills have actually passed through the floor.

We won't um discuss this in detail again, but the big thing that's hanging over people's heads, especially Democrats in Congress, is that they're concerned that once they appropriate money expressing their priorities, that their power of the purse basically will not be respected, and that because there's these tools that have been used that essentially end up changing the appropriations after the fact with a simple majority.

So that's the big thing overhanging the discussion is how can Democrats actually have meaningful appropriations when all these tools are being used, okay.

The big picture is basically that the White House is generally proposing, of course, the biggest draconian cuts.

The House is often aligned with the White House, sometimes a little bit less in terms of cuts, and the Senate process on the other hand has been a much more bipartisan process, and you will find that they're in many cases they're kind of maintaining funding levels.

Sometimes they're not keeping up with inflation, occasionally even increase funding.

So we'll see this as we look at some examples.

So with emergency management, you know, the White House would cut.

Um, the House actually, surprisingly, this was a big surprise to me.

The budget would increase a FEMA by 4.5 billion.

Um that is surprising since you know there's been a lot of active conversation, especially from the administration about potentially eliminating or dramatically changing FEMA.

So that was a surprise to me because as you will see going forward, the House is often pretty in step with the president.

Um the Senate uh budget is not available yet, but expected tomorrow.

In the meantime, there's also a bill that's being actively discussed that has bipartisan sponsorship, called calling the fixing, I think.

Fixing emergency management for America, I think.

Um, I'm engaging with our emergency management department about their thoughts on that bill, and we can talk to our delegation about that.

In the public safety realm, just generally, um, the White House is trying to reduce funding for the Department of Justice, and they want to eliminate grant programs, many of them targeted towards violent crime prevention programs.

Um, the Senate would reduce the budget slightly, and the House would increase the budget slightly.

Both the House and the Senate do um increase funds for the COPS program and burn grants, which are both programs that we have used at the city.

Public health is a realm that is, you know, seeing basically some of the deepest cuts proposed from the White House and the House.

Um the House would cut $7 billion from total HHS spending.

Um, the Senate would actually increase the amount.

House would cut CDC.

Senate would maintain.

Surprisingly, the House and Senate are both supporting National Institutes of Health Funding at 2025 levels.

That's somewhat surprising since we've seen NIH, you know, kind of attacked in the past.

The House provides 100 million for the Make America Healthy Again project.

Senate does not.

The House is proposing a nearly billion dollar cut from programs that are that work with AIDS and tuberculosis and other transmitted diseases.

Most of that $1 billion is cutting from HIV prevention programs, and that's also a proposal consolidates programs that are funded with this.

In the realm of K-12 education, the White House basically wants to transform the way that public education is carried out, so they would cut Department of Education by 12 billion.

They would consolidate a lot of programs, but in the in the process of consolidating these programs and creating a block grant, it would reduce the funding also in the process by 70%.

The White House and the House share some goals as far as like increasing money to go to charter schools.

They would eliminate English language acquisition programs.

That's a very sick some significant cuts proposed there.

The Senate, on the other hand, is rejecting all of those changes to Title I and to English language acquisition programs, and they generally maintain or increase funding.

So we're starting to see a pattern here where the Senate has quite different opinions about what the budget should be.

So again, House cutting nearly a billion dollars from compared to 2025.

The Senate would increase by 3 billion compared to 2025.

Community development block grants, which the city certainly utilizes to help provide affordable housing is something that we've been keeping an eye on, and there's been a lot of discussion about and threats against potentially eliminating that program.

The White House would like to eliminate CDBG.

The House actually maintains the same amount for 2025.

So again, somewhat surprising since they often agree with the president.

Senate number is just about the same, but it's 200 million less.

The House would cut public housing by 1.5 billion.

Senate cuts would result in 243,000 people receiving vouchers.

Part of the reason why, in a way, the Senate needs to account for like increasing costs and increasing demand for these programs.

So in some cases, they're not necessarily dramatically cutting their budget, but they're not keeping up with the needs of these programs.

The president again would replace housing assistant type of programs, consolidate them, create a block grant program, and then that whole process would result in 43% less funding overall.

Again, you're seeing some common themes as far as the White House wanting to create block grants and also significantly reducing the appropriation in the process.

In the realm of Homeland Security, I mean I think we've seen before from other bills the direction certainly that the House is going, despite the fact that or they have increased funding in the reconciliation bill also for related to immigration enforcement.

They are proposing additional increases in the 2026 budget over 2025.

So another billion for ICE, 6.4 billion for total for enforcement and removal operations, so but an increase of more than 600 million, 500 million increase to custody operations.

There's a currently a program that provides shelter to migrants that they would eliminate.

There are also the House would propose to eliminate a bunch of other programs too, such as the Office of Legislative Affairs and the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman.

And I think that those are tools that we would use to get information about people in detention, for example.

So that's concerning.

Again, the Senate bill is not available, but we're expecting to potentially see that marked up tomorrow.

So I expect what came out of the Senate to look very, very different.

So we have these very different visions.

Oops.

And then just kind of some other random items that are just of interest to the city is the drinking water state revolving fund does support projects across the state and city water projects, and the president wants to cut that very significantly.

The House wants to cut it more moderately, and the Senate would keep that steady.

The president would like to eliminate that, but the Senate and the House are both kind of just adjusting it a little bit.

So it's encouraging to see some things like support for CDBG, support for LIHEAP.

So if there's any bright spots, that might be it.

Would support Loban Park rail crossing improvements in Northeast Minneapolis.

The original request was for 1.8 million.

So it would have been nice to receive a more full funding, but we have put we have potential to receive some support for that project.

So in conclusion, we'll be watching how this all plays out.

What we discussed earlier at IGR committee is all these interesting dynamics around Democrats, especially trying to figure out how to make sure their appropriations will be respected because there's a whole bunch of tools that the White House has been using that allow them to either come back later and amend the budget with a simple majority or withhold funds.

So by September 30th, we will either have a new budget, some kind of continuing resolution, or a government shutdown.

So we will be watching.

Are there any questions?

Thank you so much, Lauren, for this really informative presentation.

Members, are there any questions for Ms.

Olson?

Okay.

Seeing none, I'm going to ask the clerk to file that report.

And thank you so much.

We have one item left.

The final item is two-parted.

It's a formal receipt of a letter that was drafted by me, President Payne, Councilmember Kosiki, and Councilmember Palmasano that was sent to Governor Walls.

And additionally, we have a rev resolution that was added to our IGR agenda this morning calling on the Minnesota state legislature to ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, and give local governments authority to enact local gun control legislation.

Just teeing up what that letter was that is in the LIMS file for your for you to view and also for the public.

Essentially, I think our IGR director did a good job of teeing up how Governor Walls had signaled that he was interested in doing the special session in response to that.

Me and my council authors wrote a letter expressing um gratitude for Governor Walls' um action moving towards action after the tragic shooting at Annunciation Church and School.

And also urging him to call a special session for to pass stronger gun control laws that are similar to the ones that we are asking for within the resolution.

And then the resolution before you talks about that, but also highlights the other mass shooting that happened in Minneapolis 20 less than 24 hours before the mass shooting at Annunciation Church and School at the 2900 block of Clinton Avenue near Christo Ray Jesuit High School.

I know that we are all in deep grief.

Um for their efforts and the way that they have been representing and addressing matters in their communities.

I know that there will be a lot more to say at full council, and I do want to just open up the floor to folks to speak to this item.

Um I also, before I do that, I um had some discussions with a couple other colleagues.

If it is without objection, I would like to add every council member to this resolution as an author.

Okay.

Second.

There's no objection.

All right.

I will look to the queue, I believe.

First up is council member Cashman.

Thank you, Chair.

I was going to ask to be a co-author on this, so you definitely got ahead of me on that.

But I think this should be, you know, our collective priority number one right now.

This summer for gun violence citywide has been awful, um, including in Loring Park, with many fatal and non-fatal shootings that have just really gone.

Uh, it's been really difficult to investigate and to find closure and uh resolution on these horrible, horrible shootings, and obviously enunciation was just awful for our entire community.

And so I think it's important that City of Minneapolis Council members take a position collectively and push our governor to call a special session and to make Republicans answer for why they don't want to pass gun reform and take a vote on um passing these gun control measures statewide, and if they can't pass that, then allow us to do it here in first cities of the first class like Minneapolis.

So thank you to the authors for your work on putting this together.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Council President Payne.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury, and thank you for your leadership on this.

And I also want to thank the leadership of Councilmember Koske, Councilmember Palmasano, thank you, Councilmember uh Cashman also.

Uh we were all at announciation on the day of the event, and it was a very uh just really um heart-wrenching experience, but uh I'm I'm grateful's not the right word because I don't want to be here, frankly, but uh we are here, and I'm glad that we are um put in at least our uh what little push forward that we can through our official channels.

So thank you.

Is there anyone else?

Okay.

I'm not seeing anyone else.

I know that there will be more to say at full council, um, and I know that this is just a part of what we need to do strategically to get some necessary law change so we can ensure that we're putting a stop to gun violence in our city.

So uh with that, um, this is before us, uh, for approval.

So uh on that motion, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, say nay.

Abstentions.

That motion carries.

And with that, we've concluded all business to come before the committee today, and hearing no injection, I will declare this meeting adjourned.