Welcome to the meeting of the Public Health and Safety Committee for December 3rd, 2025.

I am Jason Chavez, the chair of this committee.

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.

The broadcast include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the 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 of the broadcast.

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

At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the role so we can verify quorum.

Councilmember Payne.

Present Rainville?

Present.

Chowdry.

Present.

Palmasano.

Apologies.

I don't think the microphones are on for that.

Let's start over.

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Rainville.

Present.

Chowdry.

Present.

Palmasano is absent.

Umesley.

Present.

And church office.

Present.

We have five present.

At this time, I will I will well let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

I'll remind my colleagues that we'll be using speaker management today.

So please make sure that you're signed up.

If you're here for one of the public hearings and would like to speak, please be sure to do so with the clerks.

We'll start with the consent items and I'll actually make uh amendment to the agenda without objection.

I will like to move item number 10, the Office of Community Safety Quarterly Report to be on the consent agenda.

So we can just receive and file it and take action without objection.

All right, colleagues.

The consent agenda has two items.

Item number one is authorizing a funding agreement with the City of Lakes Community Land Trust for real estate purchase.

Item number two is receiving a filing a quarterly report updated related to eliminating childhood lead poisoning.

And item number three now would be the Office of Community Safety quarterly updates.

And I will move uh that will be a receive and file.

So I'll move those motions for approval.

I'll ask to see if there's anybody on queue for those items and would like to reflect that we are uh joined by councilmember Palmasano.

That being said, on the motion to approve the consent agenda, which also now includes the receiving and filing of the OCS.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any objections.

All right.

Thanks, colleagues.

Our next item is a public hearing on the off-duty use of city resources.

This is amending the ordinance related to fire and police protection to add reporting requirements for the use of city resources in outside work.

I will pass it to my colleague, uh Vice Chair Wancy.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

Um, I would like to just take a few moments to speak briefly to this ordinance titled Off-Duty Use of City Resources Reporting that I'm bringing forward for council consideration.

Um, this ordinance is another piece of ongoing work that uh you all are aware of.

My office has been um working to advance for uh almost four years now.

Um, and this is just another piece of that work of making sure we're improving and increasing transparency around the city's off-duty uh work and programs.

The goal of this ordinance is to improve and create accountability measures within MPD as it relates to off-duty and the city resources being utilized uh to implement it.

Uh, this ordinance will require the administration to provide the council and the public with quarterly updates on the usage of city resources related to off-duty work.

Uh, this information would include the site addresses, the off-duty work is being performed at, how many hours were work utilizing city resources and any unpaid fees attached or associated with that work.

Um, again, since entering City Hall now, um, back in 2022, I've sat on the public health and safety committee, and um throughout those years, all committee members um as well as council members at large have had many conversations related to off-duty work.

And in the four years since those conversations have started, um, I wanted to highlight um that any substantial change that has happened to the system was largely in response to council's continued persistent oversight um over this system and not due to MPD or the mayor leading with a vision of reform for this program.

Um I also want to mention that uh the deputy director of the Office of Community Safety Center did uh send a memo over to council members or committee members.

Um I believe that uh memo has been uploaded to clam's and I do want to be clear on it.

I was actually incredibly disappointed in reading it, um, as it did seem to have a very revisionist understanding of how the work that council has um moved forward around off-duty, how that work has unfolded over the past several years.

Um in the memo, I also heard the same uh recycled excuses as to why MPD has not prioritize the regulation of off-duty work and with full awareness of what measures needed to be put in place to do that.

Um I have heard city leaders consistently pointing to the same specific things as opposed to actually making those changes.

Um and specifically, I have heard around concerns related to time tracking data management issues, um, be referenced as a barrier for implementation of regulation off uh over off-duty.

Um but to be simple, there is literally no excuse for a department that has a multi-million dollar budget to continuously ignore the very clear and identified changes that have been put in front of the department's faces time and time again around how they can go about uh regulating this system.

Um these problems have been identified, solutions have even been brought forward on how to address this by various agencies.

Um these include our own internal agencies such as the audit committee, who has done numerous audits over the system of off-duty and have provided recommendations to MPD and the mayor time and time again of how they can make changes.

Um those recommendations have come from agencies like the Department of Justice, uh, which said that our current MPD off-duty system was right for corruption and was a barrier to accountability in policing.

So I want to be clear that it's not a lack of options or funding as to why MPD has not enacted change regarding off-duty.

Um there's simply a barrier of a lack of political will.

Um, I also know this because in many conversations around advancing regulation of this work, um, we have become aware that there's several companies and vendors who are willing and ready to do this work right now of doing the timekeeping, of providing the database management services that MPD has said that they needed.

MPD is also aware of this.

Their staff is knowledgeable and have done research on this about the vendors that are willing and ready to do this work if a RFP was administered today for it.

Um, they could have, and by they MPD could have moved forward with the implementation in a contract for those type of vendors on their own for years, but have choose not to.

Also, in this year alone, council has passed numerous actions related to regulating off-duty, which MPD and OCS has been well aware of and have been part of those conversations and could have had the opportunity to uh put those implementations, purchase the the timekeeping sites and wherever that they need it, they could have done that this year, also chose not to.

But there will be more discussions around this, uh, starting with markup that's happening on Friday.

Um, but I want to at least highlight that for years taxpayers have been unnecessarily subsidizing MPD side gigs, and we're talking about a subsidization in the millions.

And council has taken its authority serious to offload that financial strain off of taxpayers and to actually place it where it's rightfully um where rightfully should be.

And that's must uh amongst those who are soliciting those services and for us to have a transparent and very documented process of how we're um tracking those fees, specifically for the city resources that MPD officers use is when they're carrying out their side gigs through through off-duty.

Um so I again just want to encourage my colleagues to support this ordinance.

Um if we continue to let this work uh just sit by the wayside, which it feels like MPD often wants, um, then we would not have had any action taken.

And council has been the leader in making sure action is being taken so we don't have uh off-duty program that's continuously being unregulated that's putting civilians and officers at risk of harm and putting the city at tremendous amount of liability or or being at liable for financial risk.

And I'm really grateful that my colleagues have used their authority to prioritize police reform in this aspect.

Um, and I hope the administration will continue to meet us where we're at around treating this work with the serious seriousness that it deserves.

Um even when they don't, I know this body will continue to make police reform a priority, and we're doing that with the consideration of this action today.

So with that, I will stand for any questions and also ask for, well, move the ordinance forward for approval and also ask for a second.

Second.

All right, colleagues, before we jump into good discussion and ask questions of the author, I would recommend that we open the public hearing and then begin discussion.

Great.

Thanks for getting off cue.

Our item is I will now proceed to open well before I begin to open the public hearing.

I'll ask if you're here to speak on this ordinance to please sign up with our clerks right up here and sign in.

Mr.

Chair, there are no members of the public signed up to speak at this time.

Thank you, Clerk.

I will ask one more time.

If you're here to speak on the ordinance to please sign up, otherwise, I will then actually I will close the public hearing.

Uh giving that no one wishes to speak.

Now, colleagues, if you wish to speak on this ordinance, please get on cue.

I'll pass it first to Council President Payne.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

I just wanted to get in cue to thank Vice Chair Wandsley for her just tenacity on this topic and our leadership on this topic.

And I think the most generous thing to say about this is that we have a tremendous amount of reform work to do an MPD.

Like that's not new news, that's not a shocking revelation today.

Um so much of the work of this reform is about prioritization.

And I think that our job as policymakers is to bring a democratic lens to what our priorities ought to be when it comes to this very long roadmap of reforms that do need to be implemented.

Um they're not going to be done in a day, they're not going to be done in a week.

We hope they'll be done faster than a decade, right?

And um this body of work maybe is received by people as contentious, but really what this is is saying there's a lot to do, and we need to have really focused priorities.

I think off-duty is one of those areas that we need to have some of the highest level of priority when it comes to reform work.

And so um I'm just really grateful to Vice Chair Wandsley's leadership on this to keep this at the top of our mind at the top of our agenda.

And you know, there's been a lot of actual legislative work behind this.

This is one of many ordinances to get us to an actual comprehensive, well-regulated off-duty program that is navigating some very sophisticated and challenging legal um constraints, especially around court injunctions and so forth that outside of the consent decree.

So this has taken a lot of work, a lot of um exploration, a lot of curiosity.

Um, and it's just a reflection of uh what I think what I think we do when we're doing our best work.

So thank you.

Next up we have Councilmember Pomassano.

Mr.

Chair, I can't see around the post.

Is Mr.

Jeffries here in the audience?

Um I would like, hi.

Um, I would like to ask if he is willing to come up and it help explain the limitations that you outlined in your letter yesterday.

Um, Councilmember Wansley, as you heard, indicates this is a lack of political will.

Um is this about technology or staff or some other factor limited.

Chair Chavez, uh, Councilmember Palmasano, I am Jared Jeffries.

I'm the deputy commissioner of community safety for the city of Minneapolis.

Uh to your question, Councilmember Palmasano, I'll just say up front, the administration is very supportive of the fee collection of moving this work forward.

So I don't want that to get lost.

That we are very much aligned with the intention of the proposed ordinance amendments.

I think the what we tried to reflect in the memo in the memo that we submitted was we're just asking for additional time before this becomes effective to allow the IET solutions and some of the other decisions that we as a city need to make, especially around how are you actually going to collect the fee to actually be figured out and implemented.

We've got timelines for some of these technology solutions.

So specifically replacing our timekeeping system as a city, that is an entire city project that is underway that's currently being applied to the police department, fire department is taking place in other departments already.

So it's in in moving, it's moving right now.

What we would like to do on the technology solutions is have that in place and then layer on top the platforms that Councilmember Wandsley actually referenced, and so that those are able to work together rather than trying to get an external platform for tracking off-duty first, not knowing how well it's going to line up with the um the new timekeeping system.

And overall, um, several council members mentioned the the tie-ins with the consent decree specifically.

We have to be monitoring how many hours overall officers are working.

We have to be monitoring so many different parts of the off-duty um portions of the work that MPD officers are doing.

And so we we're just asking for a little bit of additional time to be able to sequence that uh in a way that we think would be most efficient and most effective.

Thank you.

And I mean, I understand that it's complex and it hooks in with a lot of on-duty stuff and time counting and that.

Um, as you can see, we're all antsy up here about this.

Um, myself included, and I support this ordinance, but at the same time, I want to make sure that we implement it correctly.

Um regardless of political will or something else, we need to be prepared.

Um, I think there's a budget amendment coming about this.

Um, it sounds like this is more about timelines.

So, if a budget amendment is approved, what from your perspective and all the moving parts that you say would be a reasonable timeline.

Uh Trisha comes from Republicano.

I believe in in the memo we indicated for the IT systems to be in place, we think Q1, Q2 of 2027 is reasonable.

Um, and we're giving ourselves some additional time for the new timekeeping system to be in place, and then give ourselves time next year to actually be able to add that those additional IT solutions on top of that timekeeping.

So we do think uh Q1, Q2 of 2027.

And as far as how the staffing plays into this as well, we can add more staff, but the the technology solutions are still going to be needed so that we're not manually having to pull this information and audit ourselves in the way that we're currently doing, which Chief O'Hara and the MPD leadership have enacted several policy and structural changes within the department to again do exactly what you all are talking about, which is hit at this work more quickly, but having to do those things in sequence with the things we can do right now versus the things we know we have to do later.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Next up is Vice Chair Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

Um, and I don't think uh deputy director Jarrett Jeffries has been part of those conversations for a year in terms of the like many discussions we've had with staff where since 2022 timekeeping has been referenced as a barrier or something that MPD has been working on.

It makes no sense as almost four years later, with funding at your discretion for you to still reference that as a barrier when this was also listed in 2022 from those conversations.

So that's what I noted.

We're hearing the same rationales from four years ago, be referenced as a reason as to why implementation can't proceed.

And implementation for 2026, that should not put anyone by surprise.

We passed a fee schedule this year that noted we want a fees to be collected starting in 2026.

The legislative directive where we pull literally the research and the information for how to implement this and do regulation came from OCS and MPD itself, from giving us how to do this work.

And it all was with the goal of 2026.

So implementation could have always been put in place for earlier, you know, enactment of a vendor to do timekeeping.

Those things could have happened.

And those are operational decisions, where I do know, I do think that was uh a matter of prioritization and thus will.

Um, because if there was a will and we've touched space with OCS and MPD multiple times, this could have happened back in the spring.

This could have happened when we passed the first ordinance in January of last year.

So I want to provide that clarification.

Also, just to ground what this ordinance is actually asking for, it's for reporting.

It is ridiculous to think that MPD, with its discretion of a 200 million dollar plus budget and tons of staff that you're even in your memo, you're saying most of this is being tracked manually.

There is some tracking.

So that tracking that you're doing, be it manually as you're on ramping to finally put digital systems in place, that could all be used to do the reporting part that we're asking.

And the reporting, I'll read the language that's very clear in the ordinance, which I also want to give a thank you to city attorney Amy Schutz, who helped us co-craft this.

Um, it literally asks that the police department submit to the city council and the mayor a publication on the city's website that's also in accessible in an accessible format, um, to publish a report of the following in respect to the use of city facilities or equipment and the performance of outside work during the prior reporting period period.

And that's to include the site address of each outside work location using city facilities and equipment for the performance of outside work, the number of hours for which city facilities or equipment were provided for the performance of outside work at each outside work location, and also the total fees charged for each outside work location and the amount of any unpaid fees.

This is information that should already be tracked in retrospect.

This is what it's asking for.

It actually doesn't even go into timekeeping and all that.

These are matters that's being flagged by the administration.

We are act absolutely just asking if you are collecting fees, you should be able to report how is that happening.

Where is off-duty happening in the city?

And if right now MPD is keeping tabs by paper or or whatever, like sale doc or something like that, then bring that forward.

And that is what this ordinance is asking for.

Simple transparency and reporting, and for that to be made accessible through the city's website.

So I also want to ground what is being asked of in this this ordinance of MPD as it pertains to off-duty.

So just when the ground that and again, what as for my colleagues' support.

Council President Payton.

Thank you, Chair Traves.

Um yeah, just bringing it back to the kind of comprehensive reforms that we're working on here.

Um just philosophically, a settlement agreement is a floor, not a ceiling, right?

So for all like having the entire consent degree implemented would be like the bottom level of what a strong reform program looks like.

Nothing is preventing us from going above and beyond that other than political will, right?

And I think, you know, I I had to I had to research this really quickly on the day as I couldn't remember the n exact number of years.

I exactly I've actually been understating this.

Um Oakland has been out of compliance with their consent decree for over 20 years.

I used to think it was around 20 years, it's been over 20 years.

Um and it is important to put a mile marker down on what our timeline expectations are, and it's also important for us to be aggressive about those timeline expectations because if you're not aggressive about it, you're gonna find yourself 20 years from now going, oh gee, hum, I guess we still have a little bit more work to do.

Uh so I I'm very comfortable moving forward with this ordinance as it is.

I think we need to be very mindful about what it's gonna take and what it's gonna take is is a sense of urgency, because if you don't have a sense of urgency, you're gonna find yourself with um a decade goes by, two decades go by.

At this rate, um Oakland is gonna be approaching three decades uh of just not actually hitting the the floor, right?

The floor of expectations, not the ceiling.

Um I think to Councilmember Wansley's point, uh even if we don't have uh like fully built-out tested uh time management system until Q1, Q2 of 2027, that doesn't mean that there's nothing at all whatsoever to report publicly about off-duty work.

Like I know that the Home Depot at the quarry in Ward 1 typically has an off-duty officer.

I shouldn't have to go running around the community looking for uh park squad cars to have a sense of like where off-duty shifts happen in our city.

That should be something that should be publicly available.

Even if you don't have the rigorous software implementation for the time tracking to be able to be fully compliant with the requirements of this ordinance, that doesn't mean that that goal of transparency for our community shouldn't be there with a timeline.

So uh I'm very uh happy to support this ordinance.

Council member Chowdery.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

Um really grateful to see this coming before us here.

Um grateful to be a co-author on this as well.

Um I think with off-duty and many things of the city of Minneapolis, good governance comes from good data, and that's been missing so long with off-duty, this very opaque, hard to understand um secondary employment system that we had and how it uses city resources.

Um I think this is it's great that it's coming today, but it is it should have been done.

This should have been done in like 2017, 2018, a really, really long time ago.

I think this is many mayors have tried to tackle the issue of off-duty, probably dating back to Sharon Sal's Belton, if not further.

So I really really struggle to with this request to delay this um to Q1, Q2 of 2027, and also uh without a clear picture of what would what what steps would be taken in order for this um rigorous timekeeping software to to come together because oftentimes we say from the administration side, Q1, Q2 for something in a specific year, and then there's a request to push it back, and that's what I worry about.

And that's what I worry about.

As an author of the encampment reporting ordinance, uh I have seen, especially in getting the latest report back in our last business housing zoning meeting, how valuable it is to get that information.

It really articulates to the public not only how much money and time is being used, but what how things change over time.

And it informs actions that we take as a body and we can answer questions better to our community.

And that reporting that we require out of regulatory services, a much smaller department, is much more intensive.

And there are so many fields that are required from a number of affected individuals, the type of location in campus, the date of closure, if there was an encampment within a mile of the encampment that was closed, if supplies supplies were discarded, if service providers were contacted, and also requires communication with Hennepin County.

Very, very intensive.

And regulatory services has been able to pull together a quarterly report for us after that ordinance has passed.

And I think it's really important if if the Minneapolis Police Department, if Office of Community Safety needs to create an external way to track, that is what I think they should do.

It's not the perfect outcome, but I don't think perfect should get in the way of progress and also good data and good governance.

So I'm excited to see this move forward and also give grace to the fact that the initial report may not be the perfect report that uh the police department and OCS wants to give, but I have seen with regulatory services, they have been able to time and time again improve the reporting to this body, and it has gotten better, and there have been many learning lessons from each report and how they can do it better and also give us information on how we can support them in good reporting.

Thank you.

And I put myself on cue.

I just want to thank Vice Chair Wansey, Councilmember Chaudry, Council Vice President Chuck Type for bringing this ordinance forward.

And I think it's one that's really important because we are trying to do everything that we can under our authority when it comes to oversight and also finding ways to use what this legislative branch, the tools we have to address police accountability reform, which is very minimal at times, but this is one of the ways that we can actually use what is under our charter authority to do oversight.

And we know from the encampment reporting ordinance that behavior does change because staff then get to analyze through these reportings through transparency to the public and to the council things that need to change for the future.

And I think that's part of why this is really important because it could give us and the us and the public more reporting requirements that can actually help us or you know can help change stuff in the future, which I think is something that we need to talk about, and that's really important.

So just want to thank the authors for bringing this forward and for doing everything that we can under our authority to continue to push for transparency in city government, but also ways that we can do structural reform in this police department.

So I'll leave it at that.

And seeing no one else on queue, I'll ask the clerk to call the role.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Rainville?

No.

Chowdry.

I.

Church Hoffman's.

We have five eyes in one night.

And that motion carries.

Our next item is a public hearing on lead paint ordinance on white staff to present on the current and proposed changes before our public hearing.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Uh thank you so much for having me.

Uh my name is Alex Vallmer.

I manage the Lead and Healthy Homes program in the Minneapolis Health Department.

And I am here to present today on proposed amendments to Minneapolis County Code of Ordinances, chapters 240 and 244 related specifically to lead paint poisoning prevention policy and regulations.

Lead exposure continues to be one of the most preventable environmental health risks in our community, and even low levels of lead can cause serious health problems, particularly for young children and pregnant women.

Low-income renters are disproportionately impacted by this legacy environmental hazard.

We know where and why children are exposed to lead paint hazards.

And between 2015 and 2024, the Minneapolis Health Department has received more than 1,000 referrals with children of elevated blood lead levels of five micrograms of per deciliter or higher.

Many of our homes in Minneapolis were built well before 1978 when lead-based paint was commonly used.

Deferred and deflect and neglected maintenance results in ongoing deterioration of lead paint, if not repaired or removed, which are the conditions that our team sees when responding to lead poisoning referrals.

It continues a legacy of exposing Minneapolis residents and most importantly young children who deserve better.

The proposed amendment establishes a clear city policy stance that recognizes lead exposure as a public health hazard and a housing quality issue and provides a clean framework for how the city views lead paint maintenance.

And inspection standards, sorry about that.

Just to go over our current ordinances really quick.

So Title 12 is is housing.

Chapter 240 is explicitly called lead poisoning prevention and control.

Currently, in 240, um, the uh ordinance uh authorizes the adoption of Minnesota statutes and rules for elevated blood lead response.

This is a secondary prevention uh methodology because it does not give us the authority to go in until after a child is uh exposed.

Uh Chapter 244 uh of the of Title 12 of the current uh city ordinance establishes the city's minimum maintenance standards at residential properties and rental dwelling licenses, but is not c again, it does not clearly recognize lead-based paint as a maintenance standard.

Uh currently, complaints about lead-based paint go to health for follow-up because of licensing, experience, and equipment.

It is currently beyond the scope of the rental housing inspectors to identify lead-based paint.

Um even though it goes to health, uh health actually uses the housing maintenance code to issue those corrective orders.

So this is a gap in how services are provided and complaints are responded to.

Uh we've worked with the city attorney's office to establish whether we can do preventative work with the existing maintenance code.

Um so what we are doing uh as as evidenced here on the on the slide is that uh the existing ordinance sections for lead paint corrections are 240100, which allows for renovation and remodeling enforcement, which is the EPA's standard for lead uh lead safe work practices and cleaning.

Uh 24110 uh authorizes lead paint lead clearance inspection uh requirements, uh, which allows for stricter clearance uh standards to ensure that uh lead dust and uh hazards are remediated.

Uh and then in the maintenance code, uh we have uh three sections, 244500, 244-510, and 244-530 uh for interior maintenance, uh, exterior foundation, roof walls, and surfaces, and for windows, exterior doors, and hatchways.

So we kind of have this patchwork uh uh uh methodology that we're using currently to respond to these complaints.

And what ends up happening is that we have a lack of clarity with the current current ordinance, and that creates confusion among city staff, residents, and property owners uh about how uh services are rendered, about how services will be received, and who is responsible for those.

So, health uh regulatory services and council offices are interested in clarifying the city's ability and authority to have staff conduct testing of lead paint lead paint services, sorry, uh conduct testing of painted services for lead uh and particularly at rental properties.

So I'm gonna go into the proposed ordinances right now.

So for chapter 240, we are looking uh we're proposing a uh uh a policy section and the language that clarifies and and establishes a policy that the city of Minneapolis uh is here to help prevent the poisoning of its residents by requiring that the presence of deteriorated lead-based paint on the interior and exterior of pre-1978 residential structures and on the exterior of pre-1978 non-residential structures be identified and be correctly addressed by reducing and controlling lead-based paint hazards which may be present in order to prevent human exposure to such hazards.

And it states in accordance with Chapter 244 of Minneapolis Code of Ordinances, the department may conduct an inspection of a dwelling, dwelling unit, supplemental location, or premises on surface substance or objects which the department has reason to believe constitutes a lead-based hazard.

Proposed ordinance updates for chapter 244, again, this is housing maintenance code and rental licensing standards.

Uh looks to add a subsection in language to 244 1910, uh stating the licensee or any agent of the licensee shall allow the director of regulatory services and the director's designated representative to perform a lead paint inspection as set forth in section 244.200.

Uh and then for section 244-200, uh it adds language and subsection to the duties of the licensee, stating this may include a lead paint inspection conducted by the Commissioner of Health or their designee to determine the location and condition of existing lead paint on the property, including interior and exterior building components and potentially soil from the property.

What are the goals of the uh uh MCO update here?

Uh we are looking to establish four things.

One is a policy commitment uh that that sets the state city uh in a measure to take proactive measures to identify and control lead hazards in homes.

Uh it uh authorizes uh prevention and accountability, which is encourages property owners to maintain their units in a lead safe condition, and clarifies that the city housing and property maintenance code includes lead hazards as a condition of noncompliance, which supports a health in housing approach.

Uh it enhances coordination and enforcement uh between housing health and building departments to streamline enforcement and data sharing.

It also auth uh uh it also sets a public health and equity focus by prioritizing the protection of vulnerable residents, including children and families living in older housing.

Uh it recognizes that lead exposure is an environmental justice issue, which has historically disproportionately impacted uh low-income households and renters uh across the city.

Well, that concludes my presentation.

Thanks.

Um I'd be happy to feel any questions that the committee may have.

Thanks, Alex, for the presentation.

I don't see anybody on queue, but I I'll just say thank you so much for working for staff and yourself and colleagues for working on this ordinance.

I think it is important that we do everything that we can to address lead poisoning that is impacting our community.

This issue is uh a big issue impacting a lot of folks that are represent, especially in the Southside Green Zone.

So anything that we can do in the city enterprise to make sure that we can tackle it is something that I will always be supportive of.

So just speaking in favor of this ordinance, happy and proud of all the work that staff did on this too.

So thanks.

Queen Chair Chavez, I appreciate that.

I don't see anybody else on queue.

Vice Chair Wansley.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

I just wanted to get clarification, uh, make sure I'm reading the chart right on um slide three, uh, where it's broken down by housing type where we're seeing um rates of lead poisoning.

Um is this is right to like read this as it's it's mostly rental dwellings or rental housing types where you're seeing the greatest amount of of lead poisoning rates.

Um, I'm just yeah, based off of this chart here.

Yeah, uh committee chair Chavez, uh, Councilmember Wansley.

Uh yes, that that is correct.

Uh this these these two charts, this is a uh I have two charts showing up here.

We have uh a map from 2015 to 2022 and then uh just 2024.

Um it it it goes to demonstrate um the the fact that we are working and responding across the city, but you can clearly see that there are pockets of the city uh that are more disproportionately impacted.

Um each year we see between 60 and 70 percent of our elevated blood lead response uh referrals are coming from rental housing.

Um and so that is where we feel like we can have the biggest impact is by targeting those uh those homes and prioritizing uh maintenance.

We feel like the uh deferred maintenance and lack of maintenance uh in those properties uh are resulting in uh lead poisoning and lead exposure.

Uh so that's where we are looking to uh enhance and clarify the work that we are doing uh to try to uh bring an equitable service to the city and find where uh kids have been most exposed and where they have the highest risk for exposure, and to just try to prevent that.

Thank you for that clarity.

And with the the housing type of it being uh rental units, um, are those are are you seeing a breakdown between those rental units being like single family homes or are they uh multi-apartment dwellings or like duplexes?

Are you seeing anything in in that kind of category of rental unit?

Sure.

Uh committee chair Chavez, uh Councilmember Wandsley.

Uh we see that uh it the highest proportion of homes that have lead poison children are uh scattered site one to four unit uh buildings.

Yes.

So it tends to be smaller uh buildings, uh larger buildings, uh, and you could kind of you know debate about what that means, but 10 units, 20 units um tend to be they are typically kind of newer buildings in like 1950s, 1960s builds.

Um we also find that they tend to be maybe better capitalized as well as maybe better management structure.

Um we just don't see ourselves going out there that often.

So these typically are uh more scattered site one to four unit uh buildings.

Uh single families and duplexes are kind of our focus, but triplexes and fourplexes also um uh fall in this category too.

Okay, that good clarity.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thanks so much for that.

I'll now proceed to open the public hearing and ask the clerks if anybody signed up.

Mr.

Chair, we have no members of the public signed up to speak.

I'll give one last warning.

If you wish to speak on this ordinance, please come over here and sign up.

With that, and seeing no one else wishing to speak, I will now close the public hearing.

I know we jumped a little early, so I apologize for that.

I'll ask my colleagues to see if anybody has any other comments or questions.

Uh seeing no further questions or further discussion, I'll move approval of this item.

And with all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions, that motion carries.

Our next item is a public thank you.

Our next item is a public hearing on the small and underutilized business enterprise program ordinance on my staff to present the proposed changes before our public hearing.

And if President Payne wishes to make any comments before, then I would also invite that.

Welcome.

Oh.

Thank you, Chairman.

Um I'll be talking a little bit about the uh a brief presentation about the small and underutilized business program amendments, Title 16, Chapter 423.

We'll cover the ordinance itself.

We'll talk a little bit about the disparity study uh and then the proposed changes to the ordinance and the uh the amendments to the ordinance, and then what are the impacts of those changes to the ordinance?

So the small and underutilized program is in effect.

If if you all aren't aware, the program is here for the city to remedy past and ongoing effects of discrimination and its ongoing effects or continued effects.

It allows us to set goals for participation on contracts over 175,000 dollars.

Uh the city does have another program for the target market program for contracts under 175,000 that is um monitored and uh managed by the procurement division.

It also has that um in order to have a program, you have to have qualified and available women in minority-owned businesses.

And if you do have a program, you cannot have any limitations on any business in the marketplace.

Which we don't.

The small and underutilized business uh enterprise ordinance also establishes that the civil rights department administers the program.

Uh contractors in order to utilize these businesses must uh we must first of all set reasonable goals for contracts for contractors or contractors, make good faith efforts to meet those goals, and this program must be narrowly tailored based on the court's requirements and monitoring enforcement of goals and commitments.

So we set reasonable goals on contracts using a system of what's the type of work, what's the availability of MBE and WBE firms, minority women business enterprises, and are there any subcontracting opportunities?

Because you just can't set a goal on a contract if there's no available opportunities or businesses to meet those goals and expect a c a goal to a contractor to meet those goals.

And um it also tells us that we have to monitor these commitments, ensure that a contractor who commits to utilizing a firm uh commits to that utilization and we monitor them through.

So in order for you to have a M B EWB program or uh SUBP program, we had to have a disparity study.

There has to be an interest in the government to correct problems in the marketplace.

And so the disparity study, which was conducted over the last year or so and concluded this year, was the largest disparity study conducted in the nation, I believe, ever.

And there were 16 agencies across the uh Minnesota who participated in that.

And in what it did show was that there was continued disparities in our marketplace.

But it also showed that the city uh had made some improvement.

So we were getting about 11 percent participation over the previous, I say 12 years ago to six years ago, and then we we were up to 13.9 percent participation, which 2.7 percent participation is a large jump in small business participation.

But we're still so far behind at 20, there's about 20 percent availability in our marketplace.

But in order for us to have a program, we had to have a study.

The study shows that there is a justification to have a program that we can continue make correct, continue to make corrections in the marketplace that does not impact other small businesses, and we've done that and we continue to do that.

Again, the goals are based on availability of firms, not some kind of made-up goal of projects a million dollars, so we should be able to get X amount of participation.

It's based on availability, and we've continued to do that, and I think that what makes one of our program one of the most successful programs.

The program has been very effective for construction and development projects as well as professional service contracts.

But the disparity study did say that there's substantial disparities in MWB participation in goods and services and other procurements.

That's one of the program areas I think that's problematic across the United States because in a goods and service contract and other procurements, there's not a lot of subcontracting opportunities.

So those businesses have to be able to bid directly to the city, and you need bonding, you need um capital, which is why you have some disparities in the marketplace in the first place, because women in minority businesses just don't have the same access to some of those uh that other businesses do.

But we see that there is some success for goods and services and uh procurement uh contracts in the target market program where there's a lot smaller contracts, but the impact of those contracts compared to the larger contracts is just not the same.

I mean, tell that to a small business, though, it's just a different story.

Uh and then we identify uh uh certification and registration participation.

So one of the key recommendations of the disparity study was a switch from the federal Minnesota um unified certification program to the local CERP program, and this is what we are doing with the changes today.

The uh ordinance amendments really talks about here's the main things that we're doing with the ordinances, cleaning up some minor program language for clarity, making it easier for people to understand, switching from the federal program requirements to local program requirements, this will really add um the for greater participation of local businesses.

Uh the CERT program has probably quadrupled the number of firms certified than the federal program does, and with all the things that are happening at the federal level, going to a local program is probably best for us anyway.

And we were already doing that, so we were we were moving in that direction.

And if there are some other future changes in the law, or if this or the council wanted to add other certifications, or if we wanted to look at some of the other disparity study recommendations, the changes in the ordinance allows for future changes approved by council or enacted by council for approval.

What are the impacts of that?

Well, one, the program expires at the end of the year, so we have to continue it.

If we do not continue the program, uh then at the end of this year it ends and we'd have to start a brand new program.

Um it's prepare for any unforeseeable changes.

We've we've created the language in there, we've modified enough in there to allow the city to really take control of the program and make the changes we need at a local level to be successful.

And it allows for local small business participation, a lot of small businesses locally in our 16 county metropolitan area, and it's less burdensome.

You know, the the burdensome, the burdensome, the burdensomeness of those businesses to participate and to be certified in the CERP program is significantly different than the federal uh M and U C P program.

And it we continue to set goals, we continue to allow contractors to participate, we continue to make opportunities available.

We can't give businesses uh contracts, but we can make it available that they are participant, they are participating in the contracting process and they are not excluded from it.

And with that, I will end the presentation.

Thank you.

President Payne, would you like to speak before the public hearing?

Uh well, thank you, Chair Chavez, and thank you, Director Burns.

Um, just for everyone's background, I've actually been working on this since like 2017 or 2018.

And even back then, uh we were talking about the need to shift from MNUCP to CERT because of how onerous the certification process was.

I actually went through the certification process with my business just to understand how rigorous it was, and it took me about nine months to do.

Not because it was nine months worth of work, but at every step of the process, you would find out, oh, I don't have that documentation in front of me, I gotta go get that, and then you'd come back and revisit it, and then you'd get to the next step.

Oh, I don't have that documentation in front of me.

So it was a really onerous process.

And I and I I largely did it just to understand the process.

I didn't really think it would be a source of business for me, but um getting on to that uh that registry did actually increase the number of random inquiries I'd get about completely unrelated things.

I think I got one of those today, even still.

Um, uh, but I did see that you know the email went out that everybody has to recertify this for the federal administration as saying if you certified once before, we're gonna re-evaluate every single one of these.

And um I wonder why they're doing that, right?

Um, so this program has actually been under attack since then.

And so I I really do view this as much more local control uh as an outcome, and I think it gives us more of an ability to actually fulfill the goals of this program and have more local control over how we are go about doing that.

So uh really just grateful for your leadership on this and partnership on this.

Thank you.

Uh Consorpano.

Just briefly, Chair Chavez.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Burns, for this presentation.

These seem like good updates.

Um, I really like how the updates end up rooted in data and a response to an outcomes study.

I hope that we get a chance to do that more around our organization.

So I appreciate that the study shows that we've made progress and support that we'll keep working to reduce these gaps further.

Thank you.

Uh with that, I will now open the public hearing and ask the clerk to see if anybody has signed up.

Mr.

Chair, we have no members of the public signed up at this time.

I'll make a call.

If anybody is here to speak on behalf of the ordinance, please go with our clerks and sign up.

Going once, twice, three times with that.

Uh seeing no one wishing to speak on this item, I will now close the public hearing and open it up for further discussion with our colleagues and pass it to Vice Chair Wansey.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

Thank you, uh Director, for the presentation.

Um, also just want to say thank you to Council President Payne um for uh working with staff to bring this work forward.

Um I actually, while you were presenting and also looking through the 700 plus page report that you did of the disparity study, um, it just really made me proud of seeing a city department like take ownership over driving this work forward.

I know in 2023, one of the first presentations that we received in the administration and entreprise oversight committee was from um the race equity and inclusion and belonging department, and they did a presentation um on the city of Minneapolis racial equity uh dividends index.

And one of the areas where it was shown we could do better at reducing barriers for uh minority communities and and also uh gender uh minority communities was addressing procurement.

Um they actually gave us a score of four out of a set seven, and there's a 23-page report that talks a lot about that.

And one of the things that they identify as like next steps uh we could do is actually this.

They said go do that disparity study.

It's like great checkbox, and then also like put uh policies in place to also codify those changes.

So I just want to say, like again, thank you.

Oftentimes we see these uh exhaustive reports be done.

We spend lots of money on studying a lot of things, and then they go sit somewhere and gather dust.

And this is not uh example of that.

So thank you all.

And uh, if Council President Payne will be down, I would love to be added as a co-author on this too.

I I would welcome that.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Great.

Without objection, um, you are at it as an author.

And seeing no further discussion, all those in favor of approving this ordinance.

Say aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions, and then motion carries to the full council.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, our next item is a public hearing related to the Meapos Civil Rights Commission.

Approving 10 appointments, 10 nominations to the commission.

Which should be fairly quick.

Thank you for being here.

Absolutely.

Good afternoon, Chair Chavez and members of the public health and safety committee.

My name is Meneer Vaughn, and I'm the director of the complaint investigations division within our civil rights department.

And I am pleased to bring forward 10 nominations for this year's Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights for Council's consideration.

Before I share this year's nominations, I'd first like to share a little bit of information about the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights.

The Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights has been around for nearly 50 years.

This body, comprised of residents from across the city, is responsible for the implementation and enforcement of the city's civil rights ordinance through public information, education, community outreach, and oversight.

The commission's purpose is as follows to provide leadership in the area of civil rights to encourage and educate the public in the promotion of civil rights, to ensure that each commissioner is kept up to date on the latest developments in the law and on community issues, to identify issues of principal concern to members of the community in the area of civil rights, and to set priorities and objectives.

To develop a productive rapport with members of city council as well as the mayor's office.

To advise the mayor, city council, and city agencies and departments with respect to the civil rights matters, to conduct research and studies to best carry out the objectives of the civil rights ordinance, and lastly, to enforce the civil rights ordinance through education, conciliation, mediation, and adjudication.

To date, the commission has made a variety of remarkable efforts to advance civil rights, including working with members of this very body on expanding our civil rights ordinance to add four new protected classes.

The commission is able to have up to 21 members, and six to eight of those members must be attorneys.

At the end of this year, the commission will have 10 vacancies.

Thus, your approval of the following nominations is critical and will allow all vacant seats on the commission to be filled.

Please note that one vacancy is from a resignation and the other is from a previous vacancy.

Thus, the two nominations for those seats, both seats five and six, will serve the remainder of those terms, which is one year, and may be reappointed next year for a full three-year term.

I'll pause there if there are any questions before I go through the 10 nominations.

I think you can proceed.

Okay, thank you.

So up first, we have Mark O'Day, who is up for appointment to seat five.

He is from Ward 5.

Second, we have Susan Herder, who is up for appointment to seat six, and she is a resident of ward three.

Third, we have Carrie Nearing, up for appointment to seat 10.

She is also an attorney member and a resident of Ward 2.

Fourth, we have Sheila Scott, who's actually a returning commissioner that is up for appointment to C 15, and she's also an attorney member and a resident of Ward 4.

Seat 5, I'm sorry, Cindy Lord is up for appointment for C16, and she is a resident of Ward 11.

Kenneth Cooper is up for appointment for seat 17 and is resident of ward 12.

Reginald Ferguson, who's also a returning commissioner, is up for appointment for seat 18, and he's a resident of ward 9.

John Bowler is up for seat 19, and he's also an attorney member and a resident of War 13.

Hall floor is up for an appointment to seat 20, ward 8.

And then lastly, we have Pa Dartau, who is up for appointment for seat 21, and she's resident of Ward 7.

Um, I'd also like to acknowledge that we have a few of our future commissioners in the room with us today.

Um, so I thank them for coming in.

They're excited to serve the city in this profound way.

Thanks so much uh for that.

I will if there's any commissioners that wish to speak.

No, they're just here.

Yeah, they're just here to say hi.

Thanks, Minir.

Uh, I will now proceed to open the public hearing if anybody wishes to speak.

Clerk, is there anybody signed up?

Mr.

Chair, we have no members of the public signed up to speak.

Thanks, Clerk Michael.

No one is here to speak.

If you wish to speak, can you please make your way and sign up to speak?

Going once, twice, three times.

All right.

Uh, with that, giving no one wishing to speak on this item.

I will now close the public hearing and open up discussion or questions from my colleagues.

All right.

Council President Payne.

Uh, thank you, Chair Traves.

Uh oftentimes we celebrate the leadership of some of our elected leaders.

I think um both yourself and Vice Chair Wandsley were co-authors on expanding um our protected classes and our civil rights ordinance, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the Civil Rights Commission, because I know that they were leading pretty profoundly in that body of work as well.

And I think it's a really strong reflection of what I think good governance looks like.

It was, you know, commissioners working collaboratively with City Council to pass new civil rights protections, and now we're going to the state to try to advocate for those protections to be statewide.

And so I just wanted to thank our Civil Rights Commission for their leadership as well.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Councilmember Pamasano.

I'll echo that, and I don't want to belabor the point, but would like to thank John Bowler from my ward for applying for this position.

He has an incredible background as an attorney working in the public interest and as a district court judge.

And some of just to kind of highlight here some of the kinds of resumes of the people that we get to serve in this way.

His recent experience working in the Minnesota State House as a research consultant in many different areas, I think makes him really well-rounded and is a great candidate for this kind of work in the city of Minneapolis.

I don't I we don't have time to highlight all of them, but that's just kind of one example of the really great perspectives that come to this civil rights committee.

So thank you for everybody's application.

And we look forward to hearing from the Civil Rights Commission from time to time.

Thanks.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Great.

No one else is on queue, so I'll move approval of this item.

And on that motion, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

That motion carries.

Thanks for being here.

We appreciate it.

I'm very excited for the commissioners.

Next on our agenda is a contract amendment with Heneman County for Social Work Services for MPD for the police department.

I'll invite staff to give us a quick update on this item.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Chair Chavez and Committee members.

My name is Nicole Robbins, and I'm a program manager with Hinnepin County Behavioral Health Area.

I manage the embedded social worker program and other programs under our criminal justice behavioral health initiatives umbrella.

And I'm here to give you some updates on our embedded social work program.

The framework used for the our criminal justice behavioral health programs is SAMHSA's sequential intercept model.

The embedded social work program is part of Hinnepin County's layered crisis services responses.

It supports individuals with mental health and substance use needs.

Some of the desired outcomes of our embedded social work program is to provide a response that is timely, effective, and aligned with residents' needs, and provide services that are easy to understand, quickly match individuals' families and to appropriate resources, offer follow-up support after that initial crisis, use critical resources efficiently, are culturally responsive, improve community health and safety, reduce police involvement, unnecessary transports to the hospital and hospitalizations, and keep residents in the community.

And some of the community benefits, a shared financing model between the county and the city, fewer risks related to underlying behavioral health needs, reduce repeat 911 calls.

Our embedded social workers bring a wealth of experience and have a strong support network of social workers that they work with.

We have embedded social workers in andor connected to 26 police departments across Hinnepin County that support 40 cities.

Some program updates in 2024, over 450 referrals were made to the embedded social work program, and contact was made with over 60 percent.

Some of the reasons for referral were for mental health needs, housing insecurity, medical and economic needs.

Currently, we have five embedded social workers assigned to each of the Minneapolis precincts.

Two of those five are specialized in working with high-risk youth and receive referrals from all of the precincts.

In 2026, our plan is to reduce the number of FTEs and embedded social workers from five to four.

This reduction is based on data collected over the past couple of years.

We do not anticipate the reduction will impact embedded social work services available to Minneapolis residents.

We have the behavioral health walk-in center at 1800 Chicago, the downtown improvement district social workers, COP along with other city of Minneapolis programs.

The established coverage plan is as follows.

Thank you for your support, and I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thanks so much for the presentation and for being here.

Thank you, Chair Chavez.

I'm really wanting to get more updates related to this program in particular, and I think as we're looking at what public health and safety will be in the next term, I would love to be able to have these be baked in quarterly.

I say this because I know in my work we've had several meetings where our third precinct inspector was present and talked very positively about the social worker, the embedded social worker.

But I think in this committee and across this body, we're very much leaning, and I think council uh member Palmasano highlighted this.

Uh leaning into what does data show?

You mentioned also that during your presentation.

Oftentimes I've asked our inspector, what are the the data breakdowns of how effective this is being?

Um they they've come to community meetings to share a lot of anecdotal stories, especially in reference to the reduction of repeat calls.

Um, but I would love to know if there's a breakdown of precinct by precinct, because I know third precinct is in my ward, one of the largest ones of that 450 referrals.

Uh, what are we seeing coming forward to the third precinct?

Um, and just to have a little bit more information, there's uh demographic data that's also being collected.

Um, what type of calls uh or type of services are being rendered to those who are being you know getting referred for uh working with the social worker.

Um, so I I don't I I'm assuming those are being uh tracked.

I don't know if there's a way to get a follow-up memo on that, but those are things that I've asked MPDs, specifically our inspector to say, can you provide that to us?

We haven't been able to get it, so I'm really happy to have Hennepin County here to be able to ideally bring forward more data and much more regularly so we can also be able to confidently share the positive impacts that this this partnership is bringing forward for our residents.

Um, and so that's just something I wanted to point out, but did want to ask if there's that type of data available at this current time.

Yes.

Okay, thank you, Vice Chair Wandsley.

We do collect that data and can follow up with the city council by providing that.

Awesome.

So Clark Michael, I just mentioned breakdown like precinct by precinct, uh, referral referral um breakdowns, uh, and also demographics uh data, any that's collected and the type of services that are being provided, um, any data, more specific data that pertains to those type of things.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You welcome that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Councilmember Palmasano.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, your last slide has some information about this, but can you help clarify um how these four FTEs are assigned within MPD?

It says that there's two, yeah.

It says there's two for high-risk youth.

Are they housed in certain precincts?

And are the other two shared, or rather, are the other two shared amongst all five precincts?

Can you help me understand?

So, for the two embedded social workers that focus on youth referrals, they are housed in the second and third precinct, but they take referrals from all five precincts for youth.

And currently, we have one embedded social worker assigned to each precinct, and beginning the first of the year, we will have one at four precinct.

Well, actually, we will have social workers at all five precincts, just the fifth um precinct social worker will split her time between first precinct and fifth precinct.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you.

Anybody else have any comments?

All right.

See no further discussion.

I'll make a motion to approve this item.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those of polls say nay.

Any abstentions?

That motion carries.

Thanks so much for being here.

Our next item is receiving a report responding to a legislative directive on pollution reduction.

I'll now invite staff to give us that update.

Thanks so much for being here.

First to the co-authors of the legislative directive, Councilmember Ellison and Councilmember Chowdery for participating in this work group and their support and patience as it has been a bit of a journey and longer than I would have liked, but um glad we're here today.

And then also really want to thank the staff team who um really approached this project in a spirit of cooperation.

This was a multi-departmental effort with many different staff.

So one of the unique things about the legislative directive is it did direct um the formation of a work group to um review a number of items that uh our team will go over today.

Um it was kind of it was I think I went into it as a bit of uh experiment of how we could respond to a more complex legislative directive like this one.

So we had a policy work group that included council members and staff, mayor's office, and then um departmental leadership.

But then we also had a staff work group because there was a lot of um conversations and ultimately report writing that needed to happen.

So our policy group met five times over the course of the past year.

Um, and it was a great way to kind of check in on the progress of this report and ultimately getting to um today where we're we're happy to report out on the findings, but then also um highlighting some work that we're gonna start doing as a result of this legislative directive.

So, with that, thank you for your time, and um I'll turn it over to Jenny Lansing.

Thank you.

Chair Chavez and committee members.

My name is Jenny Lansing.

I'm the senior environmental project manager in the health department.

So edited for length uh this uh pollution reduction legislative directive asked us the work group to research, analyze, and develop environmental justice goals that would reduce air pollution and other off-site impacts that make them inappropriate in an urban environment.

Return with analyses and recommendations on the following air pollution in Minneapolis and impacts on community, existing regulations on air pollution and the role of each level of government, air pollution reduction goals and examples of an environmental justice checklist from other cities, enforcement mechanisms for the use of an EJ checklist, estimated impact of these possible changes, and recommendations on actions that businesses can take.

Often when people think about sources of air pollution, they think of point sources, industrial facilities with large smokestacks.

Point sources are also known as permitted facilities.

Air pollution comes from point sources, it also comes from non-point sources, on-road mobile, and non-road mobile sources.

Non-point sources include dry cleaners, automotive shops, gas stations, heating our homes, recreational fires, charcoal grilling, and more.

Most air emissions in Hennepin County come almost equally from on-road mobile, non-point, and non-road mobile sources.

The figure on the slide shows the breakdown of these emissions in Henneman County from the year 2020.

In the early 2000s, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began developing tools that would give a broader picture of the sources of air pollution in Minnesota and the potential cumulative impacts from all sources of air pollution.

That tool is known as the Minnesota Air Toxics risk screening tool or min risks.

Data from Minris are shown on the images on this slide.

Many large and small sources contribute to an individual's exposure to air pollution.

In Minneapolis, cancer and non-cancer risks from air pollution are driven by mobile sources.

The figure on the left shows the cancer risk, and the figure on the right shows the non-cancer risk from all point, non-point, on-road, and non-road sources of pollution combined.

Now I'll talk about the existing regulations on air pollution and the role at each level of government, starting with the federal level.

To protect public health and welfare nationwide, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards for certain common and widespread pollutants based on the latest science.

EPA has set air quality standards for six common pollutants that are known as the criteria pollutants.

These pollutants are carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ground level ozone, particulate matter, which is also known as particle pollution, and sulfur dioxide.

States are required to adopt enforceable plans to achieve and maintain air quality meeting these air quality standards.

State plans also must control emissions that drift across state lines and harm air quality in downwind in downwind states.

Individual states or tribes may have more stringent air pollution laws, but they may not have weaker pollution limits than those set by the EPA.

At the state level of regulation, in Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency or MPCA regulates facilities as directed by the Clean Air Act and reviews and issues air permits.

Any facility that that emits air pollutants above certain thresholds is required to have an air emissions permit.

Air permits are legally binding documents that include enforceable limits on air emissions, of which the facility must comply.

Permits specify how facilities must operate pollution control equipment, the pollution limits they must meet, and how to monitor and report their emissions.

There are 81 facilities in Minneapolis that hold an air emissions permit through the MPCA.

Through our current zoning code, 33 of these are non-conforming production and processing uses.

Now I'll talk about the air pollution reduction goals of the city of Minneapolis.

Air pollution reduction and off-site impact mitigation goals are articulated in adopted policy documents, including the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan and the 2023 Climate Equity Plan.

In the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, Policy 66 is air quality.

The goal is to improve air quality by reducing emissions of pollutants that harm human health and the environment.

The air goal is to reduce outdoor and indoor air pollution to improve health outcomes, such as reducing asthma rates with a focus on the green zones and other neighborhoods and households experiencing cumulative air quality impacts.

I'm now going to turn it over to Meg McMahon.

Thank you, and welcome Meg.

Thank you, Chair Chavez, Councilmembers.

Uh I'm Meg McMahon, the planning director in CPED.

So we did take a look at other cities.

So Newark, New Jersey has they call it an environmental justice checklist that's implemented through an ordinance really that's called the environment cumulative environmental impacts.

And so essentially they require for certain types of projects that need to come through for certain approvals for the city for those to submit this information.

The information generally is it's voluntary, but it's used to document and provide data that their health department and they have a health commission will review and make comments on for certain land use application procedures.

Boston, Massachusetts, has a similar program.

They call it a disclosure form.

Again, it's it's related to certain land use activities, and it's designed to collect uh collect data.

Uh and so we did draft uh what would be an environmental disclosure form based off of these and also looking at you know what data would be useful for our health department as they think about programs that could help incentivize um you know better outcomes for uh existing businesses.

And so um the the planning and CPED side of things, we really wanted to tie it to legal findings that we already have attached to our various land use application types, um so things that that really can help support uh either the recommendation for approval or denial based on on those legal findings, and then for public health's perspective.

I can't um so the information um that we would obtain in the environmental disclosures, we can use that information to direct businesses to the Green Cost Share program.

I'll mention that in further detail in a couple of slides.

Uh in addition, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has told us that they would likely be able to use the information that we collect through this for use in their cumulative impacts assessments that they would be that they will begin using on facilities that hold air emissions permits.

Um so really our task was to identify what are the touch points that businesses have with the city where we can build this step into processes that already um exist.

And so we um looked at uh particular land use um touch points, such as when a business is uh business is entering the city frequently we'll have requests around land use determinations, we have um expansions of non-conforming uses, we have conditional use permits, and then we have um business licensing.

And so we wanted to take a look at each of these possible touch points as ways that um could trigger this requirement.

Um in most instances, new businesses that move into a building or begin operations without any particular form of permit or permissions from the city.

So it doesn't requ you don't require a business license to operate in the city.

Um there are some types of business licenses we require, but we do not have a general business license under the city.

So unless that business is coming in for a building permit to do you know modifications to an existing building in addition, something like that.

Um there is no necessarily you know, we wouldn't know necessarily that they're that they're here.

Um and so, in order to implement this uh disclosure form or checklist, planning staff would need um uh support from the health department also um in terms of reviewing this information, collecting it, um, interpreting it, and helping us make um decisions.

And so uh I think we did also look at identifying some internal processes of how that is gonna happen and then what the staff capacity needs are in order to uh to complete that and review things under you know our applicable uh review timelines because a lot of our land use decisions uh come under a uh uh a statutory timeline review.

Um so I'll just take each of these enforcement mechanisms kind of one by one and talk through how that would work.

Um so the zoning code relies on descriptions uh for each type of land use.

So these descriptions include the characteristics of the type of use.

It frequently includes a list of examples of the types of uses that are intended to be included within each zoning category, as well as examples of of what's not included in that particular category.

So in most cases, when a particular use is proposed for a location, um, it very clearly fits into a particular use category.

However, there are some instances where it's necessary for staff to make a determination that requires additional information and some degree of discretion.

And so in these cases, the zoning administrator who is the planning director uh in CPED makes that final determination.

Um however, the process typically includes a consensus-based process amongst staff.

And so in that instance, we can ask applicants to provide additional information to assist with making that determination.

And the zoning administrator's determination can be appealed.

So if a business doesn't agree with that decision, they can appeal it, and then it goes to Planning Commission or Board of Adjustment and then BIS and council.

So an environmental checklist or disclosure could be a helpful tool to assist staff when making land use determinations when it's not immediately obvious whether a proposed production use falls within a low, moderate, or high impact category.

And so to help kind of answer those definitions and make that determination.

So in this case, CPED staff would ask the business inquirer to complete the disclosure form.

We would confer with health department staff and bring them into that discussion before making a determination.

And this change could happen really without any ordinance or policy changes because it's a really an informal process.

Nonconforming uses are another touch point that we have with businesses.

So nonconforming uses are uses which once were allowed when they were established, but are no longer permitted due to a change in zoning.

A structure can be nonconforming if it doesn't meet our built form regulations such as height or setbacks.

Similarly, a use can be nonconforming if it's no longer a permitted use in the zoning district in which it's located.

When the land use rezoning study went into effect in July of 2023, most high impact industrial uses became nonconforming because they're no longer permitted by the zoning code.

Nonconforming uses are protected under state law.

It allows them to be maintained, repaired, replaced, or improved.

However, state law does not protect the right of a nonconforming business to expand.

Cities have discretion in how to define the term expansion.

So for example, an expansion can be a physical expansion of a building, but it also could mean an increase in the intensity of the use.

So they're, you know, producing more widgets in the same space is also an expansion.

Cities may allow the expansion of nonconforming uses, but we are not required to under state law.

So in Minneapolis, those who own or operate nonconforming uses may submit to an expansion of nonconforming use application.

This is reviewed by a planner.

It's presented to the city planning commission for a public hearing.

And as part of the adoption of the land use rezoning study in 2023, the City Council voted to include an amendment which required additional finding criteria for allowing expansions of nonconforming uses, which is highlighted here.

Essentially, what it says is that in order to approve an expansion of a nonconforming high impact production and processing use, the applicant would need to show an appreciable decrease of adverse off-site impacts.

So they can get the expansion, but they have to decrease the impact that that business is having on the community around them.

And so we feel that that an environmental checklist or disclosure form would be a really excellent tool to determine if the applicant is meeting that criteria.

And we have an informal example of that.

We had an expansion of a nonconforming production use last year.

And we use this tool to gather the information, work with the health department, and really be able to make a good recommendation about whether or not they were meeting that.

So again, I think that's something that we could implement really without the change of any ordinances.

It would just be a process step that we would have to add.

This is a formal process, so it would have to be changed in our Elms software program, and there's some like logistical updates that would have to occur, but structurally it could be done.

Conditional use permits is another touch point that we have with production and processing uses or some types of production and processing uses.

So a conditional use is a use which is permitted in a particular zoning district, but that a city may attach certain conditions to its approval.

Conditional uses must be found to meet certain findings of fact before they can be granted, and those are laid out by state law.

And the city may attach certain reasonable conditions to a conditional use permit in order to mitigate anticipated impacts that could be created by the use.

A public hearing before the city planning commission is required for all conditional use permits.

And like expansions of nonconforming uses, uh, it has to meet certain findings of fact in order to be met.

One of the findings of fact speaks to the conditional use not having a detrimental or in danger not detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, comfort, or general welfare.

So that's laid out in state statute.

It's a condition and finding that we meet regularly.

And again, in concurring with the city attorney's office, we feel that we could use the environmental checklist or disclosure form as a way to validate that finding and make a recommendation for approval or denial.

I will note that once CUPs are issued, unlike business licenses, they run with the land in perpetuity.

So regardless of who owns the property in the future, so they're very, very difficult to rescind.

Cities cannot put an expiration date on them.

So there's some limitations to a CUP, but generally there is a review and touch point period and be an opportunity to gather that, uh, together that information.

Did I?

Sorry.

Um, business licensing is another area where we have touch points with the city.

The city does provide business licensing services for certain specific business types that are authorized under state law for the purposes of protecting public safety.

So the city, as I said before, does not have a general business license or require businesses coming into the city to otherwise register or license be licensed.

Um we have a narrow category of business types.

Generally, these are alcohol and tobacco related businesses, animal related businesses, body art, massage and tanning businesses, uh, contractors and skilled trades, door-to-door and secondhand sales, dry cleaning and laundry, uh, food and restaurants, and then entertainment and recreation businesses.

Um the business licensing process is designed to regulate these specific types of businesses for the purpose of protecting public safety.

Um, in each of these cases, the regulations are specific to the business operations inside the building and not uh related to off-site impacts of any particular business.

Um, so a new business license would need to be attached to a specific business type.

We can't create a license that's categorical to a land use type like production and processing uses.

It would have to be something very specific like plywood manufacturers.

Um, in order to utilize this tool, we we really would have to stand up a whole new program related to business licensing.

Um our business licensing staff currently don't have the capacity or skill set to process these types of licenses, and it's also not clear that that um uh this type of license is even allowed under state law that's related to off-site pollutants since the state already issues permits for off-site pollutants.

Um essentially uh I think our finding is that this would be a really heavy lift and require a lot more um understanding of state law and and how that could work and what that would look like, um, as well as likely some additional staffing capacity.

Um so we we would not recommend pursuing this approach uh at this time.

And then I'll pass it back to Jenny.

All right, thank you.

Um now I will discuss the impacts of these possible changes that were outlined before you, including staff time and expertise to implement the changes.

The Minneapolis Health Department expects to be able to absorb the review of these checklists or disclosures with our existing staff capacity.

Through this work, health may identify more businesses who require registration for pollution control annual registration licenses.

However, we do not see this work as an expansion of PCAR, nor are we proposing additional revenue options.

With the exception of an expansion to the business licensing program, CPED staff would be able to absorb the collection of the checklists or disclosures with existing staff capacity with health department supporting the review and evaluation of the checklists themselves.

However, adding a business license category would be a substantial lift in terms of staff staff capacity and skill set.

Additional staff would be needed to support an expanded business licensing program.

On this slide, I will address additional impacts, including the cost to modify policies, programs, procedures, and implementation, revenue options, business impacts and outcomes, and health outcomes surrounding uses or labor.

So with the expense with the exception of an expanded business licensing program, there would be no cost to implement the EJ checklist or disclosure process into the current workflows.

Additionally, with the exception of an expanded business licensing program, there'd be no additional revenue collection to implement an EJ checklist process into current workflows.

Adding an EJ checklist process into current workflows for land use determinations, conditional use permits, and expansions of non-conforming uses will add a barrier for businesses that will disproportionately impact small businesses that may not have dedicated staff with a knowledge or skill set to complete the checklist.

The evaluation of the checklist will also extend the review time and make the process of starting or expanding a business take longer.

We just don't have enough information to respond to that at this time.

Then on the last piece, we were asked to develop recommendations on actions that businesses can take to meet the environmental goals.

Implementing an EJ checklist could increase opportunities from promoting existing incentives to businesses for pollution reduction.

Businesses may apply for the green cost share to receive up to a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for innovative pollution reduction projects.

Or businesses with significant greenhouse gas emissions may apply for up to five hundred thousand dollars through our large-scale greenhouse gas reduction grants.

CPED offers a two percent loan program that provides financing in partnership with a private lender for a variety of capital projects a business or commercial property owner may undertake.

There are additional opportunities through the ownership and opportunity fund and the Great Streets Gap financing.

In addition to these incentives, there are other incentives through jurisdictions such as Henneban County and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, as well as utilities.

Partners that the health department contracts with on the Green Cost Share Program are aware of the various incentives and they educate the green cost share grantees on ways to stack these incentives for greater pollution reductions.

That concludes our presentation and we can stand for questions.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for this presentation.

I'll see if any of my colleagues have any questions or comments first.

I just want to thank you all for bringing forward this presentation and the amount of work that went into this work group.

I look forward to hearing with some of the colleagues that were part of the work group on their experience and uh work with staff and figure out some next steps.

So I just want to thank you all for that.

Councilmember Shotry had to go to an event, so um I at least want to acknowledge all that work that staff did.

I'll pass it to the following back up.

There's a lot uh to take in from this presentation and work from staff, so we appreciate that.

Uh colleagues seeing no further discussion, I'll ask the clerk to receive and file that report.

And now on to our last item, I believe.

It's a report from the Minneapolis Public Health Community Institute and initiatives related to the CDC public infrastructure grant on all my staff to get us started.

Welcome.

Where do I find my presentation?

I sent it in.

We all know what that is.

I have my computer.

It would be on here.

It's on there.

No.

Where's your computer?

Oh, you want my computer.

Right.

Oh, I had no idea.

Well, I thought I sent it into Chris.

I thought that meant it.

But I guess that wasn't communicated to me.

So I'll actually add it to set up.

So for next time I know what to do.

So you bring in the flash.

No one doesn't.

I'll stay here and make sure.

There was one on the agenda, but there's nobody else in here.

I really want to get it in.

Right.

I meant to swap the two.

Oh, I see.

I have mine so that they go up a little bit easier.

Thank you.

So this is my first time ever being asked to present, and nobody told me that I had to bring in a flash dive, so I didn't know that.

Okay.

I think we're working duty to do that, so I apologize.

Yeah.

And then once you get it out here, so then it would be that's not it.

Where am I looking for it?

Oh, in here.

I'm gonna let you pull it up because I don't know where you have it.

And then the USB should look very bad.

And then you'll drag that onto the USB.

Where is that?

The USB is here.

Yeah, but you have to drag it from your computer onto the USB.

So I don't know where you are.

Oh, I'm looking for the okay.

Yeah, so that's the USB um file and sent it to it.

Um I sent it to you, Chris, Damone.

But nobody told me that I needed to have it on a flash drive.

Um drag that onto try this.

Oh, is there not that one was more and more guys and stuff?

Is this draggable?

I don't know if that's draggable.

You might have to drag it on your desktop.

You could also save it to the USB.

Download a copy.

Go down one more decorated copy and then download like there down there.

Okay.

And you can go to your recently uh downloaded.

Oh, sorry, you scroll all the way to the top stand side there.

We'll see if it pulls up like the most recently downloaded.

Would it be here?

Right.

Um, this one.

Yeah, yeah.

This is just crazy.

Oh, there it is.

So I'm not sure.

They don't have anyone else after us, the person that's on the agenda afterwards, I guess isn't it?

So now I can have it on the scroll there.

All right, so then drag it here.

Beautiful.

Yep, uh-oh.

Anywhere.

Somebody's gotta create like a to-do list for people who haven't done presentation before so that they you know you're getting all the information.

Yeah, I looked cool, like people were.

But I guess maybe I'm saying scoop down here.

Slideship or model.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Welcome.

Uh thank you for having us.

Uh Chair Chavez, sorry about the technical difficulties.

My name is April Graves.

I'm a senior public health specialist with the Minneapolis Health Department.

What is going on?

It's skipping already.

Okay, there we go.

And I'm going to be presenting with Giselle.

My name is Giselle Martinez Issaya.

I am also a public health specialist with the Minneapolis Health Department.

Great.

And we're going to be talking about the Public Health Community Institute as well as the Public Health Pathways program.

So just a little bit about the context.

The Minneapolis Health Department serves the city of Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota, home to almost 500,000 residents, of which 59% are white.

One of the focuses of this grant is to ensure that the MHD workforce is including its leading leadership.

Skipping, reflects the population we serve.

While currently 51% of MHD staff is white, we're looking to at the leadership positions, and that's only 73%.

So the target populations of the FIG grant are the current MHD staff as well as the Minneapolis residents with a focus on recruiting and retaining diverse staff, collect connecting and supporting organizations serving communities of color in Minneapolis and ensuring that existing staff have the opportunity to progress in their public health careers.

So based on many quality of life measures, Minnesota is often cited as one of the best places to live.

However, those measures rely on significant racial disparities.

People of color are twice as likely to live in poverty, less likely to graduate from high school, and less likely to own their own homes, or also face worth health disparities, health outcomes, including higher rates of mortality and chronic disease.

So Minneapolis being the largest city has a role in driving those racial disparities, which are in dark evidence when we look at the COVID-19 with age-adjusted COVID infection rates being between four times to twice as high for Hispanic, Black, and Native American residents than when compared to white residents.

So the CDC's public health infrastructure grant, or FIG, is a groundbreaking investment supporting critical public health infrastructure needs across the United States.

107 health departments and three national public health partners received funding through this five-year grant, which started in December 2022 through November of 2027.

FIG gives health departments the flexibility to direct funds towards specific organizational and community needs that strengthen public health outcomes.

The three strategies that this grant uses are workforce, foundational capabilities, and data modernization.

Sorry.

Recipients are expected to achieve several key outcomes by the end of the five-year performance period.

Ultimately, this grant will lead to accelerated prevention, preparedness, and response to emerging health threats.

Improved outcomes in other public health areas are also anticipated.

And all the work done as a part of this grant is grounded in these three principles.

Data and evidence drive planning and implementation.

Partnerships play a critical role in grant program success and resources are directed to support diversity and health equity.

So thankfully, through FIG, we have been able to both expand upon existing work and develop additional strategies to address structural inequities and strengthen the public health infrastructure within our local health department, within our community and beyond.

So during COVID-19, engagement with community organizations serving the most vulnerable communities in Minneapolis was key to successful messaging and service delivery.

It was also apparent that some of these organizations doing important work could benefit from capacity building assistance and additional funding to support their efforts.

The public health community institute provides that support.

Through the PHCI, newly established or developing community orgs or individuals can receive up to $15,000 to implement a public health demonstration project at the accumulation of their participation and learning through the institute.

The PHCI focuses on identifying and strengthening those community orgs who serve Minneapolis residents at the highest risk of negative health outcomes.

Staff from the organization received training on administrative functions such as grant writing and compliance, financial management, staff and volunteer management, advocacy and community engagement, as well as foundational public health approaches and practices, program development and evaluation.

MHD staff then choose orgs who have completed the trainings, shown commitment toward working to build the organizational capacity, and submitted a compelling proposal for their public health project.

They then receive a small grant to support the implementation of a public health focused project or initiative.

Plus tailored one-on-one coaching to support through their contract through our contracted fiscal agent.

We plan to fund 10 to 20 organizations to complete a public health demonstration project.

We have hosted 12 trainings to date, including our four public health core competency trainings.

Those topics are listed on the slide.

And additional trainings on e-supplier, our city's RFP, vendor and invoicing system, chronic disease prevention and community communications and marketing, telling your story, working across diverse communities, the realities of black and American Indian maternal health, beyond the grant sustainable financing, and near science, which stands for neurobiology, epigenetics, adverse childhood experiences and resilience.

We've also created an online library of core competency trainings with corresponding knowledge checks and monthly online lunch and learn opportunities focused on leadership and self-care.

So far, we've reached over 100 community members and over 25 community organizations through public health community institute.

We've collaborated with three health department divisions and partnered with other city enterprise departments like NCR and procurement, as well as four community partners for trainings and one community partner who is acting as our fiscal agent and coaching support for public health community institute participants.

So to date we have received and approved nine organizations for PHCI demonstration dollars, and I'm just going to highlight three today.

Open Doors is a healthy household initiative focused on providing services to those diagnosed with mental health disorders to help eradicate the stigmatization associated with mental and chemical disorders and to raise awareness in BIPOC communities.

The purpose is really to provide families with support across all dimensions of wellness.

Each session begins with a shared family meal, introduces the week's topic in a warm community-centered environment.

Whoops.

And following the meal, parents and children participate in separate age-appropriate groups to explore the topic of grief in ways that meet their unique needs and perspectives.

Nourish to flourish or plate.

Harden the paint hoops.

What the work is what's working.

This program directly addresses critical needs facing Minneapolis youth.

Many young people lack consistent access to structured physical activity, balanced nutrition, and positive group environments during out-of-school time.

Harden the paint hoops promotes healthy movement and exercise through basketball while also reinforcing the importance of nutrition by providing daily meals.

The program structure fosters routines and positive habits that are protective factors for youth development, helping to reduce risk of obesity, isolation, and stress.

Team sports also cultivate social emotional skills such as teamwork, resilience, and discipline, which have been linked to stronger long-term health outcomes.

Data from our surveys indicate that participants in our core competency trainings increase their knowledge in the purpose of public health by 58%, public health core functions and services by 42%, the social determinants of health by 27%, and health equity by 25%.

The spotlight or additional elective training surveys show that 100% of participants in these trainings say they're likely or very likely to continue learning on the topic as a result of the training.

Data from our surveys indicate increases in knowledge across all public health and capacity building topics.

In addition to the four I referenced on the previous slide, these topics also include program development, design and mapping increases by 40%, writing and implementing SMARTE goals and objectives increased by 66%, conducting program evaluation from start to finish increased by 37%, and skills and confidence in budgeting for public health projects increased by 50%.

So in addition to the pre- and post surveys, we also conduct surveys on the core competency trainings at the end of each training, and we ask about the effectiveness and relevance of our trainings as well as to get their feedback on the participation.

So here are some a couple quotes from participants on what they had to say after participating in the public health community institute.

I'm going to turn it over to Giselle to talk about the public health pathways program.

All right, thank you, April.

So the public health pathways program is also part of the CDC FIG grant as one of the core competencies to improve the public health workforce.

So the public health pathways program is an internship program that is aimed to diversify the public workforce within and beyond the Minneapolis Health Department, provide direct and early exposure to public health for participants as part of the program, and provide pathways to employment for those who wish to serve the communities of Minneapolis.

So PHP or public health pathways program consists of several major components for various levels of engagement.

The high-level focus areas are intended to be as follows.

So some are employment opportunities for youth and young adults who are currently in high school, part-time year-long employments for undergraduate, graduate students as well as non-students who are currently pursuing or interested in a degree in a public health or semi-related field, establishment of entry-level positions with revised requirements to allow for a broader and more diverse pool of applicants and preferential scoring on open hiring opportunities for those individuals who have participated in and completed the public health pathways program.

So as part of the public health pathways program, we offer opportunities for activities for the interns or associates to participate in.

Some of these activities include MHC division introduction meetings, so they have the opportunity to learn about the different domains and divisions of the health department and how it operates internally and externally.

Site visits, so these are essentially field trips so that they can learn how public health is implemented in the vision, mission, goals, and the work of our Minneapolis Health Department community partners, lunch and learn, so they have the opportunity to present their progress on completed projects to other fellow interns and other employees.

We also do public health research article discussions, so they're able to engage in readings and discussions about public health topics of their interests.

And then we do career readiness presentations so they can learn about public health careers and general public health subject matter.

And we also do public health career panels engaging with local Minneapolis high schools and colleges to teach students about the importance of public health and the different career pathways that they can go into.

And then the public health pathways program also is a paid internship in itself, so it offers opportunity costs for any necessary trainings or certifications that they may need to have, as well as offering meaningful work related to a degree or career of interest.

Opportunities, this opportunity is available to high school undergraduate and graduate students as well as non-students that are interested in learning more and gaining public health experience, as well as offering the opportunity to convert to a full-time position within the Minneapolis Health Enterprise or Minneapolis Health Department.

So all this data that is included on the next two slides is from our very first cohort that we've had from beginning of this year from January up until May.

So this was a survey taken at the very end of the internship for evaluation purposes.

So from all the interns that have responded to the survey, all of them have responded, agree or strongly agree to having known more about public health than they had prior to beginning the internship.

The majority of interns, so 88.3% who have responded to the survey also had responded that they had had no previous educational or work experience in relation to public health before beginning the internship.

And then half of the interns that did respond and complete the survey said that they would consider going through and considering a public health career following the end of the internship as well.

And on this slide, this was taken from a focus group, excuse me, focus group from that same cohort for evaluation purposes of public health pathways program outcomes and goals.

So when the interns were asked about what their greatest takeaways were from the internship, some of their responses included how many more career options there are for me than what I had thought before beginning the internship, how many site visits we took and learning about how public health professionals use these skills to play their role for their community, them enjoying doing the hands-on work and learning how it impacts the community as well as being able to gain knowledge of public health and how it impacts the community.

And on this slide are just some other more in-depth examples of some of the testimonies from our interns about how they enjoyed doing community work with the city of Minneapolis as well as being able to be reaffirmed of their passion in what they do and what they would like to do in public health.

So thinking about uh sustainability, we're very proud of the successes we've been able to have over the last about year and a half, so hit the ground running.

Both me and Giselle started on these projects July 2024.

But we also know that these successes won't last if we're not thoughtful about sustainability.

So our collaborations and alignment across strategies, as well as building relationships with community organizations and national or local partnerships are going to be integral integral to our ability to continue to sustain and expand upon this public health work, especially right now when you know funding from the federal cuts has been cut from the federal level has been cut.

So moving forward, we've actually just recently started our seven-month fall cohort about two weeks ago.

We expanded our recruitment beyond schools and have been collaborated with community.

We've accepted applicants with uh equivalent experience, so we opened it up to more diverse applicants to be able to come and apply.

So you don't necessarily have to only be in college or in school.

You can apply even if you've been out of school for quite a while.

And we're also continuing to work on creating a point system within the HR hiring process so that we can reward applicants that have previously participated.

For PHCI, um we like I mentioned before we've already approved nine organizations projects and they are on the on the move with that.

We have a initial agreement, a midpoint agreement and a final agreement to get three different disbursements out to those organizations and make sure that we're tracking um the work that the and the outcomes that they have put in their proposal.

They're continuing to get fiscal coaching and organizational coaching from our fiscal partner.

And we're also going to use one of our public health pathways interns to support some of the public health community institute organizations so some nice alignment across both programs.

Moving forward I that it's likely that we'll be able to fill finish out the 15 to maybe 20 organizations that we had initially planned to fund.

We're just moving around some funding to make sure that we have that coaching support which has turned out to be very very very beneficial and helpful to these organizations.

And one of the comments that stuck out to me from the feedback and the reflection space with those organizations this morning one of them said you know the $15,000 wasn't that much money.

I've gotten maybe a little bit bigger grants than that from project different participations in the past but what's different about this experience is that really that one-on-one coaching and support that's really helped to elevate him and spring him forward on his organizational goals and um being able to serve the young people so with that uh we want to thank you for your time and offer to answer any questions if you have any thanks so much for the presentation we really appreciate it.

I'll first ask any of my colleagues if they have any comments or questions.

I just want to thank you all for staying this long with us and giving us this important update on uh the important work that you all are doing here for uh Minneapolis.

So I want to thank you for that.

I will ask my colleagues if folks have questions or follow-ups maybe we can do it over email and then we'll just reach out to uh to any of you and if we have any of those questions.

Cool.

Thank you thanks so much for the presentation we appreciate the work you all are doing.

Thanks.

All right colleagues uh I'll ask the clerk to receive and file that report and see no further business before us I would declare this meeting a yeah adjourned