Good morning and welcome to the first meeting of the Committee of the Whole for the Year.

My name is Aurene Chowdhury and I'm the chair of this committee.

Before we begin, I'd like to note for the record and our viewing public that as a result of the

ongoing concerns and challenges connected with the presence of federal agents and the ongoing

ICE occupation in our community, the council has temporarily restructured itself so that we,

as elected representatives for our communities and constituents, can be positioned to respond

in a timely manner. That temporary restructuring essentially consolidates all of our standing

meetings into a committee of the whole, also known as super committee of the whole. This body will

be responsible for the regular work of all standing committees, which is to review, revise,

refine, and make recommendations on all matters and submitting those recommendations in a

single report to the full council.

Our calendar reflects that we've moved from a standard two-week cycle to a compressed

one-week cycle with committee of the whole and council meeting every other week.

This is the first consolidated cycle, and we will have a second consolidated cycle the

week of February 16th to the 20th with this committee meeting again on Tuesday

February 17th at 9 30 a.m. followed by the regular meeting of the full council

on Thursday February 19th at 9 30 a.m. as usual all of those meetings will be

conducted in this chamber and will be broadcast and live streamed in real time

from our public access channels and our city website.

With that, I will call to order today's meeting

of the Super Committee of Whole

for Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026.

At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll

and verify the presence of a quorum.

Council Member Payne.

Present.

Wansley.

Present.

Rainville.

Present.

Vita.

Present.

Warren.

Present.

Osmond is absent.

Schaefer?

Present.

Stevenson?

Present.

Chavez is absent.

Whiting?

Present.

Palmisano?

Present.

Vice Chair Chukhtay?

Present.

And Chair Chowdhury?

Present.

There are 11 members present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

Colleagues, I'd like to start by grounding us in where we are as a community team.

today, we as a council have taken this extraordinary step to consolidate our meeting and to adjust

our normal cadence of meetings so that we can respond to our communities and constituents,

because that's what this moment demands of us as local government.

Under this ICE occupation, each part of our city is gripped in the daily hardship faced

by people in our neighborhoods. We must be able to show up for them. Minneapolis has been forced

to respond to a crisis created by the federal government our city has been targeted by by the

federal government and has experienced the heavy-handed presence of immigration and border

control agents at unprecedented levels ice agents outside of our schools circling apartment buildings

waiting for our neighbors to leave for work racing through our city streets staging in our neighborhood

parks our community has seen firsthand the racial profiling of our neighbors and the intimidation

of those who use their constitutional rights to document the egregious actions that unfold in front of us.

We have seen kids be taken from our community and families torn apart.

We are not okay. The people of Minneapolis are not okay.

Yet while every person in this city is asked more than they should ever be asked to do,

they keep rising to the moment with an unprecedented level of courage and commitment to their neighbor.

Surely something the history books will remember of the people of Minneapolis.

That is who we are, a welcoming city, one that bends towards justice and says,

we love our immigrant neighbors and they make our city great.

It's been all-consuming.

Council members have been responding to an unprecedented level of constituent need

by prioritizing being with people in our community and the people in our community that we are

interested to represent. But it's more than just us as council members that have been impacted.

Our entire city organization, all of our departments, each of the thousands of professionals

who work in our departments and deliver essential city services and public programs, we've all been

impacted. And on behalf of the City Council, we thank each and every one of you that has been

working day in and day out to do this incredibly important work of public service. We see your

solidarity with each other and with our entire Minneapolis community. And to my colleagues on

the City Council, this is not how we anticipated to start our term for our returning members and

of course our new members, but I am really proud of us in the ways that we have been trying to come

together and showing up for each other without even the consideration of the boundaries of our ward.

Three of our neighbors have died as a direct result of the aggressive posturing by federal

agents through egregious lethal force or the horror inflicted in the detention process.

Renee Good, Victor Manuel Diaz, Alex Preddy should still be with us today.

They should be alive here with their families.

Their deaths were tragic, unnecessary, and completely predictable.

We mourn their deaths alongside our communities, the nation, and the world.

And as we continue to push back against what we believe to be an unwarranted, overblown,

and harmful presence by federal agents in our community and say collectively, ice out immediately

and for good, we should take time to pause to commemorate the lives that have been significantly

impacted. So I'd like to ask everyone to join me in a moment of reflection to honor Renee Good,

Victor Manuel Diaz, Alex Preddy, and to express our solidarity with all our families, friends,

and neighbors that have been affected.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

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.

Those meetings include real-time captioning

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 please moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.

So, colleagues, today we have a very lengthy agenda process before us.

THAT IS WHY IT'S SUPER CO. I'VE INFORMED STAFF THAT WE WILL START

WITH ITEMS ON OUR DISCUSSION AGENDA. THOSE INITEMS INCLUDE MATTERS WHERE A FORMAL PRESENTATION

IS EITHER REQUIRED OR HAS BEEN REQUESTED AND WHERE WE ANTICIPATE POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT

DISCUSSION BEFORE ANY ACTION. THOSE ITEMS ARE LISTED AS ITEMS 65 THROUGH 71 ON THE AGENDA.

ONCE WE'VE DISPENSED WITH THOSE ITEMS, WE'LL RETURN TO THE CONSENT AGENDA WHICH HAS A TOTAL

of 64 items additionally i'm going to propose two changes to the agenda item number 60 related to

human trafficking services at the south minneapolis community center will be moved to discussion

we'll we'll work our way through the discussion items listed on the agenda 65 to 71 and then take

up item number 60 at the end or actually i might have that before we take up item number 71 and

And then additionally, item number 70, which is a budget amendment related to immigration legal services, was intended for a consent agenda and erroneously got included in discussion.

So I will bypass that item during discussion.

I'll also note the lead author, Council Member Chavez, had an appointment this morning that he had to make.

And when he's back for consent, he will speak to that item.

I'll also note if this first part of discussion gets us to noon, I will be giving us a recess

for lunch for about 45 minutes. Are there any questions about my proposal to reorder

the agenda? All good? You have a question? Okay, you're good. Okay. I'll also recognize

that Councilmember Osmond and Councilmember Wansley have joined us oh you

were here earlier okay all right super cow then we'll proceed with the agenda as

I've reordered it okay our first items 65 and 66 on the agenda both of which

concern the city's 2026 legislative agenda and policy positions and an

update on our federal issues here to present on those items is our intergovernmental relations

director katie to pinka welcome mr pinka uh thank you chair chowdery and council members um we are

happy to be here today to present on the city's 2026 legislative agenda and policy positions

and so before we dive into the content what just wanted to give a couple of reminders about

who the intergovernmental relations team is and what we are responsible for so

this is the overview of our presentation move right into it so half of our team

is in the room right now and mr. Hughes and miss Fulana will be assisting with

the presentation a little bit later on when we get into the items on the

legislative agenda that they're responsible for but we have a small but

mighty team and our role is to represent the city with other levels of government and try to advance

the legislative agenda and policy positions that you all approve with our state and federal partners

and we also work closely with county school park board partners on a regular basis as well

so just an overview of IGR this is our mission we partner across governments and organizations on

behalf of Minneapolis residents and the city enterprise to advance their needs,

strengthen collaboration, and create lasting improvements in quality of life.

And so today we're talking primarily about this first bullet here of

developing and advocating the city's policy agenda. And this slide is pretty

hard to read but it's meant more of as a reference tool for you all. This is the

way we divide up our work. So we assign different issues to different team

members so that team members can work closely with the relevant departments

and develop subject matter expertise to work on advancing policy priorities under

those agenda items we have reworked this a little bit going into this year's

legislative session given the amount of activity happening around federal issues

Lauren Olson has primarily been our lead on federal and will continue to be but

I'm going to be doing more around federal relations as well, and Ms. Falana and Mr.

Huser will be taking the lead at the state.

And with that in mind, Ms. Falana is taking on a couple of the issues I typically cover

around economic development and taxes and workforce.

So we are adapting as needed given the current environment that we're in.

And so now just a brief preview of what to expect this legislative session.

It starts two weeks from today on February 17th.

We are going into a session where the state passed a biennial budget last year, so they do not have to pass a new budget.

There may be some discussions about budget adjustments based on changes at the federal level through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.

There are going to be a number of cuts to Medicaid that go into effect next year.

So we expect there will be some discussion about potential budget modifications to address future holes in state budgets as a result of that.

There is a projected deficit for the state in the out years, but there is a bit of a surplus of one-time money this year.

The legislature remains very evenly divided.

It's a split down the middle between DFL members and Republican members in the House.

There are two new DFL members who won special elections last week in St. Paul and Maplewood, and so they are evenly divided again.

In the Senate, there's a one-seat DFL majority.

It's also an election year for the governor, the House, and the Senate, and so that dynamic will just play into how things go during session.

So we anticipate there will be a lot of debates, potentially not a ton of action.

we shall see. We hope there is, but we'll see. And I actually mean bills passing just because

of the closely divided nature. Some of the topics we anticipate a lot of discussion around are

federal immigration enforcement activity, which of course is affecting all of us very deeply. And

thank you for your remarks about that earlier, Chair Chowdhury. But it's affecting communities

across the state, and so we anticipate we'll be hearing, there will be a lot of discussion

about that.

We also anticipate discussion about gun violence prevention, particularly in response to the

shooting at Annunciation last fall, and you'll see both of these items elevated on our agenda,

and we'll get to that in a few slides.

We also anticipate there'll continue to be discussion about fraud, and then we are hopeful

there will be a lot of discussion about capital investment and a bonding bill.

And the council last October approved the city's bonding priorities through a resolution.

That's the state's requirement going into an even-numbered year that we get a resolution from our governing body in the fall prior going into the session.

And so those items that were approved last fall are reflected in the legislative agenda as well.

so with that I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Villana to just talk about our internal process

through which we seek updates to the agenda from staff and you did receive a presentation on this

for returning council members you received a presentation on this last November and that

is linked to the limbs file but Ms. Villana I'll just give a brief recap of that

Chair Chowdhury, Vice Chair Rainville and Council Members, good morning.

My name is Indiria Folana.

I'm with the Intergovernmental Relations Department as a government relations representative.

I'll be continuing on with the presentation covering the next two slides here.

An overview of our policy liaison team, otherwise known as PLT.

It's coordinated by us, the IGR department, and it's our annual process in which city

the staff evaluates and proposed changes for possible inclusion on the city's legislative

policy positions and agenda.

This begins in the summer and concludes in the fall.

The proposed changes include policy, technical, and language updates.

The policy liaison team itself is made up of interdepartmental city staff, so each department

head selects a few staff members from their department to be policy liaison team members.

This is what makes up the policy liaison team.

So the team, they bring proposals, they review proposals, and suggested policies for inclusion.

This year we had 10 recommendations, which you will see on the next slide.

So these recommendations have been added to our existing policy positions platform, and

as underlined as new language in the marked up version

that you all have received of the 2026 legislative agenda

and policy positions packet.

And I will call back up Director Topinka.

Thank you, Ms. Palana.

And so now we're going to go into

what's in the legislative agenda document.

And just wanted to give a couple reminders

as we go into that.

So the document that's attached to the LIMS file

called 2026 Legislative Agenda and Policy Positions

is made up of kind of two components.

We're going to talk about the first couple of pages

after the table of contents,

which is the legislative agenda.

Those are the items that we anticipate spending,

being most proactive about

as we move into the legislative session.

And the way we get to those recommendations

through a couple of different ways.

One is through the policy liaison team process

that you just heard about.

Another is through both council actions

and conversations with council members and the mayor,

so the city policymakers.

And then also just an understanding

of the dynamics going into session.

So what we know will be topics of conversation

and thinking through how the city should be positioned

to weigh in on those topics.

The rest of the document, the policy positions document, is updated every year, and you'll see the changes in underline.

So those policy liaison team proposals are all reflected and underlined in the policy positions document.

That document helps guide the team's work throughout the session as well as topics come up at the Capitol,

gives us the ability to weigh in accordingly based on the policy positions that the city has adopted.

So with that, I'm going to go into the next few slides about the legislative agenda.

This first item that you will see under the legislative agenda is about what we are experiencing in our city from federal immigration enforcement activities.

This is a new position, of course, because we hadn't anticipated this even last fall when we came to present to you or anticipated it at this level at this time.

So our emergency management department is in the process of working across city departments and with outside stakeholders to really measure the impact that we're feeling from this federal immigration enforcement.

But we know already that there's been tremendous cost to the city as an enterprise just from unanticipated things like public safety, overtime costs, public works costs, just across the board, work that the city was not anticipating having to take on and that we now are needing to take on in response to what's going on into our city.

Beyond that, though, the economic impact to residents and businesses is also, we know, very, very large.

It's been extremely challenging for residents and community members.

We have been, the CPED business development team has been reaching out to business owners,

and we anticipate that businesses may be losing as much as $10 to $20 million in revenue a week as this has been going on.

We also know that residents are nervous about being able to make their rent payments, and you've all recognized that already through actions you've taken.

But we also know there's going to be a need for rental assistance.

I know that's another discussion item for you later, but that is something that we have added here on the legislative agenda because the needs are going to be great.

We also know that there's just going to be ongoing recovery needs for months and probably years into the future around mental health supports for community.

And so that's what this ask is about, is seeking assistance from the state for helping to address those long term, those immediate recovery needs and also long term recovery needs.

so this will continue to be fleshed out over the next couple of weeks as we're

gathering data and have more to share with all of you and with our partners at

the state and federal levels but we are seeking your support for adding this as

an agenda item going into the legislative session and I will turn it

back over to miss Vellana for the next or nope sorry mr. Heuser for the next

one welcome Thank You chair members of the committee of the whole my name is

Steve Heuser I'm the senior government relations representative for the IGR

department I'm gonna cover the community safety agenda items for this session the

first one is we will we've elevated from some policy positions we had already in

our legislative policies to elevate them up to our legislative agenda after the

tragedy at Annunciation Church so the city will be advocating for gun violence

prevention measures including assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazine

ban so we'll be looking to we are aware of legislation that's already been

introduced and we'll be hitting the ground running with those advocates and

collaborating with them in order to see what is possible at the legislature this

legislative session on that front the next is to support policies that are

ensuring the safety for public officials including local governments to have a

ban for weapons in city buildings they we anticipate that there will be the

topic of elected official safety given the assassination of speaker emerita

Hortman the attempted assassination of senator Hoffman and the the knowledge of

the threat that was posed by that assassin we anticipate that being a

discussion for the legislators about their own safety we and just we intend

to remind them that they are not the only level of government that is facing

that kind of a threat and so we will be bringing that to their attention and

hoping to collaborate with them on any law changes that could potentially be

done to increase the safety for all elected officials in the state we'll

also be looking at whether they would be willing to give us the authority to

also have restrictions on what weapons we allow into city-owned buildings and so

there is a talk of legislation to that effect that we will be working with

others to hopefully get across the finish line this session and the last

bullet is support for local community safety initiatives this is a pretty

broad statement but it basically just means that if there were to be a

supplemental budget or any kind of policy bills that are moved in the

community safety space this legislative session you know we intend to look for

ways to expand things like our behavior crisis response teams our violence

interrupters programs or other public safety programs at the city that our city

initiatives that we could potentially be collaborating with the state on to

further that work and I think the next slide it's Miss Filana thank you before

we actually have Miss Filana come up council president Payne had a question

I believe for the part director to pinka presented on so I'll ask her to come

back up. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, you'd mentioned estimated five to ten million dollars a

week of revenue loss for our businesses. I've had some preliminary conversations with our LRO team

about doing a more formal study on these federal impacts, and I'm wondering if any initiative like

that is being thought of at the state level, because we know this is going to have a statewide

economic impact and it's a question that you might have an answer for or it might be a can you make

sure to connect with director hawkins to make sure that we're collaborating with the legislative

resources uh the research resources at the state to answer that question more formally

uh chair chowdhury council president payne uh yes i know uh that there are state agencies who are in

the process of gathering that type of data as well to understand the impact

statewide and also yes we can work with director Hawkins and make sure we're

connecting the city in the state as those that work is being done thank you

thank you next I'll recognize councilmember rainville

thank you director to pinko you I mentioned the public safety costs that

we're being burdened with fire police public works emergency do we have any

idea is that mostly overtime

chair Chowdhury and councilmember Rainville I know we're still pulling

numbers together I do know there are significant overtime costs specifically

for police I but I can't put a number on it in this moment or speak to whether

other departments are also experiencing that,

but we can get back to you with more information

as those numbers are being pulled together.

I think a lot of the data is still being gathered.

Great, and there's no rush on that,

but I think that would be a very powerful piece

of information to put before the state legislature.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, we don't have any other questions,

so we can continue.

I'm continuing on with the presentation, economic growth and property tax relief.

So we will continue to advocate for the support of tax credits, TIF, or other tools to convert

vacant commercial space to residential or other uses.

So we had a bill that we introduced last session related to this, and we plan to work on it.

Again, essentially, it would just provide tax credits for the conversions of underutilized buildings or use TIF as a tool for the same purpose.

Our bill last year moved a lot and received a lot of hearings.

So we'll continue to just have conversations with legislators about that.

The next one is updating the downtown taxing boundary to include North Loop and maintain the current rates.

so we just really want to expand the downtown taxing boundary area to

encompass a geography that would bring them more in line with the scope of

downtown activity as it exists today and as it says there it's to include the

north loop neighborhood and then support for entertainment districts public art

and signage social districts so this is a proposal that was introduced to us

during the PLT process this year.

And it aims to create an entertainment district

that captures excess revenue and value

from the introduction and permitting

of newly authorized digital outdoor signage.

And then these funds would be earmarked to fund

or enhance the city's public art initiatives

or safety improvements.

And then there's other jurisdictions that do this,

including Atlanta, Baltimore, and then Denver.

So state law prevents us from simply charging a fee,

so that's why we would be going to the legislature

to ask for the authority to be able to do this

through special legislation.

And then we also had legislation last session

that would need, so we would,

we're going to the state to ask for the authority

to have a social district,

And then the boundaries would be defined by the council

and would allow individuals to be able to open carry alcohol

within that defined area.

So that's what we would be going to the capital

to continue having those conversations this year.

And the last bullet point there,

increase local government aid or other property tax relief.

This is something that we advocate for every single year.

It's an increase.

And then we would also be working against

cuts to the formula as well, and this is a perennial issue.

And then affordable housing and homelessness.

So funding to address the fiscal cliff,

disabilize existing homeless services in Hennepin County

and changes to federal funding for homelessness response.

So we worked with the county last year to advocate

for the importance of the British Shelter legislation.

And then this was legislation that provided funding

for specific services such as 24-7 operations

at existing shelters and shelter diversion programming

and housing focused case management.

And there's often gaps in the funding,

so which is why we were asking for some state funding

for these services.

Unfortunately, with the lack of available funding

last session, it didn't receive any funding.

For the upcoming session, we will continue to work

with the county as they continue to have their conversations

and advocate for funding for this bill.

And I'll pause for questions.

Yes, I have a question, Ms. Falana.

Would you just be able to share a little bit more context

about this fiscal cliff and where it's at currently?

I think it'd be valuable for us to kind of reset,

let the new members know about what we've been advocating

for the last legislative session.

And then I'm kind of wondering, given the challenges at the federal level, if we're expecting the ask at the legislature to shift this time around, and if you've heard anything from Hennepin County about that.

Yes.

So I'll start with the last question first.

I haven't heard anything recently from Hennepin County in terms of a change in their strategy to advocate for bridge-to-shelter.

there is a in the out years there is just some state funding I guess more of

a deficit I would say in the out years however they still plan to advocate for

the funding that like they need to continue services for homelessness

response and then in terms of the fiscal cliff the fiscal cliff was

unfortunately made possible by ARPA funds that had expired essentially so us

along with the county we put a lot of money towards homelessness response and

services and as a result of ARPA funds no longer being able to be used that's

where the fiscal cliff presented itself so yeah thank you and I'll just I'll

just highlight for my colleagues that this fiscal cliff I think last

legislative session it was like 13 million and on heading home Hennepin where the mayor is a co-chair

I serve served we still have to select who's going to be on our upcoming boards and commissions

this has been a really pressing issue for us as a county because if we hit this fiscal cliff and if

If we don't fill these services, we lose critical services that are available for our communities,

especially shelters.

And that would be pretty catastrophic for the city of Minneapolis and the county as a whole.

It colored a lot of what we had to tackle in our city budget.

The mayor proposed $1 million to go over to Hennepin County for emergency winter beds and extending that.

And then we as a council passed an additional $1 million for shelter operations.

And I think it's really important to state that it's good that we did those things,

but that's not sustainable for us to take on as local government alone.

And that's why we need the state to act.

And it was really hard to move our state legislators from my perspective when me and Councilmember Allison actually went and tried to talk to them to get that funding.

And so my hope is that we pursue a more collective strategy.

I'd love to see more council members engaged in that and talking to the members in their district because this is just a really big issue that we're kind of delaying the pain on and seeing parts of it right now.

So those are my remarks, and I'm not seeing any other questions.

thank you madam chair so the next slide is our resilient infrastructure kind of

package of agenda items the first is transit funding and policies that meet

the needs of the region in city we are anticipating that if there is any

supplemental transportation budget bill that there could be discussion around

transit at least that is our hope we will be advocating for the needs of

Minneapolis are especially our transit dependent residents but everybody just

to ensure that the state is doing its part to invest in that system in our

city and to make sure that any of the governance around the funding and those

pots of money includes the the city and takes us into account the next bullet is

state funding to address 88 infrastructure improvements this is an

asked we've had over several years now we have about a 400 million dollar you

know backlog of work to update our city streets to be a DA compliant and so we

do usually we every year we have recently have been asking for state

partnership to address those needs the next bullet is funding for complete

streets and traffic calming this is also a carryover from last session again any

other any supplemental transportation budget we will be again asking for

complete streets and traffic calming funding we did get a one-time

appropriation last session it was a small amount of money but it is

meaningful amount of money to allow Public Works to do some of that work to

improve the safety of intersections for both pedestrians bicyclists and those

driving on our streets the next bullet is funding for local governments to

reduce greenhouse gas emissions we will be asking the state to partner with that

any other details or questions you have about that I might direct to miss

Falana and then the next is also support for zero waste initiatives related to

what the city does with its waste and how we can reduce what we are putting in

landfills or are incinerating and if you have any questions about that bullet as

well I would direct you to miss Falana thank you madam chair thank you we're

not seeing any questions oh thank you all right council president Payne thank

Chair Chowdhury. I'll have the city attorney feel free to butt in on this if it's inappropriate,

but I'm wondering, given the federal funding climate, how that might be shaping

how the state legislature is addressing some of these infrastructure investments?

Madam Chair, Council President Payne, I don't know that the federal, well, two things,

the amount of federal pass-through dollars that would be coming to the state that would be a

potential for infrastructure is not what it was what we saw in the last few years

with the previous administration so there is that part of it I wouldn't say

that it would that that climate is necessarily impacting then what the

state is doing with state dollars for transportation and infrastructure I

think what it will be driving that this session is more the political climate

within the legislature itself and the divide that we see the divided 67 67

House and a one vote majority in the Senate makes those negotiations for

especially this year for a supplemental budget bill but also for a bonding bill

where you could fund infrastructure improvements including road and bridge

funding a little bit more of a challenge I have heard cautious optimism about a

bonding bill the governor did bring out a 700 million dollar proposal with then I

I think an additional with GO bonds and then another 200 million in other types of bonds.

So there's work being done there, but I don't know that the federal climate is necessarily impacting that.

It's just more of the reality of who the complexion of the legislature as it is today.

Hope that answers your question.

Yep.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Vice Chair Chugtai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the IGR team and Mr. Huser for your presentation so far.

I'm just wondering if you can, and I think this might be a question for Ms. Falana,

but I'm wondering if you can speak to potential zero waste initiatives that are going to be coming up

and whether those things are priorities for us at the Capitol.

Chair Chowdhury, Council Member Chowdhury.

Yes, I can speak to a couple of bills that we may see.

So the first bill I would highlight is a plastic bag bill.

So that is in response to a bill that was passed until

on 2017, 2018 that preempted local governments

from being able to enact a fee in terms of the usage

of plastic bags and that bill was in direct response to the Minneapolis City

Council in 2017 or 2018 trying to do that so we were working with our

representative Jordan in the state house to reverse that preemptive bill

another bill is the battery and electronic waste or e-waste bill and

then those two bills are moving as one last year it almost made it across the

finish line but for a number of reasons it did not so we anticipate that I'll be

brought back again up for discussion and then moving separately this session and

the bill would essentially put the onus on manufacturers in terms of charging

them instead of having consumers pay so right now as as it currently is

residents have to bring their unused cell phones,

laptops, electronics to recycle,

and they have to pay a fee for that.

So this bill, if passed into law,

would then no longer have the fee passed onto the consumer

and it would be the responsibility of the manufacturer

for the end of life of their own products.

So that's another bill that we anticipate

that will hopefully become law this year.

Thank you so much. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. That's all the questions we have right now.

Council Member Wansley, I'll recognize you. Thank you. Actually a follow-up on that question.

Curious to know related to the HERT closure. I thought there were legislative

actions that have been moved either last session or the session beforehand around addressing

either what would be needed from the state in order to contribute towards the closure or a law

mandating certain like terms and conditions before the hurt can be closed but interested

in knowing some of the legislative work tied to that uh chair chadry council member wansley i

can't think of anything the top of my head right now um but i will follow up with you in a written

memo to get you specific details on that okay thank you great we'll note that as

administrative follow-up for the IGR team

thank you chair members of the committee the next slide is our capital

investment priorities slide these this was a resolution that the council did

consider and pass I believe in October of last year this is not different and so

we do have the community safety training and wellness facility ask on this list

the structural renewal of 36 inch water main connecting downtown to near north

the 88 transition plan implementation so this is a different bonding ask so this

is an ask of state dollars for 5 million which is different than what we have in

our agenda item which is for the under our kind of infrastructure bullet that's

for asking the state to actually budget state general fund dollars for that

purpose this is a bonding ask for a similar type of improvement in the city

and then the next three are flood mitigation and sanitary sewer projects

the 13th Avenue Northeast stormwater improvements project 35th Avenue North

flood mitigation project and the Aldrich Avenue South sanitary rehabilitation

We did do a presentation a little bit more fleshed out last year on these, but happy to answer any questions.

I'll recognize Vice Chair Chugtai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Huser, I am wondering, I cannot recall the presentation in October, if I'm being completely honest.

So you'll have to refresh my memory.

But can you speak a little bit more about the first item on the capital investment priorities, the community safety training and wellness facility, the $19 million request?

Is this community safety training and wellness facility the same that was discussed as part of the capital budget last year?

Madam Chair and Chair Chugtie, yes, I believe we're recalling the same discussion.

It was part of that.

I think there was two meetings maybe where this project was discussed.

The one I'm recalling it was actually a part of was the one in October where we brought forward the resolution ranking the city's capital investment projects.

The purpose of doing that was we were trying to get our projects to the governor and through the MMB, the Minnesota Management and Budget Office process, to have these projects considered for the governor's recommended budget.

Only no local projects were included in the governor's proposal.

There is a placeholder of $35 million, which will likely, if there is a capital investment bill, will likely need to be much larger for a bill like that to pass the legislature.

so that that was the the October meeting I'm speaking to so I think we maybe are talking

about the same meeting awesome perfect so I know there are some questions about how we move forward

with this training and wellness facility and you know that played out over the course of the budget

process last year and I would imagine is going to continue as as the capital budget is formulated

FOR THIS UPCOMING YEAR THROUGH THE CLICK PROCESS AND THE MAYOR'S

RECOMMENDED BUDGET. SO I'M WONDERING, YOU KNOW, I

UNDERSTAND THAT NO LOCAL PROJECTS WERE INCLUDED IN THE

GOVERNOR'S RECOMMENDED BUDGET, BUT AS WE CONTINUE TO, YOU

KNOW, PUSH FOR THESE PRIORITIES, IF THERE'S AN

OPPORTUNITY TO REFINE THAT BUDGET REQUEST BASED ON ANY

any changes that may be made to that that capital but project within the city

scope first you know um madam chair and councilmember chug tight if I'm

answering from if I'm understanding your question correctly um yes I think we do

rank these projects in a resolution I would say though that often we put more

in our bonding ask of the state than we reasonably expect to get in a given year

often it is useful to add them into our list or have these discussions over many

years with legislators to inform not only our Minneapolis delegation members on

the mayor to the project the specifics of the projects and the need but also to

have that opportunity to talk to other members of the legislature from other

parts of the state I would say that when we get to the reality of how this ends

up getting into a bill we have to make a judgment call as a city then and as your

IGR staff to figure out what is possible to get included in in any given bonding

bill each year that the technique on paper it looks like a very similar

process every year it is a little bit different though because you are dealing

with different needs of the state different personalities involved at the

capital and so I would say that is a I think if I'm answering your question

more directly this can become a little bit of a flexible list in terms of how we

prioritize it too but that is the kind of thing that we will come back to the

council and the mayor and other members of the city enterprise to try to figure

out what is our best ask at any given moment assuming that we've got a good

opportunity to get something included in a capital investment bill that is so

helpful mr. Heiser thank you thank you madam chair thank you we don't have any

other questions so we can continue

yeah thanks so the chair Chaudhry that concludes our presentation and so if

there are further questions we're happy to address them but we have no no more

SLIDES ON THIS AT THIS TIME. GREAT. WE HAVE COUNCIL MEMBER WANSLEY IN CUE.

THANK YOU CHAIR CHAWDRY. NO QUESTIONS BUT MORE SO COMMENTS AROUND SOME OF THE PRIORITIES

THAT DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO BE HIGHLIGHTED THAT I THINK IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND ALSO

ARE INCLUDED IN THIS LEGISLATIVE AGENDA AS A RESULT OF A LOT OF THE LEADERSHIP AND

EFFORTS MADE BY CITY COUNCIL OVER THE PAST COUPLE YEARS. OF COURSE JUST FURTHER AMPLIFYING

which will be related to an item we take up later

in today's discussion regarding rental assistance,

can't overemphasize the need that we need to see

state leaders move a substantial amount of money

to be responsive to the looming eviction crisis

that is going to impact not just Minneapolis,

but cities all across the state,

which is why we also unanimously adopted a resolution

urging Governor Walz to declare eviction moratorium.

It is now February 3rd and rent was due on Sunday

and clearly that moratorium isn't in place.

So we need our state leaders not only to be moving resources

but also something that we're advocating for

and might bring some more specific or specified language

ahead of Thursday is then if Governor Walz will not act

and if we're anticipating further state of emergencies

like we're experiencing right now through attacks

by the Trump administration, we should as a city

be able to be more nimble and proactive in passing ordinances that protect our residents,

we should have the ability to then pass our own eviction moratoriums as opposed to waiting on the timeline of the governor's political will or the state sessions, legislative sessions.

So I would like to see more language related to that.

We have some suggestions around what that local authority language could include.

I know we do have a general local authority section in our agenda, but I think it's very important to make it attuned to also those federal impacts and specifically the limitations of our state government in assisting us right now.

That said, also, I know we steer away from listing specific fiscal figures in our resolutions, but just even thinking about the rental assistance piece, just to talk about the scale of need as we're in conversations with our state leaders.

is just thinking of hennepin county right now has a backlog that goes through august they haven't

even looked at applications from august of last year and the figure attached to those applications

that's currently backlogged from august of 2025 is 50 million dollars that is the baseline that

we're talking about um in terms of the need for making sure residents prior to this crisis can

remain housed and so we should imagine that that is just again extremely higher considering august

all the way through now to with operation metro surge being in full effect here so really looking

forward to talking to state lawmakers around we don't need 10 million we don't need to at a base

level it's 50. that said also wanted to emphasize some community safety projects that this body

has also either spearheaded that's allowing for a statewide embrace of

these type of alternative or non-traditional public safety measures

one of which is related to pedestrian lighting as you all know this body also

allocated funds last budget session to actually install pedestrian lighting to

enhance safety because we recognize safety isn't just confined to someone wearing a gun and badge

it's also around the conditions of your environment same with traffic calming are we making sure our

streets are safer can people walk down their neighborhoods and have illumination of their

sidewalks in addition to their streets which we automatically guarantee for cars and i know this

is a priority that came out of my war specifically in dinkytown that has been asking for this for

for many years, I think even Chair Chowdhury,

you talked about this during your time as a U of M student.

This was something that students asked for

to support their safety needs on campus

and was very proud of the fact that this body

made initial investments of over a million

to see the first half of pedestrian lighting

be installed around that area,

but they're still more needed.

And I'm sorry, it wasn't a million,

it was about half a million.

But excited to see that this is part

of the legislative agenda.

I absolutely see this as part of capital investments,

of how we're enhancing infrastructure,

and specifically from a pedestrian point of view.

Also, big piece of work that this body uplifted last year

that actually was led by our partners in St. Paul

was the inclusion of a non-fatal task force.

And we had tons of deliberation and discussion last year

of knowing that Minneapolis

have some of the worst clearance rates,

And by clearance, we mean rates of cases being solved by our police department.

We have some of the worst rates in the country.

And really, we're looking at what are some innovative ways in which we can strengthen investigations of cases,

because we currently have a backlog of 5,000 cases that are not solved right now.

And this range from homicides to domestic violence to crimes impacting children.

And that 5,000 figure represents 5,000 families and individuals in our cities who have not received some level of closure or justice.

So our nonfatal task force allocation that we made at the end of budget last year really was a solidifying factor that we want to try innovative means and revamping.

what does law enforcement resources look like to actually enhance and improve and increase

that clearance rate and we know it's possible because folks across the river did it and they

saw their clearance rates more than double by implementing the same initiative so i'm really

excited to see that we're also aiming to have support statewide for this um and and showing

that again we need to be rethinking how law enforcement resources are utilized to actually

foster greater safety for our communities. And investigations is one of those critical pieces.

Another thing that I think is important to emphasize in our current climate in this

legislative agenda also includes state legislators to ban the use of masks by state and federal

law enforcement. We know right now the impediment to actually arresting and prosecuting or even

identifying the officers who've even shot and killed our residents most recently that being of

Renee Good and Alice Petri and the dozens more that they've harmed over the course of Operation

Metro Surge the impediment to identifying them is they literally come in as mass thugs and harm our

communities and we don't allow that standard for any other law enforcement agency the reform efforts

has really pried itself on we need to identify the officers yeah you could wear a body cam

and possibly still shoot people, but at least we have a body cam to trace that, saying you should

not be going into communities as a law enforcement agency in full disguise and then evade consequences

when you brutalize residents. So I'm really proud of the fact that this is also part of it, and I

hope this is something that is adopted by our state legislator, regardless of splits and divides

amongst the political spectrum there. And then lastly, something else that we'll have further

conversation on and that we definitely just you know dipped our toe in a little bit is this issue

which i think is also tied to public safety is the autonomous self-driving cars um that

specifically waymo which i will name learn i learned their test testing all across the state

they've tested in my ward there was no permission or anything given and just as we saw with the

blowback from Uber and Lyft of these tech companies coming in when there is no baseline

of regulation and then being able to use that to their advantage to exploit workers and also

lead divestments in public infrastructure like public transportation to route further profits

and concentration within their own business model. This is something that we have the opportunity to

get ahead of. It took 10 years to finally catch up to regulation on Uber and Lyft. And it shouldn't

take 10 years to do this with Waymo and other self-driving or autonomous driving vehicles,

there should absolutely be massive pushes for regulation in which how they operate in our

cities and also with a special focus on protecting our workers, which in other cities, that has not

been the case. So we already saw what happened when the cab industry was decimated and how that

created an opening for predatory companies like Uber and Lyft. We don't want to be in that same

predicament. We have the ability to avoid that. And I'm hopeful even these, it's very kind of

broad strokes of what's included related to autonomous driving vehicles in the legislative

agenda. But I at least wanted to say I'm grateful for that. I would like to see more consideration

around stronger regulatory language by the state legislature and to be proactive about this.

And that it doesn't come with further preemption. That is also tied to local authority. Once again,

if the state doesn't want to hold corporations accountable, don't penalize cities who actually

want to do the work and protect their workers and protect their infrastructure. So just want to share

those thoughts on some key parties that didn't get some airtime, but just want to say thank you to our

IGR staff for working with our offices to at least have them be reflected in our agenda.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Wansley. There aren't any others in queue.

I'll just quick state that I think this legislative agenda and going into the

legislature this year feels really really important to get resources into

our city like that's just we were we were already in the need of resources

but with the occupation of ice and how it's been decimating our community and

more ways than one but especially economically like we need our state

legislature to give Minneapolis and other cities resources back. And I'm really interested in us

kind of linking arms with other municipalities, whether it's through metro cities or League of

Minnesota cities, and having like a shared agenda to push for that, a shared agenda to push for more

local government aid, because we have three years of this federal administration in front of us,

and then God knows what's after that.

And I also see that a huge priority of us as a city

is continuing to maintain local authority

in many shapes and forms,

protecting our community members, our workers,

and then also ensuring that even while we're in a crisis,

even while we're in tough times,

the city of Minneapolis is still able to be a leader

in all issue areas from the environment,

to housing to safety so thank you so much for this state presentation and now we can move to the

federal presentation

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Council Members.

I'm Lauren Olson, also a member of the Intergovernmental Relations Team.

I'm a senior government relations representative.

Today I've been asked to focus on just giving you an update on the status of the federal budget.

I know there's obviously a lot going on federally,

but my presentation today is focused on the 2026 budget.

There's potential discussion taking place in context of the 2026 budget,

affecting Department of Homeland Security policies.

So we'll get into that.

So first, just to remind you where we are

with the fiscal year 2026 budget.

A few bills passed back in November,

and so that included the Agriculture Bill,

Military Construction, Veterans Affairs,

and Legislative Branch funding

that Congress and their staff rely on to keep working.

Because the Agriculture Bill passed earlier this year

and funded programs like SNAP and WIC.

There's not a risk during the shutdown

that those payments will not be made.

I can't say if it happened to be a long-term shutdown,

whether there ends up being any administrative hiccups,

but in general, SNAP and WIC are not really considered

a concern for a potential,

or the shutdown that we're in right now, actually.

So at the time that Congress approved a few bills

for the full budget year.

They also funded some other parts of the government

just through January 30th, as you know.

You can see the list here,

and we'll be discussing each of these further.

So these are the bills that were going to expire

on January 30th without action by Congress.

So on the 30th, the Senate passed a package

that would take five of those bills

and approve them for fiscal year 2026

and would fund the Department of Homeland Security

through February 13th to allow more time

for discussion about potential reforms

to agencies or policies within DHS.

Right now, all of these six pieces

are still one bundle as they go forward

and now the House needs to vote on that package.

They adopted some rules yesterday

that would allow them to potentially take this up today

for a vote.

And so the vote that they would be taking today

is whether to accept that entire package

and therefore move five of those areas forward

and move DHS forward for two more weeks funding.

The idea of moving this package forward

had the support of Democratic leadership

as well as the White House.

However, there are some hurdles ahead

and it'll be interesting to see what transpires today

or in coming days, depending on how it goes.

There are members of the House Freedom Caucus

that did not want to separate out

Department of Homeland Security for separate discussion,

but wanted them all funded.

There are also Democrats that don't want to support,

vote in favor of Department of Homeland Security funding,

even if it's a two-week extension.

And then there's others who want to move this forward

in order to have that discussion about potential reforms.

So there's a lot of interesting dynamics at play

and we'll see what transpires potentially today.

As I think you all have been hearing,

some potential topics that Democratic leaders

have said that they wanna discuss about reforms

within Homeland Security and specifically,

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

is to end what they call roving patrols,

to make sure that you have a judicial warrant

to enter home or make an arrest,

to require body cameras,

to require people to potentially not wear masks,

and also show identification

that is outwardly clear to people.

A code of conducts and adopt specific use of four standards.

So these are some of the ideas that are floating around.

And then Republicans like Senator Graham

Have said, you know, well, maybe if we're talking about changes, this is a time to talk about so-called sanctuary city policies, so

We shall see

So again, we are in a shutdown right now that began very early on Saturday morning

Again, it's partial the sense some bills some parts of the government are funded and some parts are not funded

As usual essential services and essential employees generally stay on during a shutdown

down communication with agencies on administrative tasks you know can get

gummed up and the city's work with our agencies can sometimes get slowed down

during a shutdown but in other cases things continue to flow so tends to be

kind of case by case so just to look at if the if Congress does move forward

with this budget that's in front of them now I'll just give you some highlights

of what's in this budget.

For those of you who are here last term,

we kind of had a preview of what the White House wanted,

what the House of Representatives wanted,

and what the Senate wanted.

And so I think we should follow up on that conversation

because there were some pretty draconian cuts proposed,

and I want to show you where that is landing at the moment.

So in the realm, and again, I just pulled examples

that might be of interest here and there.

I'm happy to follow up on any specific programs later.

if you'd like but in Health and Human Services for example the LIHEAP program

for low-income heating and cooling is slightly increased title 10 planning

which helps support things like our school-based clinics and help people

prevent pregnancy or disease is kept flat which is better than some of the

initial proposals there you know the White House wanted dramatic cuts to the

Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health,

but in fact, they're kept pretty level.

Now, we'll also be addressing the fact that

sometimes what Congress appropriates

is not necessarily how the program gets administered,

or we can talk about that further,

but let's talk about what this reflects

about what Congress is willing to do here.

So an increase to Head Start.

There is a decrease to resources that help refugees and asylees with some resources.

It's still funded at $5.2 billion, but that is a decrease.

There's funding for community health centers, which helps community-based clinics.

In the education and labor area, Pell Grant funding remains the same.

job or funding the same youth training slightly up adult

training slightly down. Title one funding very important resource

for schools with a lot of low income students is increased so

that's good and then there were some other programs that the

White House had proposed eliminate entirely which remain

in existence and funded and you can see the list there.

Now regarding what is in the current Homeland Security bill that is also part of the package

right now.

So there's $32 billion, which is an increase over the 2025 funding levels for FEMA.

And there's an increase in funding for the Urban Area Securities Initiatives Grant, which

which is a grant that urban areas like us tend to use.

There's also an increase in the SAFER grant,

which helps support more firefighters,

another grant that we have received in the past.

They're also implementing some penalties for FEMA

for the Office of the Secretary if they are late

in reporting on the Disaster Relief Fund status,

or if there's too many requests for a declaration

of emergency that are sitting too long.

And then also there's a new initiative

that Congress must be notified

before any grants or training funds are paused.

In the Customs and Border Protection area,

there is a reduction in the amount of annual funding

from the 2025 spending levels a little bit.

However, we will acknowledge that the reconciliation bill last July added a lot of money into this bucket already.

But there's a reduction compared to the 2025 spending levels, an increase to field operations, money to maintain the patrol agents.

there was a program that reimbursed cities and local governments for services that non-citizens

who are in the midst of an immigration proceeding may need to help them get by.

And that was a $650 million program that that particular program is eliminated.

Again, so even though the funding levels are just a little bit less than like a normal fiscal year 2025 budget,

Again, the one big, beautiful bill infused a lot of these agencies with large, one-time funds.

So Customs and Border Patrol received about $66 billion in that bill alone.

So when you think about their annual budget being roughly $18 billion,

and last July they got an additional $66 billion until they have a lot of funding.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement,

they're also kept level funding for their just general

fiscal year appropriation of about $10 billion.

$5.5 billion is for enforcement and removal operations,

which is an increase to that bucket.

There is that provision that is supposed to allow

members of Congress to access detention facilities,

and that's in there.

there's been a lot of nuances involved with whether or not rules can be put on on that

their ability to go in and whether you can require them to wait seven days and so on but

but again the reconciliation bill that was passed in july provided 75 billion for ice so that's you

you know, 7.5 times what their normal annual appropriation is.

So even though we're acknowledging that their funding is flat,

they have recently received that infusion.

And then I chose to end on slightly more positive notes.

So the transportation and housing area.

So there's a very significant investment in the FAA.

People obviously believe there needs to be some investment there.

Capital investment grants that support a lot of our light rail and bus rapid transit type of projects,

that amount is decreased, but it's still there.

There's been an increase in highway money.

The BUILD grant, which can build a variety of infrastructure projects, still exists too, but with less funding.

When it comes to HUD, the community block grant is funded at the same level,

which is good because you know the White House originally wanted to propose to eliminate that

The home program also allows us to to produce a very deeply affordable

Helps produce that deeply affordable housing the funding is the same which is good

There's an increase to the homeless assistance grants which includes

Programs like emergency solutions grants and continuum of care

So it is a very important tool to help us address homelessness. And so that is a positive

sign there as well. I'm not quite done. Let me conclude or explain some thoughts about this

budget. So, well, one thing this partially shows that these programs do have support,

generally, that the public probably does like these programs and that members of Congress

across the aisle would have a hard having a hard time cutting

these programs. It also shows you that the power that the Senate

also is a very influential part of this negotiation because the

Senate was always closer to these numbers. The House was had

much more draconian cuts. So the fact that the filibuster exists

in the Senate requires that 60 vote threshold to even take up

the budget I think helps them land in a place where the where we avoided draconian cuts here

but I will I want to acknowledge that we have seen some challenges with congress appropriates

funds and kind of expresses some intent with their appropriations but when the administration

actually administers programs we've run into problems where they for whatever

reason they decide the criteria the program has changed or that certain

people aren't eligible for the funds and so on and so there have been significant

impediments to actually carrying out those programs in the way that there you

might think that they're going to be carried out based on funding so I'm just

being cautious about that and I also want to acknowledge that this

administration and budget office has been open to using some pretty unique

budgetary tools including like rescission where the White House can

later say that they want to strip some funding that is yet not yet fully

obligated and that's a procedure that requires a simple majority of votes so

there's a variety of things that you know could change these programs so again

this is the package that's on the table right now and has not you know not yet

fully passed and we will find out today how they proceed most likely we'll find

today thank you yeah thank you so much miss Olson we have a couple council

members in queue first I'll recognize councilmember Stevenson thank you madam

chair thank you for the presentation I just had a couple of questions seeing

as I'm new around here what does our federal advocacy look like that that's a

big question important excuse me madam chair councilmember Stevenson I'm not

sure I know how to answer that but and the directors welcome to join me as well

try to figure out how to answer such a big question maybe you could start with

how we lobby the federal government and communicate with them I know we have a

contract that's in place and yeah thanks okay thanks for the assist yeah I mean

well certainly we're in regular communication with our federal delegation

and we also have the support of our federal lobbying team at Primacy

strategy group we the mayor was just in DC we helped support that trip he

actually talked to Schumer and Jeffries about his concerns about what's happening

here. We are members of organizations that we've been working hard to influence,

including the National League of Cities and the League of Minnesota Cities and Metro Cities.

We've been working a lot with partners all across from cities locally to cities nationally.

We're also part of the Joint Information Center. Part of my portfolio, besides kind of keeping an

on money which has been under threat since January 21st.

A lot of that has been required a legal strategy

by the ways that they're trying to withhold money

based on claims of, you know,

because we have equity here or Sanctuary City there.

So we've been battling threats to different funding sources

that are coming in in different ways since January 21st.

We coordinate with the city attorney's office

and make sure that one way or another,

we're strategizing about the best way

to support the funding.

I also work very closely with

the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs.

I need to understand a lot about our policies

that affect those communities.

So again, we can kind of strategize

and work with federal folks,

think what are the best ways to try to tackle these issues.

And then sometimes if there's not always

the great path forward through Congress, let's say,

to reform some of these things.

So then we work on how do we communicate effectively

to our residents to help them navigate these challenges.

So I know I'm very involved in that.

And right now it's all hands on deck,

essentially across the enterprise.

IGR is part of the team that of course is working

on tackling addressing all the different challenges

that we're facing and did you wanna add anything?

Follow up question.

Do we have like we have a list of priorities

for our state legislative?

Do we have the same for the federal government?

We do not have a formal agenda

for the federal government, no.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

I think it's a really good question to ask Councilmember Stevenson.

I'll say that annually the last few years there's been a pretty significant amount of

council members that have gone to the National League of Cities where we have met with our

congressional elected leaders and we've directly shared what's going on in our city and what

our priorities are from our community. And that's like shifted pretty dramatically from year to year

on what those priorities look like. And then I'll just like say and give Ms. Olson a lot of credit.

She manages and oversees the basically the entire federal portfolio and I think has one of the

really, really tough jobs on the IGR team. She always is delivering us bad news,

but important news and so she's just an excellent resource to just connect get connected into

anything regarding federal level advocacy whether it's from your office or kind of just thinking

through things that you might want to advocate for the IGR team's been instrumental in the

conversations in past years around earmarks from the senator's office Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar

and then our congresswoman Ilhan Omar as well and has been successful in getting resources back

to the city for a number of different projects whether it's infrastructure or housing projects

we have council member Wansley next in queue thank you chair Chowdhury and I just want to

preface my comments this is not at all reflective on you you're reporting the bad news but more so

for our federal delegation.

And I'm thinking and responding particularly

to what's articulated on slide four

in terms of the reforms that our Democratic leaders

have really rallied around

as they're negotiating DHS's funding package.

And I just have to say,

these proposals truly set the bar below hell

of what should be expected and demanded of regarding immigration affairs in our country right now.

I do not believe how you could live through multiple moments related to policing

after hundreds of black people lost their lives and saw these same proposals,

similar proposals, be used as a response and see the lack of effectiveness in saving black lives

from law enforcement at the local level and say, let's apply that to this agency under the Trump

administration and be like, that's a good idea. The idea that body cams, which didn't save George

Floyd in 2020, was somehow through documentation that we already have would have saved Alex

Petrie or Renee Good just a week ago or three weeks ago is insulting. The idea that an enforceable

code of conduct would have somehow prevented little Liam, five-year-old Liam, from being

abducted and being used as a pawn to lure his family out to also be detained. It's also

preposterous. And the fact that this is where our bets are being hinged on for continuing funding

this agency that essentially its goal is to get resources to be equipped to go to war with other

local cities and states that refuse to bend the knee to this cruel and fascist agenda of the

Trump administration and to then go pay the salaries of border patrol agents who use horrible

attack horrible and gross tactics on immigrants at the border to then be able to use those same

skills and tactics on civilians in their local neighborhood as was done with Alex Petrie just

a week and a half ago. The fact that they believe that these are the saving grace of this moment

just shows how democratic leadership nationally is so disconnected from working class people,

from the realities that's being experienced, not just here in Minneapolis, but the fact that these

realities are coming to a city near you. And it essentially allows and funds this machinery to

bring it to a city near you. It does not allow for the elimination of any of these campaigns of

cruelty, terrorism, domestic terrorism to end. And the only thing that would get there is,

and I get it's scary. Abolition is scary for our democratic leaders. But that is what it will take,

full abolition of ICE. And I can say that with my full chest because I know most of us up here

actually lived lives where ICE did not exist.

Most of us, and that's rare, are actually older than ICE.

So we know that there is a possibility if there was much political will, creativity,

innovation by our elected leaders at the federal level to say, let's figure out how to build

a governing agency that actually treats immigration with the humanity, dignity, and constitutionality

that it deserves, that they could actually make and move mountains around how immigrants

are not just treated at the borders, but then how that's used to weaponize, to then target

five-year-olds, to target black people, to target nurses in metropolitan cities.

So that is where I would like to see the imagination of our national leaders move towards, as

opposed to, again, basic reforms that do not actually help to save lives, that does not

mitigate damage that's already been caused and that will just allow this domestic war machinery

to just go and traumatize and destroy other local cities for the remaining time of this Trump

administration. So just wanted to share that again, no beef with y'all. You just did your job.

But this is so angering and the fact that they are likely still poised to pass funding and then

go on to use these as potential wins for the midterms to say see what we delivered for you

ridiculous just ridiculous so i just wanted to name that get that off my chest because i was

like this is a joke slide and it's not it's reality so thank you for always giving us the hard truth

Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Wansley. Next I'll recognize Councilmember Warren.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a question with the effects of the partial shutdown. Does

that include the DHS agencies that are paying individual personal care providers or things

like that because I'm getting a lot of calls from constituents who are providing home health

care services through multiple different agencies that are stating that they have not been paid

since December from those agencies and that there is a hold on pay, that they're not able to

pay their bills and take care of their families, but they're still providing these essential

services as you know essential workers for individuals who cannot ultimately care for

themselves madam chair and council member warren i think i would want to look into the specifics

to answer your questions i'm sorry that i can't answer now but i'm happy to follow up on that and

get the details um yeah chair chowdhury and council member warren we will follow up with

with you on that, because I think this may also have

something to do with actions taken at the state level

as well around some of these programs.

So we will get some clarification on that question

and get back to you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's important that they get paid.

People are, they're working.

I understand that there's holds underneath all of the

investigation of fraud and what have you,

but they're still taking care of our elderly

and senior communities and individuals

who are not able to care for themselves

and provide for themselves.

They're putting in the work, they're putting in the time,

but they're suffering at home and they're showing up

every day amidst all of the chaos and confusion

that we're having in our city to make sure

that those individuals are being properly cared for

and they're not being paid.

Thank you, I'll ask my colleagues

if there are any other questions for our IGR team.

Okay, so seeing none, thank you so much to the Intergovernmental Relations team.

We do have to take a vote on the 2026 legislative agenda.

So may I get a motion please?

So moved.

Second.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wansley.

Aye.

Aye.

Vita is absent. Warren? Aye.

Osmond? Aye.

Schaefer? Aye.

Stevenson? Aye.

Chavez is absent. Whiting? Aye.

Palmisano? Aye.

Vice Chair Chukhtai? Aye.

Chair Chowdhury? Aye.

There are 11 ayes.

That carries and those items have been approved and will be forwarded to the full City Council for its consideration.

at our regular meeting in two days on Thursday.

Next, we have item number 67,

which is the fourth quarter encampment closure report,

which will be presented by Director of Regulatory Services,

Director Enrique Velasquez.

Before I welcome you, Director,

I will ask Councilmember Vita

if she would like to give an affirmative vote

for the legislative agenda and policy.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Great, we'll have the clerks note that. And with that, welcome Director Velasquez.

Thank you very much, Chair Chowdhury, Vice Chair Chugtay, Super Cow members.

I'm Enrique Velasquez, the Director of Regulatory Services for the City of Minneapolis,

presenting the fourth quarter encampment closure report for 2025.

So in our encampment closure reporting ordinance,

It requires some different elements that we bring forward as part of this process.

Closures over the specific time frame, our interagency collaboration, what our outreach and engagement looks like with respect to those encampments that were closed during the period.

What are the housing outcomes over each one of those, that time frame for those different encampments?

over some of the health and safety outcomes, community impacts, and then documentation of the disposition of residents' personal belongings

for those that are in the encampments that were removed from the encampments or that left the encampments.

In terms of the data collection process, it involves multiple different entities within the city as well as outside of.

within the city its regulatory services its Public Works Minneapolis 311

Police Department 9-1-1 and then also Hennepin County they provide some

assistance with respect to shelter and housing outcomes and about this specific

report we include an overview memo a data dictionary covering the different

elements within the memo or within the report itself,

shelter availability, encampment closure data

for this specific period, and then housing outcomes.

Our decision to close, we really look

at four specific factors with respect to closing.

Number one is public health.

Number two is public safety and life safety.

Number three is community livability.

And that fourth one is a little bit more gray,

environmental and other factors.

So we look at what are some of those externalities

that could influence the decision to a close.

So it could be environmental in nature,

extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme haze,

or there could be some other vulnerabilities,

vulnerable populations in the immediate vicinity

or adjacent to that encampment that would prompt us

to move forward with the closure.

So for this specific timeframe, fourth quarter,

the short summary is there were zero closures

in fourth quarter of 2024 that were city supported.

We did engage with a lot of different residents.

So I did incorporate that information into this report

just so that we could talk about engagement outcomes

and what that looks like, whether there's a closure

or even not a closure.

In terms of outreach and engagement,

the Homeless Response Team,

they engaged at encampments 433 times.

659 overall, but 433 specific to encampments.

59 at vehicle only sites.

And then hotspots 34 times.

So hotspots are defined as places

where people congregate and gather,

either during the daytime or the nighttime,

but they're not resident there.

There are no tents, there are no structures whatsoever.

It's a place where people are gathering.

So we do send homeless response team members.

We do connect with other outreach partners

to go to those locations as well

for the purpose of providing service to those individuals.

Provided supplies 125 times benefiting about 300 individuals

with an estimate of about three people

at each one of the different sites

where they've requested supplies, socks, underwear,

food, snacks, water, things of that nature.

The mobile medical unit, they also engaged

at community events.

They have a calendar of events where people can request

for the mobile medical unit to be present.

So they've appeared at eight of those,

performed street outreach 35 times,

sometimes in partnership with the homeless response team,

and have not been deployed for emergencies

in this specific quarter.

You'll note that in the previous quarter,

we did dispatch the mobile medical unit

for a shooting that occurred at an encampment

and leading up to that shooting.

In terms of mobile medical unit engagements,

they engage with just over 1,100 individuals

at each one of these different events,

so pretty successful.

they distributed 207 they distributed Narcan 207 times each package that they

deliver is two doses so really it's over 400 doses that were provided and

provided medical assistance 161 times in terms of housing outcomes for the

individuals that the homeless response team engaged with to the 247 we were

able to provide 66 housing referrals and successfully made 10 shelter

reservations we did not identify any individuals that wanted to go to shelter

that were denied access or that shelter was full at those times when they

requested shelter and we were able to complete two housing intake assessments

we'll note that towards the middle of the year in 2025 the homeless response

team started doing intake assessments as part of the coordinated entry system

so now we're able to basically engage in the similar fashion as a lot of our

housing providers are by qualifying those individuals and getting them on

the list versus identifying a need and calling another third party over to try

and engage and find that individual again to help them work through that

process we're able to eliminate one of those different process steps and do that

directly ourselves Hennepin County have reported that 133 individuals moved from

unsheltered homelessness into stable housing over the course of the past

quarter so a little bit down from the prior quarter but 133 is still a really

good number and one additional piece of note I'll continue to add this in here

until it's no longer true Hennepin County is not able to link their housing

outcomes with specific encampment sites they do not ask the question of where did you stay the

night before before that individual moves into stable permanent housing they just inquire were

you unsheltered and flag it that way but they're not able to link it so we can't see what's the

correlation between our actions here at the city when it comes to encampments or encampment closures

and that outcome of moving somebody

into permanent stable housing.

So some of the learnings, Hennepin County and the city

are working in partnership together

on refining our data collection practices.

One of the things that we have identified specific,

similar to what I just mentioned,

is we have not been successful at mapping the journey

of an individual from their pathway

from unsheltered homelessness in whatever capacity that looks like into permanent stable housing.

So the county has made some changes over the course of the last quarter to two quarters

that we hope to see some dividend in this next quarter to two after they've made some changes

and then also refined their intake process to help us see what that journey looks like for individuals

so that we can get down to that granular level of which services and which supports

are really working which ones aren't how do we continue to refine our approaches so that we can

meet people exactly where they are and provide them what they're looking for um and just more

of an internal focused opportunity is how we communicate internally with respect to when an

encampment is going to be closed it's more of word of mouth it's text messaging incorporating more of

of a systematized approach where it's easier to track

and hold ourselves accountable is an important part

of what I'm looking at right now.

And also not on this slide, just kind of wanted to call this

out with respect to all of the federal actions

that we see happening presently and the impact

to our unsheltered community.

We're looking at how we can partner with other organizations

to provide additional warming spaces or shelter opportunities

so that our unsheltered residents who are already the target of so much activity

do not become the unwitting targets for federal action.

So that's something we're starting up.

We're looking at how we can partner together,

which partners are willing to come alongside us and take care of our people.

That's really what it's about.

THIS CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION. I'LL STAND FOR ANY COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, DIRECTOR VELASQUEZ. I'LL RECOGNIZE COUNCIL VICE PRESIDENT OSMAN.

THANK YOU, DIRECTOR VELASQUEZ. APPRECIATE YOUR PRESENTATION. WE'RE SEEING LESS ENCAMPTMENTS

THAN LAST FEW YEARS. CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN, IS IT PEOPLE THAT ARE GETTING HOUSED OR ARE

we like enforcing and being I guess you know super enforcing not having

encampments on the street or our city on lots or or that and how many encampments

are active right now in our city through the chair Chowdhury thank you

council vice president husband thank you for the question so there's a

combination of factors that we've seen take place over the past year and a half

we have the police chief special order that directed patrol on how to respond

when they see encampments and see people attempting either break into city

property cutting through the fence or attempt to set up an encampment and

those actions have kind of changed the behaviors and changed the mindsets for

uncharted residents where they might congregate more we see encampments less

we've also as I mentioned previously started doing intake assessments so

instead of having that handoff when we already have that relationship and have

been able to connect with that individual only to hand it off to

somebody else that might return at a different time when that resident might

no longer be in a mindset where they wish to go into housing that creates risk

So by pulling that process into our work that helps us mitigate the risk and helps us

Engage with them right then on the spot make the reservation on the spot do the assessment right there on the spot

So we have a couple of different factors like that mobile medical unit and the partnership with homeless response team

That's been successful utilizing mobile medical as an engagement mechanism

because sometimes

People are not thinking beyond the immediate need the immediate injury or whatever the health concern is to think about

Or even get clear about what their journey looks like as they

As we try to engage with them on

Housing I'm not worried about housing right now. I'm worried about the infected fingers. I'm worried about my feet

I'm worried about the most immediate need so being able to address those needs helps us reduce that

barrier so that we can engage with people and help them on their pathway

and we are seeing more people move into housing I believe it was about 2,600

people that the county reported last year that moved into stable supportive

housing and we're seeing quarter over quarter people in the aside from Q4 it's

been consistent between two and three hundred people have moved and

transitioned from unsheltered homelessness into stable housing so it's

a number of different factors that are all contributing.

And for the last part, how many encampments do we have presently?

It's about 13 encampments and about 30 vehicles.

In total, we estimate about 97 individuals.

So it's still down from what we've seen in prior years.

But 97, too many.

No, I really have to give credit to our staff.

Listen, having encampments, having individuals, you know, come to a place that is not healthy for them or like it's not livable condition,

kind of the frigid temperature, having folks that are, you know, really exploding these individuals

that are already struggling with mental health with a lot of challenges, and, you know, having a shooting there,

having a fire, you know, in the previous last few years, it's been very difficult if you have a large amount of people

GATHERED IN ONE PLACE, THERE'S ALWAYS A DISASTER THAT END UP AND WE ALWAYS REACT BY EITHER CLOSING DOWN

AND MAKING THOSE PEOPLE THEIR LIFE EVEN MORE MISERABLE, KICKING THEM OUT WHAT THEY HAVE BUILD SO FAR.

BUT I REALLY WELCOME THE PREVENTION OF GATHERING A PLACE THAT IS NOT SUITABLE FOR HUMAN BEING TO LIVE.

AND YOU KNOW, CONTINUE TO BE THE RESOURCE AND THE OUTREACH WE NEED, BUILDING THAT RELATIONSHIP,

as you mentioned, is very important for those individuals.

But I'm still also seeing, you know, other governments like county land and MnDOT owned land.

Are we like, is it hands off on our side of it, of the city?

Is that like their problem?

Because I'm looking, and I have one place, an example that is, you know,

Hiawatha and Cedar Avenue.

It's right there.

It's like three different governments own it.

It's like MnDOT on the bridge over there, a city on 17th, and also we have a Metro Transit who has not done,

I emailed multiple times to really do something about that.

We had an individual who lost his life, a young East African man who was trying to cross one side of the bridge to the other,

and he got hit, lost his life.

AND THAT WE STILL HAVE LIKE 50 PEOPLE A DAY JUST, YOU KNOW, HANGING OUT AND STAYING UNDER THAT BRIDGE,

WHICH CREATES SAFETY FOR THEMSELVES, WHICH CREATES SAFETY FOR THE PUBLIC AND TRAFFIC,

WHICH CREATES A LOT OF CHALLENGES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, SEWARD NEIGHBORHOOD AREA.

AND NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE.

I CONTACTED THE MAYOR, I CONTACTED THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS AND COO,

AND FINALLY WAS ABLE TO HAVE METRO TRANSIT REACH OUT TO THEM.

THEY WERE LIKE, OH, SOMETHING IS BEING DONE ON THE SUMMER.

I DON'T THINK WE CAN WAIT.

THE SUMMER SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE, OTHERWISE DISASTER WILL HAPPEN.

SO IN YOUR WORK THAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING, DEALING WITH THE CITY OWNED LANDS

AND DEALING WITH HELPING THOSE FOLKS GET THE RESOURCE THEY NEED,

ARE WE DOING AND DO WE EVEN HAVE ANY PLAN OF WORKING WITH OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES LIKE COUNTY

AND MNDOT TO GET THIS ISSUE SOLVED RIGHT AWAY? YES, THROUGH THE CHAIR, COUNCIL VICE PRESIDENT

OSMON, THAT SPECIFIC LOCATION THAT YOU MENTIONED IS EXTREMELY CHALLENGING. AS YOU MENTIONED,

MEDRAL TRANSIT OWNS THE TOP PART OF THE DECK, THE UNDER SIDE IS OWNED BY MNDOT, THEN CERTAIN

sections are owned either by Metro Transit by the county by Hickory by my

missing MnDOT City regardless of the ownership the homeless response team

engages we don't we do look at the map only to identify who owns the property

so we know who to connect other than that we are agnostic if there is an

unsheltered person out there we will engage if there are unsheltered people

we will look and find the resources to try and connect them.

In that specific area, it's been reoccupied multiple times, multiple times.

Even when it gets cleared out, they return, sometimes the same day.

Metro Transit, they clean out the location at least once a day, and people will just flock back.

So we're looking at a variety of different things to try and figure out how to make it less attractive for people to keep on congregating.

above and beyond that it's about how do we engage with these individuals so that

there are other outlets for them versus just looking for a different place to

continue to congregate that's my focus so that we can restore that community

livability reopen that corridor so that as you mentioned so that people do not

feel unsafe trying to cross the bridge because they have to step out into

TRAFFIC TO BE ABLE TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

SO IT IS, YEAH, IT'S A MULTIFACETED PROBLEM.

I DON'T HAVE AN ANSWER.

SURE.

NO, I-

BUT WE ARE LOOKING AT IT EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND.

NO, YOU ARE DOING A PHENOMENAL JOB, AND I'M PROUD OF THE

WORK YOU'RE DOING.

BUT OVERALL, I THINK I'M GOING TO CALL THE ADMINISTRATION

AND SAY, LISTEN, WE HAVE TO HAVE A PLAN WITH OUTSIDE

GOVERNMENT, MINDOT.

I REMEMBER HOUSE OF BALLS, YOU KNOW, HAVING A COUPLE

PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES AND THERE'S ALWAYS NEVER A WAY, SOME KIND OF ROAD MAP HOW TO

DEAL WITH THIS KIND OF ISSUES, ESPECIALLY IF IT'S MINDOT OWN.

WELL, WE'RE GOING TO EMAIL MINDOT.

WELL, THAT'S NOT A PLAN.

WE NEED THE ADMINISTRATION WHO IS THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE CITY TO REALLY PUT A PLAN TOGETHER

AND SAY, HEY, WHEN WE ARE TAKING CARE OF OUR OWN LANDS, WE ALSO NEED THE MINDOT AND THE

COUNTY OR ANY OTHERS TO STEP IT UP.

there should be some kind of task force to address this

and this kind of challenges in our city.

And I'm gonna call out and say that something has to be done

on Hiawatha and Franklin because a disaster

is just around the corner.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And I'll just note for everyone,

we have several members in queue.

And so wanna be conscious of that.

If you have more than three questions at a time,

I ask that you just get back into queue to ask that again.

So everyone can have the ability to ask what they need to ask

with the limited time we have before lunch.

So I'll recognize Council Member Stevenson.

Thank you, Madam Chair,

and thank you, Director, for being here.

We haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet,

but I'm excited to meet.

I have met some of the on-the-ground homeless response team in my previous work.

And so I have met them and know they have good hearts and they're working hard.

As people were talking about earlier, maybe before you came in, the person, staff who

was reporting on federal legislative priorities, it was referred to as they always bring us

bad news.

I unfortunately have to bring us some bad news from the streets about this whole situation.

But I want to first acknowledge that I know that the staff on the ground are working very

hard and they are attempting to do their best.

The first bad news I have to give is that our staff, our homeless response team, are

seen in the community as snitches.

I understand that that's very difficult to hear, but because it says the city of Minneapolis

on it and because our data is accessible to MPD, when people on the streets see our homeless

response team, they go, oh, we're about to be cleared, we're about to be pushed out of

here.

And so I just want to acknowledge that for my colleagues that our staff do not have a

strong reputation and it is not because of them and their character, it is because MPD

because the administration have been ruthless, honestly ruthless at sweeping people out of

where they are. You mentioned the special directive from a couple of years ago. That

has been a catastrophe for people sleeping on the streets. And so this is what leads

into our staff being seen so poorly. You mentioned why are the, sorry, my colleague asked why

there are no encampments and it really is that policy of the police have not allowed

people to stay in one spot for really any meaningful amount of time which has been an

unmitigated disaster for people's health.

It has also meant that there are less encampments and a lot of that is because so many tents

have been thrown away.

People have run out of tents and supplies.

I would just like to call out that you mentioned that sometimes enclosures are considered when

there's extreme heat and extreme cold.

And I just want to call out that closing an encampment during extreme heat and extreme

cold is a recipe for killing people.

Because social cohesion, having people to look out for each other is how we're keeping

ourselves safe in this time with ICE.

And the same is true for our homeless neighbors.

need to look out for each other and in times of extreme cold and extreme heat

they should not be outside we completely agree about that we are in total

agreement and they are outside and so that I just like to call that out

we'll be talking about much more of this in public health and safety I know that

we will and so I won't be able to get to everything but I wanted to call out one

One other thing in the report, I know my colleagues on this dais understand this, but maybe some

folks in the audience or at home may not fully understand, but I'm looking at some of the

encampment reclosure Q4 report, and I'm specifically looking at the shelter information about when

beds were available and how many beds were available.

And I just want to call out that it would be very easy to read this chart.

No one else has seen this chart except me, so I'll just try and explain.

Available at 10 a.m., the totals, there's a certain number.

Available at 7.30 p.m., totals, there's a certain number.

And then available at 10 p.m., there's a certain number.

It would be very easy to read this chart as saying you would add those totals up, and

that would be the total number of beds available that night.

But it's actually the opposite of in the morning, just as an example, I'm just going to pick

a random day.

November 8th.

In the morning there were 74 beds and then by the evening there were 65 beds and then

by the night there were 52 beds.

That meant that beds were getting filled, not that beds were being added to.

This is an actually extremely high day, which makes me think that a shelter opened on that

day as like a winter shelter or that there was some kind of like major clearance because

previous days there would be, you know, November 6th or something would be 27 and then 11 and

then zero.

And so I just wanted people who may be looking at these reports to know that these are not

escalating numbers, these are declining numbers.

I'm really excited to look much more into these reports and talk much more about how

we can improve Minneapolis's reputation among people on the streets.

As someone who worked in homeless outreach, we did not work with the homeless response

team because of that.

Now we met with them and we were kind to each other, but we specifically did not work with

them because of the reputation that they are a harbinger of bad things for people on the

streets.

So very excited to get into this work.

I know you've been working very hard on this.

I know our staff has been working incredibly hard.

And so there is so much more work to be done.

I apologize that this was a smattering

of many different things, but I couldn't let

not one of these reports go by without highlighting

that this is a deep emergency.

These numbers are showing a deep emergency that we're in.

And while we are projecting confidence and projecting a sense of optimism, I don't want anyone to leave here thinking that we are in a good place.

And I know that you understand that and that you're working very hard to correct that.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Next, I'll recognize Council Member Whiting.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Director Velasquez.

Velasquez, and thank you for your presentation. I think it's really helpful, especially for us that

are new to this role. And very simple question, at least it probably should be kind of for my own

edification here. How does the city, how are we as an office, as an enterprise,

defining what constitutes an encampment? I'm trying to just figure out when we say encampment,

what does that actually mean and what does that look like? Is it size? Is it individuals that are

present and the camp just kind of that's really my own question for curiosity

reasons yeah through the chair councilmember Whiting thank you for the

question so our definition is simple it's a structure so one person one

structure that's an encampment if there are many people congregating but there

are no structures and we don't see that they're staying resident we would

consider that a hot spot and not an encampment if they're in a vehicle then

we flag that as a vehicle only site thank you certainly thank you and then I

have myself next in queue just have a couple questions here director thank you

for the presentation as always first is like a really short question so the

vehicle only spots could you help define that a little bit further this is the

first time I'm hearing that type of verbiage. Sure. So it's something that over the course of the past

year we identified that not everybody experiencing unsheltered homelessness resides in an encampment

yet our data is still reflected just encampments. So when we look at the internal dashboard or the

public facing dashboard all of the numbers continue to speak to encampments. I wanted to flesh that

out further and be able to identify where are people congregating where are they living where

are they in these spaces that are unfit for human habitation so as homeless response team receives

these reports and traffic control we started to flag which ones are yes we recognize people are

unsheltered where are they living what's the type of situation what are the conditions so that we

can continue to dig deeper. So vehicle only is simply that. It's individuals who are living in

their vehicle, in their cars, trucks, RVs. So that's what that specifically refers to.

Thank you so much. And I see that it says vehicle only sites, 59 visits. Do we have a number on how

many individual vehicle only sites there are? Checking the dashboard this morning, there are

34. And then one vehicle, it could be two. We typically don't see more than two vehicles at

a specific location. Okay, so there could be multiple vehicles at one site and then multiple

individuals per vehicle. Right. Typically one to two people per vehicle. Okay. Maybe an animal as

well. Okay, thank you. And I'll just like, call out to my colleagues, legislation that me and

Council Member Chavez and Council Member Chugtai were working on last year was really trying to

envision safe outdoor spaces for community members that are facing unsheltered homelessness. And

one version of safe outdoor spaces that we were working on is safe parking, really modeled after

the safe bay model in Duluth, where they have like a safe, secure parking space for people with

vehicles that are living in their vehicles with a loved one or a pet, where they have like kind of

like a one-stop shop to resources, but also safety. They do a variety of different programming there,

and that's something that I really hope to bring forward this next year and further.

I think this data point is really of interest to me because it shows in our city that there is a really clear need

and it could be a successful pathway to help a number of individuals get better connected into resources

and get to permanent housing.

So just wanted to call that out.

And then I have a second question just in regards to the compounding crises that we're facing as a city right now.

So January was a terribly cold month.

We had weather that was, I think the furthest it went was like, what, negative 26, 25, something like that, just bitterly cold.

And I had heard from so many different community members and service providers that there were unhoused residents facing this bitter cold at the same time facing targeting by ICE agents.

And I wanted to kind of see, like, I know that that's not about this fourth quarter report, but I think it's important to cover.

I wanted to see kind of how how the homeless response team and your

department have been engaging with unhoused individuals with this increased

presence of federal agents and then how have you all been working with folks

this last month to in the bitter cold amidst the occupation thank you Church

Audrey yes bitter cold and just to give a little bit of a preview Hennepin

county they stand up emergency warming centers from during the low heat no heat

season so middle of November through middle of April and they also have

contracts with providers for additional emergency warming spaces when the

temperatures go below zero so Minnesota Indian women's resource center is one of

those locations AIC DC Cola is another location where once that temperature

reach zero they will open up and expand for additional capacity so when we we watch the weather

we keep track and as we see that temperatures are going to be dangerously cold or that we're

approaching that type of season the homeless response team kind of shifts from just providing

snacks and other things as part of engagement to okay it's going to be really cold let's talk about

your plan to get indoors here's some different places you can go to here the

numbers to call and just being out there and being present to be able to provide

that information and not everybody chooses to take us up on those offers

maybe for a variety of different reasons including what councilmember

Stevenson mentioned before but we do make that that effort we communicate as

as much as we can both verbally as well as in writing engage with community

partners to make sure that we're all doing the same kind of work to make sure

people get indoors and get and stay safe we provide hot hands which provides a

temporary immediate relief but it's not a solution indoor shelter is definitely

the solution and with what we're seeing in terms of just kind of the buildup of

the federal government and the targeting of our unsheltered residents we have

changed and just try to be mindful of how we come across in community so they're

cold our staff are cold there will be no neck gators nothing covering your face

we're playing clothes or street clothes we're something that shows it you are

not part of any of those federal actions happening because we do have a variety

of different bodies on our homeless response team some can give the

appearance that oh this could be somebody on you know one of those one of those

agents if you want to call them that from the federal government just trying

to be very mindful of how we show up in community how do we represent ourselves

and if it feels unsafe not just for our staff but also for the person that we're

engaging with if they're reading their body language if they are uncomfortable

then okay that person needs to separate because the focus isn't on our staff it's on helping those

individuals progress along their journey towards stable housing so if my presence is causing a

conflict for that person i will tag out and allow others to continue

thank you i don't have any other questions i'll just close uh with the fact that

I just really concur with Councilmember Stevenson that we are really in a tough bad place when it

comes to homelessness in our city even as there's been places of progress it still remains to be

a public health emergency you can see that really clearly when you go to different parts of our

our city where community members are just doing their best to just make it alive through this

winter and several unhoused residents this year have died due to the bitter cold in our region

and that's a reality that we face every year and that's why it's so important for us I would say

and then in the the as we as we get through this winter and go into the warmer months to better

plan for the colder months. With the ICE agents in our streets, I've heard of so many indigenous

neighbors, anyone that looks brown and black that are outside being indiscriminately targeted,

and there's an extra level of this set of our community members being even more vulnerable

because they were already vulnerable to begin with. And the only few things that have kind of

stood between those discriminated attacks and like

kidnapping of community members has been

residents doing observing and rapid response.

And then for the service providers like MIWRC,

Abivo Village, other shelters,

they've had to just really quickly try to attain funding

really from fundraising from our community

and seeing if there's any possibility from philanthropy

to just expand their operations so they can bring people inside, so they can seek safety as this targeting is going on.

And so I just really want us as an organization, as we have all of February before us,

no real commitments on a number of agents being withdrawn or an end to a metro surge,

that we have a really strong plan to protect our unhoused neighbors and give them additional ways to know where to go

and check in with the service providers that are building up additional services to get through

this period of time because it is having a significant impact economically on them but

also i know mentally it's having a huge impact on all of the people that do the work right now of

caring for our unhoused neighbors with that i will go to the next council member in queue and that's

council member wansley thank you chair uh thank you director uh velasquez i just had a question

regarding um also a potential contributing factor factor to what is the perception of shrinking

encampments in minneapolis wanted to know if we all or at the city level connect with st paul's

equivalent encampment responses or homeless response team reason why i mentioned that is

While we might have saw a decrease in encampment closures or the number of them in our last quarter, St. Paul experienced a slight uptick.

And there's been lots of information on the ground around our continuous eviction policy around encampments also pushed unhoused and unsheltered neighbors just across the river.

and St. Paul is experiencing the byproducts of that

and also having to contend with how they also respond to that,

but just wanted to see if we did any particular tracking.

I know you mentioned the county doesn't track location-wise,

but are we in conversation with St. Paul

around kind of migration patterns as well?

Certainly. Through the chair, Councilmember Wansley,

thank you for the question.

We are in direct contact with,

I'm in contact with my counterpart at City of St. Paul

as well as our homeless response team is connected to St. Paul's Homeless Action Response Team.

And any time that we have a closure that's occurring either on the border or along transit in either city,

we're sure to notify each other in case that any of those unsheltered individuals do migrate over across the border, if you will.

And as we do engagement in both cities, we do identify where people came from if they don't appear familiar, because our teams are in the field every single day.

So they recognize people who are part of that transient environment with their unsheltered residents.

So if they see people that are less familiar, ask questions of which site did you come from?

Were you at an encampment?

so if we see that happening in either either case we do communicate with each

other to find out okay what happened how did why is this person over here versus

in Minneapolis or why are they in in Minneapolis instead of in st. Paul and

what's what's the trigger what's the mechanism just so that we can make sure

that we're not only tracking but also making sure that we're providing the

right level of services because our homeless management information systems

are not necessarily connected.

We're in two different continuums of care.

So we want to make sure that whichever city they arrive in,

that they are getting connected to the services.

If they're not already connected,

that they're connected with their case management

and that we're sharing that information back and forth.

Is there a way to have that,

or I'm not seeing in the memo that was attached,

to have those figures be included in the next reporting,

JUST SO WE CAN HAVE A SENSE OF WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE NUMERICALLY.

CERTAINLY. IT'S VERY RARE, BUT WE WILL INCLUDE THAT.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER. NEXT WE'LL GO TO COUNCIL MEMBER CHUCKTY.

COUNCIL VICE CHAIR. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR.

I'VE GOT A FEW QUESTIONS, AND I SEE THAT THERE'S ANOTHER COUNCIL MEMBER

IN CUE, SO I'M GOING TO GET BACK IN CUE. SO YOU'LL HEAR FROM ME A

a couple times, Director Velasquez.

It's wonderful to see you in chambers.

It's always a pleasure when you come to speak to us

and update us on the work that Regulatory Services

is doing every single day to support residents of our city.

I have a few questions.

I wanna try to kind of be a little bit logical about them.

So something that caught my attention

in your presentation was, I think it was like slide eight, it was near the end, you were talking

about housing outcomes, and that there were, you know, of the 247 engagements that led to 66 housing

referrals, 10 shelter reservations, two intake assessments, it caught my attention that I thought

you may have mentioned that HR, the homelessness response team did not engage with individuals who

were unable to successfully have a shelter reservation made. But as I'm looking through

the memo that you shared with us, I do see in the housing and shelter outcomes section that there

were six individuals that were unable, I think it's listed as additional individuals unable to

secure reservations six so i'm trying to understand does that mean that is that data set

looking at you know when our homeless response team is out and they're talking to someone who

is ready to go into shelter and you know they call um adult shelter connect are trying to get

them a reservation made and there are no beds available am i understanding that correctly yes

that's correct okay awesome um yeah i mean i just think it it catches it's very stark right of the

total number of people we're talking to, 247, that about as many people were able to successfully

get into shelter as were unable to get a reservation because of shelter capacity in our entire region.

And that's an impact that first and foremost affects those six individuals that we spoke to

who wanted to get into shelter and were unable to.

And then it has this compounding or ripple effect impact on the broader community

when our neighbors are trying to do every single thing right

and just are not able to get the level of care that they need

and are so deserving and worthy of.

My next question is around the mobile medical unit.

So I've got a couple questions around that.

So can you help me understand this?

Of the 1,100 or almost 1,200 total encounters at events through the mobile medical unit,

I see referrals made as a subset of that data.

can you just help me understand what that means where what are these referrals and where are they

being made to right yeah thank you for the question so the mobile medical unit they were also

we've been doing some cross training with the homeless response team in the mobile medical unit

so they are also providing some housing referrals and utilizing that as an opportunity so we've had

HAD THE HOMELESS RESPONSE TEAM ENGAGE AND DO CO-VISITS WITH MMU STAFF.

AND WHEN HRT IS NOT ABLE TO BE THERE, THEY'RE AT LEAST ABLE TO PROVIDE INFORMATION, HELP

THEM CONNECT.

THEY HAVE THE SAME CONTACT INFORMATION AND PHONE NUMBERS.

SO WE'RE JUST TRYING TO AMPLIFY THAT CONNECTION OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS.

AWESOME.

THANK YOU.

YEAH, I MEAN, IT'S SUCH A BIG DEAL THAT THAT CROSS TRAINING IS REALLY AWESOME TO HEAR.

You know, like if when we catch the right person at the right time and we can take care of several of their needs all at once, that's the ideal that we should aspire to.

So thank you for highlighting that.

And then my last question before I come back to you in a little bit is, you know, thinking about the bitter winter, cold weather that we've had this year so far.

and you know based on in our partnership with Hennepin County and Healthcare for the Homeless

HCMC things like that are we is there a figure out there or one that we could access that helps

us understand the impact of of the the cold weather on people who are experiencing homelessness so

in particular I'm trying to understand you know how severe is this is the uptick in amputations

as a result of people being outside in sub-zero temperatures

that is unsafe for everybody.

Yeah, if you can speak to that at all.

Yes, through the chair of Vice Church Hugtai,

that is an excellent question,

and it's one that I've been pondering myself recently

because it is bitter cold,

where I have this morbid curiosity

to find out how many people are freezing to death

or dying of carbon monoxide asphyxiation from whatever heating element they're utilizing in

their tents or amputations or upticks in frostbite. I don't have that data for you yet,

though it's something that I aspire to be able to work in partnership with the county and

Hennepin Health to be able to get that granular level of detail so that we can

know exactly how we need to shift our operation and just continue to evolve what we're doing.

Yeah, I really appreciate that. I mean, one thing I'll note from the very first time you presented one of these reports to today, right? Like I see so much growth. And, you know, the very first one, it was we were still working out data sharing with Hennepin County.

And today, a number of these data sets are available and we're getting a more clear picture.

And I really appreciate that you're always more curious and want to paint a more fulsome picture of what is happening in our community.

And I want to commend you for going out of for continuing to chase down and figure out new ways for us to better collect data, to understand it.

And then ultimately so that we can act on it and eradicate homelessness in our in our city, in our state.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Next we'll go to Council Member Warren.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Director, for your time and for your presentation.

I just have a couple of questions as it relates to the Homeless Information Management System

and the reservations for individuals in shelter.

you stated that there is a increase in stabilized housing and individuals being able to sustain

housing. Is that within independent living or in group living conditions or is that in chemical

dependency treatment and what is the recidivism rate look like for individuals returning back to

the street should they not be able to maintain their housing? Like what is that what is that

looking like at this time.

Thank you.

Through the chair, Councilmember Warren,

thank you for the questions.

So it's primarily focused on,

housing is focused not on group settings

or recovery or treatment.

That's still another data set

that we're knocking on the door

and trying to get into.

It's purely stable housing, supportive housing.

And the recidivism rate,

I believe it's 86% remain stably housed.

I believe that's the figure that I've seen

from Hennepin County, but I would have to double check that.

Thank you for that clarification.

My reason for asking that question is

because from my experience in the time

that I've spent working in housing

and housing our unsheltered residences

that when they go into shelter or shelter environments,

if they are moved from shelter into stable housing,

if they do need to seek other treatments or other services of that nature,

then that counts as stabilized housing.

But once they leave those places,

they're not able to go back into the stable housing environment where they were before,

which then pushes them back out into the streets

and reintroduces whatever the condition was that they were experiencing

when they were homeless to begin with.

So I'm trying to see where that connection can be made with individuals receiving services and housing and then creating that seamless transition for them to stabilize themselves and maintain that support in that housing setting so they don't go back into the streets.

okay yeah thank you for that that's that information I have available now though I

think it would probably be worthwhile to also pull in Henneman County to be able

to share that complete picture and provide that assessment of how they

help residents progress from you know the overall goal is to make unsheltered

homelessness rare brief and non-recurring and what does that

specifically look like look like with each one of these different types of

housing settings and how and to be able to articulate that more clearly than I

could yeah because if they're if they're in housing and there is a crisis and

they're removed from their housing more than 30 days then they're no longer have

that housing because they can't do a service with being in you know whether

it be mental health or chemical health treatment whatever their crisis then

becomes. So they can't do a service where they have someone to help support them paying their

rent instability in one place and then receiving services in another place. So then they lose the

place of stability because they're in there, but then they go back to the bottom of the picking

list of when they get housed at that time. And then, you know, because it's a measure of long-term

homelessness, right? Right. So with the measurement of LTH being disrupted because of services,

then they're back at the bottom of the list and wait to get picked back up which then makes them

at risk of being back out in the streets and community and finding other means of housing

which is then not measured if they go and crash on their brother's couch or whatever the case may

be right so I'm trying to understand how we can merge that connection to make it seamless that

if I'm getting help, I can go back to the place of stability for me so that the recidivism

ends and I'm not back out into the streets left to be, you know, put into the same predicament

that caused me to be unsheltered to begin with.

Right.

Okay.

I'll wait for that report.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Council Member Warren.

We'll go back to Vice Chair Chugtai, and then I'm going to actually have us, if there's

no objection, close with Councilmember Stevenson, and then we can recess for lunch.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Velasquez, I want to talk a little bit about the impact of

the federal government and Operation Metro Surge on this body of work. You highlighted several

examples, and I think it continues to strike me that Indigenous people who disproportionately

make up our homeless population in this city, in the state, and certainly across the country as well,

are being targeted by federal agents on land that is indigenous to their peoples.

And being harassed, abused, abducted. All of those are examples I know that have come to us

through community.

And so I think there's two aspects that I wanna touch on.

First, starting with the directly impacted people,

folks who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

Can you give us any insight into conversations

with other jurisdictions, other service providers,

what have you about how we are uniquely working to pair

like our immigration legal assistance work with folks who are experiencing homelessness as well,

right? Like those are two bodies of work that exist in separate places within this enterprise

and exist in separate places in the county and other jurisdictions as well. So, you know,

I'm thinking about in particular, you know, folks who are experiencing homelessness,

folks who've lived in encampments, have lived through encampment closures or evictions,

will often highlight losing critical paperwork like passports, birth certificates,

things that prove their identity and their legal status in this country.

And I'm thinking about how our folks who are experiencing homelessness right now

are existing in this unique intersection of not having a place to go,

you know, just the cold weather, the, like, overburdened shelters.

and not having critical documentation to prove their identity, that's a scary recipe.

Are there conversations happening about how we kind of are directing resources or expediting how quickly we're trying to make sure

every person has their documentation accounted for?

Does that make sense?

Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Through the chair, council vice president, or sorry, vice chair, Chuck Ty.

so yes our homeless response team they're able to also because they're also

kind of in that provider space they're able to apply and work with that

individual who might have lost their documentation they're all able to apply

for documentation on their behalf so that we can do that right there on the

scene as soon as we discover that somebody has lost their documentation we

can work with them and apply in other instances where we've heard of a

a rash of individuals who lost their documentation we had contacted

dps to inquire about their mobile their mobile unit so they could bring that out and just work

through the process of doing the intake and distribute documentation to distribute

identification right there on the spot that's awesome and as as council members if we're hearing

OF CONSTITUENTS OR IF IT'S COMING TO US THROUGH THE NETWORK OF COMMUNITY FOLKS SERVICE PROVIDERS,

IS THE CORRECT, IS THE APPROPRIATE ACTION FOR US TO FLAG THAT FOR YOU RIGHT AWAY SO THAT YOU CAN

ACTIVATE THAT ECOSYSTEM YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT?

ABSOLUTELY.

AND OUR HOMELESS RESPONSE TEAM, THEY'RE CONNECTED WITH ALL OF THE OTHER SERVICE PROVIDERS AS WELL.

EVERYBODY KEEPS KIND OF THEIR EAR TO THE GROUND OF WHAT'S HAPPENING ALL AROUND THE CITY,

not just with our homeless population but then also keeping track of what's happening with

operation metro surge so that we know how to pivot and make some course adjustments wherever

appropriate awesome and then my my the second aspect of um the impact of operation metro surge

and the federal occupation we're living through right now is around um the impact to uh the

homelessness response team and the staff that are out every day working directly with vulnerable

populations. Now, I have done a ride-along and I spent a day with the homelessness response team

myself. I know that these are also people who are targets of our federal government right now. And so

can you just help us get some insight into how you are thinking about safety for your team

and for city staff in this moment so that you know we can we can while we're working with

vulnerable populations that are also targeted we're protecting the the people who are providing

that person-to-person frontline response absolutely so i think the best weapon that we have available

is communication just having that advanced awareness of where federal authorities are

showing up so that we know we can kind of overlay that with where our unsheltered population is

and where we need to be to be able to support staff so in the instance where i believe it was

the day that and in the aftermath of renee good being killed there's a lot of build up in south

minneapolis so we focus our efforts more on north and northeast and just trying to shift our

approach so that we're still out there we're still providing services while also keeping our diverse staff safe and

ensuring that yes all of our unsheltered residents they need the support too

um it's not it's not all about us

thank you very much thank you madam chair thank you so much vice chair next we'll go to councilmember stevenson

yeah thank you madam chair thank you director i'll be brief i know you've been up here for a while now

I WANTED TO SAY THAT GOOD DATA ON THIS ISSUE IS VERY MUCH LACKING AS YOU KNOW AND AS

COUNCILMEMBER WARREN WAS POINTING OUT. I'M GLAD THAT COUNCILMEMBER WARREN WAS RAISING

WHAT COUNTS AS HOMELESS BECAUSE THAT'S A HUGE ISSUE, PARTICULARLY ON THE NORTH SIDE.

IF YOU ARE STAYING WITH YOUR COUSIN AND THEN YOUR FRIEND AND THEN YOUR BROTHER, YOU ARE

STABLY HOUSED ACCORDING TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WHEN REALLY YOU'RE ONE MONTH AWAY FROM SLEEPING

outside um i'm a director i'm excited to hear that that you have seen a figure that uh 86 percent

of people are staying housed after a year when i spoke with hennepin county last year they said

they weren't tracking that so i'm excited to hear that they are now tracking that um and i'm i'm when

we meet as i'm sure we will soon um i'd love to hear more about where that comes from um

Yeah, and so Director, Councilmember Warren, very much looking forward to getting clear data from HMIS and the Homeless Management Information System.

Sorry, that's the HMIS is its acronym.

And Hennepin County, because this data is super important and they don't track it well.

They're doing their best.

Oh, God love them out there.

but the federal government has done everything to to not collect the right data um and and so i'm

excited to work with the the two of you on on getting better data thank you thank you so much

um we do not have anyone else in queue which means i'll direct the clerk to file that report

and thank you again for the presentation and just the robust discussion with us in this moment.

I, without objection, I will recess us for lunch and why don't we just come back at 1 p.m.

All right, thank you.

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1.

All right, we are back at the super committee of the whole.

I will ask the clerks to call the roll to verify a presence of a quorum.

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Wansley.

Present.

Is absent Vita present Warren present

Osman present Schaefer present

Stevenson present

Chavez present waiting

Palmas on a president vice chair chug type

Is absent chair chowdhury?

present in rainville

There are 12 members present let the record reflect we have a quorum

Before we go into our next item, if there's no objection, I wanted to ask Council Member Chavez if he wanted to be recorded in the affirmative for one item we voted on for the legislative agenda.

Yes, I would, Chair. Thank you.

Great.

All right, colleagues.

Our next item is item number 68, which is a proposed lease agreement with the University of Minnesota for a one-year term for a training site for the police department.

here to lead the staff presentation is director of property services Barbara O'Brien welcome director

thank you I'm just going to do a quick adjustment

thank you good afternoon madam chair council members my name is Barbara O'Brien I have the

privilege of serving as the Director of Property Services for the City of Minneapolis. Before I

begin, I'd like to recognize that Matt Hannon, Real Estate Manager from Property Services

Division overseeing leasing for the city, is with me. Also here with me today are colleagues from

the City's Office of Public Safety, as well as the Minneapolis Police Department, to seek

authorization of a lease agreement with the University of Minnesota in the amount of $1

per annum for the use of a portion of the university's 32.3-acre research center in

Rosemount, Minnesota. The space is used for temporary storage and detonation of potentially

explosive materials and also training activities for MPD and other local law enforcement agencies

around the handling of such materials, both of which require ample dedicated space that

is void of populated areas.

So a wide open space.

This lease is a modernization, formalization of a partnership between the University of Minnesota and the city that has been in place since 1986.

So this year marks four decades of this collaboration.

Since the original lease, the City of St. Paul has also entered into an agreement with the University for shared use of this space with Minneapolis.

In 2025, the University delivered a termination notice of the aged lease to both cities for use of this facility.

The university would like to continue leasing space to Minneapolis and St. Paul Police Departments for this purpose,

but wanted to do so under a new lease agreement, which is what is in front of you today.

The new lease would run for one year with an unlimited number of automatic one-year renewals.

In exchange for use of the Rosemont facility, both city's police departments agree to provide timely removal of potential explosive materials from university property should the need arise.

I am happy to stand for any questions related to this lease or share the podium with my colleagues to address any questions that you may have.

Thank you so much, Director.

I'll recognize Council President Payne.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was just curious if we have any cost estimates

for that material removal, budgeted,

or an understanding of it.

So I think that is a question that would best be answered

by the subject matter experts.

And so I would defer that question to MPD staff,

Sergeant Standard.

welcome welcome council president madam chair thank you the cost associated with getting rid of

something like that the University of Minnesota wants to get rid of so there would be a slight

charge I mean it would be the cost of using counter explosives to do that work we also

are reimbursed from a non responsible party fund if we respond to a call outside of our jurisdiction

and then we would get reimbursed $400 an hour to do that work okay thank you

thank you colleagues are there any other questions on this item okay seeing none

thank you for that first presentation is there a motion on this item some moved

second great all those in favor say aye aye those opposed say nay any

abstentions that carries and that item has been approved and will be referred

to the full City Council for its consideration on Thursday I'll

recognize Vice Chair Chuck tie has joined us Vice Chair would you like to

be recorded in the affirmative for this item number 68 yes please madam chair

wonderful all right director o'brien we're going to have you right back up

this time to present on the bid by roshan corporation for the mpd training

annex project thank you and good afternoon madam chair once again as

noted my name is barbara o'brien i am the director of property services for the

city of minneapolis the rca in front of you today is to authorize a contract

with Roshan Corporation, who has submitted the low-responsive bid for minor demolition

and construction in an effort to create open, flexible spaces within a city-owned facility

at 19 North 4th Street, formerly known as the First Precinct.

In late fall of 2025, the first precinct operations and staff relocated to a newly renovated space within the Century Plaza facility.

City owned and unprogrammed since the precinct relocation 19 North 4th Street has been reviewed

by property services against the many and varied space demands that our city departments have

during our analysis we considered types of space needs centralized location parking and access

needs, financial implications, as well as scalability, departmental priority, codes,

zones, safe and thriving community report, as well as condition assessments and settlement

agreements. A temporary auxiliary space for MPD training and wellness was identified for this

unprogrammed space. This location will serve as a relief valve for the extremely

tasked training space within the SOC, also known as the Hamilton School, a

facility that was designed and built as an elementary school and has been

stretched to serve the Minneapolis Police Department's training needs. This

contract will result in open spaces on separate floors that will allow training and wellness

activities to be programmed simultaneously to continued space use at the SOC.

As some of you may recall, 19 North 4th Street was once a Minneapolis fire station with

equipment storage and garage space on the ground floor and personnel space on the upper floor.

The original structure lends itself ideally to be converted back to an open concept floor

that will allow maximum flexibility for training needs. Demolition and construction will be minimal

for this temporary use of space and will not impede future use considerations for this facility.

Here with me today are colleagues from the city's Office of Public Safety,

as well as Minneapolis Police Department, who can address operational details related to a temporary auxiliary space.

i am happy to stand for any questions related to the contract and share the podium with my

colleagues who may address specific operational questions you may have thank you thank you so

much director we have a few council members in queue i'll recognize council member wansley

thank you chair chowdhury uh just some initial comments first i requested the presentation on

item 68 and 69 which were originally a part of the climate and infrastructure agenda because these

items relate to the city's current wellness and training plans for mpd and they also demonstrate

that we can fulfill this one department's needs in more efficient and affordable ways

as we somewhat touched on during our legislative agenda discussion but also very thoroughly during

budget deliberations last December,

we've become very clear on the fact that the administration has proposed

the solution to MPD's needs for facilities or wellness

and training is through the development of what is almost a $40 million

training and wellness center.

And for our newer colleagues, again, have robust conversations regarding

the logic and value of building a $38 million training facility

and whether there were opportunities to utilize space in training from other agencies in the state.

At the time of those conversations, NPD and the administration claimed that this massive expenditure

was both the only way to fulfill the settlement agreement

and was the most cost-efficient way for taxpayers to also fulfill these training needs and wellness needs.

And the proposal before us today that we're considering, I believe, revealed that those claims are actually not true.

MPD utilizing a space by partners like the University of Minnesota, as we consider, that does have some longevity in this renewal process,

as well as leveraging contracts with other government agencies is a type of efficient and effective use of resources that I'm more than happy to support.

And like I stated in December, I do not believe we've exhausted all efforts and options in solving NPD's training needs.

And I hope that Office of Community Safety and the Minneapolis Police Department leadership is taking this time to seriously examine ways in which we can be working with other agencies to leverage fulfillment of those needs.

and i look forward to further conversations around their plans related to public safety facilities

during our further deliberations in the appropriate committees but that said too

again i just want to emphasize the justification or part of the justification for this wellness

center wellness and training center has been really pointed by npd leadership as well as

our city attorneys to the settlement agreement as a pretext for this proposal but that same

settlement agreement does not require us to build essentially our cop city the fry administration

again i implore you all to work with leadership of public health and safety this body especially

as we made changes in capital planning appropriations related to this center and move those

to other critical needed priorities like this is a really good time to work with this body

to really look at some of the more fiscally and logically sound alternatives that was also

reflected in the assessment report that the administration actually uh essentially you know

contracted and brought forward for this body's uh consideration so there's other options that

we could be pursuing that could also again leverage the city's existing resources and

current partnerships this is a really great opportunity also for the friday administration

to embrace cost effective strategies to fulfill mpd's training and wellness needs instead of

having to rally around the creation of again a 40 million dollar local cop city and especially when

we're weighing the facts that we just came off of a financial year where uh mpd also ran over 20

million dollars also we had other departments that overspent we are facing some financially

challenging times ahead of us also as noted in earlier conversations around the federal impacts

on our funding so we need to be critical of what infrastructure projects we're we're really

INVESTING IN AND IF THERE'S WAYS TO DO IT IN A MORE COST-EFFICIENT WAY AND I THINK 68 AND 69

REALLY SHOWS US SOME OPTIONS ON HOW TO DO THAT AND WHY I'M PARTICULARLY SUPPORTIVE OF BOTH

THANK YOU COUNCIL MEMBER WANSLEY NEXT WE'LL GO TO COUNCIL MEMBER WHITING

THANK YOU MADAM CHAIR UH THANK YOU DIRECTOR UH JUST A FEW QUICK QUESTIONS HERE I THINK

specifically around how this repurpose fits the version of settlement agreement and consent decree

requirement training. Is this repurpose of this space, if you can speak to others as well,

will this kind of rebuild out of this space kind of make this more efficient, make the training

that we are seeing at the Salk actually able to expand and have some more efficient kind of process

there as well so thankfully I have colleagues with me today that can really

address the operational piece and so I would invite commander Brown to the

podium with me thank you welcome commander Brown

madam chair president council and council members thank you specifically

to the operational needs that our department has for we run into a little

bit of a problem when it comes to so specifically to the settlement agreement

settlement agreement requires nowadays us to really get out of the classroom and

do hands-on large group exercises so your scenarios your exercises your

tabletops and stuff that takes us out of a classroom no longer no longer teaching

to but facilitating in that kind of classroom structure

has gone now out to the scenarios

and doing the hands-on and demonstrating the skills

that you're learning, both of which

is an expectation from Alefa and MDHR.

And that's where we run into a little bit of the problem

when it comes to the space.

So I actually approached Barbara.

It might even have been 2024.

And I said, we're running into a problem

because all these great ideas, all of these things

that are expectations of our department

are requiring us to have more large group space.

So the large group space are like your gym

and your auditorium, which is the only large space

that we have in the SOC, so Hamilton School.

And it has forced us to find unique ways.

But because Hamilton just happens to be in a community

that's surrounded by residents, we've gotten some pushback

from moving outside, which I completely understand.

I mean, not everybody wants to see police training going on outside.

You can put as many signs up as you want out there that says police training,

but it still triggers people.

People still have that effect, and that's real.

So we make those considerations.

So with having limited space, it has put us in a position

where we need to consider moving some people to a night training

where we otherwise wouldn't be able to facilitate it

with more large group space.

The unique thing when this project was brought to me was saying,

for this auxiliary training space, how could you utilize, or could you utilize, what are your needs?

And I said, I need large group space.

We measured it out, and we said, okay, we could lay mats down and use that for a mat space.

We could put up temporary walls, modular walls to create like a scenario space.

so that the so our current use with the Academy which is right now is a started yesterday is a 35

recruits are currently here at the sock we have over 70 community service officers those community service officers

They they they rely on that continued training and guidance. So they also have need for the large space

And then we have a cadet group the cadet group is roughly 30 people that they come in

they do two three weeks before they go to HTC to finish the

Cleasurer school as well as all the other different things like

in-service training that puts us in a need where we have to get

them in a large group space too. So we have lots of needs. We

just don't have the facilitate to do it and training is year

round now. We don't have the luxury of having I mean

historically before the settlement agreement we would

have we'd have a fall and a spring in-service. Now literally

AND I THINK THAT'S REALLY, IF YOU LOOK AT THE CALENDAR ON MY

WALL, WE HAVE ONE OR TWO TRAININGS THAT WE TRIED DESPERATELY,

AND THAT'S MY JOB, TO TRY TO NAVIGATE ALL THAT TRAINING SO

THAT THERE'S A MINIMAL OVERLAP, BECAUSE THAT'S THE PROBLEM

SPACE WE HAVE. THE SPACE WE NEED ISN'T CLASSROOM, IT'S THE

LARGE GROUP SPACE, WHICH THE AUXILARY LOCATION WOULD

SUFFICE FOR THAT. YEAH, THANK YOU, COMMANDER.

AND THEN JUST KIND OF FOLLOWING UP WITH THE SECOND

QUESTION HERE, IT SOUNDS LIKE FROM YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND

this facility is helping our specific training requirements

that are required throughout the settlement agreement

and consent decree.

But, and maybe this is something I see Deputy Commissioner

Jeffries is here and maybe a question

for Director O'Brien as well.

But it sounds like this specific facility does not meet

the requirements within the settlement agreement

and consent decree for our facilities agreement assessment

that has come through.

am I correct in that understanding good afternoon chair Chowdhury customer

Whiting I'm Jared Jeffries the deputy commissioner of community safety for the

city of Minneapolis comes me rewinding to your question of does the additional

ancillary facility that director O'Brien presented uncover the settlement

agreement requirements the settlement agreement requires that we do a facility

as several facility assessments those came back that several of our facilities

including our training facility at the SOC was deficient.

In reaction to that, and as required in the settlement agreement,

we have to submit a facility's plan that Alefa, as our monitor, would actually approve.

In that plan, we had proposed building a comprehensive community safety training

and wellness facility that meets the needs of not just police but fire,

BCR, 911, et cetera. And they, Alefa, actually approved that plan. So whether or not this or

other solutions would actually be approved by Alefa, we don't know that for sure, but we do know

the new comprehensive facility was approved. Perfect. And then, and again, to reiterate as

well, so the current facilities plan that has been proposed has been approved by Alefa for

compliance with the with the settlement agreement correct council car wedding

thank you thanks we'll go to councilmember Stevenson thank you madam

chair and thank you for speaking to this I just had a couple of questions I'm new

and so I'm still getting my bearings of this project and other related projects

you kept referring to this as temporary why is it temporary

Madam Chair council members that's member Stevenson it is it's been

identified as temporary while we collectively evaluate the Hamilton

school the overall needs, the programmatic needs that are required to meet the modern

training needs for MPD. And so the idea of just creating large spaces, large open spaces

to augment the space at the SOC affords us the ability

to do it rapidly.

It can happen now.

We don't have to wait for the evaluation

of the program needs to be complete to do so.

So it's taking action so that we are actually moving forward,

taking steps forward to do that.

I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, so it sounds like by temporary

you more mean immediate and less of you have a plan to phase this out?

I think that is a really accurate way of saying that.

It's an immediate response because we have space that can be easily converted to meet those large training needs,

not classroom but otherwise as described.

And so we can do that now with this contract and then have those training needs be met more expeditiously as opposed to waiting for a full program to be developed and then waiting for additional space to be built specifically.

So we're using what we have to make a difference now.

Yeah.

Well, that sounds great.

This sounds like a great plan.

and I hope you continue to find these types of things

in the facilities that we have already.

Thank you.

Council Member Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director O'Brien and Commander Brown

for the comments.

I still have a couple questions, though.

I'm a little confused on what will be removed

from the Hamilton School.

The Hamilton School is in Ward 4,

and as Commander Brown said,

that it causes a lot of trauma and harm in the community.

So that is why I was a fan of a new facility being built

for all of these things we know we need

outside of residential neighborhoods.

I wouldn't wanna inflict that on anyone.

So the idea of a site that was outside of this

seems good to me, we're not there anymore.

So I'm trying to understand exactly what is going to continue

to happen at the Hamilton School,

like what services are gonna be removed?

Can we look to people not having trauma

in this neighborhood with this new facility?

I would look to Commander Brown

to address that question specifically.

My comment would be that it isn't necessarily a removal.

It is to facilitate multiple trainings

happening simultaneously to meet the overall training need.

But I will hand that to you, thank you.

Madam Chair and Council Member Vita.

Barbara's correct.

So my job is to find creative ways to continue

to provide the services to training our officers

and the new recruits that we have.

So when we run into a problem where historically

we did do some activity outside of our building

and the community had said

that they didn't feel comfortable with that.

So then we move it inside.

So the options we have for outdoor or more open space

to do training has pushed us to having it exclusively indoors

or at a place that's no longer within the city limits.

So for us, specifically to the,

what are we gonna be doing in the auxiliary space,

in the large space?

My particular plan, as long as it's approved by my bosses,

is that we would, it's a lot easier to have an academy

of 35 people when we have space conflicts,

to have my academy move to the auxiliary space

when they need their large group trainings

than it is to spread the word to 618 people

and to let them know that if you have training on Monday,

you show up to downtown position,

but if you have training on Wednesday, you go to the SOC.

So to avoid those issues, my plan is when we do have conflicts in space that we would move the academy training, the pre-service training,

those officers who are very quick and good and they're all in the same location so communication can go well,

we would move them to the auxiliary space where we would have the equipment there so they could continue the training uninterrupted,

as well as our community service officers.

right now we have over like I said I said we have over 70 community service

officers and they do similar training when it comes to just helping develop

their their interest in their career and education in law enforcement and they do

a lot of physical training in the open spaces that we have in and they're

forced to come in earlier than 8 o'clock in order to have it because we

have training that starts at 8 so we won't be cutting off any training what

we'll just be doing is using the space as it as it's needed to continue to do

what we're doing. Thank you, Commander. I mean, I really appreciate how thoughtful you are. I know

you've answered questions for folks and went out and talked to neighbors, but what I'm looking for

in this project is relief for this community, right? And I'm really not into these short-term

fixes because people, that facility has been there for a long time. That's an area with a lot of

homeowners who've lived there without it and with it, and it matters to them that it's not

there so I appreciate the work that you all are doing to try to move some things out of this

community but I'm not going to be okay with this until we're not using that school for training for

MPD officers in a residential neighborhood where kids are coming out every day where

the noise that some of this stuff makes the presence I mean there's just so many things

that you hear from residents in this community that is traumatizing to them and this has nothing

to do with you commander but i really am looking forward to the day when this body takes north side

as serious as they do on the south side to have this school still be in this community

it's actually a big slap in the face to north side residents who have been asking for it to be

taken out and i was hoping we were going to do some things on this council to give folks that

relief they don't deserve this they don't want this it's not to like make you feel bad about

the training you have to do you're doing your job but us as a body we can do a lot better to make

sure that this isn't happening in this residential neighborhood again i appreciate what you're

trying to do here but it's just not good enough it's not good enough until this facility is

closed down and this is not happening on that block 42nd and dupont then it's not good enough

for me so thank you thank you ma'am thank you council member next we'll go to council member

wansley thank you chair chadri i want to note council member whiting's question did make me

consider something um and this might be related to deputy jared uh jeffries but i just wanted

clarity on whether or not uh or does the settlement agreement permit alternative proposals

to be brought forward for consideration to meet compliance with the terms and conditions that's

included in it even after a proposal has been accepted really chair chowdry comes

remember wansley thank you for the question i would say yes it does allow for proposals

the thing that was noted in the assessments was how logistically difficult as commander brown

described having the sock and other i think kind of other smaller facilities spread out

is to conduct training and have wellness opportunities for our first responders.

So it is possible.

So it is possible.

And then we could dig into the actual report and the contents where it also notes that same

dynamic, but gives you additional options like what we're considering or in alignment

with what we're considering and does not just lead to the purchasing or acquisition of a

building.

That's part of the options.

But I at least want to understand the premise is we do have the ability to legally go back

and provide alternative considerations thank you and then uh director o'brien

quick question uh you mentioned something related to fire um specifically and in your

internal assessments for other you know existing facility needs i just a little bit more clarity

on what did that look like in terms of when you assess the the former first precinct with their

needs for a new fire station also need for training I did want clarity on that yeah so it starts with

us looking at really basic things to begin with so where are we leasing space where is the city

paying for space and can can those needs be met by a city owned facility essentially to reduce costs

right? So that's a pretty basic look. And then the next, and then beyond that, so looking at our

leases, then it's where do we have space needs? Projects that have been on the capital program

for a number of years, and we have been up against a number of challenges to try to provide that.

I'd use like animal care and control as an example. And so then those are things that we look at.

And then look at the prioritizations within each department and try to determine, do we have needs that are a good fit?

And again, I kind of mentioned a pretty big laundry list of things like parking.

Maybe the need doesn't require a great deal of parking, but perhaps it does.

So you kind of have to balance those things out.

specifically for fire a lot of the needs that they have are are not necessarily

sized appropriately or are more administrative in nature and it's not to say that we can't

revisit that particular building should we choose to should this be just a short-term

TEMPORARY SOLUTION. IN FACT, THE CONTRACT AGAIN TODAY IS JUST TO REMOVE WALLS, OPEN SPACE UP,

ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT CLOSE US AS A CITY TO MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT THAT BUILDING IN THE FUTURE.

YES, THANK YOU FOR THAT. ESPECIALLY I WOULD LOVE TO GET MORE CLARITY AND THIS MIGHT JUST BE A

FOLLOW-UP IN OF LIKE THE SIZING NEEDS FOR AND I'M THINKING OF FIRE IN THERE PARTICULAR CAPITAL

REQUEST FOR A NEW STATION.

AND THAT'S BEEN ON THE

ROSTER FOR A WHILE NOW.

RIGHT.

AND I'D BE HAPPY TO GO OVER

THAT IN MORE DETAIL WITH YOU.

THERE'S A LOT AROUND THE

SIZE STRUCTURE AND TURNING

RADIUSES THAT EXIST AT THAT

LOCATION THAT DO NOT MEET

THOSE NEEDS.

AWESOME.

THANK YOU FOR THAT.

AND I DID WANT TO OFFER JUST A

CORRECTION, TOO.

THIS IS NOT RELATED TO YOU,

DIRECTOR, BUT THIS WAS

related i believe to also something deputy director jeffries mentioned earlier which is also verified

in the capital request you mentioned that the wellness and training facility will also meet

the needs or training needs for a vcr fire that is not what is included in the capital request we had

a thorough debate about that last budget cycle um to which in the actual capital request and also

verbal confirmation was noted this will be only for police so i think a number of us would love to

see maximization of space we have been pushing for that for years now to make sure we have training

or just even space for violence interrupters vcr like as we're expanding our non-npd team but i

at least want to note that because there is nowhere on the capital request form or anything

that actually says that and we had thorough debate to get clarification on that in december and that

was affirmed that this center has been told solely intended for use by mpd so just want to offer that

clarification but those are all things i had thank you next we'll go to councilmember palmisano

thank you madam chair um i want to point out that this action today this rebuild out add some

features if you would to the old fire station so that we can do more hours of training is meant to

be very temporary in the grand scope of things there are far too many needs to handle our training

at the hamilton school far more hours of training than we have ever before required having one place

to train is what the lowest cost and most efficient option is for our police department

and for us as a city from a financial perspective.

This training center need, though, is not new,

and it has been a need long before it was required by a settlement agreement.

In fact, I might say I helped to get it in a settlement agreement

to help it continue along the capital improvement plan.

Back in 2018, when I began working on an improved training facility,

I first spent time in what we had.

It's an old school that we continue to lease from Minneapolis Public Schools.

It has every downside that Councilmember Vita mentioned and many, many more.

Also, I went to look at other police training facilities in Minnesota.

Some were older, like St. Paul's, and some were newer, like at the time Cottage Groves had just opened.

A couple things about them.

they all had modern ways to walk through situational training. That's not something

that exists at the Hamilton School. They had virtual reality scenarios that just a few years

ago were particularly new, but nowadays have grown ever more so sophisticated. And they don't

require a lot, but they do probably require a dedicated different size room than anything that

we have. There were movable walls in some places to create different scenarios, different maybe

like housing setups from an apartment looking setup to like a building, like a manufacturing

facility setup. Those were important because it literally helps people walk through situations

that they are going to encounter in real life. Importantly, they all had an ability to train with

other first responders, right? Because that's reality. We don't show up with police alone

most of the time. We show up with other first responders. Things I saw were things like the

ability for a fire truck to back into a facility or EMS to be on scene and to really walk through

those scenarios. There's no reason, though, that it wouldn't also be and be very appropriate for

us to be working with others in collaborative ways like bcr like some of our other non-badged

kinds of alternatives to policing i think that that's important but you know what none of them

had space for us none of them had enough space for the training needs of the mpd space to partner

together is a requirement of getting bonding money from the state we tried there are a host of things

required for bonding from the state for a training facility nearly everyone that i visited used that

bonding money we will need to and have a real opportunity to i think partner with other

jurisdictions and i think that's a good thing thank you madam chair

thank you council member we'll go to council member vita thank you um just another quick question

about expenses you know i see here that there's a dollar to use the unit the previous action was a

dollar to use the university's facility but now we have this bid for the the the

other facility how much is the ongoing expenses like what are we going to be

paying yearly for this do we know yet or are we just saying like it's this one

time expense for this the facility to be ready and then there's no more expenses

associated with this

Madam Chair, Council Member, and specifically Council Member Vita.

So because it is our facility and we own it, the contract that is in front of you today will cover the demolition and construction required to get it ready for the temporary use that we've defined for training.

um the there would be ongoing expenses such as electricity obviously water um utilities that we

that we normally would absorb um as this building would be used um and that is accounted for through

the city's rent model and is absorbed by um the occupants and in this case it would be mpd

Okay, so you're just expecting it to be just basic utilities or whatever to continue using this facility.

And then do we, I'm sure I've seen it somewhere, but what are the expenses with the Hamilton School?

Like how much are we paying for that?

Madam Chair and Council Member Vita, I would need to follow up with a memo.

I do not have the.

Okay, so since we're going to do a memo, can we just do that for what all the trainings cost, not just at the Hamilton School, but to train our officers, including facilities, like how much are we spending for that yearly?

SO I THINK THAT WOULD BE THAT'S KIND OF TWO DIFFERENT THINGS AND WE'D BE HAPPY TO DIVIDE IT UP SO

PROPERTY SERVICES CAN REPRESENT THE COST FOR UTILITIES AND OPERATIONS WHEREAS MPD AND THE

OFFICE OF COMMUNITY SAFETY WOULD HAVE TO REPRESENT THE COST FOR TRAINING OUTSIDE OF OUR I WOULD LOVE

THAT THANK YOU GREAT WE'LL NOTE THAT FOR ADMINISTRATIVE FOLLOW-UP AND I'LL JUST ADD I THINK

I think it'd be really helpful to aggregate as much as possible

what the different costs are.

Next we'll go to Council Member Whiting.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think just to Council Member Wansley's question as well,

I think I'm trying to find some clarification

on this as well.

I think particularly around what the facilities need is

both for training and that would also can be required

in that building.

And so like, is there a possibility, I think, you know,

Councilmember Wanzo, right, we weren't here first, what, four weeks on the job,

so figuring things out still.

But I think for training-wise, right, when you took a peek at the facilities assessment,

page 50 of that assessment says the midterms actions that have been required

by the facility assessment, which is obviously required by our settlement agreement,

and I will read it verbatim, build a new dedicated one-stop shop for all training activities,

classroom scenario virtual driving track firing range capacities uh kind of just having that

understanding but does that negate the fact of including other departments other capacities

in that building itself in that build out thank you

chair chowdry councilmember whiting thank you for the question uh in our initial proposal

for the facilities plan back to Alefa,

we did frame it as a comprehensive community safety training wellness facility,

meaning that it addressed the training needs of all five of our safety departments.

And I did double check that was actually in the capital request for this year

as well as the bonding request to the state as well.

I think just offhand, fire department has several needs

that are not being met by the EOTF, emergency operations training wellness facility.

911 has inadequate training space here in City Hall which is their only space

available as well as other contracted vendors such as BCR violence interrupters

etc so yes that has been openly discussed with the leaf and they are

very much in favor of that and I think you'll see that reflected as well in the

concepts in the consent decree which require joint training between 911

police, BCR, EMS, et cetera.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

And Council Member Whiting, just so I have the clarification,

what were you reading from?

Madam Chair, particularly the the world facilities assessment.

Okay.

Yep. 2024, I believe facilities assessment.

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Appreciate the clarification.

I AM NOT SEEING ANY OTHER MEMBERS IN CUE.

AND JUST SEEING GREAT I WAS PAUSING TO SEE IF ANYONE ELSE WAS

GOING TO JUMP IN COUNCIL MEMBER WANSLEY. YEAH THANKS FOR THE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I WILL ASK FOR THE STAFF MEMO TO INCLUDE DEPUTY

JEFFRIES WHERE IN THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT YOU SEE THAT LISTED

and then yeah i would love to to see that piece thank you okay we'll add that for administrative

follow-up and um i think it'd be just helpful wearing the capital plan and then also aware in

the bonding requests too um okay i'm not seeing anyone else in the queue so thank you so much

staff for the presentation really really appreciate it can I get a motion on this

item so move second I will have the clerk call the roll councilmember pain I

Wansley I rainville all right Vita no Warren I

Osmond aye Schaefer aye Stevenson aye Chavez aye Whiting aye Palmasano aye

vice-chair Chikite aye and chair Chowdhury aye there are 12 eyes and one

name that motion carries and will be at full council for final consideration

Okay, so members, a couple things have shifted around. So if there's no objection, this is the way in which we'll take things. We'll have the human trafficking services for the Southside Safety Center presentation.

then we will go to um councilmember Chavez's resolution on legal services and then we will

go to the final one in discussion before we go to consent from councilmember Wansley on rental

assistance so with that I will call up director Harrington for the presentation on human trafficking

services at the south side safety center

this is number 60 for folks that are looking for it in their packets

good afternoon council members my name is Amanda Harrington I'm the director for the

neighborhood safety department I want to provide a little bit of background about the RCA that's in

front of you today. In November 2023, City Council and the mayor authorized the purchase of 2633

Minnehaha Avenue for a new community safety center. At that same time, a resolution was passed

that the center would include both community safety and police functions. We have explained

over the last couple of years our vision for a community safety center that really involves a

mix of city staff and community organizations collaborating in the same space available for

community members who walk in or need services out in community. To fund the community partners

in that space, and during the budget process in the end of 2023, $4 million was set aside

for pilot programs in that safety center. To figure out what services were put in the safety

Center, we did extensive community engagement in South Minneapolis from March to May of 2024.

The information that we received from community is broken down on the slide in front of you into

the three categories reflected from the Safe and Thriving Communities Report, prevention,

response, and restoration. One of the services that you can see under restoration is human

trafficking services we are requesting that money be moved from the original

four million dollar public safety aid that was set aside for pilots to be used

for this contract which was previously approved by this body you can see how

the Office of Community Safety is budgeting out the remaining public

safety aid that's set aside for pilots. We are asking for $500,000 of that remaining public

safety aid to be moved to the neighborhood safety department to pay for the contract

that we've already executed.

I think it's important to reflect on how this is really a collaboration of the Office of

Community Safety and the neighborhood safety department working together. We utilize the

expertise and wisdom of Sunu Shrestha to determine what services make sense in connection with

human trafficking prevention and intervention services in the safety

center she had also done extensive community engagement before we came

along and all of that is culminated into the contract that was previously

executed the ask before you today is really just to pass the resolution

allowing us to move the money that was set aside in the finance department to

neighborhood safety the contract is already complete so really this is just

budgetary request without these funds neighborhood safety cannot absorb the

cost of this contract and would not be able to fund these services that we have

already contracted to provide I'm available for any questions

thank you so much director Harrington I'm gonna look to my colleagues to see

if they have any questions I know that there was interest in this item okay

Council Vice President Osmond. I'll be quick. Thank you, Director Harrington. My

question is those are great services that we contracted. Are those actively

working now or are we gonna wait the centers to open? I'm kind of a little

confused on that. Chair Chowdhury, Council Vice President Osmond, these services are

intended to start when the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center

started so we did execute the contract but within that execution it was clear

that the services would not start until the center was open so we expect the

center to be open during 2026 which is why we need the money to be moved in 20

26 we don't have a specific date when the center will be open I will defer to

director Christensen to answer that question

thank you chair Chaudhry council vice president Osmond we have an anticipated

opening date at the end of 2026 that's our plan right now I can tell you right

now that the bid period for general contractors closed on January 22nd and

then bids will be evaluated by procurement and civil rights so we'll

have more updates for you the kind of the office of community safety will

update the council on any milestones or timelines related to this project no

I REALLY APPRECIATE ONE OF THE FIRST THING WE ARGUE A FEW YEARS AGO WAS ABOUT, YOU KNOW, NOT HAVING A STANDARD ALONE PRECINCT, BUT MORE LIKE SERVICE INCLUDED, AND NOW WE ARE AHEAD OF THE SCHEDULE.

SO I APPRECIATE YOUR SERVICE AND WORK. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. NEXT WE'LL GO TO COUNCIL MEMBER WANSLEY.

THANK YOU. AND THIS MIGHT REQUIRE ACTUALLY A STAFF MEMO, NOT FOR YOU, DIRECTOR HARRENSON, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT IS THE REMAINING BALANCE OF THE PUBLIC SAFETY

aid I know this total package appropriates about two almost nearly two

and a half million and we really set aside four million I know we've cut into

that but we're really like to know what the balance of that overall fund is

Chowdhury councilmember Wonsley I appreciate the request for a memo

following up on that the slides that I gave to you did show a little under 2.5

million remaining which was my best estimate based on the information I had

so it would be good to get clarity about the exact number remaining okay so then

we'll have that for administrative follow-up I heard that correctly okay

perfect and then we will go to councilmember Warren

thank you madam chair so my question is around the community engagement and how

individuals will be brought into this facility and what that looks like so are

you taking the referrals in then from the county or individuals mandated to

this place what does the the stay of adjudication look like for individuals

who are receiving treatment within this in this facility like are they referred

there because there's you know I don't understand how people are here and then

what you're talking about unsheltered homelessness resources how are people

referred here does this come from a coordinated entry assessment are you

picking people up off the streets like what is this what does this look like

how do people get here how do they stay here and then how do we prove the

effectiveness of this chair Chowdhury councilmember Warren thank you for that

question the services that you are reflecting on were the services that we

heard from community engagement it was not our plan to execute all of those

services to be it was not our plan for all of those services to immediately be

activated in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center human

trafficking is one of the services that we believed that we could pilot in the

Center, which is why we have executed that contract, but it does not anticipate anybody

staying at the center. It's not a shelter in any way. The contract that was previously

approved by this body is really for case management services as well as training for the community

and city folks, including fire, police, and then other community organizations that are partnering

in the safety center. So people will reach these services either by coming in off the street and

actually talking to somebody who is officed in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center,

but the contract also considers that people will be engaged in other ways. There would be staff

from the link perhaps, or one of their partner organizations that may go out into community where

victims could be found and engage with them that way as well. We have Breaking Free Shelter,

which is located in St. Paul, which is one of our sex trafficking shelters that is located here within the Twin Cities metropolitan area

that has about 15 beds in there that does not have the capacity to house individuals or women or those who identify as, you know,

such or other in these spaces for safe housing.

We need a safe housing facility that is going to have somewhere for these individuals to go

because the domestic violence shelters' beds are constantly full with respect to this.

I don't see that this is a very logical space for someone to sit behind a desk

and hope that someone comes in so they can tell them about a resource,

but where are these people going to actually go to receive realistic support?

When my team was out during the Super Bowl here in the Twin Cities,

we had 12-year-old kids that we were coming into contact with

that were being trafficked for sex here in the Twin Cities.

We don't have a space that is going to allow for individuals to come in there or even to be mandated into those spaces.

Once you learn through coordinated entry or other sources of support that this is a need or a deficit for those individuals,

so there really needs to be some designated space that is specifically for them with respect to that.

I'm also ultra concerned with the fact that, I mean, you're not, I don't, if one of my council colleagues said that they're looking at the city or individuals that are out there as navigators around these services as police or snitches or what have you,

like how are you getting this information

out of these individuals in order to provide them

with the supportive services that they need

and then maintaining and retaining those relationships

if it's just a one-stop shop from time to time

when you feel like you need it.

Chair Chowdhury, Council Member Warren,

I'm happy to provide you with the scope of service

for the human trafficking contract.

I think that might answer some of your questions

about how some of these services are being provided.

It is never intended to be strictly somebody sitting

inside the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center

waiting to talk to people,

but that certainly is one component.

And it's based on the information

that we've heard from community members.

I definitely don't disagree with you

that we need more beds to house people,

but the funding for pilots

in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center

isn't an appropriate use of those funds