Good morning.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Super Committee of the Whole.

My name is Oreen Chowdry, and I am the chair of this committee.

Before we begin, I'd like to reiterate that council has temporary temporarily restructured into a single committee of the whole, which is consolidating all standing committees into a single body.

During this temporary restructuring, regular committee work, which includes reviewing, revising, refining, and making recommendations on all matters will be done by this committee of the whole.

All items from today's meeting will be forwarded to the full council for its consideration on Thursday, February 19th at 9 30 a.m.

As usual, these meetings are broadcast and live streamed from our public access channels and the city's website to enhance public accessibility.

With that, I'll call this meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the roll to verify a presence of a quorum.

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Present.

Present.

Stevenson.

Present.

Chavez.

Present.

Whiting.

Present.

Paul Masano.

Present.

Vice Chair Chugtek is absent.

And Chair Chowdhury.

Present.

There are 12 members present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

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 meeting broadcasts 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 for the broadcast.

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

And then colleagues, we will also be using speaker management today.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

So with that, I will ask for a second.

Second.

Okay.

That has been seconded, and for members, you have a printed copy of the motions to amend before you next.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

I'd like to uh move to amend the agenda to include uh as item 68, a consideration for a lease non-disturbance and consent agreement at 1500 44th Avenue North, please.

Great.

Is there a second for that?

Second.

Okay.

Great.

We will take that up together then.

So with the amendments to the agenda, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Abstentions, that carries, and the agenda has been amended.

Colleagues, as reflected on our agenda, we have a significant number of items to take up today, including three quasi judicial hearings, a public comment period tied to a request for renewed liquor licenses.

I'm going to take up the 53 items that on the list that's listed on our consent agenda first, so we can release any staff who are waiting to address questions or concerns about those items.

And then we will take up the three quasi judicial hearings, the public comment for the liquor license requests after, and then if we if it comes to time at noon, it's my intention actually after we finish the public comment period and the discussion on the liquor license renewals that we will break for lunch and then reconvene to take up the rest of the items on our discussion agenda.

For those in the audience, let me now let me know.

Let me know that we'll sorry, my apologies.

We'll be taking comments on the hearings for each of the three quasi-judicial matters in the public comment period tied to the two license renewals in the order that folks are registered.

If you wish to address the committee during any of these three hearings or public comment periods, you'll need to register with the clerks at the registration table in the corridor outside the chamber.

So if you want to speak today on any of those agenda items, please take time now to register with the clerks at the registration tables.

Also, if you have any materials to submit to the record on those matters, please give those materials at the registration table as well.

All right, thank you.

Is there any questions from members on the flow of the agenda?

It doesn't seem like it.

So with that, I'll summarize the items.

Council member Chowdhury.

Um, I would like to pull two items for discussion on the consent, just so you're aware of that.

Okay, great.

And then when I will read through the consent agenda, and then you can share which items you would like to pull at the end, okay.

Thank you for letting me know, council member.

And then are folks able to get on uh speaker management right now?

It's fixed.

Okay, great.

With that, I'll summarize the items on the consent agenda, which include items listed four through 56 on the posted agenda.

Items four through seven are legal sediments related to workers' compensation claims.

Items eight through 10 are various contract amendments, and item 11 is a gift acceptance.

Items 12 through 14 are liquor and gambling license approvals and renewals.

Item 15 reflects two appointments to the heritage preservation commission.

Item 16 through 18 are contract amendments and gift acceptance.

Item 19 is an amendment to our comprehensive plan, and item 20 grants a waiver and authorizes an agreement for parkland dedication fee.

Item 21 is revising program guidelines for the city's 2% loan program.

Item 22 is accepting our livable communities grants.

Item 23 and 24 approve extensions and additional funding for development projects, and item 25 is an eviction moratorium ordinance that was introduced at the last city council meeting, which is being referred to staff.

Then items 26 to 32 are various contract amendments and various gift acceptances.

Item 33 is accepting a grant for health education.

Item 34 is accepting a bid for yard services.

Item 35 is related to street the street resurfacing program.

Item 36 is a gift acceptance and item 37 accepts federal grant dollars for the highway safety program.

Items 38 through 43 are various bids and contracts for projects.

Items 44 through 51 are appointments to various special service district boards.

Items 52 and 53 are for rescheduling public hearings for street and alley reconstruction projects.

I will also note item 53 is listed as being rescheduled for March 17th.

However, that meeting is also being rescheduled so that particular so that particular hearing will be reset to March 24th.

The clerks will note that the correction that correction for the council's meeting agenda that it is planned for Thursday.

Item 54 is a budget amendment for training services for Amy Moser Consulting.

Item 55 and 56 formally adopt our 2027 to 2029 calendars and ratify the appointments of council members to various external boards and commissions.

These items were holdovers from our organizational meeting in January and were explained by the city clerk in an email on February 11th.

I'll also note that item number 56, the boards and commissions appointments for us is being moved without recommendation to the full council.

And that completes my summary of the consent agenda before I move to approve the consent agenda.

Are there any items that council members would like to pull for discussion?

We'll go to uh council member Schaefer first.

Yes, I would like to pull number 21 and 25 for discussion.

Right.

Number 21 and 25 for the clerks.

Next, I'll recognize council president Payne.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

I am I made the recommendation to move the outside boards and appointments without recommendation because I want everybody on the dais to take a look at it.

I did my best to either reappoint returning members to their existing boards or to understand where members would land best, but we've been through a lot over the last few weeks, and I'm sure uh people did not have it at the top of their mind on what boards out outside boards they'd want to be a participant of.

So please review that and uh give me your feedback before uh the end of day, either today or at least by noon tomorrow so that we can accommodate those appointments and uh amendments for the full council on Thursday.

Thank you, President Payne.

Next I'll recognize Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to pull item 49, which is the Stadium Village Special Service District Advisory Board appointments.

All right, item number 49, and then council member Chavez.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

Uh, want to make sure number four, five, and six, are pulled for a separate vote.

Four, five, and six for a separate vote.

And then just for my understanding, um, this is to all the council members that pulled items for items 21 and 25.

You want it pulled for discussion to talk to ask some questions about it.

Councilmember Schaefer is it for a separate vote?

Uh, separate vote.

Separate vote.

I mean, I I'm new to this, so we'll just go that that round.

Okay, thank you.

Great.

And then would you same for 49, Councilmember Wandsley?

Or is there questions of discussion?

Discussion and a separate vote.

Excellent.

I'm I've just clarified discussion and a separate both.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

We've pulled those items with that.

I'll move approval of the consent agenda minus 21, 25, 49, 4, 5, and 6.

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay.

And then absence.

That motion carries, and then I will also note that uh vice chair Chug Tai has joined us.

And I believe you voted on the consent agenda as you were walking in.

So we're we're good to go.

Okay.

Next, we will go to those discussion items.

Four, five, and six.

We'll take up the vote on four, five, and six.

All right.

I will ask the clerk to call the roll on those items.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye, for nay on five and six.

Councilmember Rainbow.

Hi.

ETA.

Aye.

Warren.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

I am for no one five and six.

Whiteing.

Aye.

Paul Masano, aye.

Vice Chair Chiptag.

I am four, no one five and six.

And Chair Chowdhury.

Aye.

There are 13 ayes on four.

10 ayes on five and six.

All right.

Those items carry and then is forwarded to full council.

All right.

For the clerks, just want your assist here.

Are we moving on to item 21, 25, and 49?

I'm not seeing it queue up for me on speaker management.

Madam Chair, normally if we've pulled it from discussion, those would fall to the end of the agenda when we get to discussion.

If you want to take them up now, we can, but you said we'd be doing the three quasi, so I would suggest we put them on the discussion at the end of the agenda.

Okay.

I I'm just I'm gonna look towards my members.

I have a feeling that these are quick questions, unless councilmember Schaefer, unless you're expecting like a longer discussion with staff.

I think that would be helpful to just get some clarity on if we're gonna move forward on the quasi-judicial hearings, or we should have it at the bottom of our agenda.

Um I'm happy to take up number 21 right now.

That is fairly quick for me.

Um I don't know what to anticipate.

Okay, then we will put 25 at the bottom of the agenda, and then we will take up 21 and 49 right now.

Let's start with item number 21.

I'll recognize councilmember Schaefer.

Yes, I just had a question.

Um, if someone from CPED could give us, oh Director Hanson is coming in.

I was really thrilled to see these changes come forward and to see the increase in the 2% loan amounts that we can be offering our small businesses.

Could you speak to what I was having difficulty finding in the documents on line is kind of an overview of what have we committed to funds to this program currently?

Um, you know, where we are currently.

I found some references to 2018 and the number of about 7 million for 271 businesses.

But I really would like a current update on where we sit and maybe some of the brief highlights, you know, two-minute highlights of what you're changing here.

Welcome.

Chair Chowderry, uh, members of the committee, uh, Councilmember Schaefer, my name is Eric Hansen.

I am the director of CPED, and I think we'll be spending some time together today on this action.

Uh, we're basically extending the cap for about 20 years.

The cap has been 75,000.

The 2% loan program is a participation loan program where the city will match up to $75,000 a private lender into uh for small businesses to purchase capital, their buildings, and other things that keep their businesses going.

Uh we've been working this part program has been around since 1984.

This would now uh bringing up to more modern uh business subsidy act requirements so that we can put more money into businesses.

I believe it's uh the lowest now will go from 50 to 75, and I think the highest is like 125.

I can look in the report.

We have been we have 2.2 million dollars ongoing in this loan program, and then when the loans come back, they go back into the general fund, we get it re renewed.

Uh we don't always use that two point two million dollars every year, but um in some years we'll we'll get to that gap.

I will need to do an administrative response memo with the updates on how many loans we have out and kind of the program highlights because it's voluminous since we've done this since 1984, but I can get that back to the council uh hopefully before Thursday.

And the highlights is uh more small businesses, especially businesses of color, entrepreneurs of color, are getting the funding they need to stay grow and um do business in the city of Minneapolis.

Thank you so much.

One follow-up question.

Can you tell me that 2.2 million?

How is that increased over the last five to 10 years, roughly?

Uh Chair Chowderry, Councilmember Schaefer.

Uh, it's been 2.2 million dollars annually since um, I would say it's at least 15 years, uh, but we don't necessarily have an issue with that amount each year.

So it's it's sufficient for us to maintain demand.

Okay.

Um and why do you think can you can you speak to that any further about why that has met the demand for 15 years?

Uh Chair Chowdry, Councilmember Schaefer.

Uh small businesses have to need to, they want to borrow money because these are loans.

We are uh they'll they'll go through, you know, standard underwriting and and then participate with the with with the city in an in when low when interest rates are lower, uh business or banks don't usually come to us.

It's only when the interest rates go up.

That's when they see this because since our loan will be at two percent, uh it brings down the cost of borrowing.

So when the interest rates are going up, like they are kind of right now a little higher.

Historically not high, but but from the recent times are pretty high, we'll see more use of it.

We it's very rare that we hit that 2.2 million dollar cap.

And and this will test it because now we'll be able to do more loan funds per loan.

So maybe we we need it, but we'll we'll evaluate that.

We do that every year when we when we make recommendations to the mayor for his budget proposal.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Director.

We will be seeing you.

Thank you.

All right.

Um with that, I will have the clerk call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Warren.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whitey.

Aye.

Palmasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chug Tech.

Aye.

And Chair Chowdery.

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

That item carries.

Next we'll go to item number 49.

And I will recognize Councilmember Wansley.

Thank you.

Chair.

So again, item 49 is the stadium village special service district advisory boards appointments.

And there's two being recommended, one of which impacts my ward number one or 49.1.

So I just want to share just straight out.

I will not be supporting Mr.

Beck for the appointment, and I ask my colleagues to do the same.

Mr.

Beck has applied for this role because of his work as the general manager of the graduate hotel, and I am incredibly concerned at the way the graduate hotel has conducted itself in relation to the community concerns about them allegedly housing ICE agents.

These concerns come from workers at the hotels, alumni who often stay there when they are in town, to even students who live in the area who feel unsafe, knowing that federal agents who have no regard for the law or life could be living right in their community.

The graduate has had the opportunity to be responsive to these concerns by publicly committing to not house ICE agents.

Instead, they responded by criminalizing protesters, leading to dozens of avoidable arrests, including many undergraduate students who were nonviolently protesting.

The graduate hotel has also failed to respond proactively to community concerns, have also failed to use the escalation and restorative justice options and measures to respond to criticisms and concerns from their neighbors.

For those reasons, I don't feel that this individual is the right uh choice for this particular uh appointment board or advisory board, and also don't believe they should have a advisory role on any um matter regarding how to foster a safer community um amongst those uh living, working, and playing in Stadium Village.

So with that, I will motion to deny this item, which would be the appointment of Michael Burke, and then approve item 49.2 uh for the appointment of Amy Cable or Campbell, with that, I'll ask for a second.

Second.

So we have a motion to deny 49.1 and then uh a motion to approve 49.2.

Should we take that up together?

So would it be an I across the board with that?

How would members vote?

Uh Madam Chair, an I vote is to deny the appointment of Michael Burke and approve the appointment of Amy Campbell, and they vote would be to deny both of them.

So if you want to take them up separately for clarity, can do that for sure.

I think we can just take it up together.

Thank you for the clarification.

All right, I will have the clerk call the roll.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, my apologies.

Why are we doing this?

Councilmember Rainville.

So when we call a roll, we're gonna do it separately, or are you gonna do would you like it separately?

Thank you.

Yes, I'm just wondering if the city attorney could uh give us some advice.

Do we have the ability to deny someone appointment because of uh who they allow in their business?

I mean, clearly a hotel cannot refuse uh service to a federal agent.

We will go to attorney O'Reilly, good morning, thank you.

Chair Tottery and Councilmember Rainville.

I I think the the body has the ability to deny appointments for a variety of reasons.

Um, generally speaking, I would urge caution against uh denying someone for um views they may have expressed or um the things of that nature, and uh but again there is broad discretion for appointing to uh boards and commissions uh and so I would encourage the body to consider uh the application of the individual for this particular board and um if if they meet those qualifications, thank you councilmember Osman or Council Vice President Osman.

Uh thank you uh is Michael Burke here in the audience, no?

Okay.

Well, I am concerned uh as what Councilmember Wandsley stated.

I think when we appoint advisory individuals, uh, one of the things they advise us to keep the community safe and if this is um he's someone who's representing on this board, um could not you know uh I guess keep the uh community safe, then then I will definitely uh consider someone else to advise us how to approach in our community and be safe.

So I will be supporting the motion for Councilmember Wansley.

Yes, and we'll we will take them up separately, and then I'll note for everyone this is not our final vote either.

This is us rec making a recommendation to the full council, so we'll have to take this item up there as well.

Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you.

Um I just would like to reference the president where this by the last term also vote voted uh down an appointment of uh individual who worked on behalf of Gray Star.

Considering Grey Star has um also been one of the most problematic landlords in my ward, also across the country, as we were taking up rent algorithms and had found that they have been using price fixing to um artificially inflate rents that priced out my students or made um their everyday living much more harder because they had to struggle to pay rent because of Gray Star's usage of these type of technologies, and with that in consideration, this body actually did vote down the appointment of that particular individual representing an organization.

There is the same logic that applies here.

This is not targeted to the individual, it's tied to the graduate as a business and particularly their really questionable response and also problematic response that as I note it has led to aggressive criminalization of protesters, and have led to undergraduate students now having a petty misdemeanor on their records for exercising their First Amendment rights.

There were a multitude of other ways in which the business could have engaged community members who raised concerns about what was happening in their hotel.

They opted to not do that.

Um and this is within our right and our authority to be able to say, okay, go do better.

Um but I needed to provide clarification.

We have exercised a similar uh response before regarding to special uh service or a special service advisory boards like this, and the logic basically transfers over in into how we're making sure that people who are representing on these boards actually have the best interests of our communities and minds and those who live in the communities that they also aim to represent.

Thank you.

And we will be taking up those motions separately.

The first one is a motion to deny 49.1.

With that, I will have the clerk call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye, Wansley.

Nay.

Do you want to vote?

Oh, sorry, aye, my bad.

Yes, aye.

Councilmember Rainville.

Nay.

Vita.

No.

Warren.

No.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson?

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whiting.

Abstain.

Palmasano.

Nay.

Vice Chair Chuck Ty.

Aye.

And Chair Chowdry.

Aye.

There are eight ayes, four knees, and one abstention.

That motion carries and is forwarded.

Next we'll take up 49.2.

I'll have the clerk call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Fita.

Aye.

Warren.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Chaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whiting?

Abstain.

Palmasano.

Hi.

Vice Chair Chicktag?

Aye.

And Chair Chowdery.

Aye.

There are 12 ayes and one abstention.

That motion carries.

Great.

Now we will take up three quasi-judicial hearings reflected as items one, two, and three on our posted agenda.

Again, let me reiterate that an individual who wishes to address this committee on any of these quasi-judicial hearings should register with the clerks at the registration table located in the corridor outside the chamber.

We will take testimony in the order of folks registered after giving time for the applicant in each case.

If you have any materials to submit for the record on any of these matters, please give those materials to the clerk at the registration table for everyone in attendance, and especially those who may participate in our hearings or comment period.

Let me offer this notice.

This public meeting is being recorded and broadcast.

And the recording is deemed public data under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.

By attending this meeting and participating in these proceedings, your image, any testimony or information you provide will also be subject to disclosure under that law that includes but is not limited to your attendance, your name, other personal details you provide, as well as any testimony or comments you provide, which includes any written submissions you make, which are included in the record of this meeting.

With that, our first quasi-judicial hearing relates to an interim use permit application that was submitted by Tocali.

I'll ask City Planner Andrew Frentz to provide a brief on this item.

Welcome, Mr.

Frenz.

Good morning, Chair Chowdery and Council members.

I'm Andrew Friends, a planner with the land use team in CPED planning.

Here to present an interim use permit application to allow a principal parking facility at 1901 East Lake Street for up to five years.

Sorry, I did not expect that to scroll side to side rather than to the next slide, so we'll just do it like this.

Um the subject property is a vacant lot located at the southeast corner of the intersection of 19th Avenue South and East Lake.

That's the property shown here near the center of the screen.

This property has been vacant for 22 years since the demolition of a former gas station at the site in 2004.

The applicant is proposing to establish a 19 space surface parking lot on the property.

The parking lot would serve uh Alberada Market located immediately across 19th Avenue from the property.

The applicants are seeking to establish the parking lot via an interim use permit and have requested the maximum period of five years.

The applicants have stated that in the long term they plan to propose a commercial or mixed-use uh redevelopment of the property.

Establishing the parking lot via an interim use permit uh supports the acquisition and the cleanup of the property and the operation of this existing uh small business in the neighborhood without cementing the property's long-term use as surface parking.

I'm happy to go into uh detail on any of the required findings if there are any questions, um, but at a high level.

Sorry about that.

But at a high level, staff has found that the application does meet all of the required findings, and we are recommending approval subject uh to a few basic conditions related to landscaping and um reiterating uh the expiration of the permit.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I think we will take up questions after we hear from the applicant and those that are uh here for public comment.

But before we do that, I did want to ask our city attorney, attorney Shutt to just uh give a brief to the members on how uh we should address quasi-judicial proceedings and make decisions.

I'll go to attorney Shutt.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh hello, council members.

My name is Amy Shutt.

I'm an assistant city attorney in the city attorney's office, and I staff the Biz Committee.

Um, so you are currently hearing before you three quasi-judicial hearings, which are a special type of hearing for you.

Um quasi judicial hearings occur when you are applying existing laws and rules to a particular land use request.

In those cases, you have a bit less discretion than you normally do in your decision making, and um a court is in reviewing what you've done is gonna examine whether you applied the rules already in place to the facts before you.

So, in order for your decision on quasi-judicial matters to stand, what we look for is um that you should be able to affirmatively answer the following questions.

Was there a complete record of the proceedings?

Was fair notice and hearing of fair notice of the hearing and an opportunity to be heard provided to the applicant or the appellant if there is an appellant in the case?

Did you avoid ex parte ex parte contacts with the applicant, appellant, and others on the matter?

And did you avoid prejudgment bias?

And so, as the chair noted, um, for these reasons, the procedure of a quasi-judicial hearing is very specific.

We hear from staff on the background of the issue, and then we go directly into the public hearing to hear from the applicant and the appellant if there is one, and then only after the public hearing has been closed and the record is set.

Do you debate the facts of the issue?

Thank you so much, attorney Schmidt.

Now I will open the hearing on this application.

If the applicant is here to address the committee, we'll allocate five minutes for their comments.

After that, anybody else signed up will have two minutes to address the committee, and then I will welcome up the applicant.

So welcome.

Please uh state your name.

Yeah.

Hi everyone, my name is Aidez Algado, and I'm the applicant for this parking lot.

Wonderful.

You have five minutes and the timers right there.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, so we're very excited uh to bring this project to Lake Street.

Uh we started this process way before all the all the chaos that we're living in the city um happened, but we've been wanting to improve that area, we've been wanting to improve um our neighborhood for a really long time.

And uh, when my business partner and I bought La Alborada Market, we really thought that um having that vacant lot there just didn't really do much for our community.

It's a place where people can do all kinds of use of illegal substances.

Um, it just obviously looks like our neighborhood is abandoned, and so when the opportunity came up to buy it, we really wanted to jump on it, but then we realized that with uh the current uh high density plan for the city of Minneapolis, especially the Lake Street corridor, this was way above our pay grade.

This is something that we would never be able to uh come up with a capital structure and the funds in uh such a short period of time.

And thankfully, when we reached out to the city of Minneapolis, they explained to us our different options, and we thought that this one would be a great option to move forward with.

Um, it would give us the opportunity to acquire that um lot and give it some sort of use, transition it into something that is part of the community that actually serves a community, and it would give us the time to actually uh figure out how we're gonna bring a bigger, better project to our neighborhood.

And that's exactly what we want to do.

Um, again, we're very excited.

We really think that this is something that is nothing but good news to an area that has been so heavily affected, especially over the last few months, where we did have moments where we thought maybe we should back out of this because is our grocery store even gonna survive everything that's happening right now.

We've been closed for so long, we've lost so much revenue, but we kept like going back and forth on it and ultimately decided that our commitment to Lake Street is for the long term, it has been my home for over 30 years.

I went to South High School a couple years.

So we're we want to move forward with it.

And again, we're just very excited, and I'm just here to answer any questions or address any concerns that anyone else may have because we really believe that this is something positive for everyone.

Thank you so much for your testimony, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Am I allowed to answer questions if people have one?

We are going to take up uh to see if there's anyone that's here to give any public testimony first, and then we'll open it up for questions for our staff.

And if there is something pertaining to you, we'll have you up as well.

So thank you so much for coming.

All right.

Is there anyone that would like to speak to this?

We don't have anyone else signed up, so I will just ask one more time before we close the public hearing.

Okay.

With no one else wishing to speak, I will close the public hearing and I will um go to council members for discussion.

Recognize council vice president Osman.

Uh thank you so much for uh doing business with City of Minneapolis and also being creative, a line that has been sitting there for a while.

Um, I have a question.

Uh we are seeing um, especially on Lake Street area where uh bait parking um, like uh plate threater uh where folks are um without a gate, people are coming in, um, maybe going somewhere else, but they are um pulling in, and as soon as they get out, uh the plate reader um picks up and sends them a large bill because they didn't somehow pay.

So, will this be a paid parking service or um is it open to your customers or businesses?

How will this uh work?

I welcome back up the applicant.

Yes, uh, well, for uh our current vision is that we want to have it available for our customers where we want them to have free um free parking space.

We do have to work out what that would look like in the future because the reality is that right now Lake Street experiences a lot of congestion, and we do think that there's gonna be a learning curve where there are gonna be things that we probably didn't think or address in advance, and they will come up as people's needs shift and as people wanna maybe misuse our parking lot.

But for the time being, um, all we want to do is have parking space available to our customers that is free of charge.

Okay, wonderful.

If that's the case, uh definitely support it.

If there's ever a time where a parking will make a revenue or or pay parking, I think there are certain conditions we might have to think about, which is uh having a gate that opens and people are able to easily pay instead of uh some kind of uh scan here.

Not every every you know elderly person knows how to scan and pay it online.

We're seeing more parkings that are sending large bills in the mail by bullet readers, which is I'm super cautious about that.

But um thank you so much.

And again, we are also trying to be very cost-effective.

So I imagine installing something of that sort, some mechanism of that sort would also rise up our expenses, and for a project that's only bound to last five years, we really don't want to get into that.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next, I'll go to Vice Chair Chug Tai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, you know, I feel like as far as quasi-judicials go in this case, um, the our staff are recommending approval of this item.

Um, you know, we've heard from the applicant.

I appreciate that this is a temporary solution to um to to this problem, and that you're hoping to activate the space for the long haul and have that five-year period of time to envision that and and figure out um how to how to pay for whatever that that future for this this parcel looks like.

Um I plan to approve um I plan to support the approval of this item or of the of this application, and uh want to thank the applicant for coming in and making yourself available to answer questions as well.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to Councilmember Chavez.

Thank you, Chair Charlie.

I was just gonna move uh this item for approval.

All right, second.

Okay.

If I may, may.

May I suggest that you amend that to also adopt the findings of fact in the staff report that is in the record.

Thank you.

Yes.

Councilmember Chavez, will you add that to your motion?

Excellent.

Okay.

I am not seeing any other further discussion.

Thank you so much for all you're doing right now and for doing business in the city of Minneapolis.

We know that it is a very, very difficult time, and so we're excited to be able to hear from you today.

Thank you.

Yeah.

With that, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville?

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Warren.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whiting.

Aye.

Palmasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chick Tay.

Aye.

And Chair Chowdery.

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

That the motion carries and passes.

The next quasi-judicial hearing is for an appeal on a certificate of appropriateness that was submitted by Nicholas Bates.

I'll ask City Planner Aaron Kaye to provide a brief on this matter.

Welcome up.

Ms.

Kaye.

Good morning, Chair Chowdry and Council members.

My name is Aaron Kay, and I am a senior city planner in the historic preservation subsection of the Department of Community Planning and Economic Development, or CPED.

I'm here today to present an appeal of the Heritage Preservation Commission's HPC decision on a certificate of appropriateness application for the property located at 201 Franklin Avenue East in the Washburn Fair Oaks Historic District.

It will first summarize the application, then the HPC's decision, and finally the appeal request.

Here is an aerial view of the property's location at the corner of Franklin Avenue East and 2nd Avenue South in Ward 10.

Because this property is located in a historic district, exterior alterations are subject to preservation review by city staff.

This project came to staff via a 311 inquiry in late October 2025 to report unpermitted work, which was verified by a city inspector.

The siding was in the process of being replaced and had not received preservation approval or a permit.

Based on the nature of the project, staff informed the property owner that they needed to prepare a certificate of appropriateness application that would go before the HPC in a public hearing.

The project also included replacing the roof, which had received prior permit reproval and installing new gutters which have not yet been installed.

The house was built in 1885 during the district's period of significance from 1863 to 1939.

Staff believe that the original siding would have been wood based on what was typical for this area.

In 1964, the house was resited.

This is likely when aluminum siding was installed, as shown in these photos.

The property owner in their application noted that the aluminum siding had experienced significant weathering and deterioration over time due to moisture, pests and climate exposure, as well as denting from the August 2023 hailstorm.

The applicant selected vinyl siding as the replacement to reduce risks of dents and surface damage and more closely resemble the likely original wood siding, in their opinion.

Here are two photos of the house with the vinyl siding installed as proposed.

And then in the bottom left corner, a screenshot from the product sheet.

At the public hearing with the HBC, the property owner shared that the work was nearly complete at the time they were notified a permit was needed.

Staff review for this type of application involves determining whether or not the project meets the design guidelines for this historic district and the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation, which are federal preservation standards.

For this historic district design guidelines indicate that vinyl siding is not considered an appropriate substitute material for a house that would have originally had wood siding.

This is because it has a very different finish, texture, and appearance from wood.

Additionally, when non-historic materials need to be replaced, the design guidelines encourage restoration of historic wall cladding, which would be wood, or in-kind replacement, which would be aluminum in this case.

Staff recommended two conditions of approval to select a more suitable replacement than vinyl siding, which would require the vinyl to be removed and then replaced with a different material.

At the HPC meeting on December 2nd, 2025, the property owner shared that they were not aware of the property's historic status when they bought the property in 2022.

I'll note that our team worked to add this type of information to all truth in sale of housing or TISH reports in 2023, which could explain why they weren't aware of the historic status and the requirements for preservation review.

The property owner also shared that the contractor did not tell them that a permit was needed to replace the siding.

At that hearing, they asked the HBC to strike the conditions of approval in order to keep the siding as it was installed due to concerns about the cost to redo the project.

The HBC discussed the project at length before making their decision.

One member expressed concern about the potential waste from removing new siding that had just been installed.

Another acknowledged economic hardship, which does not fall within the HBC's purview for consideration.

Others identified possible negligence by the contractor for conducting unpermitted work.

Ultimately, the HBC adopted staff findings and recommendations and approved the applications subject to three conditions as shown on this slide.

The property owner submitted an appeal to strike two conditions of approval from the HBC's decision.

The first being number one, the replacement siding shall be fiber cement, composite wood, or other similar material.

And the second, number two, the applicant shall work with staff to determine the compatible direction and dimensions of the replacement siding.

It shall be compatible but different from historic siding remaining on similar properties in the historic district.

At a high level, they are making this request for several reasons.

Technological advancements in materials, identification of other nearby properties with vinyl siding, lack of objections from neighbors and tenants, economic hardship, reduction of waste, and overall improvement to this property.

Granting the appeal would allow the property owner to complete the project and secure permit approval.

Staff have not received any public comments pertaining to this project.

This concludes my presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

And then the property owner, who's also the appellant, is here and would like to speak.

Thank you so much, Miss Kay.

Uh with that, I will open up the public hearing and then we can have discussion after.

If the applicant is here, you'll be given five minutes to speak, and then after that, if there is anyone else registered, you'll have two minutes to speak, and I will welcome up the applicant.

Welcome.

Good morning.

My name is Nicholas Bates.

I'm the uh founder and owner of Concepts 26.

We provide uh housing for people in transition, facing barriers like uh poor credit, criminal background, um, those types of situations uh to allow them to obtain housing.

We started in 2019 serving just three people.

Now today we serve 247.

Um this building that we're discussing today is uh designed to be a long-term part of our portfolio.

Um, it's not like a flip type of situation.

Typically, we obtain houses or buildings that are distressed, fix them up, place candidates that are in need of housing.

Um Aaron basically covered everything that I was going to say, which is written down.

Excuse me, I'm kind of a little bit sick and a little bit nervous.

Um I'm pleading with the city council to overturn uh the HBC's uh decision in strike conditions one and two.

Um, because taking off the siding that was recently installed would be a detrimental cost to my organization and potentially lead to the closure of the closure of that building and maybe even the displacement of the of the people within.

Um, we're we're rebranded in Minneapolis, we stay there.

We uh we take care of the people within our community and and I'm I'd really hope that you would consider this appeal.

Any questions?

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll let you know if there's any further questions.

Is there anyone else that would like to testify on this?

Okay.

Seeing no one else, I will close the public hearing and then I will ask if there's any discussion from committee members.

Council Vice President Osman.

Oh, thank you so much.

Uh staff, can you say more about we're not aware of if this is a designated historic side or um can you talk about it a bit more?

When do they find that out?

This building requires special look before you get a permit.

Chair Chowdhury, Councilmember Osman, thank you for the question.

I'm understanding you're wanting a little more information just about kind of the confusion related to the historic status of the property.

Um so that the applicant, the owner, uh shared with us that he was not aware of it when he purchased the property in 2022.

You know, I can't confirm or deny that in that moment, but um the piece of information that may have influenced that is that we weren't able to get that into TISH reports until 2023.

So we understand that um this this may be a widespread problem that people aren't aware of the status, and so this has been a way to address that.

However, you only know it when you've bought the property after it got added into the reports.

Um my understanding from our applicant uh and the appellant is that um he became aware of the historic status in the fall when he was contacted about um unpermitted work being done uh or contacted that the work being done at his property was unpermitted.

Um and so we spoke and he immediately wanted to know the steps to go through the process, um, and that has taken us to today.

So one more time, uh the condition is that we you put forward that requires the owner to basically undo the work he did.

Chair Chowdry, uh Councilmember Osman, if you were to uphold the HPC's decision and conditions of approval, it would require the property owner to redo the work that has been done.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Um I put myself in cue through uh Vice Chair Chug Tai, having some speaker management issues myself up here.

Um I had uh a question for staff.

So if we uh wanted to, if the body wanted to move forward on a motion to um strike the first and second conditions, uh, what kind of findings would we need to prepare?

Chair Chowdry, um, because the HBC has already adopted findings and have voted on approval to if the council decides to strike the conditions of approval that will not require new findings of fact um for this application.

Okay, that's really helpful to know and I'll just speak uh uh my position on the matter.

Obviously, um there are rules around historic preservation that come up and uh once it is appealed to this body, it's up to us to make decisions on what's best suited uh for the applicant, but also the city as a whole.

And I I share in the perspective that it would be very arduous for this applicant to have to remove every single piece of siding that they've already put forward and then replace it.

Uh personally, I think the new vinyl sighting looks pretty good and is a big improvement, and so um I'll be looking forward to having further conversations about what we want to do at a full council, but that's my current position, and I'll go to Vice Chair Tug Tai.

Yeah, thank you, madam chair.

Um, you know, just just continuing off of uh what you stated and and what um our staff from the historic preservation work um have also added as further context here.

I think I would like to make a motion now to uh consider in in consideration of the appeal that has been submitted by the applicant.

Um strike conditions number one and two from the historic preservation commission, um, and um in essence approve the appeal.

Um I will ask for a second on that.

Second, wonderful, thank you.

Councilmember Chavez.

No?

Okay, I thought you were trying to get into cute.

Council President Payne.

Uh thank you, madam chair.

Just out of clarification.

Was it uh there are three conditions?

Was it one and two that the applicant wanted to change?

Was it one and three?

Chair Chowdhury, Council President Payne.

Uh, that is correct.

There were three conditions of approval.

Uh the third one is related to gutters.

Uh the applicant has no issues with the gutters, they're only asking you to consider striking number one and number two.

Okay, all right.

Yep.

Great.

Is there any further discussion?

With that, we have the motion from Vice Chair Chug Tai to move this forward, striking conditions one and two.

Uh, I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Warren?

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Lighting.

Aye.

Palmasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chip Tai?

Aye.

And Chair Chowder.

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

With that, that motion passes.

The third and final quasi-judicial hearing today is a variance appeal that was submitted by Patrick Haggerton.

I'll ask City Planner Fatimat Ulukoga to provide a brief on this matter.

Welcome.

Good morning, Chair Chowdery, Council members.

I am Fatima Olukoga, City Planner with CPID.

This item is an appeal of a board of adjustment denial for variants to increase the maximum height of a privacy fence in a corner side yard from four feet to six feet at 3906 York Avenue South.

The property is a corner lot in the UN 1 urban neighborhood district developed with a single family home.

Zoning code enforcement issue an order to correct in October 2024 related to the fence height.

The applicant was advised to either comply with the ordinance or apply for a variance.

There have been no ordinance changes since that time.

The proposal includes a six-foot salad fence which runs along 39th Street and along the front of the house on York Avenue, while portions comply with the ordinance by enclosing an entrance.

Approximately 30 feet exceed the four-foot maximum allowed for opaque fencing in a corner side yard.

Staff finds that unique circumstances do not exist that prevent compliance with the ordinance, such as grading or safety constraints, and that the proposal is not consistent with the spirit and intent, which seeks to balance privacy with visibility, light and air and public facing yards.

Although the request would not alter neighborhood character or be detrimental to public health, safety, or welfare.

Not all required variance findings are met for these reasons.

Staff recommended denial.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Welcome.

What are you hoping to do, sir?

We could potentially assist you.

Sorry, I'm I'm good.

I just have to put this one.

It will come up, I think.

Screen.

Madam Chair and uh committee members, thank you for taking time to hear our appeal this morning about the fence height variance request we have before the city.

Specifically, what we're requesting as could you introduce yourself for the record?

Oh, sorry.

My name is Patrick Hargarten, and I'm the owner of the property at 3906 York Avenue South, and with me here is my fiancee and co-owner of the property, Dory Niver.

And we're just coming to request your your uh help on this.

So, as I said, we we're appreciate your time.

We're here asking for a variance uh to add a six-foot fence about 20 feet along West 39th Street and about 40 feet back to the house.

As Fatima mentioned, we uh the application process requires that we meet these conditions.

I think we're both in agreement that two and three are met, whereas the zoning administration position is that we do not meet condition one.

Uh I've asked multiple times for very specific information why we don't meet it and have not received that.

But our position is that we um do meet those conditions.

This is an overhead view of our property.

Um it was built in 1952 on a double lot.

The house was shifted towards the south and west of the lot, leaving a rather small uh back garden area and a rather large side yard area with the intent that the side yard be the outdoor space for this property.

Um to further uh give you a further context to that.

The previous owners had a swimming pool and a trampoline and etc.

on the side lot, and that was their outdoor space.

They had it surrounded by a pool fence and about a seven-foot-high, very dense hedge that created that private space on that side yard.

Um, and you might note that the hedge went to the corner of the lot, creating a somewhat of a visibility issue for uh pedestrian vehicle traffic.

Um what we are asking is that um as Fatima said, we are able to build a six-foot fence where the blue line shows, but we are asking to have a variance to build an additional 20 feet along 39th and 40 feet tying back to the front of the house.

Uh some additional uh data points here to support the fact that we have a unique situation in our yard.

There uh our 44 homes from France to Richfield Road on 39th.

I measured all the side yards.

Um the largest one next to ours is 25 feet, the average is about 14 feet.

Ours is 50 feet, so it's clearly a different animal.

It's intended to be our outdoor space.

Um we know and you probably know 39th is a very busy street, so there's a lot of vehicle traffic and a lot of pedestrian traffic, which creates noise and a lot of onlookers that tend to look into our property, and we're trying to create some privacy there.

As you also know, probably the non-corner lot people are able to put a six-foot fence in their backyard, which is their outdoor space, and we're simply asking for the same consideration to be able to put a six-foot fence in our side yard to create that same privacy.

I think uh you may be aware that there is a proposal in the in somewhere in the mix here that has not yet been heard by the city council, but in recognition that side yard people are somewhat disadvantaged by the ordinance.

There's uh a proposal to change the ordinance, giving us more leeway to build fences in our side yard.

The last uh comments I'll make is that there are numerous properties in Linden Hills that have six-foot fences in their side yards.

There's a 39th and zenith, there's a six-foot fence that extends eighteen feet into the front yard, and it's solid at the corner of 39th and Sheridan.

There's a solid six-foot fence that extends to the front of the house.

At the other end of our block on York, there are two homes with six-foot fences in their side yards, one semi-transparent and one more mostly solid.

Um just a little further away on Sheridan, more houses, and I'll just conclude that.

Yeah, please wrap up your comments.

There are numerous houses in the neighborhood, and we're just asking for the same consideration.

And so we ask that you please approve our request.

Thank you so much for coming before us today.

I will see if there's anyone else that wishes to speak during this public hearing.

We allowed two minutes.

Okay, I'm not seeing anyone else, so we will close the public hearing and then go to discussion.

I'll recognize Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, thank you for your uh presentation on this.

I have been working with staff last year on this very issue, the corner lots and um the disadvantage of corner lots.

So um I'm I'm kind of siding with you, sir, on having the corner lot and the ability to have the same fence that the person next door to you get to have.

That might be because I live on the end of a block too.

And so I know like how difficult it is when folks um just walk in your yard because you're on the corner or there is no privacy, and it's and it's actually a big issue in North Minneapolis.

That's why I started working on it.

A lot of the properties on very busy streets and corner lots.

Not only do they want privacy, but they also want the um, there's some traffic concerns with corner lots and cars slipping off the side of the roads and going into people's private space, and um uh people I mean there's just a lot of things that have been happening a couple years ago that were brought to my attention, and it was primarily people who had corner lots and wanted the higher fencing, and so we have been working on that.

Maybe uh uh council vice president Osman just sent me a text and said maybe we'll bring that back up here real soon uh to kind of talk through how we do make some ordinance changes around uh corner lots not having the disadvantage.

So I appreciate the presentation and I'm supportive of of what you're trying to do here because I understand that it it might be a little different on a corner lot, especially when you don't have a backyard.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Vita.

Next I'll go to Councilmember Whiting.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury, and this might just be a question for staff.

It sounds like Council Member Vita might have answered my question as well.

Do we have any uh semblance of of where kind of this ordinance change is in the process or uh are we gonna have to bring this back up for corner lots to kind of fit with the six-foot?

Um, Chair Towdery, Councilmember Whiting.

Um, so I'm Meg McMahon, the planning director in CPAD.

I have not had the opportunity to meet all of you yet.

Um so uh councilmember Vita had brought forward an amendment last year.

Staff had begun some preparation.

We have some options for how to proceed with that.

My understanding is that um all of those legislative uh actions essentially died at the end of the year, and so that item would need to be picked back up uh and receive an author uh in this new term.

Um, and then I think staff is in the point where we would need some direction from policymakers on on kind of what those options are and how you'd want to proceed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So it's in the beginning part of the ordinance.

That's great to know.

Um, next, we'll go to council vice chair Chug Tai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, also a question for for staff.

Um I appreciate that the applicant um picked out some examples of other um properties within uh within the neighborhood where where similar conditions exist with uh with respect to fencing.

I'm wondering if staff can speak to what the distinction is between properties that have that six foot and extended extended fencing versus this specific property, and why that might be an acceptable thing for those other properties versus from staff's staff's perspective, why it isn't in this case.

Thank you.

So when we are doing zoning enforcement in the city, that's a uh we don't do proactive zoning enforcement, right?

We don't have the staff or capacity to go out and kind of look for complaints.

A lot of those um photos were photos of fences that were maybe older, you could kind of tell from the picture.

It's not not probably exclusively, but we are complaint-based system.

In this case, my understanding is the fence was was under construction, and uh inspector saw that and so raised it at that moment, but we we have not received complaints officially about the other fences in the neighborhood, and so we have not proactively gone out and addressed those.

But my understanding is those those are fences are likely in violation.

Understood.

Okay, that is helpful.

So um and can you speak to the the underlying status quo policy around?

I I appreciate that there's there's been work in the previous term around um a changing some of the regulations around fencing.

I appreciate that that's work that is at the very very beginning stages right now, um, and can't I I don't have any um insight into nor can I speak to what those changes would look like.

I'm certain that you will have uh extensive involvement in that, but can you speak to status quo policy um that prevents such fencing as as the applicant has brought before us today?

Sure, sure.

Just in in like simple people terms, chair charter, counselor chugtie, yes.

Uh, or I can attempt to.

So essentially um when you have a corner lot, um, six-foot fences are allowed in rear and side yards, and anything forward of the required setback, um, front yard setback is required to be four feet.

Um, and in corner side yards, you obviously is an awkward situation because it's fronting on a street front engine.

And so the provision allows for a six-foot fence along that front, or I'm sorry, along that side yard that's facing the secondary um public right of way, up to if there's a a side door on that house.

Um that fence can be six feet up to the side door.

And the thinking behind that is like if you're using your side door to access your back door, it makes sense to have like that six-foot fence that's sort of a continuation into your backyard and create that privacy, but forward of that door, um, it has to drop back down to the four feet and then and then continue around to what would be allowed in the front yard.

So the proposed amendment that we're looking at would allow a six-foot fence for the duration of that side yard up to where the the, you know, essentially where the front of the house is or where that required yard would begin.

Um, so it's it, you know, would kind of a slight extension of where the the six foot would be allowed.

Um I think, you know, there's some options around that because um in a lot of situations you have some grade change between where the house is and the road, and so you'll see retaining walls um in a lot of areas in Minneapolis that are kind of holding up those front yards, and so you can envision like a six-foot fence on top of that retaining wall could be quite um you know, oppressive, kind of create this blank wall.

Um, it really disrupts the you know, kind of pedestrian experience.

It um makes it difficult for snow removal if you've got you know you're shoveling that sidewalk and you got to put that snow somewhere, you know, getting it up and over a six-foot fence is less likely than you know a shorter fence.

So there's there are some you know considerations and and and unique situations.

It's not, you know, a completely cut and dry amendment.

We'll have to look through and and kind of see in different neighborhoods.

There's there's places where it makes perfect sense, and then there's other places where it could create some difficulty for pedestrians.

And I would imagine with a corner lot uh part of that that four foot reduction requirement, um, it has to do with with obstruction um of of like line of sight as as as people are navigating that that block.

Is that kind of is that a fair assessment?

Um charter, cultural characters.

Yeah, that's correct.

So I think there's visibility is a component of that, and safety is generally too.

I mean, I think the sense of like a six-foot privacy fence generally are not considered to be a safe, even though while you're on the inside of it, you feel maybe safer um from a septe a uh uh crime prevention through environmental design, opaque fences are generally not considered um uh effective safety features for sure.

Um, well, I mean, I I'm not sure how other colleagues are thinking about it, and I would imagine there's someone else who's hoping to make a motion, but generally, um I am um I I don't think that um this appeal um meets the the requirements for for approval, but um, you know, I appreciate that there are policy changes that are being considered.

I mean, we can't approve an appeal based on hypothetical changes that may happen in the future.

Um we have to consider based on the laws that exist right now, and and really appreciate the context from staff that there are others um examples that the applicant um picked out that that are also people that are that are in violation of the law, and unfortunately, um the applicant ended up in a position where uh where that was they were stopped from doing so on the front end.

Um so I I think that's how I'm thinking about it, and and uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I put myself in cue.

Um I am inclined to agree with your comments uh with quasi-judicial hearings and matters.

We have to look at what are uh the laws and policies that we currently have in place.

It's not a place for us to legislate um and change the rules.

That's what the ordinance and legislative process is for, and that's where it seems like to address this greater issue, that's where we'll need to make the changes.

So I am not inclined um to uh approve this appeal.

Um, if there are council members that would like to bring forward uh a motion for approval, um you'd have to work with our city attorneys to create findings of fact.

Um, with respect to the fact that there is uh council members that have different positions.

I'm gonna put the motion forward to recommend this without approval.

So there's time for uh discussion with city attorneys.

Uh I will advise have conversations only with the city attorneys.

This is a quasi-judicial matter, so no ex parte communication.

And uh that's the the motion that I'll put forward so there's time for discussion in this matter uh on Thursday, and then uh if there's a second on my motion.

Second, second okay, council member Palmasano.

I think there are others in queue before.

Oh, not anymore.

Um, oh, I'll defer to others.

Do you like to go next?

First.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna call on council member Warren.

Thank you.

Um I try and throw out then scramble.

There was a fence here previously, correct?

Um as there was a pool and a trampoline, and can the property owner provide some clarity around that?

What happened to the fence that was there when there was a pool and a trampoline there?

I'm gonna actually ask staff maybe to come up or staff to for that one for the prior property.

I would actually defer to the applicant appelling on that because I don't know if it was removed prior to their purchase of the home or not.

Okay, welcome back up.

Um we removed the pool and the trampoline and the fence and the seven foot hedge.

Um because we we are not pool people and we didn't want to maintain a pool.

And we just thought it was a kind of unsightly on top of it.

So we removed that so that we could have um the space reconfigured.

Can I make one other comment?

If I really brief only if it's only directed to this question, you had your moment for your presentation.

Thank you, sir.

You know, there is a variance process, and it does have a variance process, and that's why I'm here.

And I understand that there's rules, but there isn't a request process.

So, ask consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Uh councilmember Warren, you still have some time.

I was just wondering what had happened to the previous arrangement and why it was removed, and if it was acceptable then, why it wasn't acceptable now.

Welcome up.

This is a different configuration.

Before there was a four-foot fence that surrounded the pool with hedges that provided um seven-foot hedges that provided that privacy, where now the um applicant is proposing uh a six-foot fence, completely opaque.

So it's a different setup.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you, Councilmember Warren.

Next we'll go to Councilmember Palmasano.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um Mr.

Hergarten and his fiancee bought a beautiful older house.

They've made it even more beautiful.

They've completely redone their yard.

And that older hedge that used to be there, I would see it almost every day, really kind of functioned as a full-on screen to the property.

Um, like myself, like council member Vita, he and his fiancee have what's called a double front lot.

And what that means is that we as property owners have to comply with front yard rules on both sides.

Um in different parts of the city, there are different concerns that give us these kinds of rules.

Um Councilmember Vita has been working on updates to these fence regulations and has been for some time, so I want to um give it, you know, give that some credit.

I probably need some time until Thursday to to kind of speak with her and understand where that's going.

I didn't think that that was actually gonna get to the point of something that would make the fence that he is at this point built or at least mostly built, um, that would make that uh within ordinance, uh, but I but I don't know.

Um, I can understand the argument the other corner properties have a six-foot fence as Miss McMahon stated.

Um those are also probably out of compliance, but just not complained about or caught.

Um, but rules are rules, and I think we have to work really hard to apply those fairly across the whole city.

Um the fencing ordinance that we have are for orderliness and public safety, and it has to apply to every neighborhood across the city.

So I'm not sure I can get to the point of findings of fact based on this situation.

So a couple more days to discuss it with my colleagues would be welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Palmasano.

I see councilmember Warren and Q.

Okay.

Wonderful.

And then I would just remind council members to check if your mics are on and if you intend for them to be on, just in case.

Um seeing no further discussion, we have the motion in front of us, which is a motion.

Madam Chair.

Uh I believe Warren was in queue accidentally and then was in cue for a second time when you recognize her.

Oh, okay.

I council member Chavez.

Were you in cue for council member Chavez?

For Council Member, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Welcome.

Welcome back.

I have no idea what's going on.

This thing just keeps putting me in.

I only had one question, Madam Chair, and that was just about the fencing.

It just keeps my name, just keeps.

I haven't touched anything.

It just keeps popping up.

I had so many speaker management issues on my end too.

So I'm I don't know what's happening.

It's just I'm here and then I'm here and here.

I don't know.

I haven't touched anything.

You just let me know when you want to speak.

And if it's not showing up, I will call on you.

Exactly.

And your colleagues over there will help out.

Okay, perfect.

All right, we got that squared away.

Uh with that.

I don't think there's any other discussion.

We have the motion before us that's been seconded to uh move uh recommend without move without recommendation.

There we are.

I will ask uh the clerk to call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye, Wansley.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Warren.

Aye.

Osman.

Is absent.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whiting.

Aye.

Palmasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chigtai.

Aye.

And Chair Chowdry.

Aye.

And Vice President Osman.

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

Great.

That motion carries.

It's been recommended without approval to full council.

All right.

Colleagues, we've dispensed with all of our quasi-judicial hearings on our agenda.

Congratulations for dispensing of the first uh quasi judicials of the year.

We'll now move to the discussion agenda beginning with the public comment period on two liquor license renewals that were postponed from our last meeting.

Those are reflected on the agenda as item number 57.

Before we take up those items, let me reiterate to any individuals who wish to address this committee on these items as a part of public comment period.

They will need to register with the clerks at the registration table in the corridor outside this chamber.

I will restate that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast.

This broadcast of this meeting is a live stream of these proceedings, and the broadcast and recording are deemed public data under Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.

By attending this meeting and participating in these proceedings, your image, any comment or information you provide will be subject to disclosure under the law.

That includes but is not limited to your attendance, your name, and other personal details that you provide, your comments, as well as any written submissions you make, which are included in the record of this meeting.

We'll be accepting comments from speakers in the order that they have registered.

Each speaker will be given a total of two minutes to address the committee.

We ask all speakers to wrap up their comments when the time has expired.

With that, we're ready to open up the floor for public comment.

I don't have the current uh list before me.

Madam Chair, it should be at the bottom of the stack.

All right, one moment, please.

There we are.

We so far have a total of 10 speakers registered for this period.

Uh I'll be calling speakers in groups of five by their name and registered numbers.

And if you are not signed up, please again go to the registration table.

Um so we will be doing one, two, three, four, and five.

The first speaker is uh, I believe, it's Jay Soholt in Ward 11.

Welcome up.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Joan Soholt, and I'm a 23-year hotel banquet server and a Unite Local 17 member.

My co-workers are not just colleagues.

They are our friends and our neighbors, the backbone of our local hospitality industry.

It has been heartbreaking to watch what is unfolded in our city.

I'm proud of how our work community has rallied to support one another, but I've also witnessed firsthand the fear, uncertainty, and destructive behavior directed toward one of the hotels identified on social media as housing ice, the atmosphere of aggression and misinformation has created real anxiety.

I want to be clear.

ICE activity is not limited to one or two facilities.

And I know you know this as well.

Yet a narrative is formed that unfairly targets specific hotels and the people who work there.

Claims that these facilities are contracting with ice or overpouring liquor to agents are false and deeply damaging.

When a hotel is targeted, the impact is felt by cooks, banquet servers, housekeepers, bartenders, dishwashers, and their families.

Using liquor licenses as leverage without a valid legal complaint sends a chilling message.

It suggests that longstanding compliant businesses can lose their livelihoods because of political pressure or public controversies.

That kind of uncertainty discourages investment, harms workers, and weakens our city's recovery.

Pulling or threatening liquor licenses without clear cause would be reckless and devastating to working people.

I want to thank the council members who have carefully supported the renewal of these licenses, and I respectfully urge those who have not to reconsider.

This is about economic stability.

It is about protecting workers, and we should be doing everything we legally can to support the hotel restaurants and industries that employ so many members of our community, especially those already adversely affected by Operation Metro Surge and ongoing instability.

Please stand with workers, please stand with economic fairness, and please unite behind these businesses to continue operating without fear of punitive action, even when no legal violation exists.

Thank you.

Thank you for your consideration.

Next we'll go to speaker number two, John Eric Haynes.

Good morning, Chair Chowdhury and uh City Council members.

My name is John Eric Haynes.

I am an attorney at Cummins and Cummins law firm, and I'm here on behalf of uh Unite Here Local 17, a union of hotel workers, thousands of hotel and restaurant workers in Minneapolis and the surrounding area.

I'm here to lay out the relevant law as to the city council's broad discretion in determining the manner in which liquor licenses are renewed and regulated in the city.

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that there is no right to the renewal of a liquor license in the city of Minneapolis or in the state of Minnesota.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has been clear.

Selling liquor in the city of Minneapolis is a privilege and not a right.

Additionally, the city's police power to promote the general welfare is extremely broad.

Thus, the Minnesota Supreme Court has long held that a city properly uses its police power not to renew a liquor license when non-renewal promotes the general welfare of the city.

So under that broad police power, the city council's legal authority regarding liquor license is lawful, a decision regarding liquor license as lawful, unless that decision is unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious, or fraudulent.

We'll hear more about the relevant facts as to these two particular uh hotels.

But uh merely speaking hypothetically, uh my legal opinion is that it is not unreasonable, it is not arbitrary, it is not capricious, it is not fraudulent for the city council to determine that if a hotel is housing a violent and armed paramilitary, that it should not be permitted to sell liquor in the city, or that it should be investigated as to how it is selling liquor in the city, or it should be restricted in its ability to sell liquor in the city.

Um, I'm available to answer questions as the hearing progresses as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to speaker number three, Shay Freeberg.

Yeah, we can okay, we can go to the next one.

Next is speaker number four, Jeffrey Packett.

Thank you, Councilmembers, and Madam Chair.

Uh, my name is Jeffrey Piquette.

I'm the internal organizing director of Unite Here Local 17.

I'll be speaking and reading a statement from an anonymous worker at the Depot Hotel, one of the hotels that has their liquor license up for renewal.

So I'll be reading the statement from this worker.

I first noticed that ICE was staying in the hotel on or about the f uh January 5th of 2026.

I was entering the parking lot and noticed a larger group of men standing in the parking lot.

As we were walking through the parking lot, I noticed several cars with out of state license plates and bars on the inside of the cars.

When I came into work, I told my co-worker what I had seen in the parking lot and said I believe that they were ICE agents.

My co-worker told me that the manager had previously told them that the hotel management did not tell us that ICE was staying in the hotel because they did not want to create a sense of panic.

Within the first week of staying in our hotel, the manager covered up a window from the breakfast buffet area of the restaurant, which is a public area, and the window looked into uh the the kitchen.

They covered the window with papers so that no one could see the workers who are working in the back of the house as a safety measure.

My manager said it was for our safety.

Additionally, normally one part of my job is to bring glassware plates and silverware to areas of the hotel where an event, a banquet event was to be uh catered.

The depot is very big and does many, many events, so bringing these materials to the event rooms is is a substantial part of my job.

Since I started staying in the hotel, my manager told me that we would no longer be required to bring these items to the event rooms because it wasn't safe for us to be in the public area of the hotel.

Other banquet staff have begun to come into the kitchen to take the items that they were that they need.

Lastly, I since I began staying in the hotel, which I really appreciate uh from the management.

We've been staying in a part of the hotel where there aren't so many guests.

The area where we could do our laundry was on the other side of the hotel.

My manager told me that it was not safe to go to the other side of the hotel because that is where the ice agents were staying, and and they were concerned with my safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to speaker number five, Uriel Perez Espinoza.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Uh Madam Chair, Council members, thank you for letting me be here.

My name is Yurio Perez Espinosa.

I'm with Unite Here Local 17 Hotel Workers Union.

I'm here to speak against the renewal of the liquor license for the hotels that are hosting some of the ICE agents.

I have never seen any ice agents in these hotels, but I spoke with few workers.

And after the conversation, I concluded that there are ice agents in the hotels.

This these are some of the conversations.

I asked worker X.

He does not want to keep or say her name public for personal reasons.

And have you seen any ICE agents staying in the hotels?

Yes, I have.

Many of us have seen ICE agents staying in our hotels.

They park their cars in the ramp.

They wear camouflage clothing, sometimes they're wearing their civilians' clothing, their wearing mask, they come at 10 at the hotel every day for the past two months.

They leave as early as 5 30 in the morning and they return around 3 30 p.m.

They go and eat in the restaurant.

So they're here every day at the Renaissance and the depot hotel.

How do you feel about the presence of the hotel?

Have you run into any of them?

Have you encountered any face-to-face interaction?

In December, when they first came in, we all workers were afraid and concerned of being picked up by ICE.

We didn't know.

I guess it's my time.

Thank you.

And if you uh want to give the rest of your comments to our clerks for anyone that wasn't able to finish, they can submit it into the public record.

Yes, I would like to, because it's a lot.

Okay.

Yes, yeah.

Please bring it over to our clerks.

They have their hand up right there, Amber and Michael.

Great.

We will now go to speaker number six, Wade Luneberg.

Chair Chowdery, uh Council members.

My name is Wade Lunaberg.

I'm a resident of the third ward.

I live at First and Hennepin near the uh properties that are in question today.

Uh Unite here has 22 union hotels.

We're in our major sports facilities, our convention centers, craft brewing, and restaurants.

First, we request that if you are a hotel operator, you choose not to grant immigration and customs enforcement or other immigration enforcement agencies lodging at your facilities in Minneapolis.

This is an issue concerning the safety and well-being of workers.

Immigration enforcement can escalate tensions, increase confrontations, and place workers in unsafe situations that they are not trained for or paid to manage.

The presence of ICE can deter people from accessing food and necessities, while also placing the workers in the impossible position of navigating frightened customers and aggressive immigration enforcement.

There is also a danger to guests.

The customers that are staying in the hotel, ICE has proven that they are not focused on criminals or even just immigrants without proper to undo with without proper documentation, but on numerous occasions have taken action against US citizens in custody and worse.

We believe that a liquor license is a privilege, and that that privilege should be reserved for businesses who keep the public safety in mind.

For those reasons stated by the various witnesses, and based on the other evidence here, we are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of hotel employees, customers, and people that lived near hotels where ICE and CBP agents have been served liquor and otherwise hosted and housed in the hotels.

If you have additional comments, you can please submit them to the public record.

Next, we have number seven, Shelley.

Good morning, Council.

Um my name is Shelley Stein.

I work in ward 10.

I'm the director of the Restaurant Opportunity Center in Minnesota.

We are a workers center who works with restaurant and food service workers across the twin cities.

Over the last two months, I have talked with workers in uh both of these properties, uh restaurant workers who uh have expressed um an immense amount of fear.

I've spoken with workers and business owners who have made the commitment to not serve ICE in their restaurants because of the public safety for workers, customers, and their businesses.

I've also talked to workers who didn't return to work the day after ICE was in the vicinity, not even in their workplaces.

Uh the health of our industry is about protecting our workers who are the backbone.

And doing so is about ensuring that uh violent and criminal force isn't allowed into our workplaces.

And businesses do have the right to refuse service to ICE and to DHS, uh, and they should for the safety of our industry.

Um I believe that serving them is irresponsible, and workers and business owners every day are signing on to pledges uh to not serve them.

And it is uh a call to you all to take the same pledge uh in support of workers that uh ICE agents um who are terrorizing our community and making it impossible for workers to do their job uh not be served in our establishments.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to speaker number eight a and ward 10.

Uh hi everyone.

Uh, I want to start by talking about a news story I read about journalists, journalist uh Laura Jade, who was hired by ICE uh as an individual with anti-ICE opinions plainly available on the internet for all who are willing to do a 30-second search.

Following being hired by ICE, uh Jadeed was um interviewed and uh given a job and then was told to complete the onboarding.

During this onboarding, she failed to complete the domestic violence affidavit, David, the background check uh authorization, and a litany of other paperwork.

Despite not filling this out, she was still hired.

Now you might ask, okay, so maybe she wouldn't move on to the next stage.

Um, but that brings us to reporting that came out in January, where uh where per uh CBC Radio Canada um, or no, that's that's the wrong site here.

Uh tch tch tch tch.

Uh oh essentially, essentially in January there was a mistake that was made that allowed a number of ICE recruits to go through and skip portions of the training based on the false assumption by AI that they were prior law enforcement.

Also, in conjunction with this, they are specifically targeting white supremacists also with reporting that came out in January saying that they're using references to nonfiction books popular with white with uh neo-Nazis and with uh and some songs that were uh popular with the KKK.

These in conjunction mean that we have a pipeline of intense white supremacists coming down the line with essentially no checks.

We have no idea who's staying in these hospitals or these hotels.

In addition to this, uh I would mention that the shooting on 1221825 at Hampton in the comments where uh where an ICE agent fired a gun on accident.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we will go to speaker number 10.

I have Shea Ailey.

Apologies if I pronounced your name incorrectly.

Hello.

I'm uh Marco Sayala.

I'm speaking on behalf of Arizona Taco Company for uh liquor permit.

And so just wanted to not take up too much of your time, but just wanted to let you guys know that uh we are a restaurant and not a nightclub, you know, uh coming into the area there uh in the uptown location.

So you guys have any questions.

Oh, thank you.

This is a public comment period for the renewals, liquor license renewals for Canopy Hilton and uh Depot Renaissance Hotel.

Oh, okay.

Well, we were told we were on the docket for our liquor license today.

No, that's not the case, but thank you for coming.

Okay, okay.

Thank you, sir.

Uh next we'll go back to speaker number three, Shay Freeberg.

All good.

Okay.

Um I will ask if there is anyone else that would like to testify that did not sign up, and I'll look to the clerks to see if there's anyone else that registered at the table.

Madam Chair.

I don't think there's anyone else registered, but just a reminder that the clerks at the registration table do have forms for written submissions.

So for those who may have had comments but didn't get through them in time, there are forms that can be filled out and submitted as part of the record as well.

Okay, thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk.

All right.

Well, with that, I will close the public comment period, thanks to everyone that came today.

Um I have myself in cue to just kick off discussion, and then I do see that we have um Amy Lingo here, and I'm gonna cue just to CPED staff as they're listening that I'm gonna ask for them to come up for a couple questions when they're available.

So obviously there were both in our outreach to us by email and community, and then also in this public testimony, several community members have stated their concerns about ICE presence at the hotels that are that we're looking at and the concerns about them having an ICE presence that creates a public safety and general welfare concern.

We heard that from the testifiers today, just uplifting that and a testifier also shared the concerns about putting liquor into the mix of that.

Um shared a lot of worker concerns of unsecured weapons at uh these hotels specifically, and just generally, I think we have all seen the disruptions across the metro that has occurred as ICE agents have blocked hotels in several several parts of Minneapolis and then outside of Minneapolis.

And so I've had some initial discussions with our city staff in terms of like what are potential next steps.

I think it's really important that there is some due process here, that there is some work that can be done with business licensing to do some further investigating to figure out what's going on here and to see if there are some conditions or restrictions that could be put on these licenses depending on what they may find.

I think it's important to defer to our expert staff on this.

Um I did want to see if there is anyone available from CPED to answer a question about that.

And I I'm not seeing anyone, but I will I will say that the motion that I'm interested in putting forward, and I'll put it forward is that we take these licenses.

We have a due process by referring this to staff to do that investigative work.

Um I see Amy Lingo.

I'll just finish up my comments about what the motion is to do the investigative work.

We've done this as a common practice as council when we have seen different issues at certain businesses, whether it's safety, general welfare, where we'll have our business licensing staff do some more due diligence work, talk to the businesses, see if there is a potential for conditions, and then I wanted to ask well, I'll put forward that motion and ask for a second if there's one.

Second, okay, there's a second.

Um I wanted to ask CPED and Ms.

Lingo specifically if you could kind of share uh what uh a refer to staff would mean and what steps you and your team would take.

Thank you, or Chowder.

Uh, my name is Amy Lingo.

I am the manager for business licensing for CPED.

The way that the process works.

If this item is to be referred to staff, we will take a look at the documentation that we've received.

301 911 complaints, conversations that were held today.

We will review the license and what the items are required to do and what we can hold them to.

We will look and see if there are any conditions that can be held onto the license that we can impose.

We will also have conversations with the property and the license holders to see what kind of security and or conditions and or procedures that we can go, we can agree upon.

Once that we have an agreement, then we can bring it back to council for vote for dispensation.

Thank you so much.

And I I just wanted to note to the public and just state that this is a practice that we have used on several business licenses as a council, right?

This is something that we are allowed to do, that we are legally allowed to do, that we have past precedents for, and what has been brought forward to us by community members both today and to us directly by phone call or email.

That's certainly how I've gotten outreach, is that there is uh a present public safety and general welfare concern that they have, and it is extremely unique.

We've never been through this as a city, and that's what they testified towards.

And I think it it makes a lot of sense if we are going to do extra investigative work for much less of safety concerns that we should do it for this one.

And so I just wanted to state for the record that what we are doing today with this motion is completely in line with what we have done in the past.

It's legal, and I will uh I will actually ask our city attorney what the remaining time that we have about the legality of us asking for our staff to do further investigation and a refer to staff.

If uh, ICA.

Yes, the public comment is closed, but you can submit anything that's printed over there to the clerks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh with that, I will go use my remaining time and go to uh attorney O'Reilly.

Thank you, Chair Chowdery.

My recommendation would be uh, you know, certainly CPED can look into it, but my recommendation would be to move this forward today.

Perhaps have CPED before Thursday's meeting, take a look at the records available uh and then have this on uh council meeting on Thursday.

Uh having heard the public comment, there are certainly concerns, uh, but I did not hear anything specifically related to the attorney.

I I appreciate your recommendation, but I asked if it is if it's within our legal right to refer this to staff, it is certainly within the legal right to refer to staff as um the city attorney's office has advised.

Uh there is a risk in delaying.

And that is I appreciate it.

Uh next we will recognize Council President Payne.

Thank you, madam chair.

Yeah, I support your motion to refer this back to staff.

I think uh this has been such an unprecedented event for our city uh and uh one thing that really comes to light given the unprecedented activities of the federal government is their total disregard for the concept of due process, and I think that we can be an antidote to that by creating an actual formal due process um opportunity for these applicants.

Uh we've heard testimony around certain activity.

Uh I have seen and witnessed a lot of violations of people's due process.

Um I think that giving our professional staff the time to actually do a thorough investigation on some of the allegations will allow us to use our discretion and in the best way possible because you know our ordinances do ultimately suggest that this is up to the discretion of council, and I'd like to use my discretion on a basis of fact, not on a basis of rumor.

And I think that this uh motion in front of us allows us to have a much more factual basis for that decision.

Thank you, President Payne.

Next, I will go to council member whiting.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

And I think uh this might be for uh uh manager lingo or or city attorney O'Reilly, um just kind of a question around the processes about with this uh investigation refer back to um staff.

So if uh after we kind of go through the investigative process, if this moves forward, um if the findings come back, if the if the investigation goes forward uh and there is not a uh nothing is found uh with a legal basis to remove or revoke um a license, uh do we as a city have any legal basis uh to remove or revoke these licenses?

Through the chair, council member whiting.

So the legal basis I will defer to the uh city attorney, but as far as our process goes, when we look through the evidence, what we find, we will make our recommendation.

I will make my recommendation based off what we find in the conversations that we have.

And if we do not find any evidence to even oppose conditions or to increase the security, or if we don't find any recommendations for denial, then I would make my recommendation to approve as far as the process that goes from there, I will defer to the attorney for that answer.

Thank you.

Yeah, Mr.

Attorney.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Whiting.

Uh right, we based on what staff has found, we would make that determination again.

Um, you know, the council has been advised of the legal legal standards here in approving the renewals or not approving the renewals of uh the liquor licenses, and so we would use that standard based on the facts that staff has put together to come up with a recommendation.

Thank you.

And then just to kind of I guess ask another question further on that.

So if we do refer this back to staff uh and an investigation happens um within our uh sounds like the licensing area of this work uh and it comes back with uh with again kind of an absence of findings uh for particular as it relates to uh the administration of these liquor licenses.

Would the city have any legal basis if nothing comes back uh related to the revocation of these liquor licenses?

Most likely no.

Uh again, it would depend on what the findings are, but uh we again as as we've advised we need a rational basis to make a decision uh on the liquor license, and we generally would rely on the recommendation of staff and and the factual findings that staff has done uh to make a determination on that.

Thank you.

Uh and then kind of just just last point here, and not a questions.

I think uh kind of as council president um just mentioned that I I believe that there is a due process uh standard here, and I think it is something that we can look into.

Um, but I'd also like and urge uh my colleagues to know um that if we do go through this process, we do have uh uh an obligation to to go uh through the process um that requires us to follow the legal basis uh set forward by the city.

Uh if things come back uh with with zero uh ability to actually remove a legal standard, I think we as a city council uh have a duty to not just the body here um but our constituents as well to communicate that hey, we went through the process, this process was followed, uh, and nothing was found.

Uh and if we do find nothing, I think that is an ability here that this investigation uh currently has no impact on the current liquor operations of the depot or canopy.

They are still able to have uh their liquor liquor licenses in this process.

Uh, would like also like to point out that if this investigation does identify any laps in those uh standards, um that would be, I think it sounds like we would be able to have some basis of conversation around that.

Um, but if not, uh I think we need to be very clear that there was no legal basis and understanding to actually remove uh these liquor licenses, and so I appreciate uh all of our public comment here and uh particular uh around those that have uh mentioned not just the I think the the business impact but the personal impact from everybody that works uh in our hospitality industry, and so understanding that this does take a place and uh the revocation of a liquor license would also have impacts, not just for uh our our hotels and the industry there, but the people working, uh the dishwashers, the bartenders, and above.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to council member Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I just wanted to make sure I had clarification around this basis.

This might be for uh CPS staff, Amy Lingo, or to the authors, just clarification.

The liquor license as is will remain status quo in terms of not experiencing interruption while we go about this investigation process, correct?

Chair Trialder, Council Member Wansley, that is correct.

While we go through this process, the liquor license is still in good standing, they are certified with the state and they may continue operating as usual.

Thank you.

So I think that's important to draw out and just reiterate that there is actually no immediate impact to the businesses as it relates to us taking this action to do our due diligence to you know see if there's ways to um using the investigations, if there is ways to to make findings that will warrant additional conditions, um, just to make sure that we're being responsive to the very things that the testifiers who came today and the many uh comments that we've received on council um in and via email and all other forms of uh different channels highlighting the very public safety risks and concerns that um are attached to uh the potential of ice being present at hotels and in our communities.

Um so it's justifiable that our residents are, you know, saying we're bearing the risk to go and and act and make sure that we're keeping residents and workers safe we want to see city officials also do what they can to make sure that residents are being safe um customers are being safe um our whole communities are being uh protected um if there is a presence of ice at establishments in our communities such as hotels so um I just want to say thank you to council member uh and Chair Chowdery for bringing this motion forward um I will be supporting it.

I'm also going to be taking additional legislative actions related to this matter um in response to the concerns that I've heard from both workers and constituents and now I'll be sharing details about that relatively soon and yeah just really grateful that we are approaching this this matter as council president uh payne articulated it's unprecedented and also gives um uh kind of a playbook to other cities who will be and have already experienced this dynamic of how do you um make sure you're you're holding high standards and expectations for establishments um when ice is occupying your communities and how as elected officials you use your authority to make sure that you're doing everything you can to protect the well-being and welfare of your communities of workers and also businesses themselves too.

So I just want to say thank you for that and yeah look forward to supporting this motion.

Next we'll go to council member Stevenson thank you I want to start off by thanking those who came for public testimony.

I learned something today so I appreciate uh you coming to speak um yeah it's clear that ice ice presence in these hotels has caused a significant public safety risk I have a question for the attorney um this is a I'm asking for your opinion uh in your opinion is it legal for hotels to deny ICE agents to stay uh there attorney O'Reilly thank you for that question um chair and council member uh Stevenson uh I think ultimately um hotels could decline service uh to uh for any non-discriminatory reason uh and so generally speaking uh employment uh by a certain entity is not uh a protected class uh and so I would imagine a hotel could decline uh to uh serve um individuals from who have uh certain employers okay thank you that I have heard the opposite uh I've heard everything about whether that's legal or not in the last few days so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear um yeah I will leave my comments there thank you.

Thank you council member next we'll go to council member Rainville.

Thank you I'd like to give my time uh to the attorney so you could finish your recommendation that you were cut off from well it was my time respectfully so I am going to say that I didn't cut anyone off if you're talking about me it was my time I asked a very specific question and I reclaimed it and I will do as such as necessary.

So if you would like to ask the attorney what your question is please ask what your question is directly to him.

Please don't involve me in it council member.

Please turn to finish your statement.

Your recommendation okay so you're asking for his recommendation okay go ahead attorney thank you chair council member rainville um at this point and again deferring uh to the council it's my understanding uh that staff will be able to do uh a lot of the review very quickly uh and and I've I've been messaging with uh director Hanson and I know uh uh manager lingo can also speak to this.

Um looking at uh the comments today as as well as um you know the like someone mentioned the 911 call history, 311 uh concerns and things of that nature that have not already I again recognize there's a time lag that have not already been reviewed uh as part of the renewal recommendation.

And given uh that these have already been held for a cycle, I would encourage uh and recommend the council um if it is so inclined to ask uh CPED staff to to look at some details, perhaps come to the council meet with council members uh as necessary over the next two days and then uh come to Thursday's council meeting uh to present so then the uh council can take action on these liquor licenses because uh while it is true uh the council has discretion uh in the granting or not granting of licenses at some point uh action needs to be taken, and and given uh the facts in front of us today and and what we've heard in the public comment, I I imagine that the review would be um relatively timely uh and so we can uh move these forward uh hopefully uh in a short amount of time.

And uh I would like your opinion uh attorney O'Reilly, that the longer we delays this vote uh perhaps the larger the liability the city gets for a lawsuit from these hotels as they're facing cancellations of business.

Uh Chair Trottery, Councilmember Rainville, uh yes, there is uh some risk in how long uh the decision takes.

Uh we have heard uh from the impacted licensees that they have concerns uh on the potential impact, and so for that reason, um, you know, absent a compelling need to take more time uh to look at these in in significant detail.

Uh I I would recommend uh moving these forward.

Yeah, even at this point today, my recommendation would be to move forward if if the body so chooses without recommendation uh in order for CPED uh to provide further information to the council uh with action set to be taken uh at the next council meeting.

Thank you.

And I I'd just like to end with uh with these cancellations comes a loss of jobs to the workers that we profuse to help.

So uh we we should really get quick resolution to this one way or the other.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we will go to council member Schaefer.

Yes, thank you, city attorney, for that uh uh informative information about the time frame around Thursday.

I have um just a couple more questions and the need to get that work done by Thursday.

Um, director or director Lingle, could you give me a couple more answers to questions around what are examples of conditions that the city has typically put on liquor licenses?

If any.

Welcome.

Do you need the question repeated?

Chair Chadway, yes, please.

Yes.

Thank you for coming forward.

What are some examples that the city has in previously in the past put conditions on liquor licenses?

Um is that common or uncommon?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Schaefer.

Uh is quite common.

Um we have varying levels of interaction that we do with uh establishments based on uh either previous history of a location or incidents that are occurred with a specific location.

So it is not an uncommon practice for us to have conditions on a license.

Um I would say 95% of the time they are agreed upon in advance, so we don't necessarily impose conditions without there being agreements from the entities, but we do meet with the establishments to discuss the concerns and the issues, and we agree upon a series of uh items that can be used to help the business thrive as well as make the community.

And those items or conditions would be around the selling of liquor in your most of the cases, or what would be those conditions, examples of those.

Sure.

Remember, I'm now through the chair.

The examples can vary, depends on the situation.

It can be based off of time, closing time, starting time, it can be about uh number of security, whether they're licensed security, it really does depend on the specific uh business.

I'm more than happy to send over some examples so that you can see, and to any of the other council members, we can share some examples of different conditions that have been imposed.

Thank you.

Um that's all the questions that I had for you.

I guess I would just say um I would be willing to consider this uh delay till Thursday, if possible, or uh as a final uh call.

But in my mind, generally, any potential of delay in approving this beyond Thursday is about something much brighter bigger and broader than liquor licenses.

We are saying to all of our small businesses, restaurants, and the hospitality industry, that Minneapolis is an uh an unsafe of safe place is not a safe place to do business.

And why we are not a stable regulatory environment.

To continue to let this play out and spend staff time on this is disappointing.

Our city attorney has made this clear, and I respect their input around the final decision that needs to be made.

Not respecting staff's input and opinion here could have tremendous legal and financial impact.

So that's kind of where I am finding myself, and um look forward to these being um approved as soon as possible.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Next we'll go to council member Warren.

Thank you, Chair Um Chowdhury.

I I have a question.

Who's for the attorney?

Are people who operate the guest list and attendance lists for hotels?

Are they legally allowed to disclose um the names and occupations of guests within these hotels?

Through the chair, um council member warren.

I am not I do not know about the specifics about hotel uh privacy laws.

But that's private information of who is staying there and what's going on with those individuals and in hotels.

You just can't walk up to uh a hotel and say, I believe Joe Blow is staying here, and they're gonna tell you yes or no, correct?

Again, I'm I apologize, I'm just not sure about the legal requirements for hotels in terms of that type of privacy.

Does anyone here know anything about any of that?

In my experience, that's not the case.

You can't get information on individuals just like you're not when I've in my history of checking into hotels, and I was just at a hotel this past weekend with about 14 kids.

I checked in, I checked out, no one asked me what I was doing, where I worked, who I was with, or any of those you know, different instances, so that would be quite discriminatory, just like if I went to go and check into a hotel, and I stated this before at our last committee of the whole meeting, and even disclosed the fact that I was a black woman or whatever the case is, and they decided to be racist and not want to serve me or whatever.

That's still discriminatory, and no one is no one should be discriminated against in that respect of what's going on with them in their you know personal lives or the jobs or the professions that they take up.

I mean, we all work a lot of different jobs across, you know, the United States here, and we just hope that they all line up the duties as assigned with our moral values and our moral compass, and I mean we can take that into account with the multiple um different things that doesn't say that we can't consume alcohol or whatever else the case is.

If you're of legal age, I think you should make that judgment call if it lines up with whatever's going on with your own mental focus.

But I don't I'm I'm really struggling and having a hard time here with why we keep lingering in this um in this area with all due respect if we were given information from the attorneys at the committee of the whole meeting two weeks ago.

Is that correct, attorney?

Um, that there had not been anything that was presented um at that time to you know hold on to uh the liquor licensing and not move forward.

So I'm just gonna recommend that we move forward and stop playing in the face of our our businesses that are already suffering.

We heard from uh young lady here in the audience today who stated that there are a number of employees across the diaspora who are gravely being affected with their incomes and needing to sustain their families showing up and going to work and needing to have you know these things put in place so it's it's it's affecting us all in a multitude of different ways and there's gonna be you know white supremacy stand at hotels, there's gonna be you know all kinds of things, prostitutes, drug addicts, whatever the case is, you know.

North Minneapolis showed up in droves here down at the city council and complained about our liquor store that's right there in Fifth Ward on Broadway in Lindale and said, Hey, there's been murders there.

There's been all kinds of things there, and still council didn't approve the closure of that, nor did they approve the closure of the murder station that's right on Broadway and Penn.

So I mean on Broadway and Lindale.

So I mean, what are we doing here with these businesses?

It's it's it's unsettling, and it's not making any kind of sense at all whatsoever.

You can't go into people's information and find out who stand where and what they do for a living, because that I don't I don't even think that they're legally supposed to disclose that information and attorney, I challenge if you could find out that information before our council meeting next of what that privacy factor covers.

Thanks.

Next we'll go to council vice president Osman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As the biz committee uh chair, I have seen money items that came through uh the committee that uh we were able to you know have a condition.

Um mainly twaco.

I remember that I don't want to name the business, but there was a business not that long ago where we were, was opening in downtown and we had uh you know president that had a concern about you know having some kind of uh violence or some kind of uh uh you know concern having this business in near their neighborhood.

Uh we were able to uh get together, have the businesses, interview the business, talk to each other and come up, uh business uh, you know, our depart our uh license departments come up with uh with a plan and then bring it forward.

I don't see uh any problem going this route.

Uh at the same time, um, you know, also I really want to see tangible things that we can touch that is a violation um within the license, you know.

Um, so my question is uh manager lingo is is from now until Thursday, is that enough time for you to interview the uh business owners uh go through the 31-1, go through the 911, um do your I guess investigation until Thursday.

So we don't really have to go with uh sending back to the staff.

But if we're if if that gives you enough time until Thursday, will that be or is it no is that too much for a few days?

Through the chair, Council Vice President Osman, we will be able to do the review of the incidences today's testimony and the 3111s in time for Thursday if that will if that uh suits the needs of the body, um whether or not I can have the conversation with the hotels, that is a different uh entity.

The odds are probably very high, but as far as the rest of the investigation goes, we will be able to get you feedback on Thursday if that is the will of the body.

Perfect, thank you.

I put myself on cue.

Um that I've had several conversations with the CPED department, and I don't know if director Hansen is also around this lingo.

I think like you're you're you're doing your best to respect the wishes of this body, but in those conversations, the director had said that there might be a need for additional time beyond a cycle to do a proper investigation.

So I would like to reconcile this conversation.

I'd also like to just state for the fact that there is public testimony that has not been read out into the record today that was hand delivered that has not been reviewed.

Um I don't I don't understand how we could reasonably be able to do a proper due process and investigation in a single day.

I certainly haven't seen it with the other licenses that um we have asked for a refer to staff.

So Director Hansen.

Chair Chowdry, I was walking in between two rooms, but I think you want to know if we can perform the review between now and Thursday, based on what we heard today.

Is that the question?

And I and just reconciling our past conversations.

There is a conversation you and I had had about this might need even beyond a cycle.

And so my intent would be to refer it until you were ready to come back to this body.

Chair Chowdhury, so what we've heard so far today.

We didn't know what was going to come up, and we wanted to hear things that were specific to a uh specific eyewitness testimony about things that happened in a hot one of the two hotels that was related to the liquor license.

What we heard today was not necessarily though as direct as we were expecting.

I have not we have not read what's in writing, so we'd have to take a look at that.

But we have the business licensing team monitoring this public comment hearing right now.

We've got you know, of course, we have um Amy Lingo here to answer all your questions, but we have people back at the office watching this stuff and monitoring so that we can immediately start investigating tomorrow.

And it was based on the depth and the breadth of the testimony that we would see how complex that would be.

So, based on what I can see today, we probably get that done in a few days.

Um, and it's possible uh based on what we see, and again, we have to see what's in the written, that would be the thing that holds us back.

Uh, most likely if it's not um in the few days, it would be by the end that by the next cycle.

Okay, thank you so much.

That's my question, and then I will continue on with my comments.

Okay, thank you.

I think I think putting this motion forward after this council meeting concludes, having one full day before we go to full council, as the director said, a full day to a cycle.

I just I don't think that is going to lead to proper due process or an actual investigation.

Um the things that I will also state is what this vote is about, this motion that I'm putting before this body is do we want to take a moment to do due process and investigate the situation that our constituents throughout the city have raised up as a grave concern or not, right?

That's what this is about.

Do we want to take this step that we are afforded that we can do as a council or not?

In the past, we have had several small businesses come before us, nightclubs.

I believe we had uh a northeast business, Mrs.

Desserts that sells desserts overnight.

They were delayed a cycle.

We had a business in my ward, a Cedar Inn, they had to be done it took several cycles for us to go through that.

And none of the things that community members brought into testimony reached the level of a community member sharing that workers felt unsafe and that there were weapons that were unsecured.

We did not hear that in those testimonies, and so I don't think it's fair for us to have a due diligence process for a mom and pop shop, a local business, over multiple cycles, and we can't say we can't even do a single cycle of due process for a multi-million dollar corporation, Hilton and Marriott.

That makes no sense to me.

And also to assert that this council over two council meetings has anything to do with the hits on local business, is illogical.

We know why business isn't doing well in the city of Minneapolis as evidenced by the impact assessment given by our emergency services department.

It's due to this ICE occupation and surge and any hits on reputation that any business may have are due to the decisions that they've made and how consumers have decided to use their dollar.

That's not on this body.

What this body is supposed to do is to hear from our constituents and take steps, and I am asking council members, it's very clear we're not gonna get a proper investigation done within a day.

If it makes council members more comfortable, we can take it up next cycle.

We can ask staff to come back next cycle instead of having it undefined.

Um, I'm at my time, thank you, Councilmember Vita.

Um that's that's my comments.

We'll go to council vice chair.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm gonna invite uh Miss Lingo back up.

Yep, I got it.

Um hi, Miss Lingo.

Can you start by just telling me how long you've worked here at the City of Minneapolis?

Through the chair, yeah, Vice Chair Chowder.

I have worked in the city of Minneapolis for 20 plus years.

20 plus years, that's a long time.

Um, I would imagine you have worked on literally thousands of liquor licenses over the course of your career.

Would that be a fair assessment?

That is correct.

Excellent.

Do we have a process around the licensure of liquor because we enjoy bureaucracy, or do we have it because selling and cons the sale and consumption of liquor is a highly regulated thing in this country?

Uh Vice Chair Charlie, that is correct.

Uh alcohol is one of the most regulated industries in both the city, the state, and in the nation, that is why.

We are like all of our licenses, whether it be liquor license or any other licenses, are licensed due to being public safety mindset.

So we are here to regulate whether it is um alcohol, tobacco, dry cleaning uh taxi, it is because it is for the impact of the community.

Right.

So to summarize what you're saying, um, alcohol is a highly regulated thing because it can have significant public safety impacts, and that's why it's so highly regulated in this city, state, and country.

Is that fair?

That is fair to say, yes.

Excellent.

So in the in the process of deliberation and the process of providing the applicant with due process to properly consider the information that is before the body, before the city, um, is there a negative economic impact right now to the to the bus the two impacted businesses related to their liquor license?

As in, do they have a liquor license right now?

Can they sell liquor right now?

Thank you, Vice Chair Chag Tight.

So they do have a liquor license, they can continue as far as the full scope of the economic impact.

I cannot answer that question.

I can only answer that they do indeed still have a viable liquor license.

Right.

That's excellent.

So because they do have both of these impacted businesses have a current liquor license, they're not losing any revenue as a result of not being able to make liquor sales, in my understanding that correctly.

Any revenue that they have based off of their license is not currently being impacted, as far as the licensure goes.

Excellent.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

Um I think my next deter my next question here is for the attorney.

Can you help me understand what the negative impact is of uh properly considering due process for these two impacted businesses and completing a thorough investigation on these two businesses?

What's what's the negative impact that they're afforded due process?

Thank you, through the chair, uh council member.

Um first of all, I just want to emphasize we're not starting from scratch here, as as you all know.

Uh these licenses went through the renewal process as all the licenses do.

Uh, and now some questions were raised about these two particular licenses and the staff, as Ms.

Lingo has indicated, uh, has looked into those concerns and is prepared to look into those concerns.

Uh where the legal risk comes from, as as uh the council has been advised uh is the potential cloud on the license.

Uh the longer the process takes, the greater the risk there is as these businesses are or as they've explained to us as the businesses are attempting to do business uh uh, you know, future there are future concerns about when the liquor license will be confirmed, what the status will be, uh, and things of that nature.

And so that's where I think the risk is.

But they have the ability to sell liquor right now, right?

Yes, that is accurate.

And and like our occupation is not something that's considered a protected class in this country, is that correct?

Excuse me.

Uh your occupation is not a protected class, right?

Like my occupation is not a protected class for me.

The occupation of someone who works for the federal government is not is not a protected class for them.

Owning a hotel is not a protected class either.

Generally speaking, no, although you do actually think that's an elected official view actually.

I just got two and a half minutes.

I'm just trying to get my questions answered.

So affording someone due process by properly considering all of the different pieces of information that are in front of staff and then in front of the body.

Is there a negative impact of considering due process?

Because these two businesses, as you have said, are currently able to operate and have a current liquor license, affording them due process.

What's the negative impact of that?

One minute 50 seconds.

That's what I have left on the clock.

Like I said, depending on how long the process takes, there is a risk of the impact of the license that they have expressed to us, and we have advised you of uh of that potential risk.

Uh, and again, how would they quantify such a risk, right?

Like what are they gonna sue us?

Like what's what how how do you quantify a risk that there's no there's no negative sales to point to that are attached to the liquor license?

I'm I'm just not getting it.

Respectfully, I I do not want to lay out the legal case for uh the hotels uh in a public forum, so I will just leave it at what we've already advised.

Awesome.

So I'm not hearing, I'm not hearing what the negative impact of affording someone due process is yet from you.

If you if you change your mind on that, please go ahead and contact us and let us know.

Um with that, I'm gonna continue with Q and I'll go to Councilmember Whiting next.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Uh, question for for manager, manager Lingo again.

Uh thank you for it.

Sounds like your 20 years of service in this space.

Uh, if you can kind of just I'm trying to get an understanding of kind of the the liquor license process broadly.

Uh and so when you kind of look at the the beginning when these uh uh organizations uh establishments kind of submit their process, what do they go through from the moment that they submit their license to when it comes up to to our body to approve or deny?

Through the vice chair, council member whiting.

Um, do you mean uh new license or renewal license?

Renewals.

Renewals.

So from a renewal license, it comes up during their time period.

Each license type has a specific time when they are renewed.

They renew at least 30 days, sometimes 60 days in advance.

When we get that renewal, we make sure that they have all of their paperwork in line, proper insurance, proper certification with the state, and then we also review for any incidences or concerns, um, whether their complaints, we are complaint-driven.

Um, so we've have we gotten any complaints, three and ones, nine one ones, and we and we look at that, and as far as the liquor license codes, we make sure we don't have any issues with them following the ordinances of the code, whether it's uh ownership, youth alcohol compliance check failures, um, and what have you.

Thank you.

Um, and in that process thus far, um, with both of the kind of the two that we are considering now.

Have you received uh any 911 complaints, 311 complaints, uh anything that relates directly to these businesses?

Um thank you for that question, Councilmember Whiting.

So we do have the run the report of the 911s and the 311s.

We do not have anything super tangential, um especially when we made the initial approval.

It was your standard, like snow and ice.

Um we did receive more complaints beginning in the month of January, um, but nothing that really pinpointed to being the nexus of the establishments at this point.

So it sounds like you've already done kind of this process is particularly as it relates to kind of the housing and presence of ice uh within at least the last month or so.

We have done the review for based off of the liquor license and the complaints that we have received versus 911s as well, not necessarily the hotel aspect.

That hotel license was already renewed and approved in November.

So we were looking at the liquor license process.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

And so it sounds like right, this isn't just a single day investigation that you have are undertaking, it's been something that you've done for an extended period of time, particularly with your 20 plus years, and I'm sure you could do it in a day, but it's not something you have done in a day thus far.

When we get complaints, um, we can address them basically what they are, and we look, can we do a deeper dive.

We have begun as these conversations started recently, and the first um delay and first postponement, we did begin pulling the reports.

Once we realized that this was the path that was going forward, we started looking deeper in and started gathering in more data.

And in your and it's this is probably an opinion piece, and if it's not a question that's relevant, please throw it away.

Uh, in your professional opinion, your 20 years opinion, um, within the last uh as you've kind of received these complaints, uh, has there been anything that is raised to the level of of denial of uh of a liquor license?

At this time I have not seen anything related to the liquor license.

Okay, thank you.

That cause of concern or denial.

Thank you.

And then uh question uh here for our.

I know I have a minute and a half less, uh, but for our city attorneys, uh, and this again sounds like an opinion piece, and if it doesn't fit, doesn't fit.

Uh is the the presence of ice alone, the housing of ice alone uh at these uh establishments uh by itself a reason to deny uh the a liquor license.

They are liquor licenses, through the chair, council member white in uh no, as as we've advised previously.

There needs to be a connection uh between the licensed activity and and the identified concerns, and so who stays at the hotel is not there's no nexus between the liquor the the license activity, which is the serving of alcohol uh and and the the activity that which we're concerned, okay.

Perfect, so it it's my understanding that we have to have some level of evidence that the stay or the presence of ice is particularly connected to the liquor licenses and the distribution consumption, etc.

of the liquor itself, yes, thank you.

Uh last question, uh, and I'll go quickly here.

Is this something?

So let's say we we do this investigation and the last the next couple of days.

A continued investigation, uh, and we get to the point on on Thursday.

Is this something?

This is probably a clerk question.

Is this something that we could then delay if it's uh not up to the standards of what the body is is looking for?

Yes, correct.

Okay, thank you so much, Councilmember Chavez.

Uh thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

I would just like to clarify some of the comments that were made on the data today.

I did personally vote against the renewal of the TXT wine and spirits LLC, the Merlin's liquor license, which included findings by the community.

Uh, and council members across the political spectrum have in the past voted against the renewal of liquor licenses, and none of us up here said it was political, and none of us up here said that you hated small businesses.

And yes, there are documentations across the country where hotels have given guest lists to ICE and immigration authorities.

I will be supporting the motion to delay and investigate.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Council Vice President Osman.

Oh, uh thank you.

I think that um, I don't want to call the question because I'm not gonna get the nine votes.

Uh, would love to, you know, end this discussion to just vote on it.

I think that uh what I wanted to hear from the staff.

I heard uh they can they can finish it uh one day, they can finish it in two days in two weeks.

Um can go both ways.

So I do have one more question.

Uh uh Councilmember uh Chowder suggested that instead of uh returning to the staff if you call them the question, you'll ask them a question.

Asking the question, okay.

You're gonna support them, Michael.

Go ahead, Councilmember Osman.

All right, um, so uh Councilmember Chowdhury mentioned that uh she is open to delay in one cycle.

Uh uh clerk, if you can kind of define what is sending the staff this items back to this stuff, and coming back in two weeks.

May I clarify, Councilmember Osman?

It's to refer to staff to bring back in one cycle, okay.

So it put an end date on their investigation to come back to the next committee of the whole.

Okay, wonderful.

That's it for me.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rainbow.

Thank you.

So the truth is there has been loss of business at these hotels.

People have canceled because of the threat of losing their license.

So that has happened.

Reduction of hours has happened as well as layoffs or planned.

So that's that's just the truth.

And I would have a question again for the city attorney.

If uh would the city be found liable if we're interfering if the loss of for the loss of business from these hotels, as well as individual council members for denying this license.

City attorney.

Through the chair, uh councilmember Rainville.

Um that's something I think it depends very much on the specifics.

Uh, and and so I think I'll defer to what we've advised uh through attorney client privilege, uh, our previous guidance, and then we can certainly discuss uh other concerns uh that are specific related to uh those legal risks outside of a public forum.

Thank you, Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Um so I I guess I'm a little confused about what you're proposing, Chair.

We've delayed this a cycle, we delayed this a cycle with the intent on getting information back regarding the license.

So are you saying now you want to potentially delay it to whenever?

Because you you stated you don't think the investigation can be done in one cycle, um, that it might take several cycles.

So now are you proposing an additional uh delay to whenever staff can come forward and tell us um when they can have this investigation done?

I just want to make sure I'm answering your question.

Do you have you have a question about like what is the intent of my motion?

Is there a question about not the intent?

I understand what um I mean I understand that we're doing what Trump did to Jimmy Kimmel here.

I don't need clarification on that.

We don't like what they've done, so we're gonna do the exact same thing.

I get that piece.

Um, but I guess I'm trying to understand the timeline.

I mean, the president did it swiftly, and then you know, people stepped in and fixed it.

But I'm trying to understand what we're doing here.

What is the delay?

What is the potential timeline for this delay?

My motion is a refer to staff for this investigation that is routine that we've done for lesser safety concerns in the past for one cycle.

Okay.

I mean, you said something different, and I I think council member warren brought up a great point.

And that is my time.

Thank you.

Um, that council member warren brought up a great point.

I literally voted against the TXT license because people from North Minneapolis came here and said my family member was murdered there.

Like I literally heard people tell me people were murdered.

I watched someone be shot and like brutalized an entire community came together to say how terrifying and horrible it was for this corridor in North Minneapolis to be functioning, and this body, yes, some people voted against the liquor license, but this body used the very excuse that we're hearing right now today.

The legal opinion was we don't have a right to deny them the license.

This body did that.

There were some of us who said if you're gonna ever stand up for the community, this is the time when you do it.

And I thank you for that, Councilmember Chavez.

Some of us believed that if we were gonna be creative and fighting that Merwin liquor was who we should be fighting for, that people came here and said my child was murdered.

Every time I drive past there, I stop in my tracks and just cry.

Like I can't go, I never drive by that part of North Minneapolis, or um, police officers talked about horrific scenes they went to over there.

And I pleaded with some council members on this is the right thing.

This is who we this is when and how we fight a liquor license.

And so to have us sit here and like talk about some what ifs, like there are actually verified murders and crimes that happen at this place, and a lot of you were not willing to fight for that.

These people show up in numbers like I've never seen before from North Minneapolis to say, pull this license.

And the excuse was used over and over and over again.

Now our lawyers don't matter.

Yeah, he's a different person than who was sitting here before, but it was a legal opinion that we use to dangle over North Minneapolis's head and say, we can't help you, Northside.

You can't change this.

We have a legal opinion that there's no reason for, and we knew ahead of, like we had been working with staff beforehand.

We had the attorney general was involved in this liquor store.

This wasn't some, I think I stayed there or maybe I whatever.

Again, like I said, this feels like exactly what the president did to Jimmy Kimmel to me.

I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it, so I'm gonna use whatever power I have to get rid of it.

It does not feel legit.

If it was legit, I would love to explore legitimate reasons for these things.

This came up after the fact.

This renewal was gonna happen like it did last year, and then this came up.

Yes, I've received emails, and I said this the last time.

Yes, I received emails from people.

It's my job as a council member to then reply back to those people or call those people, however, we communicate and say, there is no legal basis for this, or whatever reasoning you have.

I don't get it.

I don't know why we would prolong this any more than Thursday.

And I get that people are saying, you know, we're living in some tough times where businesses are hit, but we're having a very public conversation about two businesses.

If you don't understand that that gets businesses hit in a very different way than those same those businesses, there were licenses that got renewed this last cycle that was not affected by this conversation.

What we say up here on this dais, what we say in the media, what we say on our social media pages definitely affects businesses.

And we've been having conversations about this for about a month now as individuals and as a body, and so I believe that you know the words we say up here, the things we do, the action we take can impact businesses.

I care about the folks who work here.

I care about the people who have made um a point to reach out and say that they had these experiences, but dragging this conversation off for I don't know how long is not gonna help that.

It's not gonna make it any better than uh what we've been going through for the last couple of weeks.

Actually, this has been going on for a month.

I think I've been receiving emails about this for a month now.

So this has been going on for a month.

I can't support us dragging this on.

I mean, this is a tough decision, clearly for some of us, but I think now is the time to make that decision.

Councilmember Stevenson.

Um I appreciate uh all the the discussion we've had and the the debate that we've had, and I agree uh with my colleague that now is the time, and I'd like to call the question.

There's a motion to call the question.

Can the clerk call the roll?

Second, second, second.

Councilmember Payne.

If Monsley, aye, Greenville, Etah, no Warren, no, Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer, no.

Stevenson, aye, Chavez.

Aye.

Waiting.

Palmasano, no.

Vice Chair Chugtai, aye.

And Chair Chowdhury.

Abstain.

There are eight ayes and four nays and one abstention.

That does not carry.

We'll go to Councilmember Chugtai.

Thank you.

First, I'd like to note that this is not the first.

I know for in our previous committee of the whole, there was a council member, Councilmember Vita who brought up that she was the person that kept getting the question called before her.

I've now been the victim of this as well.

Just putting it out there.

Um, I just want to speak to a couple of things that have been brought up during discussion.

And the first is the example of Merwin's liquor and and the liquor license.

And I I remember that came up uh, and it was a months long process just around the liquor licensure itself, right?

And from the time it first came before uh biz agenda item for approval to the time that the liquor license was ultimately approved.

Months passed between that time.

And the purpose of that was bringing in the attorney general and the county attorney and the Minneapolis City Attorney's Office to together work on addressing this problem that the community members had lifted up and we did have.

We had dozens of people come to um come to our chambers to testify.

Just like right now, we're getting dozens of emails, hundreds of emails.

We were getting that that type of inquiry um and level of interest from residents of our city at that time.

Um and the reason that liquor license was ultimately approved by this body, and some voted against it, and and some didn't.

I don't recall it right off the top of my head, but the reason we were ultimately able to approve that liquor license was because there were conditions put on that liquor license to address the very problems, which is exactly what we're trying to work with CPED on identifying if this is one of those cases where it meets a certain threshold where we can put certain types of conditions on these two liquor licenses to make it possible to approve them.

It's a part of the due process.

It takes time sometimes, and right now we're asking for another cycle worth of time.

The next piece I want to talk about is actually, Madam Chair, I'm wondering if uh if council member Rainville would answer a couple of questions.

I know he both of these liquor licenses reside in the third ward, and there have been a couple things he's brought up in discussion that I'm hoping to seek some further clarity on.

Councilmember Rainville, are you open to answering some questions?

I'd be delighted.

Wonderful.

Excellent.

So I've heard you say now twice, both in this committee of the whole and the previous one, that the cancellations that these uh hotels are experiencing are a direct result of the council considering these liquor licenses.

How do you happen to know that information?

Because as a very good council member, I go over to these hotels and engage them.

I went over there when they were damaged uh during the the protesters, the physical damage, and all their employees were were scared to death.

And I also uh talked to them because they're concerned about the cancellations.

Excellent.

Well, uh, from the threat of losing their liquor license.

I was hoping you would say this exact thing now.

Um, in the conversations you've had about the cancellations, I'm assuming you're talking to hotel ownership, right?

Or hotel leadership.

Yes.

Okay, and you have not talked to any of the individuals that have physically canceled their their cancel their um reservation at the hotel.

Do you know if the hotel itself is asking uh customers who are canceling what the purpose of that cancellation may be?

Yes, it's because of the threat of the liquor license.

No, are they are is the hotel asking people who are calling to cancel their their reservation?

Why are you canceling the people who call tell the hotel why they're canceling?

So this is just based on some anecdotes, not like a uh the uh survey of every single person that's canceled their reservation.

No, it's not based on anecdotes, you know.

And in fact, uh, I'm probably not the right person to ask.

Would you like the hotel ownership?

I would be so thrilled to discuss this with the hotel ownership.

I'll pass that on.

Excellent.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, madam chair.

Councilmember Warren.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, I'm I'm just really um frustrated with this process here because I um thought at our last committee of the whole, we were gonna take this time, hear from public comment, make a decision, move forward.

Now we're pushing towards all of these investigations or what have you, and people are just throwing confetti up in the air to see what sticks to a static balloon.

This is ridiculous.

We do not have any reason to discriminate against these businesses.

They have we've heard everything, all of this is hearsaying speculation or what have you.

I get angry when I see, you know, um, you know, racist or prejudice or disrespectful behavior from people, and people are who they are.

I can't just not do something because it this is this is just ridiculous.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

It's a wasted conversation now.

Now we've done all of the due diligence, we've held on to it, we've got thousands, each one of us on this dais have thousands of emails from people with the same message over and over and over again.

And again, um the comment was made about you know, law enforcement knowing who was staying in hotels, law enforcement can subpoena for information on hotel registry and what have you.

The only people who know who stand up in the hotels are the individuals who work there.

And they are not even supposed to share that information with the general public about who's in their hotel for the safety of the individuals who are in there.

So how that information got leaked out is beyond me.

That's another safety concern for the individuals there.

I mean, you bring in things onto yourselves that are completely unnecessary.

We cannot discriminate, we cannot treat people regardless to whatever like this and cause our businesses to suffer.

These are major event venues in our city that bring a lot of revenue for galas and all kinds of other things.

Like we are really shooting ourselves in the foot here with this whole, you know, fiasco of things.

It's just really not making a lot of sense to me.

And I'm I'm just very disappointed.

All right.

I don't think there's anyone else in for discussion.

So the motion before us is a refer to staff until the next committee of the whole.

Chair Chowdery, can we clarify that motion quickly?

Yeah, is it a refer to staff or is it continuing one cycle?

It's a refer to staff.

Staff said that they can come back.

We're asking staff to come back to the next committee of the whole.

The next committee of the whole is March 24th.

Third.

Madam Chair, the next committee of the whole, the next one-week cycle is March 3rd and 5th.

And so this would be a matter that you're referring to staff requesting that they report back to the committee of the whole meeting on March 3rd.

Yes, my apologies.

I'm already in the month of March, obviously.

So this is referring to staff to the next committee of the whole on March 3rd, 2026.

Any other clarifications needed?

Okay, great.

I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainfill?

No.

Vita?

No.

Warren?

No.

Osman?

No.

Schaefer.

No.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whiting?

No.

Palmasano.

No.

Vice Chair Chuktai?

Aye.

And Chair Chowberry.

Yes.

There are six ayes and seven nays.

Okay.

That motion fails.

We'll go to Councilmember Osman.

Uh, thank you.

I would like to make the motion to uh without recommendation uh on Thursday uh to move it forward on Thursday without recommendation and just have to come back with any findings.

Thank you.

I can second that.

The clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye.

Wandsley.

Aye.

Greenville.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Warren.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

No.

Whiting.

Aye.

Paul Masano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chick Ty.

Aye.

And Chair Chowdery.

No.

There are 11 ayes and two nays.

That motion carries.

Uh we have concluded and dispensed that item.

I am now going to recess us for lunch for one hour.

I will have us back here at 123 p.m.

Chair.

Actually, 124 p.m.

If I may.

Oh, Councilmember Chavez.

Thanks, Chair Chowdhury.

I before we break, I just had a few comments to make.

On what item?

I just there's members that are not going to be able to come back because we're taking a lunch break, and I want to make sure that I acknowledge them.

Okay.

Go ahead, Councilmember.

If we're gonna take this break without objection, Chair, I just wanted to make sure that I let all the public know that Mercabo Central, Leak Street Council, NDC were in the room today.

They're here for items that are gonna be voted on after that we come back from break.

And I want to make sure that if they're not able to be here, that we at least acknowledge them because we're going on break.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember.

Um, Tech team, one minute, yes.

Thank you.

The time is now one twenty-eight.

The council has reconvened following its lunch break.

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

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Wandsley.

Rainville.

Vita.

Present.

Warren.

Present.

Osman.

Is absent.

Is present.

Schaefer.

Present.

Stevenson.

Present.

Chavez.

Present.

Waiting.

Present.

Palmasano.

Present.

Vice Chair Chigtai.

Is absent.

In church.

Present.

There are twelve members present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

Colleagues, we have items fifty-eight through sixty-seven remaining on our discussion agenda today.

We will begin with item fifty-eight, which is a proposal to suspend the city's procurement related policies to expedite a response to Operation Metro Surge.

This request was submitted by the city's emergency operations center through Director Sayer.

I'll recognize her and ask Director Sayer to give a brief presentation on this request for us.

Good afternoon, Chair Chowdery.

My name is Rachel Sayer.

I am the director of the emergency management department.

In my more than 15 years of experience in emergency and humanitarian response, there is frequently a need for emergency procurement authority, even near the end of an emergency.

We began pursuing this authority about one month ago.

The use of this would be a worst-case scenario, and we would use all existing authorities before this one.

Urgent needs remain for the next two months before we can move into recovery.

But again, one I very much hope is the situation here is that it will not be needed at all.

And in that case, if it is needed, of course, we had come back and that's why I'm here.

However, I recommend being safe rather than sorry, because it will be too late if this authority is needed and we don't have it.

Cost will necessarily be much higher and damage greater if we are unable to move at the speed of the emergency and take immediate action.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Director Sayer.

Next, we'll open up for discussion.

I will recognize Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chowdery.

Director Sayer.

Is this applying to?

Yep.

So when we are in a response situation and have activated the NIMS components, the National Incident Management System Components, like we currently have, the way things work is incident command is the initiator of many requests.

So in this point, it could have been MPD or it could have been NCR, for example.

They say this is a situation, and in order to meet the urgent need, here's the broad outlines of the thing we need.

We in the emergency operations center receive that request, and we work through how to meet that need urgently.

So it is my department that procures at the request at the need on the ground from the entity that is in charge of the situation on the ground.

No, I get that.

Thank you, Director Sayre.

I'm saying which specific departments are in need of this at this moment.

So this is a request from my department.

So just the Office of Emergency Management.

Emergency Management.

And what are you experiencing challenges with that warrants an expedited or waiver process from our traditional procurement processes?

Yes, thank you, Chair Chowdery, Councilmember.

So as I noted, we have been fortunate in that nothing has come specifically to pass so far.

This is a fail-safe request.

And you know, in my profession, we really focus heavily on preparedness.

As I said, there's a few more months to go here.

So this is a preparedness measure.

No additional questions for you, Director Sayer.

Thank you.

Just a brief comment on this.

I am a bit confused as to why this is actually needed.

Mayor Fry has not declared a state of emergency.

And I think typically we've seen in the past measures like this where you're talking about suspending rules to be able to move, you know, contracts outside of a traditional procurement process or even outside the scope of oversight authority of council.

It's usually tied to a state of emergency being declared.

I think a number of us would have been interested in seeing that happen at the beginning of the operation occupation, but nevertheless, we're not there.

Um the RCA also, and even in the comments that you just shared, it still is around this hypothetical if when, um, as opposed to if there were urgent requests right now from specific departments.

So that gives me concerns and moment to pause to say I'm still not understanding why things could not move through our traditional processes because the resolution would have this start relatively what starting April 1st of 2026.

So it at least that's the date that I'm seeing here in the resolution.

So that's that's a little bit confusing for me.

So that said, I just don't, this feels like a unnecessary maneuver at this current moment, um, especially when it means us conceding the oversight that we have over these procurement, you know, contracts, and we have lots of debate and conversations around them as is without an occupation being in place.

So for those reasons, I'm gonna be a no on this, and just you know, would like if this is something that's brought forward in the future again for more specificity around which departments are in most need actually quantifying what are those services and goods that they're experiencing challenges with, like even to say proactively, what is the baseline of a department that did request something and they didn't get it in time to respond to our emergency through our current procurement channels.

That was not even provided as an example.

So, uh, for that, I can't support this measure today, but thank you for answering the questions.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to council member Stevenson.

Yeah, thank you.

I just have a couple of questions.

Um, can you and please educate me on this?

Can you tell me a little bit about our role in financial oversight um when it comes to the suspension of procurement?

I might want to get uh someone from our finance department up here.

Welcome, thank you.

Chair Sheldry, Councilmember Stevenson.

Um, so the question is like what is the role of finance?

Introduce yourself.

What was that?

Would you introduce yourself with the record?

I'm sorry.

I'm the director of procurement for the city, Pam Fernandez.

Thank you.

Um, so if the question is like, you know, uh what is the role of finance in the procurement?

Is that I guess I was wondering what's the role, if if we suspend procurement, yes.

Uh it like if we grant this, what is going to be the council's role in financial oversight?

So the council will not have a role if the contract goes over 175,000.

Um, you will get a report on April 30th as it says in the resolution.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is there an upper limit to like if we're suspending the uh the limit of 150,000?

Is there a new upper limit like a million, two million something, or is it unlimited?

There is no limit in the resolution at this time.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, okay.

And then one other question.

When it comes to these contracts, uh, suspending procurement means what well, let me know.

It means there's like no rules, just whatever contract is needed in order to meet the need at the time.

Okay, Chair Chowdhury, um, Councilmember Stevenson.

It means that the all city ordinances related to procurement will be set aside.

I mean, like it won't be followed, but we will follow any federal or state requirements for purchases.

Okay.

Are there any federal or state requirements around labor law that would come into effect here?

Um, there will be like prevailing wage, you know, which is also ours.

Um, those kind of things will we haven't looked at that one yet, because if it goes over a hundred thousand, but then we need to make sure there's affirmative action plan.

Uh there is prevailing wage on certain contracts.

Those things will be working with civil rights if it comes up, you know, for the EOC use, which we never had any in the past.

So, okay, thank you.

Um, just a quick comment.

I I'm not sure how to vote on this.

I feel a little queasy about giving a blank check, but I understand that you know it's an emergency and it might be needed.

That's my thoughts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to council member whiting.

Thank you, Chair Chowder.

I think I have a question for Director Sayre if you have a second.

Thank you.

Um, just kind of a you mentioned kind of in your presentation that there are uh like things that we've come close on, uh kind of using something or needing to use uh this process.

Are you able to kind of give us any insight to what those things might be?

I think it's just helpful for all of us to be like, okay, what are these things in these emergent situations that could possibly come up or that we have looked at doing?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Chowdery, Councilmember.

So I would say the the days that we all witnessed of the most um severe and difficult days of this crisis so far, um, in which there was significant uncertainty and unfolding situations across wide swaths of our city.

Um, if those situations had continued to build, it could have put us in a situation in which we needed um emergency services that we did not already have a contract for.

I I understand the difficulty in this is the lack of specific examples, and I will say that is the part of emergency management and response that is the hardest to explain because we cannot plan for every single situation because every complex crisis looks different.

So until we get to that moment, it's really exceptionally difficult to say this is what it looks like because it's never exactly what we imagine or plan for.

And is it minor?

Sorry, I'm kind of just confused a little bit about this process.

I think it to I think council member Stevenson's point of like confused about the not necessarily the need, but the particulars for right it sounds like it won't be like a need for emergency services that are that we're already contracted with, like uh, right.

I know we don't contract with MPD, but fire MPD, those are things that we would not have to use these procurement services for, but things outside of our traditional law enforcement, um, emergency service response.

Is that correct?

So it would be something outside of police, fire, public works, other things along those lines.

Yep, Chair Chattery, Councilmember.

So, like I said, this is an absolute last resort.

It means we've gone through everything else before we get to it.

So, of course, city departments number one.

It means that we've gone through what current contracts and grants we have that we could just top up if we need to.

It means we've gone through mutual aid and we've exhausted mutual aid.

Mutual aid is when we say, hey, Hennepin County, we need X number of fences, for example.

Um, and they provide that.

Or they say, hey, actually, we don't have that, you're gonna have to go somewhere else.

Then we'll go to the state, and the state says no too.

That's how exhaustive getting to this point is, and again, it's a fail-safe.

That's extremely helpful.

Thank you.

Council President Payton.

Thank you, Chair Chowdry.

Uh, I'm hearing the need here is like nimbleness essentially.

Uh, and I'm wondering if um, you know, to Councilmember Wansley's point, if something really is so severe and so emergent.

I mean, I think that the mayor's ability to declare an emergency does also unlock some streamlining of various procurement processes.

So, in that instance, that's a remedy.

But I think another remedy that's not being discussed here is our ability as a body to be nimble.

So, you know, we've shifted our council calendar in response to this occupation.

Uh, this is our first day back in the chamber since uh the you know announcement by Holman that they're ending the operation.

I have not had any further conversations with the clerk about whether or not like work we've already made a decision about when we're gonna get back to our normal calendar, and we made that based on our best guess of when it might be feasible to do that.

Um, but we still have the ability to meet pretty much um within a week would be the like longest timeline for meeting, and I'm sure uh Chair Chowdry would agree with this.

We have the ability to um adjourn this meeting to tomorrow.

We could adjourn the council meeting on this Thursday to next week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

We would just need to have one of these on weeks to be able to adjourn a meeting to a following week.

And I feel like between our ability to adjourn to a next cycle so that we could actually, hey, there is an actual thing that we need to be responsive to right now that the procurement process is not gonna allow us to get through it.

I think that this body could be responsive to that.

And if we didn't have, you know, this week's cycle to be able to adjourn to the day that we think we'll need it.

I think it would be such an urgent thing that the mayor could declare our state of emergency.

We would have to ratify that after the fact.

But um, I I feel like we do have mechanisms, and I don't know, Mr.

Clerk.

Am I getting this correct as far as like our ability to adjourn versus the ability for the mayor or not even to declare an emergency to call a special meeting?

So even outside of this body's authority, the mayor could call a special meeting, we could take up whatever contracts or whatever set asides we want to do as far as waivers of procurement process.

I feel like we have governance processes that would allow us the nimbleness that's being sought after here, don't we?

Through the chair, uh council president, you're correct.

The mayor has the ability to call special meetings of the city council at any time, provided there's adequate notice.

Usually that's three days in advance.

So three-day notice, and the council could be convened and it could focus on any number of issues that the mayor wished the council to take up and consider this body also, as you pointed out, has the ability to make adjustments to its calendar too.

So I I think that solving the problem of the uh nimbleness is something that we can do without necessarily doing such a big a set aside of some of our controls, especially in light of commentary about controls within government procurement being pretty top of mind for a bunch of folks.

So that's just something I'm considering right now.

Thank you.

We'll go to Councilmember Rainville.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh Director Sales, could you excuse me?

I don't mean to impose upon you, but could you be a little more specific as to if we do not approve this?

What would the downside be if we don't suspend this uh rule for your request?

Yeah.

Uh Chair Chowdery, Councilmember Rainville.

Um when we're in a situation again, this is a catastrophic fail-safe, every minute is going to matter.

If we are not able to immediately procure the thing that is needed for the emergent situation that requires it, we are putting our whole response behind however long it takes then to complete the action.

So for example, if there was a need for um large scale, uh something like uh de-escalation services that are outside of the current contracts, um, to send folks into different parts of the city.

Um, and that's something we don't have right away, and the situation continues to escalate.

We're putting ourselves back, however long that situation runs and the severity of the situation runs.

So this is another one that is really difficult to say specifically how bad could it get because it depends on what's happening and what the situation is.

The idea in emergency management is as soon as you prepare.

That's the number one thing you do.

You prepare, you prepare.

You prepare for the worst case catastrophic scenario, because then if it happens, you can respond right away and catch it before it goes all the way to that actual worst case scenario.

So that's what we're trying to do here, is be prepared for that worst case scenario.

Okay, thank you.

Uh you've answered.

I'm gonna vote for this.

I do think we need to give our professional staff the tools to respond immediately.

And I would hate to have to wait three days or longer in order to give you the resources you need to solve a problem.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Next we'll recognize council member Schaefer.

Yes, I had a question for the city attorney around the language in this.

Um, we as council members are bringing forward many um potential actions that are related to you know um the emergency that we're in.

I'm assuming the this would not apply to those more recent council language.

Like does this language could that apply to those scenarios as well?

We'll see if there is a staff member that could.

I was asking the city attorney if this language would apply to council actions avoiding procurement process in this emergency, many of the emergency resolutions that we're considering.

Okay, attorney O'Reilly.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh Councilmember, no, this this would apply to the administration uh procurement process, right?

Not not um expenditures set by uh the city council.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that.

Council Vice President Osman.

Okay, thank you.

I think I think we have learned um a lot from 2020.

How we were not prepared.

And um anything that gives us tools to uh to be prepared and not make the same mistakes we have we have made, uh, especially this department.

It has been um you know, um gave the we gave them the tools, we had a new doctor, we have a different vision, uh, and I think it makes sense for us to approve this.

Uh, but uh is that an expiration date on this?

Yes.

Uh Chair Chowder, Councilmember Osman, April 30th is the date.

Yes.

Well, my point is that every authority is around the corner.

It's not a, it's not a big deal, but we don't really know what our president can do.

We have seen him uh threat us to that he's gonna uh send the military here.

Uh and we are in uh in a in a place that we have no idea what's going on.

So uh trust your judgment, doctor.

I appreciate your work for last few uh few weeks, month and a half.

Uh, I know you had a lot, you and your team uh had a lot in your in your hand, and we could have you know, things could have got could have gone wrong, but uh I I will support this motion.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize council member Palmasano.

Um to me, I hear Director Sayer isn't referring to procuring routine matters or to execute contracts for normal supplies.

Um she's attempting to streamline procurement uh for essential services and supplies that relate to the safety and preservation of life and property.

And I just sorry, I I do want you to maybe share a little bit about that.

Can you confirm that?

Is this about the worst cases that involve life and property of our city?

Um, because in your previous hypothetical example, it sounds like you are still going to be stepping through the ideas in your fence example: do we have it?

Does a partner have it?

Does another partner have it?

Okay, here we are, and the end result could be that we go out and buy it in this moment.

Is I right in assuming that this is that catastrophic solution only?

Chair Chowdery, uh, Councilmember Palmasano, that is correct.

It is the absolute catastrophic situation after we've gone through all of those other steps.

I see.

And um, and this was, you know, you were getting this into the queue before we got the news about uh a likely drawdown of ice agents in our vicinity and other kinds of things.

Um thank you.

Thank you, council member vice chair Chug Tai.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um I think I want to start by thanking staff for bringing this um item forward and um doing everything in your power to respond to this emergency crisis that that not only you but but in reality, the real people that live in this real city um are experiencing day after day.

I am strongly in opposition to this item, and I want to talk a little bit about why.

In 2020, um, our city experienced uh a catastrophic emergency that affected every resident that lived in the city, and not every single one of us was here during that time.

I wasn't here.

I experienced um that emergency as a resident of the city, not as a policymaker or decision maker.

That is true for nearly every single person sitting on this dais, maybe with the exception of Councilmember Palmisano.

Um the rest of us have come after.

I was here though when the city settled several lawsuits related to misuses around procurement that came as a result of that lack of oversight.

The city council is one of the last places where that oversight happens.

And so when I'm asked, as I as a member of this council as a member of this body to consider something like this, knowing that we have settled pretty significant lawsuits from the misuse of it, right?

Uh I am inclined to say, no, absolutely not.

We don't want to give up any last authority we have, because in the end, we're gonna be saddled with the impacts.

It's not gonna be any individual sitting in these chambers that's gonna have to deal with the impacts, it's the institution, and we are one of the leaders of the institution.

This body is a co-equal leader of this institution in settling such lawsuits.

I think that there are of the examples that have been provided to me because I've asked about this several times in the examples that have been brought up here.

I don't see a single reason as to why we must approve this when there are so many tools that have been made available to this administration, whether it is sole source contracting or the deep desire from this body to say we'll we'll adjourn our meeting to the following day to meet your requirements of getting a contract in place.

Um I don't see a reason for us to approve and and waive every single um check that exists in place to make sure we're in compliance with law, right?

At the end of the day, a lot of the same actors um are within the administration and and I want to make sure that I am doing everything in my power to make sure we are not liable for misuses of such power being given away.

And I would urge my colleagues to not support this action for for such a reason.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll recognize council member Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Chuck Tai for uh raising some of the concerns that we had to deal with as a council um as a result of the misuse of prior uh waivers tied to procurement policies and the litigation that came forward as a uh consequence of that.

Um, but I also just wanted to have a question uh around the resolution itself.

You name the pretext for this as needing to respond to you know urgent demands right now.

And again, it sounds like potentially undefined requests coming from various departments that may be in need of more expedited services in the current moment, as we don't know when is the definitive end of the occupation, but I don't understand if it was so urgently needed.

Can you express why did you set a date of April 1st for this to be in effect and then to expire on April 30th?

And it's February 17th.

Uh Councilmember Wandsley, the April 1st date, that's actually a mistake, uh, because it should have been May 1st.

So it is a date for reporting back to you, and it should be May 1st instead of April 1st.

Sorry about that.

So we wouldn't get a report.

So this was essentially noting the typo will go into effect if this was approved immediately, and then it wouldn't expire until April 30th, and then council would not get a report back until May 1st.

Um, if you would like to reach her, uh Councilmember Wansley.

If you would like to get a report like a mid in a midterm report, we can do that.

Well, I'm not supporting the measure, and I just wanted clarification on which good to know because there was a typo in this, of when council will even get uh a full accounting or basically what this cover immediate kind of needs right now that still remains to be undefined, even a scope of services, like naming does MPD need equipment X.

Does CPED need why that still has not come forward?

So, and why that would be of concern from today's date all the way through April 30th, which this is sensibly would be the expiration date.

Correct.

I would ask Directors higher too.

Oh, thank you.

Welcome back.

Chattery, Councilmember Wansley.

So the April 30th date was chosen as the most reasonable assumption date, given we don't know when Operation Metro Surge will end.

Um I think we're all waiting to see.

Um, beyond the date that it ends, as I've briefed council in separate uh meetings.

I expect urgent needs to remain at least two months after that, given the long tail of this kind of complex emergency.

So that is why we selected as a best date April 30th.

Once again, just clearly, there's not even a quantity of requests that you can share right now for certain departments that would be applicable during this deadline or this time period.

Currently, there is not a specific pending request because we are not at a catastrophic moment in which a specific thing is needed that we have exhausted all other avenues for procurement for.

And is this something that can't be taken up in?

I already know we're anticipating having to redo some budget amendments that's going to be impacted already by constraints of our general cash fund and things of that nature, which also will tie to even this.

Is that something that can't be done in a mid-year, which we were going to do like a council review, which I think happens relatively soon, a couple weeks around the budget.

Chair Chattery, Council Member Wandsley.

Um I would have to defer to my colleagues on the budget cycle question.

My again, I for my department, this is an operational need to be able to in the most catastrophic situation in which there is no other option.

We have exhausted all options for specific need that does not already fit into existing city contracts or mechanisms that we need in order to resolve an immediate life-threatening situation.

That is the ask for this.

In very raw terms, and it seems like you have budget director here.

Councilmember Wansley, your time has expired.

Nothing for you.

Never mind.

Uh, thank you, Chair Chattery.

I just have a quick question for staff.

If there let's just say there was an emergency that occurred, and staff decided to allocate 10 million dollars to hire city workers to stop observers from observing illegal actions committed by ICE is an example.

Where would the money come from?

Who would pay for it?

It's an allocated budget for this.

One, I'm asking that because my concern with this is that we would be targeting observers that are observing the illegal actions by ICE, which is not something I would want to unintentionally do by supporting this.

And my question is where is the money gonna come from if you were to then have this power that we were stripped from ourselves as a council to then give staff the power to allocate a specific contract for a specific issue?

Where would that money come from?

Chair Chowdery.

Councilmember Chavez, I think there's a distinction we need to draw between budget authority and the procurement rules.

So this action would not increase anyone's budget or ability to spend.

Yes, but let's just say that you get this authority, right?

And you contract with the organization for a specific issue through this authority.

Where would the money come from?

Um I'm Jane DeSanza.

I'm the deputy CFO and I'm serving as the budget director.

Um the city is still bound by the annual budget process, and so again, I I think there's not a situation where anyone on city staff would recommend a ten million dollar expenditure.

That's not planned for in the budget.

I guess I'll ask my question again, Chair.

These I assume would be unexpected expenses should an emergency occur.

If there was an unexpected expense in emergency, where would the money come from?

Would it be targeting council members' budget proposals that we pass this past cycle?

I guess that's my question.

My fear is that council members' budget amendments would be on the chopping block should this get approved without us having a say.

Through the chair, council member.

Um, I think what Director Sarah is asking for here is not again uh authority to exceed the budget.

It's authority to to move through procurement processes slightly quicker in the event that that happens.

I think whenever we exceed a budgetary appropriations, that's what our fund balance is for.

That's why we have the contingency account that that you all get to vote on when such um incidences occur.

Would this proposal allow staff to pick and choose specific funding that was approved in this last budget cycle and say now we have the authority to cut a program without talking to the city council to allocate it for a specific purpose?

Through the chair, no.

Can you give me an example of how this would work?

So let's just say there was an action that became an emergency in the city of Minneapolis, staff sees a reason to expedite the procurement process by past city council.

What would be the next step for staff?

And let's just say it cost half a million dollars to a million dollars to contract with whoever.

Through the chair, I think it's you know often the case that the city has to find ways to pay for things that weren't strictly speaking budgeted for, right?

Um, I know you know my department is paying for a fee study that we didn't plan for, right?

Um, and so whenever those things happen, um, you know, city staff as professionals have to figure out how we accommodate those expenses within existing budgets.

And so it could be, you know, given that the EOC, the emergency operations center, is um pretty much every single city department participates in it.

It could be that many departments pull together resources from vacancy savings or what have you to make it work, but that is always the the goal is that we figure out how to do things in a budget neutral way so that we're not dipping into reserves or exceeding our budgets.

And does staff have a list of some of the in preparation if something would happen as an emergency, does staff have a list of departments, budgetary impacts?

Who would we be cutting or redirecting funding towards?

Like, is there a plan in case that is happening?

What programs might be impacted?

Through the chair, there's no such list.

Is the administration planning to create such a list so we would know who would be impacted should this authority be given away?

Through the chair, I am not aware of any plans for such a list.

Uh if the clerk, if you can try to ask the administration to provide us more details ahead of the vote on Thursday, that would be super helpful.

I think for us, we want to be transparent about what this action means.

Should we give away our authority, what would be the impact in our community?

So I just want to make sure that we have everything ahead of a final vote on Thursday.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have myself in queue next.

Um, I just have some questions to just better understand um the the current situation and then how we're planning on moving forward.

I think I just share in a little bit of like the confusion around like the nebulousness of this ask, and I know it's contingent on like this catastrophic incident occurring.

So my first question is um could you walk me through the current barriers in the procurement process that you're trying to overcome should there be a catastrophic incident?

Thank you, Chair Chattery.

Um, so I am not a procurement um uh specialist, so I might need to turn over to my colleague at some moment.

So as I said, um, if there is a need identified in a moment, what we do is we first go to all mechanisms available.

We look through with the EOC finance director, what current contracts exist in the city?

Is there already budget that can be put towards that that's already been slated?

Is there um if if there's no contract in the city and it is um for some reason, then at a certain level of spending, we're going to mutual aid, Hennepin county.

Are you able to meet this need?

Um state, are you able to meet this need?

So if we have exhausted all of those options and it is over a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, right?

Because under 175,000, we have all of the abilities to procure um services as have been discussed.

And again, I will defer to my colleagues for more information on that.

But this is an over 175,000 catastrophic request after which everything that already exists has been exhausted.

Okay.

Maybe I have a question that is more in your specialty emergency services.

So you're keep on naming this catastrophic event as the trigger for needing the spending.

Do you have a policy, internal policy or definition for what this exactly is that would trigger this type of spending?

Yeah, um, Chair Chowder, and I again I recognize how difficult this is.

Is I cannot predict exactly what every emergency is going to look like.

So I cannot predict what the intervention required will be.

That is the challenge.

I understand.

I think what I'm looking for, just so there are some internal controls on when you switch off spending or not, is like what what governs what a catastrophic incident is, because without that definition, it could be anything.

And without us knowing, okay, like this is this is the thing that leads to the fail safe that's going to lead to 175,000 to 2 million to whatever type of spending.

It's kind of difficult to say, okay, I feel good knowing that we're going to take these steps away.

So an internal definition of even, I know we've done emergency planning years ago as a council where emergencies were defined as like a disaster, uh civil civil unrest, disease, all of these different things.

So I'm kind of just looking for what your control is to make that decision.

Yeah, thank you, council member uh Chair Chowdery.

It is life safety related or property.

There are three standard priorities in emergency response.

One is life safety, one is prior uh property, because property is what people need in order to habitate, and third is environmental.

Environmental in this case would be unlikely, I would imagine, to the best of my ability, without being able to predict what happens, that would be something like a spill that contaminates our water supply, for example.

That then would be an emergency life safety situation in which some item might need that we don't currently have available available, we cannot procure with given contracts because we don't have it.

Again, that is unlikely in this scenario, but that is an example of how we categorize whether or not we pull this lever.

It's again the immediate life safety.

It is not a if we could wait for two weeks to come to council, absolutely we will.

This is the must act now, otherwise people's lives will be lost.

Okay, I think it I think it would be helpful to have like an internal definition that you're operating out of that enterprise is operating out of.

Um, I think we're defining it here in real time, and that's okay.

Um the question, and I'll try to clarify more for procurement to help.

So currently we have a status quo, right?

When it comes to 150,000 dollars that are spent.

There are certain steps that need to go forward, those are barriers to this moving forward.

One of the barriers is council approval.

What are the other barriers that slow things down to get something, a contract put out to address a life safety emergency?

Okay.

Members of the committee, I wanted to uh just let you know that learning from the events of 2020.

Procurement has many citywide contracts put in place.

Okay, so anyone in an emergency or otherwise can use it quickly.

Um, some of the examples, you know, related to an event, like an emergency event would be like hazardous material chemical cleanup, right?

Um we have a contract for that one.

Um, so just like that, you know, like barricades, um, you know, traffic signals, uh, you know, I mean traffic uh signs, um, things of that nature are already under a contract, and we are continually keeping that one going on so that if there is an emergency, we have something to fall back on immediately.

Uh the uh the uh threshold for like um formal bidding or formal contracts is like 175,000, which is set by the state statute for local governments.

State has a higher informal threshold.

Um, so we have to stay at 175,000.

I apologize, my time has expired.

Okay, I'll go to council member ward.

Um, this means stay ready so we don't have to get ready.

And I think um, although we haven't seen anything, we've seen some catastrophic things, but not as catastrophic as they could have been, especially during this operation metro surge.

So to procure a situation means to identify it and then source it, and then you're going to define what the needs are in there and negotiate and navigate how we get through it into the end.

So if it is, you know, go time and you need your go bag, you don't have time to be messing around.

I don't know if anyone has ever been in a an extremely catastrophic situation.

Um, but when it's when it's go time, you have to have all of your tools in action when it means the safety and security of people whose lives are at danger or at risk, and you don't have time to stop and turn around and go and ask others, are they coming with you or what's happening at this moment?

You got to move into action because life-saving measures have to jump into in into play.

And you can apologize and figure it out later.

I don't even think we should be paying attention to the the dollar amount that they would have to, you know, need to get to in order to, if it's life-saving and it's you know, and you're procuring an actual situation, and then I think this is even what the council was asking for as a whole body throughout this whole situation was what is the city doing?

Why aren't they just jumping in?

Why aren't they just jumping in?

If this is a situation that could be catastrophic, I think it's better for us to stay ready so we don't have to get ready instead of trying to figure out how to get ready at the last minute, unless people are just that control hungry or something, I don't even know.

But I'm gonna vote for it because it seems like the most logical thing to do when there is a situation that is of crisis, and this is not something that would be utilized against us as a people to bring about harm to us, it's to bring about safety to us.

So if I'm looking at my c city to provide me with some safety and security here in this place, then yes, I would vote for something like this.

Thank you.

Next, I will call on Vice Chair Chuck Tai.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, I think I want to talk about uh a few examples as this item caught my eye as soon as the draft agenda was published last week, and um I've had the opportunity to talk with staff at agenda setting and then in in follow-up conversations.

So I want to reflect back some of what I've learned and some of that has made its way into the conversation today.

So my first question was can you give me some examples of authority that you've needed?

Um that was not available to you through other sources.

Now I'll say on the front end, I never got a clear answer to that, but I've been given three different examples of types of authority or types of examples where this uh this authority would have made a difference.

Now, the first of those is immigration legal services, right?

And followed by um chemical cleanup after the use of chemical irritants, followed by de-escalation for um for First Amendment related activity in uh happening in our city.

So I'll start with the first one: immigration legal services.

Um I want to thank the city attorney's office for bringing this to my attention, but actually the this body on February 5th of this year, so just at our previous meeting did um authorize the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to increase um its its amounts for existing contracts uh related to immigration legal services.

And so that's one of the only three examples I've yet to have brought before me or before this body, um, for the justification for this type of authority that that we've actually already found a solve to.

The second example, chemical cleanup.

I want to just mention first the irony that I see as a person that has been tear gassed and pepper sprayed many times by my government um over the last five years, more times now than I ever was in 2020.

I'll just say that.

Um, and is the reason why I'm sick all of the time right now.

Um I the irony of hearing that there is actually a process for chemical cleanup and knowing that my government, my city government that I'm a leader of has been a perpetrator of this exact type of violence that is that that like we've never before bothered to mention there's actually a process for chemical cleanup.

It just escapes me just how angry it makes me.

Like I can't, I can't begin to put into words.

The next time you've been tear gassed five times in a row, like please come and talk to me about how annoying it is that there's actually a process for chemical cleanup that we've never bothered to undertake before.

The third example is de-escalation services that are needed for First Amendment activities that are lawfully protected by this the Bill of Rights and the state's or this country constitution.

I would just like to bring as an example to um to my colleagues that there are current providers for this city through um the neighborhood safety department that are having their contracts canceled or significantly reduced because of the lack of um money that is available to pay for such things, and so at a time when we don't have money to pay for existing status quo safety services that we are talking about hypothetical services that we could need at some point in the future is insane.

It's insane.

I I want to talk about, then I'll end with this with the minute that I have left, talking about what the city is currently doing right now, and over the course of this emergency that has brought me to my community more than it has to City Hall, right?

Like I'm a person who is working at City Hall way less than I ever have before.

And I'll just say the city's only role right now is in tearing down barricades.

That's what we're doing.

That's all we're doing.

There's no other emergency service I've seen go out into the community, and I like I'm living in an impacted community that I am in day in, day out, talking to constituents 24-7.

And I like I don't mean that as an exaggeration.

I literally mean that.

And I don't have not seen once the city play out a role in responding in a quote unquote emergency beyond tearing down community barricades.

And I actually do not feel a reason to give further authority to tear down said barricades faster when the only emergency response I've seen is that I I cannot more strongly urge you to deny this, and if not that, then let's brain in the options for this by expired.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilmember Whiting.

Yes, thank you, Chair Chowry.

And this is probably a question for Director DeSenza.

If you have a few moments to spare.

Thank you.

And I don't mean to ask a hypothetical, so give me a little bit of grace here.

I'm trying to figure out kind of this to Council Member Chavez's question.

I think it's a fair question.

Um, I think you know, just trying to point the question in the right way.

And so uh when we are talking about uh these suspending of procurement provisions uh and then when those things are suspended, and if we have an expense, let's use uh fire, for example.

Uh and we see a massive fire that the fire department doesn't have enough hoses because we need them right now, and there's lots of fires.

If these procurement um policies are suspended, it would allow for uh the city to go about and do that instantly without having to come to council, I think is my understanding.

And then from that budget, right, fire had to purchase those hoses.

Uh, and then would they have to use their 2026 fiscal year allocated budget to pull from somewhere within their department?

So it's not citywide, it would be the department that would spend the money.

Through the chair, Councilmember Whiting, yes.

And in that case, that would be a fire department expense that they're incurring.

So in most cases, departments individually would be incurring those costs from their 26 appropriations.

Okay, so in an example where we we have an unidentified expense or whatever department would need those uh services, uh, and whatever department that is in, that is where the expense would go, would not be just to an amorphous kind of city budget broadly, but it would be within the department's fiscal year 2026 allocated budget.

Through the chair, that's correct.

Okay, thank you.

That is very helpful to know.

Council Vice President Osman.

Thank you.

Looks like we have a very strong opinion about this item.

Um, though it's just a straightforward, but as I listen to the conversation.

Um, having a different deadline, uh, if folks are willing to to do that, and also uh I think unlimited amount might be an also uh could be a problem.

We we can limit, I don't know how much is how much is needed, but if we can just move forward and and just uh dig the item and vote it on it, that would be great.

If you have a motion to bring a different deadline than March 30th, then bring it forward so get this done.

Thank you.

Council President Payne.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to put a finer point on some of my previous comments, and I talked about our controls.

The other side of our control of not having controls is fraud, and that's a thing that's been raised on this dais.

And it's been a frustration to me when it is raised on this dias, because we have a really robust set of controls within the city of Minneapolis.

When people are reading about headlines about fraud, they're not reading about headlines about fraud that happened in the city of Minneapolis.

They're hearing about it happening in other levels of government.

One of the reasons you don't read about those headlines in the city of Minneapolis is because of our rigorous procurement policies and our rigorous audit policies.

And I am hesitant to weaken those controls right now, partly because um if we needed this type of response, we needed this about a month ago, maybe two months ago.

Uh that's A and B, like I said, I think between the mayor's ability to declare a state of emergency because like life is like really literally on the line, the mayor's ability to call a special meeting, our ability to adjourn to another date, our desire to be responsive in this moment, which I think we've demonstrated everybody up here is responding to this moment in a very responsive way.

Um this feels like there's a lot of concerns and questions, more so than it's solving a problem.

And like I said, um I already talked about controls, but the other side of controls is fraud waste and abuse when you lack those types of controls.

That's when you find yourself in those headlines.

And I think that uh I'm very much open to streamlining procurement process.

I've been actually working on streamlining our procurement process since 20, I don't know, 18 or something like that.

So um that's definitely a bigger conversation I'm willing to have, especially as it relates to our emergency preparedness as a structural and systemic response.

Um, so I'm gonna probably not be supporting this today under its current structure.

Vice Chair, you have a priority motion, yeah, madam chair.

I um actually have had the opportunity to talk with clerks around um adding in some um controls on this motion as provided by uh by staff.

And I am happy to wait until you are ready to call on me to make such a motion so that you're able to complete your comments.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I think first and foremost, this body is not a rubber stamp body, and I hear like the urgent need that's being presented, and I appreciate all the work the emergency services department has done.

The EOC has done, you guys are doing day in, day out work.

And at the same time, we're weighing an extraordinary shift, right?

One of our largest authorities is this oversight over our budget.

It's a really important thing to me.

It's a really important thing as far as it comes to past contracts, the settlements that were brought up, those are the things that have been circling around in my head.

Um we're very clearly in a committee because we're doing committee work.

Uh council vice president brought up this discussion about a different deadline.

Um, there's conversations about, okay, one 175,000, what's the top amount?

Uh Vice Chair has uh a priority motion.

I think there's a way for us to put our heads together to come up with a path that works for us.

Um I just I think I when this was brought forward in consent, I also was surprised because it doesn't feel like an item we can just move through so quickly with such big questions ahead in terms of what it means and what it looks like.

And I think it's important that we set that forward.

I was going to make a motion to forward without recommendations, so there's more time for uh discussion.

I mean our staff is doing an investigation now in between Wednesday to Thursday at this point, and I would recommend a conversation between emergency services, procurement, audit, our city leadership and the budget chair to find a path forward that works because we don't want it to be a blanket no.

We I personally see a need, but there is just so much nebulousness and concern around this for us to just move forward and rubber stamp this doesn't seem it doesn't seem wise, and it doesn't feel comfortable for me to do.

So those are my comments and I I know that vice chair potentially has a motion.

So I will recognize you for that priority motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, so I I would I think I would I would uh have otherwise made a motion to continue this to Thursday without recommendation, but I think something that I personally could live with more, and I think um provides a level of scrutiny that is necessary while ensuring that um a level of emergency response is made available for whatever the need may be, um, if from the perspective of emergency management.

Um would like to make a motion to forward to the city council um with the following changes to resolving clauses on this resolution.

First, that a report showing any authorization of purchases and contracts pursuant to the provisions of this resolution be filed with the city council at each of its regular meetings during the period when the city's procurement rules and regulations are suspended, which shall be added to the public record of those meetings.

So that what that means is if if the city and any of its uh relevant departments chooses to exercise this authority to approve contracts without council approval at each of the council meetings, as in we don't have to wait a couple months to find out the ways in which you use this authority at every meeting.

You must uh come before us and and file the information about contracts that were approved using this authority that this auth authority be temporarily suspending the city's procurement rules becoming effective on the uh upon publication of the city's legal newspaper.

Um that's the standard way in which we approve all acts of the council.

Um, absent any further action by the council, it shall expire on March 26th.

So today we are on February 17th.

Um wanna make sure that as the height of this urgency is is exceeding or is is reducing that we are being thoughtful about that.

So expiring this on March 26th, which is a date of a city council meeting.

So if you come to us and tell us, oh my gosh, the sky is falling for X, Y, or Z reason.

Um, that you can make that case and we have the opportunity to revisit it then.

But absent that this authority is expired on March 26th, just over a month from today.

And finally, that the finance department is um required to file a final report of all purchases made and contracts entered pursuant to this additional authority um by April 1st.

So in addition to every check at every council meeting between now and the expiration of this date, all the way at the end, just like you had already planned too, that you are bringing us forward a comprehensive list of every single thing that you have entered into contracts for, um, and we're we're narrowing the scope of this authority given the moment that we're in right now and that the height of this um this repression from the federal government, um, this occupation of our city from the federal government, um, was not before today um that we are we are being conscientious of that.

So, with that I'll move these changes for approval and ask for a second second.

Next we have on discussion council member Schaefer.

Yes, I would just like uh if city staff would like to respond to this amendment and have any comments where they feel like this is uh feasible from your perspective.

Thank you, Chair Shadry, Councilmember.

Yes, this works for us.

Thank you.

Uh Dashani Dye, CFO.

Uh Chair Chowdhury, um, one question I have is if there are no um suspensions that we do uh for procurement rules, do you still want to report back?

I I'm seeing nods from everybody.

Yes, we would like a report back.

Okay.

Thank you so much, CFO.

Uh next I will recognize council member Palmasano.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I think I am speaking in support of this modification.

Um, but I I do have a couple questions.

One is that are we adding then some extra reporting about all of the expenditures made that were done through regular processes, not through this catastrophic mechanism?

Is that a new ad then to what we're doing here?

Vice Chair.

Um thank you, Madam Chair, and to council member Palmasano for raising a very important question based on the language of this um alone.

This is this is specific to the action that is before us.

So from here on out at a cycle by cycle basis, any um any um procurement contract that is entered into using this authority is reported on at every council meeting, and I would happily defer to the clerks if I have misspoken at all to have the final word of truth.

Thank you.

I think I see a thumbs up, yeah.

Um, so this is only for when we are waiving these procurement and contracting requirements that makes sense to me.

The other thing that I might um suggest or caution, and this comes more from the experience um after the annunciation mass shooting and seeing how long we had to stay in that emergency setup, um, is that in the event?

I just think this timeline is maybe too short.

Um, and I might recommend extending it by I don't know, another month.

Um so I guess I can bring that into conversation and bring it back on Thursday, but I do think that these changes are positive ones.

So thank you.

Madam Chair, if I may.

If it if it's alright with Councilmember Palmasano, it's her time.

Or I guess you're in queue.

Yeah, I if I didn't want to.

Councilmember Palmasano, I would love to have conversations between with you between now and Thursday morning, just to talk about any further modifications that would be appropriate that meet both of both of our needs and the needs that are reflected to us by our colleagues.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Councilmember Stevenson.

Yeah, forgive me if this isn't the way that it normally goes, but I would love if we could add a cap of like $500,000 onto this as well.

I'm just uncomfortable with an unlimited amount.

The reporting is great, the limited time is great.

I like that.

I think a cap would be helpful for me.

I heard the vice chair say that she's happy to discuss that, and we won't conclude on this item until Thursday, so there's time to work on this on Thursday.

So I encourage those conversations.

I think the part that I'll lift up that the vice chair said in her comments is that should uh should the authority automatically expire on you said March 26th.

There is still an opportunity at that council meeting for us to have a discussion to extend it.

Um I think it just becomes uh a stopgap, a place for us to check in if we need that opportunity.

So it's not entirely set in stone.

It gives us that flexibility if we need to extend and continue the conversation.

And I also think having having this time, a shorter time to discuss what this means and kind of get those questions answered.

I really encourage leadership to meet with emergency services.

That's my personal request to get a better understanding of how this is gonna move forward, and also I would love, I loved, I can't remember which council member brought up the point of how much uh money is going to be spent.

I think it was Councilmember Chavez.

Like if there is a even just a contingency plan on like, yep, we're we're gonna plan to set aside like six million dollars, um, and this is where it's gonna come from if there is a catastrophic need, and just kind of have that defined out as like the first phase of where funding would come from.

I think that would be very helpful for us to understand.

It's like if something's triggered, this is where the money is gonna come from, and like this is what we can tell you without having to know in its entirety what the catastrophic need is.

I will ask if there is any further discussion.

Oh, I see clerk Carl.

I'm I'm sorry, just because we were moving very quickly with the amendments.

I thought maybe it would be helpful to summarize what the body is doing right now with the motion that's in front of you.

So the resolution drafted with the amendment that is pending, is that there are the changes that were read into the record by uh vice chair Shug Tai saying that without further action by the council, this temporary suspension of city only procurement policies and rules would expire automatically at March 26th.

Um, it would become effective upon legal publication, which means as early as February 21.

So if this comes to council on Thursday this week and is approved and signed by the mayor, it could become effective as soon as Saturday the 21st.

It would extend then automatically until at least March 26th.

If at any time between then and on March 26th, the staff identified further need, it would be to this body to consider extending that.

Meantime, there would be regular reports filed by the staff at the full council meetings on the 3rd of March and the 24th of March, identifying any possible contracts or expenditures or purchases made under this uh this authority by this resolution.

Um, and if there were none, we'd still get a report saying nothing was done.

Uh if there were purchases or contracts, then those would be put on the file uh for council's notification.

There are two outstanding issues that might come forward Thursday outside of what I just summarized.

One identified by Councilmember Palmasano as the timeline for the uh automatic expiration, and the one by council member Stevenson adding a potential cap on the expenditure of money up to 500,000 dollars, those two things to be decided between now and Thursday.

But right now, what you have is the resolution with the changes that uh Vice Chair Shag Tai outlined with the changes from what was printed, showing that in the second bold resolve clause, it's not April 30th, it's March 26th, and then the final resolve clause, it's not May 1st, it's April 1st.

Thank you, Clerk Carl.

Is there any further discussion?

Okay, seeing none, we have the motion before us.

Uh may I have the clerk call the roll, please?

Councilmember Payne.

Aye, Wansley, Rainville.

Aye.

Vita, aye.

Warren.

Aye.

Osman.

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Whitein.

Aye.

Paul Masano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chip Tai.

Aye.

And Chair Chowdery.

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

That motion carries, and it is forwarded to the full council.

All right.

Next is a resolution that amends the budget to redistribute downtown assets funds to support small businesses impacted by immigration enforcement and operation Metro Surge.

Councilmember Chavez, would you like to begin with remarks?

Thank you, Chair Chadri.

I'm excited to bring forward the Meapos Small Business Resiliency Fund with many of our colleagues here on the diggers today.

Since December, small businesses across the city have had to adapt to the occupation by the federal government.

We know that pre-existing disparities have only increased drastically, impacting our black, brown, indigenous, and immigrant owned businesses across Minneapolis.

Many of them having to temporarily close, losing up to 80 to 100% of the revenue.

Many have to have their doors locked to keep staff and customers safe.

Since the beginning of this occupation, I have met with small businesses across the city, have helped create safety plans, have driven workers at the small businesses' home when ICE is staging on their lots or on the public right away, have been on watch and have heard the impact from them directly.

These owners and workers often come up to me with tears on their eyes, asking and telling me that they are afraid that their culture is being erased and wiped out of Minneapolis and that their hard work will no longer be worth it in the city of Minneapolis.

They tell me that it is sad that working is now considered a crime by the federal government.

And what we know is that if they were to shut down for good, these jobs and our businesses will only go away, and that our culture, something that we care very much about, will only be erased.

I've also heard from many of you colleagues that small businesses in your wards have been decimated.

This is happening in every ward across Minneapolis.

There's an estimated 47 million dollars per month in lost wages or people afraid to leave their homes.

Restaurant and small business revenue losses are as high as 81 million dollars in the month of January.

I think that our community has been very clear.

We know that working is not a crime.

Owning a small business is not a crime, and wanting to see your culture reflected in the city of Minneapolis and the local economy is not a crime.

I think it is our responsibility as a city to keep the culture and our bike park businesses alive and our communities afloat.

Our neighbors will continue to shop at our small businesses, they will continue to patrol and observe, but they are also asking the city of Minneapolis to do its part to sustain the local economy.

This uh proposal today is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual need that our communities are facing today.

But they are asking the city of Minneapolis to be a leader in this moment.

This fund would be citywide.

It's coming from the downtown assets fund because if the rest of the city fails, so will downtown.

And it will help keep many of our small businesses afloat during these terrible times.

Um with that, Chair, I would like to move this for approval, but would also like to recognize that we have folks here from Mercado Central in the audience today, which are some of the small businesses across Minneapolis, across our multiple cultural corridors that are in danger of permanently closing today.

Thank you so much, Chair Chavez, and myself in Q.

I think your remarks set the stage really well.

I just, um, I just want to thank all the small business owners, local business owners in our city, especially our BIPOC immigrant businesses who have been just really devastated by this ICE occupation and invasion.

It's been heartbreaking to see so many of our different corridors not buzzing with the regular activity of our neighbors and community members just enjoying their daily life, but buzzing with ICE agents roaming around and our community having to step up and do patrol.

I know many businesses have had to keep their doors locked, have had to shut her down, workers have not been able to go to work out of fear of racial profiling and detention.

Some workers having to sleep at their workplace because they are so afraid to even step outside to go to the parking lot and drive home.

Basic freedom to move around.

The impact of this is wide and deep.

It is citywide, and that economic impact assessment that showed a conservative 203 million dollar impact on our city will be felt for years.

The memory of this occupation will be felt for generations.

And I think it's really timely that we step up today and move forward this uh small business resiliency fund, and along with uh a later resolution we'll take up calling on different levels of government to also take similar actions.

I know the state legislature today is in session, and there are several legislators that want to champion uh relief funding, and they are looking at what the city of Minneapolis is doing, and other cities are as well.

So I appreciate the leadership that we're seeing in this moment from our community to ask for us to take this step.

Um I did I did want to uh take a second to ask director Hansen if you could kind of speak to um should this item pass?

What are the next steps and how we will work together uh to support small businesses and just have programming that can do immediate relief, but also have grant or not grants, forgivable loans and things like that to support businesses in need.

Uh Chair Chowdhury, just since it's the afternoon, I'm Eric Hansen, the CPED director.

Um, and what I believe is in front of us is some funding to help uh the business community after um from the impacts of operation metro surge, as both you and and council member Chavez have articulated.

Um the impact to small businesses in Minneapolis has been very brutal over the last number of weeks, and there is while there are certain businesses that have been affected to a point where they've had to close, there is not one business in the city of Minneapolis that hasn't been impacted.

Uh so that comes brings up the conversation about how to most efficiently use the funding to get to generate business activity across the city.

Uh the advice that we have from CPED is to um uh establish a fund and then uh come back with specifics about how to use the fund.

Uh there is some interest in getting the money out as quickly as possible.

Uh we have uh regulatory and um procurement uh constraints around how we get money out.

I know you just discussed procurement, so I won't get into that part.

And um, so in order for us to get money for like a direct uh loan to a business, that will take a period of weeks to months before the money would be available, and there might be some other strategies that you guys might want to consider that could get money out in addition to potentially having some money for um direct business assistance.

But we need program guidelines.

We'd look at first we'd look at existing programs.

What are what are things that the city already does that we could just um potentially use as a as a vessel to get funding out as fast as possible, and then uh figure out if there's any like good idea that's out there that needs program guidelines, we could come up with some program guidelines that would come through the city council.

The city council would approve those, and then we would administer those programs.

So if it's a like events that we would do with with community, we would um put that out through a competitive process.

If it's direct loans, uh forgivable loans to businesses, we would have uh an application process um based on criteria and program guidelines, and then from there um administer that program.

Thank you.

Yeah, that answers it great.

And I just uh I wanna just share with the body we've been having discussions uh with the with the CPED department about just this nimbleness, right?

We need to move really quickly.

We know that like businesses need support now, the next few months are critical, and then just getting money out the door too over the summer into the fall.

This is we're in in it for the long haul.

Um, and we've discussed uh work group forming.

So these program guidelines, what the purpose of this funding being more detailed out for everyone can come back to this body quickly, which I've appreciated.

Um, one thing that I really got out of the conversation in the last few days is that five million dollars is really really small, it's a very small drop in the bucket, and this is one of the moments where we really need to step up and understand if we're going to do a suite of different programs to help businesses, whether it's that relief funding directly or bringing back customer bases by bringing um community members to key corridors throughout the city, we're gonna need to have as much as we can work with.

Um, and so that is why I'm bringing forward uh a substitute motion uh amendment, uh, uh to add an additional two million dollars from the downtown assets fund that's authored by myself, council uh council member Chugtai, Council Vice President Osman, and then um I believe uh council member Whiting and Chavez asked to be co-authors on this.

Okay, great.

I'm getting nods, and so I will put that before us um as amendment to this motion.

Great.

Next, I will call on council member Rainville.

Uh thank you.

So I have I have some questions about the downtown answer fund, and I don't know if Director DeShawani or Director DeSenza, which would be best perhaps if you both came forward.

So I'm gonna ask you some questions that I know the answer to, but I want the public to know, and I know we have new council members as well.

So I think before we make this decision, we should have all the information we need.

So the downtown asset fund, that's the money that Minneapolis uh collects with this entertainment taxes, correct?

Uh through the chair, um the downtown assets fund is uh mostly with sales tax.

So it's not just um entertainment tax, so it's uh restaurants, liquor, uh general sales tax, and entertainment tax as well.

Uh thank you for that corrections.

But that's dollars uh but that we're able to spend in Minneapolis.

Well, whether it's for the small business fund or some other other purpose.

Through the chair, that would be correct.

Okay, great.

And then how are those assets funds typically spent?

And what venues, let's start with what venues they're spent on.

Sure.

Um, through the chair, council member uh Rainville.

Uh the downtown assets fund contains the uh convention center, target center.

Um we also pay for the PV plaza maintenance along with the coal center.

Uh that's a new asset to the downtown assets fund.

Um we also make debt payments from the sales taxes uh to the US bank stadium debt to the uh state of Minnesota.

Um we also um paid off the convention center debt.

There was a uh renovation uh several years ago, and we just made our last payment uh in December, and then just general operating maintenance uh at the target center as well as the convention center.

So the assets that the city owns, like that you mentioned the target center, but uh the convention center as well and coals.

Uh and recently we just uh authorized some money to do some renovations at the convention center.

So those type of planned expenses.

Uh through the chair, that would be correct.

Okay.

So how much is in the downtown assets fund right now?

Through the chair, councilmember Rainville, we can get you a more precise number, but the um projection at the end of last year when we adopted the budget was that it we would end 2026 with about 81 million in funding.

81 million.

And then do we have uh plans for any of that 81 million?

So you said debt service, are there any repair plans?

Uh what is there any of this spoken for?

So what I'm trying to get to is if we took $7 million, is that hurting something or or what does that mean?

Uh through the chair, councilmember Rainbow, uh we would need to get our a repair plan for the convention center.

I don't have that information, but um they're constantly doing repairs at the convention center and trying to upgrade their facilities.

That's part of their normal operations.

Um I should mention the target center debt.

Uh we have payments going all the way through 2035 for the target center uh debt payments.

So is that five million a year, 10 million or 20 million?

How much do we spend on debt repayment?

Um, you know, like I said, uh through the chair, councilmember Rainville, we just paid the last uh debt payment for the convention center, so that debt is paid off.

Um, however, for the target center, uh we pay it it's in varying amounts, but we do have a 15.3 million dollar payment that's due in 2030.

So that's coming up, but we pay about five million a year um until 2030, uh, for the target center debt.

Okay.

So thank you for the answers.

Uh what before I can vote on this, I I would really like to know exactly what are the um asks of this fund, whether it's debt repayments or if it's some type of plan repairs.

And in fact, uh, someone should be doing that on a regular basis, council.

I don't know who it should be, but I would think if the people who manage these facilities or who depend on them want our support, they would keep in touch with us about their financial needs because there's also a general fund.

Some some of this money goes to the general fund, is that true too?

Uh through the chair, councilmember Rainville, each year we do budget a certain dollar amount to transfer from the downtown assets fund to the general fund to keep our uh overall levy down.

Okay.

So we have this limited amount of money that and we don't we have uh an unlimited demand, and we don't even know what the demand is.