Good afternoon and welcome to the regular meeting of the Committee of the Whole for June 9th, 2026.

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

I will call this regular meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the role to verify the presence of a quorum.

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Wandsleep.

Present.

Rainville.

Vita is absent.

Warren.

Present.

Osman is absent.

Schaefer.

Present.

Stevenson.

Present.

Chavez.

Present.

Whiting.

Present.

Palmasano.

Present.

Vice Chair Chick Tite is absent.

And Chair Chow.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

I'll also just note that we've been joined by Council Vice President Osman and Councilmember Vita.

And that Vice Chair Chug Tai is attending to a very pressing matter in her ward.

And that's why she is not at today's meeting.

Before we begin the meeting, let me offer a friendly reminder to everyone that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

The broadcasts include real-time captioning to increase accessibility for the entire community.

So it's important that all speakers be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

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

Colleagues, our agenda is in front of us.

I'll briefly explain its order.

First, we will begin with the reports of our standing committees.

There is one item I am going to be requesting to add into consent.

We'll actually do that first before our standing committees.

And then I will be turning the chair over to Councilmember Whiting, Chair of the Settlement Agreement and Consent Decree Subcommittee.

After Chair Whiting has dispensed of those items, I'll return to chairing the last two items under receive and file.

Are there any questions about that order or any amendments to make?

Without objection, I would like to move to amend the agenda by adding an honorary resolution regarding gun violence awareness month.

Is there a second?

Thank you.

Okay.

With that, may I have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended?

So move.

Second.

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay.

The motion passes.

So since we do not have anything else on the consent agenda for COW today, I'll move approval of this honorary resolution for gun violence awareness month for Thursday.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

The motion passes.

Okay, now we will begin our standing committee reports.

We'll start with the Enterprise and Labor Relations Committee chaired by Councilmember Palmasano.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The ELR committee intends to bring 12 items forward to full council.

The first item is a gift acceptance from local progress for Councilmember Robin Wandsley.

Item number two is an AmeriCorps program application to host five VISA members for the next five years.

Item number three is Hiawatha Public Works Maintenance Facility Expansion Project, reapproving project authorization and bond issuances.

Item number four is a contract with Deloitte for benefits consulting and actuarial services.

Item number five is a contract with multiple vendors for temporary staffing services.

Item number six is a contract amendment with principal financial group for custodial banking services.

Item seven is a contract amendment with environmental systems research institute for our city's geographic information system GIS.

Item number eight is a contract amendment with Shaw Lundquist for the City Hall Restack Phase Three Project.

It's just an increase to the contract.

Item number nine is a legal settlement, the workers' compensation claim of Stephen Morris.

Item 10 is a workers' compensation claim for Tracy Turble.

Item number 11 is approval of the 2026 open street events.

We had a nice presentation about that.

And item number 12 is the local board of appeal and equalization report.

I'll stand for questions.

Are there any questions?

Seeing no questions, we'll move to the business housing and zoning committee.

And that report will be given by its chair, Chair Osman.

Thank you, Chair Chowri.

Business Housing and Zoning Committee will be bringing 18 items on Thursday council meeting.

Item one approves an expansion of premises for Mestel.

Item two approves a liquor license for Bill Spree Club.

Item three is an extension hours of operation, obligation for university tobacco.

This was sent without recommendation.

Item four and five were licensed reunification for the same business, University of Tobacco.

There's an update here.

The license holders have paid their taxes, and therefore I'll be moving to delete both license prunifications from the agenda on Thursday.

Item six approves a sidewalk cafe license for Yellowbird Cafe Bar.

Cafe bar.

Item 7 authorize the land sale for 34 house houses apart from the Minneapolis Home Financing Program.

Item 8 approves a seven liquor license.

Item 9 approves 24 liquor license renewals.

Item 10 authorizes an amendment for stable home stable school contract.

Item 11 authorize a contract amendment for arts and fund initiative.

Item 12 approves affordable housing financing for Northview project.

Item 13 authorizes a program change for home improvement program.

Item 14 authorizes a great street gab loan for Mercado Central.

Item 15 approves 11 appointments to the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on Housing.

Item 16 approves amendment to the Condote Bonds policy.

Item 17 denies the exclusive development rights to Minnesota Agabe movement.

And lastly, item 18 approves the legislative directive related to the heritage park.

With that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you.

Members, the report's been given.

Are there any questions?

Councilmember Warren.

Thank you.

Um Chair Um Chowdhury.

I would just like to at you said it was item number which 18, the legislative directive for heritage to heritage park.

I would just like to pull that item for discussion.

And I would also like to appoint the legislative directives to the appropriate committees that support it as well.

And we don't need, since we're not voting on the item today, we'll be voting on it on Thursday.

We don't need to pull it aside for discussion.

If there is something you want to share now about it, you can go ahead.

Well, just knowing that it needs to go before additional committees.

Okay.

And so when I came to public health and safety, I was told that I didn't have to reread the legislative directive in the public health and safety committee, that then I could wait until committee of the whole and appoint it to all appropriate committees that support it.

Yeah, let's figure this out.

I'll go to Councilmember Chavez.

Okay.

Yep.

So I guess uh yeah, thank you, uh Chair Charlie and Councilmember Warren.

So I guess the goal will be here to a full council amend that legislative directive to then say to report back to the relevant committee so that way it can go to business housing and zoning and PHSE in the future.

So I guess probably the best thing to do here would be to bring an amendment that reflects those changes that Councilmember Warren is talking about at full council.

That way it can make sure that the work she's bringing forward is brought forward to these various different committees that they report to.

Great.

Yeah, that's a really valuable announcement.

So we'll just look for that amendment to come forward to us on Thursday, it sounds like.

Thank you, Councilmember Warren, Councilmember Chavez.

Uh President Payne.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

I I I like uh Councilmember Chavez's recommendation on that, and I think that um some additional work is gonna probably emerge on this topic because it's a pretty substantive topic.

I think we should move forward with the legislative directive with the current scope of it so that we keep that timeline going forward.

And I think it's smart to just kind of reflect that we want to have some of this content shared in the various committees that do have relevant information.

Um, but I think there's going to be some potential additional actions that we'll want to take separate and apart that has different scope than this legislative directive.

That sounds great.

Okay.

Is there anything else on this biz report?

All right.

Thank you.

Seeing no discussion of this, we will go to the Climate and Infrastructure Committee.

The report will be given by its chair, Chair Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Charles Re.

The CNI committee has 17 items to bring forward.

The first is the Loring Park Resurfacing Project, uh, project approval and assessment.

Uh the second is 38th Street and Chicago Avenue Street Reconstruction Project Approval Assessment and Area Way Abandonment.

Um, this item was forwarded without recommendation.

Um, number three is a grant or grant applications for the 2026 Metropolitan Council regional solicitation for federal transportation funds and active transportation solicitation for regional sales and use tax funds.

Four is agreement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation for Whittier Safe to routes to school phase two project.

Five is a bid for Nicolette F, planting and maintenance.

Six is a bid for rental of heavy equipment with operator.

Seven is a bid for rental of heavy equipment without operator.

Eight is bid for 2026 cleaning and lining restoration only project.

Nine is a bid for third street North Sanitary Sewer Reconstruction Project.

10 is contract amendment with Mingar Construction Companies Inc.

for the Boston Terrace Sanitary and Storm Sewer Improvements Project.

11 is contract amendment with more construction inc for the federal courthouse parking ramp security improvements project.

12 is contract amendment with short Elliott Hendrixon Inc.

for engineering and design services for the Second Street North Bikeway Project.

13 is a contract amendment with PCI Rose LLC for the Golden Valley Butterfly Valve Installation Project.

14 is big hunking truck parade event permits, June 18, 2026.

15 is 612 days block event permit, June 12, 2026.

16 is a lease amendment with the Minnesota Department of Transportation for Space at 516 2nd Avenue North Ramp B.

I also encourage members of the council to check out the presentation that staff did on this.

It was very informative about really good storage program being offered with one of our downtown partners to our unhoused neighbors.

17 is also a grant and gift acceptance for the railroad crossing elimination grant for Camden Railroad Gray Separation Project Study.

We also received a really productive presentation on staff from staff about this uh effort as well.

So with that, I will stand for questions.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Wandsley.

We will go to Councilmember Stevenson.

Thank you.

I just wanted to speak to item uh number two.

Is all uh should I do that now?

Yes, please go ahead, Councilmember.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so item number two is the 38th Street in Chicago Street Reconstruction Project Approval Assessment and Area Way Abandonment.

Um I'll be speaking against the assessment uh but for the areaway abandonment.

This street reconstruction project is not like any other street reconstruction reconstruction project that has happened either in the past or uh almost certainly in the future.

George Floyd was murdered at 38th in Chicago in 2020, as we all are well aware, and the uprising happened afterwards.

The community in this particular area underwent incredible uh stress, incredible hardship, and has has suffered dearly for years now.

So this project has been billed to uh the community as something that is being done to invest in the community in response to this murder, even though the uh the planning for this project began back in 2018.

Uh, and so this project is not like any other street reconstruction project.

Um, the community has undergone incredible uh hardship leading into this, and um I in on Thursday we should uh deny points one and two uh in order to come up with a different way, which we have a different way of paying for these assessments because this is not the typical uh street reconstruction project.

This is something uh totally different entirely, and we will I'm sure have many conversations off the dais about this as well as more conversations on Thursday.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wandsley.

Uh, I just wanted to also uh inform my colleagues um there was a memo or staff memo request made in regards to the big hunking truck parade, and that is currently in your inbox in terms of who's sponsoring it.

It seems that Morrison Construction is the lead company behind this, but um that memo does offer some details and also on what fiscal um support we're providing towards this particular event.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Wansa.

I put myself in cue.

I also requested that memo, so I'm glad that we have that um there wasn't in the committee clarity on how much we're putting into this city, so that's helpful to get ahead of Thursday.

I just quick wanted to speak on the special assessments fees for George Floyd Square, and just recommend that colleagues uh tune in to the meeting that we had in climate and infrastructure.

Um it felt very clear for clear to me that given the the unique circumstances of the area, the murder of George Floyd, the unrest that has happened there, and just like the struggle um in which the community is faced and the way that the city has dedicated itself to community-led development and projects, um, that it makes a lot of sense for us to deny uh the special assessment, and I'm looking forward to working with councilmember Stevenson.

Um, really grateful to his office for taking lead on figuring out a path forward and grateful to the committee members that uh largely shared their support for the fact that this isn't a special assessment fee that we should levy on this community, and there are really strong reasons for that.

Are there any other members that would like to get into discussion?

Seeing none, we can go to public health and safety safety equity committee.

That report will be given by its chair, Chair Chavez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The public health safety and equity committee will be bringing forward ten items.

Item number one is an ordinance related to law enforcement agency agreements.

Item number two deletes from the agenda, the mayor's nomination of Brian O'Hara to appoint the position of police chief.

I would just ask that we double check that this is actually a vote we still need to take because we did delete it from the agenda in PHSE.

Item number three authorizes the contract amendment with Michael S.

Wilson for audit services for neighborhood associations.

Item number four authorizes a contract amendment with trajectory changing solutions for violence prevention services.

Item number five authorizes contract amendments with restoration in metric diversion and touch outreach for 2026 Minneapolis Strategic Outreach initiative Services.

Item number six accepts the urban area security initiative grant for enhancing emergency management capabilities and authorizes an agreement with the Minnesota Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for the Grant.

Item number seven accepts the emergency management performance grant for emergencies and disasters and authorizes an agreement with the Minnesota Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for the Grant.

Item number eight accept the strong foundations professional development grant for evidence-based family home visitors professional development and authorizes an agreement with the state of Minnesota for the grant.

Item number nine approves the E Street Crossing Amplified Sound Permit Extension for June 12th, July 10th, August 1st, and August 28, 2026.

And item number 10 authorizes a contract with community action partnership of Hennepin County for direct energy assistance and administration.

Thank you.

I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you.

I just wanted to ask you a clarifying question, Councilmember Chavez.

You mentioned that it said it's still on your committee report, the nomination of Chief O'Hara and the committee had deleted it.

So yeah, so Chair Chowdhury, in the public health, safety and equity committee, there was a motion to delete item number two, which is the mayor's nomination of Brian O'Hara to be the position of police chief that was voted to be deleted from the agenda.

I just want to clarify ahead of Thursday's council meeting that if we still need to take that vote again, or if the committee deleting it, deletes it because it's still on this.

We'll go to um Clerk Amber.

Hi, I can um speak to that quickly.

It will have to be fully deleted at council because committees just send the recommendation to council, so it'll be have to be fully at council on Thursday.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

That is helpful clarity.

Next we will go to the budget committee, and that report will be given by its vice chair, Councilmember Schaefer.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The budget committee will be bringing forward two items.

Item number one approves of staff direction to research a potential payment in lieu of taxes or pilot program.

Item number two accepts a donation from Strive Together for interim deputy city operations officer Katie Topinka to attend the Strive Together 2026 policy summit and city accelerator cohort meetings.

I'll stand for questions on these items.

Members, are there any questions?

Not seeing any.

We will go to our last committee report given for the intergovernmental relations committee given by its vice chair, Vice Chair Rainville.

Thank you, Chair.

This morning, the IGR committee received one item for Thursday's council meeting.

Item one is approving a special law for an employee related to the public employees retirement association or PERA.

In addition to that item, we received an update on state and federal actions.

With that, I will stand for any questions.

Okay, thank you, Councilmember.

Seeing no questions, I will now turn this meeting over to Councilmember Whiting.

Perfect.

Wonderful.

Clerk Amber, is it is it has it shifted over?

It has.

You are correct.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

Uh, my name is Jameson Whiting, and I am the chair of the settlement agreement and consent decree subcommittee.

Because this is the first meeting of this subcommittee.

I want to take a brief moment to kind of frame what this committee is and why its work is important to the people of Minneapolis.

Uh just logistically, so we can all hear and the public knows as well.

This is not a committee report, as we just just heard.

Um, this logistically is where uh we hold the business of the committee.

It's within uh the body of uh the committee of the whole.

Uh this committee was born out of a deeply painful chapter in our city's history following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

Both the U.S.

Department of Justice and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights launched comprehensive investigations into the Minneapolis Police Department.

Both agencies ultimately concluded what many in our community had been saying for years, that there had been a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing within that existed within the Minneapolis Police Department.

What came out of those investigations uh was a federal consent decree with the DOJ and a settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

These two documents serve as our city's roadmap to fundamentally rebuild our public uh safety ecosystem that is rooted in constitutional policing, accountability, and comprehensive public safety initiatives.

In 2025, the city pledged to carry out the reforms outlined within the Department of Justice Consent Decree, as that concrete decree was not uh federally and and judicially mandated.

Uh within it, with or without federal oversight, uh the city is uh confirmed and committed to each of those reforms within the consent decree.

Furthermore, our settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Right remains a court enforceable legal legally binding mandate to enact reform.

To ensure we meet those mandates, the court appointed an independent evaluator, effective law enforcement for all Alifa to assess our compliance with those agreements.

Working alongside that external evaluation, the purpose of this subcommittee is to provide legislative oversight of this massive undertaking, ensuring that the reforms we've agreed to on paper are translating into tangible operational changes on our streets.

Our job here is to track the city's progress, ensure transparency for the public, and approve the necessary resources and contracts that make this reform work possible.

Colleagues, I will be reaching out in the coming days to hear your thoughts on what this subcommittee should prioritize over this next year, and I will preview that Alifa will be releasing its next progress report shortly, and I look forward to having them present their findings before this subcommittee.

Just a note here as we kind of work through what this will actually look like for staff uh within the enterprise and the public.

Um the hope is as I believe this is some of the most transformational work that will happen uh in the next four years to have uh the members of staff that can speak directly to the items that come in front of this body to speak with briefly about kind of a two to three minute um overview of what each item that comes in front of this body.

And so uh this being the first time I have chaired, thank you all for the patience here.

And with that, I will turn to the three items on the agenda before us today, beginning with item number one.

Item number one is a contract amendment asking for an extension with exceptional edge consulting for MPD training services.

I will ask Commander Chris Brown to come up with more information.

Thank you.

Council Chair, Council members, uh thank you for this opportunity to share some information with you and uh so to start the uh the contract amendment for consulting uh exceptional edge consulting LC.

Um they're we'll be providing the in uh and developing the training for stop search citation and arrest as well as non-discriminatory policing.

Uh those are uh what we call um in our in our group we call them large bucket uh trainings.

Um the other large bucket trainings just to give you a little perspective are use of force and CIT.

So stop search and citation arrest and non-discriminatory policing early on in the position that I I carry as a commander of the training division.

Um I I felt that um you you couldn't I think they were intrinsically together, meaning you can't teach stop search, citation arrest without uh incorporating all of the aspects of non-discriminatory policing, and that's why we're here, and that's why we said we need to combine the two trainings so that we can explain it throughout the process uh for officers to understand the policies.

The contract um we developed was uh we didn't have the uh team that we have right now, so early on when we were waiting for the policies to be approved, we worked on uh developing a uh RFP and selected um exceptional edge to uh develop the training because it was such a huge robust uh amount of work as well as making sure we get it right the first time we brought in people that had experience, vast experience in working with consent decrees across the United States.

So that's exceptional edge.

Uh policy took a little bit longer than um, which is uh um it it's a it's a pretty robust policy uh uh refinement and updating.

It takes a lot, it's a big process.

So in the uh we projected roughly late 2025 to have the policy completed.

It took much longer than that.

Um, and so in the spring of this year, we they did complete the policy, get it approved by Alifa and MDHR, and um that has led uh to needing an extension on the contract for the the training.

Exceptional edge is gonna be doing a train the trainer on the on the approved policy uh lesson plans once they're uh approved by a leaf and MDHR, and uh they'll also be working alongside um uh the instructors as which is gonna be MPD instructors as well as uh city attorney's office will be assisting in the delivery of the training.

Um they want to be in order to have them available to be uh uh provide technical assistance throughout the course, the extension was necessary.

So we anticipate that the completion date of would be sometime in the spring of 2027.

So extending it to the uh December 2027 was appropriate.

Thank you for that, Commander.

I would just also note here right, this is uh just a contract extension for the dates, no additional um funding is attached to this uh amendment.

Do any of my colleagues have any discussion or questions?

Seeing no further discussions, I will move approval of this item.

Um that do I have to get it?

Okay, perfect.

On that motion, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

The ayes have it, and that motion is carried.

Wonderful.

With that, Commander Brown, I will ask you to come up again.

Uh next we have item number two, which is contract amendment with the first response actors for MPD role playing scenario training.

I will ask Commander Brown for more details on that item.

Thank you, Commander.

Uh Commander Chair, uh, council chair and uh council members.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh yeah, the uh contract for um uh first response actors uh we learned uh we we've had contracts in the past for actor groups that come in and assist with training to provide um training that is uh scenario-based training that is uh reflects very much what the officers see in the field.

Um when we entered into the settlement agreement, uh it became court mandated that uh we not just talk from one side and try to our best to make sure we achieve this, but we in fact uh put it into force by creating an RFP and looking for um how we can bring that talent and effectiveness into our training.

So uh in doing so, uh the RFP was created for the first uh for actors to come assist for the for the reality-based uh scenario training.

And uh the when they when the first response was selected as our as our vendor, uh there was only first response, and then there was a vendor from outside of uh the state.

And um I I can imagine sometimes when we need up to 17 uh people assisting in in various different levels for an hour or two hours or four hours of training throughout different scenarios with different strengths.

It you can imagine it'd be difficult to bring in somebody from outside of the state who can promise you to bring uh realistic actors into that uh scope.

So uh during the RFP process, we select the first response uh as the local person who is also uh specialized in law enforcement actors uh to provide this exact service we were looking for.

And um we've they've been exceptional.

So moving forward early this year, we knew the contract was coming toward the end.

We worked with procurement to try to do a sole source, and they felt that it was more appropriate to see if things have changed, me see if there's other groups out there.

So they suggested we work for an extension, uh, identify what the uh needs are between now and the end of the end of the year, and give us that time to do the RFP process again, and that is uh where we're at right now.

So this one does come with a cost, this particular extension does, because we uh starting last week on June 1st, we have uh the start of our second police academy, and we also have the uh our third police academy in the in the fall uh that starts on October.

So the greatest need for the uh uh for the actors actually falls into the uh second half of the year.

Um, so both with in-service as well as pre-service, which is our academy staff.

So the cost of the estimated cost would be an extension of uh the 103,300.

Thank you, Commander.

Uh do any of my colleagues have any disquote or discussion or questions on this matter?

Does not look like we have any.

So uh seeing no further discussion, I will move approval of this item.

Uh on that motion, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

With that, the ayes have it, and the motion is carried.

Lastly, here we have item number three, which is a contract amendment with DLG consulting and advisory services for investigative investigatory services within the internal affairs division of MPD.

I will welcome up Commander Markstrom for more information on this item.

Thank you, Commander.

And please um note your name and position for the record.

Yes, good afternoon, Council Chair, Council members.

I'm uh Rolf Markstrom.

I'm the commander of the force investigation team within the Minneapolis Police Department.

The Force Investigation Team is a unit that's under the Internal Affairs Bureau.

Um we are separate from internal affairs, although we uh both internal affairs and force investigations both report to the um same uh bureau chief.

The role of the force investigation team is we conduct reviews and audits of all the force incidents that happened in the city.

Um we conduct a uh sample audit of level one uses of force and then level two uses of force and non-critical level three uses of force.

We conduct what's called a quality assurance review of those incidents and um that is a full review of the incident to make sure that the uh force use was within policy, and we also identify any other potential um issues that might involve uh you know might involve training or or supervision.

Um the uh we use DLG, um the consulting uh group to help supplement our workload as right now um we just do not have the staffing to accommodate the number of uh uh of um quality assurance reviews that we need to complete every year.

Um in 2024, uh there were approximately 380 uh quality assurance reviews that needed to be conducted um within the city of Minneapolis.

Uh and then so we use that number, in addition to the number of takedowns that were conducted in 2024 uh to come up with the number of quality assurance reviews that we might need to conduct um for the year of 2025, um, averaging those out.

Um we went from approximately 380 to a little over 700 if we factor in takedowns becoming level two.

Um so with that um of those approximately 700 um quality assurance reviews that need to be conducted.

We uh we sublet about 50 to 60 of those per month to DLG consulting, and we uh conduct the render of those in-house.

Um we did these based on those predictions of the numbers of total takedowns from the year prior, along with the total number of quality assurance reviews from the year prior.

As you all know, with the uh settlement agreement and consent decree, it requires that um takedowns become a level two use of force from a level one, so thus increasing the number of quality assurance reviews that needed to be conducted.

Um, initially, the new force fault policy that was going to make quality uh uh make takedowns level twos was supposed to go into effect in October of 2025.

It did not go into effect until January of 2026.

In addition to that, because of the ICE activity in the city in January of 2026, we experienced a uh well below average number of force incidents in the city uh during during that particular month.

Um, so it's my understanding there is a bit of a uh surplus um from our original amount that we asked for in the first extension, and um that can help explain that uh those the delay in the uh in the um implementation of the new force policy as well as the uh low force events in January can certainly explain why we did fewer quality assurance reviews than expected within the uh force investigation team.

Thank you, Commander.

I see a few of my colleagues are in queue here.

Uh we can start off with council member once.

Thank you, Chair Whiting.

Um I'm trying to make sure I get clarification to just on some background related to this contract.

So I know last October the fire administration basically reiterated findings made in um a leaf or report at that time that highlighted that the backlog of these particular complaints made within IA against um MPD officers having completely eliminated um so I'm trying to get a sense since this was you know why we wowly like touted as an accomplishment um while we're being asked to beef up uh this contract to support a backlog within IA and then looking at the most recent alifa report um specifically on their page uh bottom of page 26 um it seems like IA is almost nearly defunct so I'm really trying to get a sense of what's the current status of it um especially I'm just looking at a quote specifically they've named that rapid personnel turnover within internal affairs is contributing to department wide inefficiencies and causing stress within the unit and inefficiencies that could have been avoided by a staggered implant transition for outgoing staff so I'm also wondering it's because of that lack of foresight in planning within MPD around IA is this also why we're being asked to approve of this contract so um first question though can you share what is the current staffing within IA.

Okay council member wandsley um before I um answer that question force investigation team fit the unit that I'm in command of um we are separate from internal affairs we're under the same bureau head but we do completely different work than internal affairs um we we review the force incidents in the city and if we see potential policy violations within those incidents um whether related to force or any other policy violations then we make a we make a referral of that case to internal affairs and then they make the decision about whether or not they're gonna open an investigation you know on that particular incident um we in force investigations we do not conduct the administrative investigation of the policy violation so um if you're asking me about numbers and internal affairs and and their caseload I I don't have that information.

Okay and then current staffing within the the unit that you're always seeing related to fit yep I'll um so when I first took over fit um back in uh January I'm sorry April of uh 2025 we had um myself one lieutenant uh two investigative sergeants and and two civilian investigators um in january of in january of 2026 uh the lieutenant got transferred um so one of our sergeants had to step up to serve as the as the detailed lieutenant um and then one of our investigators went on personal leave and he's still on personal leave maybe he's coming back in July I don't know um so effectively we were down to one investigative sergeant and two and two uh civilian uh investigators um as of the first of the year we've now with some additional uh staffing um we added two more investigative sergeants however one had to go on baby leave almost immediately after coming to the unit and he just returned as of this week and the other one that we added um you know when he was transferred he was involved in a lot of training and also he was involved in special duty for the uh for the police uh ride out in Washington DC and he just came back a couple of weeks ago so you know with the exception of a few weeks here and there we've basically been with one investigative sergeant and two civilian two civilian investigators just up until this most recent week now we're now we're back to three and two plus a lieutenant okay and can you remind me again of the you mentioned there has been an the total number of cases that you all are overseeing that fits that level to yeah as far as the level do you want me to explain how the level twos are how we calculated that okay so when we when we asked for the contract extension back in 2025 in June of 2025 with the additional money, we we used 2024 numbers.

So we had approximately 380 QARs that include level twos and non-critical level threes.

Okay, when um when the new force policy went into effect, that made takedowns, which was a level one, a level two, which would require a full QAR from that.

So that with the addition of those takedowns, which um based which based on that year's uh year's data was 468, um, and we add that to the 388 QARs um from the previous year.

Uh take that total number divided by 12, that came to 72 per month, an average of 72 per month.

Okay.

Of which we um sublet 50 to 60 of those out to DLG every month, and then we handle the remainder in-house, okay.

And this also is helpful because um just you mentioned we did approve of this contract last year of June.

And I thought this was also tied to IA, um, because I know there has been a reference of backlog on.

I mean, you all are interrelated.

Um, so this is another extension of that contract.

Do you foresee and the Alifa report highlighted this of like personnel changes being the crux of why we keep running into backlogs?

So, do you see a proposal for bringing in additional staffing, or are we likely gonna have to keep relying on outside contractors to meet this gap, which it seems like is created because we don't have stay stable like personnel.

Right.

Uh council member for the foreseeable future, for as far as the force investigation team is concerned.

I believe we're gonna have to uh continue to rely on an outside vendor just simply because right now in the MPD, we don't we don't have the staff to draw from to staff our unit.

And is it mostly the the primary mode is through transfers?

You mentioned people have transferred out.

Alifa pointed this out too.

And if there's a way to um, from my understanding of what they highlighted in the report, those transfers aren't required if you are recognizing staffing shortages.

So is there a way in which you all can go about maintaining those transfers when you do get them so that you're you're not having to lose out on that per permanent staffing?

Well, you know, that personnel movement is a decision that's made above me.

You know, I've made requests for additional personnel, but I also do understand that you know every start it and bear in mind that the uh the settlement agreement and the consent degree require that our investigations be done.

Um, that's right, you know, level three and any kind of critical incident response be done by sergeants.

Um so it has to be the rank of sergeant to conduct those investigations.

Um so the fact of the matter is if you if you if you bring a sergeant into our unit, you take them from another unit, or if you have to promote a sergeant right now, you take somebody off the street.

And you know, although we are increasing our numbers incrementally, we just don't have the the personnel, the sworn personnel in the department to to devote what we need to our unit to be fully self-sufficient.

I think this is definitely one where we're talking about priorities related to maybe the police contract.

I'm trying to figure out what again is the bottleneck of, and this is tied to other police um initiatives that we're working on where we get staffing.

I'm only saying if it's a staffing challenge, it's the the repurposing of existing staff to meet critical priorities like our consent decree and really looking at how we can be creative about that and acknowledging what if there is barriers in the police contract that prohibits or makes that a little bit more difficult.

What we need to be doing so that we don't have to over rely on contracts and we can have that in-house uh support or even partnership opportunities with other um jurisdictional like agencies if they could provide that support in the investigative capacity.

Um so I think that is gonna be a long-standing issue.

What Alifa hasn't noted, it's personnel that's at the crux of this, both IA and it sounds like with this.

Um, and until then, yeah, we're gonna have to be in this loop of contract.

So that's something that I'm naming as a priority.

I know I'm gonna be in meetings with you, council member or chair whiting about this, but this this feels like a top concern for sure.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Thank you, Councilmember Wandsley.

I will pass it over to President Payne.

Uh thank you, Chair Whiting.

Um, I have similar questions to Councilmember Wansey, but I wanted to um make sure that a discussion that happened during agenda setting, Councilmember Chuck Tia isn't here, and I want to make sure that we don't lose sight of this.

A point that was raised was um, and actually maybe I should back up.

This was originally a single contract for Wiley Reber covering both IA and OPCR.

Back in 2024, we split that into two separate contracts between Wiley Reber and the DLG group.

That's what's before us right now.

The question that came up in agenda setting is that this contract was originally approved in 2024.

There was an expressed need for more capacity given all the staff realities that you've just shared with us.

And so in 2024, we added an additional million dollars to that contract.

Councilmember Chuck Tai was raising the question if we knew that we needed this extra capacity, why didn't we extend the timeline of that contract at the same time as the dollar amount?

And so the question is do we have a procurement problem on our side for when we come to council requesting additional capacity, shouldn't we ask for more capacity in total, both time and money?

Or is this is there something underneath this on the IA side that is actually more troubling that we need to be considering?

So there is there a procurement fix that is just completely procedural here, or on this mismatch between extending dollars one year and then extending time another year, or is there a more underlying challenge in IA that's making it so that we're not even utilizing these outside resources at the right level that that we should be?

And I'm just wondering if you're in a place to speak to that.

Well, um, Council President Payne, the what I what I did with my unit is I I calculated the numbers to make a good faith estimate about what the number of quality assurance reviews we'd have to do in the upcoming years.

Um I provided those numbers to implementation and to procurement, and they are the ones who calculated the dollar amount.

So I cannot speak personally about how the dollar amount was calculated.

Um we do have uh someone here from procurement that could that could possibly help answer that question.

So thank you.

Perfect.

Thank you.

And if you could state your name for the record that we have.

Thank you.

Officer.

Chair Whiting, members of the committee, my name is Pam Fernandez.

I'm the director of procurement from Finance and Property Services Department.

Um, so uh just to give a little bit of background on this contract.

So we this contract resulted from an RFP process.

It was for 750,000 to begin with, and then in the second year, which is like last year, uh, in July 2025, we added like a million and eight thousand dollars to it, which brought it up to 1.7 or 8 million total.

Um so when this this extent, the original contract was for 24, 25, and 26 of June 6th, it it actually expired.

So uh when they asked for that extension, they saw that there is a little bit of money left in there, which they uh think as like you know enough for the remainder of the time for that 18 months.

Um and they may come back here if you know like there are more cases that they need to handle.

So that's how we procurement took that one.

Um and there's I mean the entire process was followed.

There's nothing uh that they went outside of the procurement process to do this one.

So we are totally comfortable.

Do you know how much it remains?

Do you know how much remains?

About 650,000.

Okay.

Um I think maybe as an administrative follow-up.

If we could I'm trying to get at what what the question is here, trying to understand this capacity, right?

So given what the commander shared is he he's calculated his best faith estimate of how many cases and how much capacity they're gonna need to get through those cases.

Um, I'm trying to understand, you know, will we run out of money with what that forecast is, or will we run out of time?

Which of those will it be?

I want to make sure that this contract extension is aligning with our actual workload.

Okay, so what I understand from the conversations that we had with the MPD is that they estimated a $1,080 for the remainder of the contract as of June 6th, but we didn't need to uh you know ask request work from that company to that extent.

Yes.

I think what I want for an administrative follow-up is essentially what our original estimate was, and then what are the factors that made us underutilize this contract?

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Did you get that?

Okay.

Thank you.

Colleagues, do we have any more questions or discussion?

It does not look like we do.

So I will move approval of this item.

On that motion, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

The ayes have it, and that motion is carried.

I will now return the chair back to Councilmember Chowdhury for the rest of the committee of the whole.

Thank you, Chair Whiting.

Now we will be turning to the receive and file portion of our agenda.

First, I would like to move to postpone item number five to the committee of the whole meetings scheduled for July 14, 2026.

Vice Chair Chug Tai and I have been in touch with Minneapolis Police Department staff about the response on this spending for fiscal year 2025 legislative directive.

There were several questions that went unanswered in the last meeting, and it was our hope that we would have answers to those questions in this meeting.

However, staff had communicated to us that the work that they need to do would not have enough time to report back on those questions, and so they committed to uh having everything prepared for us on July 14th.

And since this is a motion, do we have to take a vote on this?

No, I can just move to postpone it.

Okay, thank you so much.

So we will not be taking that up today.

And moving on, we are going to get a really exciting presentation today related to the city's 2050 comprehensive plan.

We're kicking it off.

Minneapolis 2050.

Um, really looking forward to starting this process with CPED and our community.

I will welcome up Joe Bernard and Mailing Smith from CPED, who will be presenting more on this today.

Good afternoon, Chair Chowdhury and uh committee members.

My name is Joe Bernard.

I'm a project manager in CPED.

I'm joined uh by a couple of colleagues also presenting today, Mailing Smith, my co-project manager on the comp plan update.

And uh Shana Sether are one of our co-leads uh on our engagement team.

Um we are focusing today on uh we're asking you to receive and file our uh our engagement framework for the plan that we've been spending a couple of months working on here, but we want to start with giving kind of an overview of the entire project to set set the stage uh as uh Chair Chowdry mentioned, kick the project off today.

Um we are um planning to give, like I said, this high level overview.

We want to talk about the current comprehensive plan a little bit to make sure we're all on the same page about uh what was done last time, what's in there, and um what our intended approach is this time around.

So, uh to start um just some level setting.

We're required by state law to update our comprehensive plan every 10 years.

Uh we do so in response to regional plan developed by the Metropolitan Council.

Uh their plan this uh this cycle is called Imagine 2050.

Um an important element of that regional vision is forecasting growth for all of the cities in the metro area, and you can see here uh on this slide that the Met Council expects us to plan for the city to grow to over 500,000 residents by 2050.

Our plan needs to demonstrate that we can accommodate this growth and we work together with the Met Council to identify any impacts to regional systems that might occur during that timeline.

The Met Council also allocates uh to every city in the region an affordable housing uh growth target that is as on a 10-year time horizon.

You see uh those numbers here uh on the slide we have to meet those as well.

We use this opportunity every 10 years to check in with residents and other stakeholders about their immediate needs and for their vision for the future of the city.

The plan is used to guide high level decision making it sets the stage for how the city invests in our communities and it's also used to justify the way we make decisions about how the city grows and changes through our zoning processes and serves as a foundational document for important implementation initiatives like the Transportation Action Plan and the Climate Equity Plan.

The Met Council sets requirements for us that we need to meet and we need to address all of the elements that you see here on this slide in our plan.

We need to demonstrate that our land use plan will accommodate the growth that we're seeing that we're identifying transportation improvements that will serve our community and so on.

We want to start by acknowledging that as we kick off Minneapolis 2050 we're not starting from scratch.

10 years ago we embarked on a project where we met with community in over 180 meetings we collected 2000 points of feedback on many the last planning process Minneapolis 2040 and the result is that we ended up with a document that has 14 goals and all of our action steps and policies point towards achieving those goals.

We want to underscore that every department has a role to play here in delivering on the goals of the plan and in this example there's a lot here pointing towards how we are attempting to address the affordability housing affordability crisis we think we want to continue coordinating with our partners across all departments to deliver these these goals as we're getting started on Minneapolis 2050 we try to take an account of what is working well and what can be improved upon I already mentioned the interdependent nature of our work and that policies and actions are serving a larger goal.

We want to retain those things that being said there is a lot of content in Minneapolis 2040 so much so that at times it's difficult to know what is a priority and what we should really be focusing on in the near term and in the long term.

So as individual departments are delivering big wins there's at times some policies and actions that don't have a clear home or a champion.

So those are things we're looking toward and identifying that we can improve upon as we develop this the next iteration of our comprehensive plan.

So as I mentioned we we're looking at this currently as a minor policy update and I think what we want to highlight is that we want to focus more on implementation this time around give more attention to that.

And what this might look like is that we would prioritize our work to address the Met Council requirements.

This means right sizing and targeting our engagement efforts and providing more clarity on who is responsible for implementation.

We also have identified we can definitely improve on our evaluation methods and more regularly report out to the city council and to uh residents and stakeholders about the progress that we're making.

We're also at this stage recommending that one way to increase our ability to um be nimble and flexible with how we achieve our goals is that the past five years have presented us as a city with some unxpected circumstances and by uh one way we can um be more flexible and nimble is we're talking about taking a lot of our actions out of the plan itself and putting those into uh department specific action plans similar to how the transportation action plan works today.

Uh with that uh I will hand it over to Mailing Smith, who's gonna cover um more details about the structures that we've set up internally uh in our department and across the city to serve this process.

Welcome up.

Thank you, Joe, and good afternoon, Chair Chowdry and committee members.

My name is Mailing Smith.

I'm a principal planner in CPED community planning.

And while we've been working very hard for many months behind the scenes to set up the structures that will shape this process, today we're kind of considering to be the first official kickoff day for the process.

So engagement activities will be beginning at the end of next week.

Um, in the coming weeks, where we'll start connecting and reconnecting with the community and other stakeholders, and we'll start to collect feedback on their issues and their priorities and hear what they want us to address in this plan update.

Each phase of the comp plan will have a really different feel.

We have different objectives for each of the phases.

So the first phase that's happening this year, we're going to be using engagement to help form a vision statement and eventually goals that we'll bring back to this body, and this will guide the work for the rest of the process.

Next year, we're going to focus on creating some draft concepts for the public to wait in on.

So this will be a really meaty part of the plan where we're going to get into more detail, and then out of that process, we will publish a draft plan in 2028.

And then the city will have to forward a final draft of this plan to the Met Council at the end of 2028.

And then the Met Council will spend that last phase in 2029 reviewing the plan, making sure it accommodates the growth projections that they've set out for us.

And then the effective date is uh January 1st of 2030.

So we're building for several years towards that date.

Um it's also during that fourth phase, 2029, that departments will be begin drafting their action plans, producing the action plans that Joe was talking about.

So this is the organizational structure that we have in place as of today.

Um the project management team is comprised of members of CPED, and they're directing the day-to-day work of the overall project, meeting regularly.

We also have other groups in these operational work group functions.

So we have the research group that is supporting all the technical and research needs, working with procurement to get those contracts for any consultants that we might need.

We have the engagement team who you'll hear from later, and they're designing and leading all the engagement activities, all the nitty-gritty details that go into that.

Our communications team is composed of both CPED and Citicoms, and so they're helping us with social media, press, also producing a video that you'll see later the summer.

And then we have the technical advisory committee as one of these operational work groups.

And so these, and I'll tell you more about this, but they'll be advising on content kind of for the process as a whole.

And then in the middle group, you see the topical work groups.

We have about 12 of these.

Most of their work will align with a chapter of the plan.

Some might be an appendix.

Um, and the so we expect to organize the plan this time kind of through chapters, and that will help us stay organized.

Um, and then we have this third group called city leadership.

So this includes the mayor, the city council, and a leadership committee, and that's um going to be composed of mostly department uh director level type of of um staff.

Um, and so all of in those leadership positions will help advise on the direction of the work that this entire plan will take.

So, again, this is the project management um level project management team, including myself and Joe, and others in CPED who will be operating the day-to-day work of this plan, and then the operational work groups, engagement, communications, and research.

The leadership committee again is multiple departments, most of them directors of those departments, and that's for from throughout the organization as well as representation from the mayor's office, and we'll be looking to them to direct staff on the overall approach, but also eventually planned content at key milestones throughout the plan.

The technical advisory committee is managers and then direct division directors from across the city enterprise, and they have a unique role.

So they will be advising on planned content, but they're also going to have a very important role on helping to develop consensus on who is responsible for which task, roles and responsibilities, and hopefully with their input, we will have uh a process that has clear implementation efforts reflected in the plan.

And then the topical work groups are going to be responsible for creating most of the plan content.

They are just getting started as of last week, and they are staffed by subject matter experts from across the city enterprise that are experienced in both policymaking but also implementation.

And then the elected and appointed leadership group is shown here.

We intend to engage with the city council by bringing important milestone updates to this group, and we're also going to plan to use the committee of the whole working sessions as a place to dive into these issues more deeply with the council as needed.

And in the coming months, we'll also be reaching out to your offices to schedule one-on-one briefings if you request them.

And then last our city planning commission and our other boards and commissions will play a role as well, and we'll be relying on our internal partners in the city to also help with communicating to those groups.

That her team has made to define the approach to engaging the public in this process.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Chowdhury and Council members.

My name is Shanna Sether.

I'm a principal city planner in CPED.

I have the honor today to present our engagement framework for Minneapolis 2050 on behalf of the many talented uh colleagues who have helped shape this document.

Here is a list of our engagement work group members that have really generously devoted so much of their expertise and their partnership and their time to this group and to this work, and we really appreciate their collaboration and their insights and ongoing commitment to advancing engagement for 2050.

The engagement framework serves as our roadmap for how we will engage community throughout Minneapolis 2050 and the planning process.

It establishes goals and guiding principles for inclusive, equitable, and accessible engagement.

It outlines engagement strategies for each phase, and then it also recognizes that engagement will need to be nimble.

We're going to need to evolve as we go through this process through ongoing partnership with city leadership, yourselves, and then also the community.

At its core, this framework is about building meaningful relationships and creating opportunities to help shape the future of Minneapolis.

This framework is guided by several key engagement goals, which you see.

They're very long and enumerated here, but also well addressed in the plan.

So just at a high level.

These goals focus on increasing awareness of what comprehensive planning is, ensuring broad and equitable participation, building trust through transparency and consistency, and making sure community feedback informs decision making.

These goals also emphasize reducing barriers to participation, expanding access to engagement opportunities, and keeping the public informed through engagement summaries and regular updates throughout the process.

To support these goals, we have a wide range of both in-person and online engagement opportunities, really designed to expand participation, and also make engagement more accessible.

We are very excited to launch phase one of engagement this summer.

During this phase, we will build that shared understanding of comprehensive planning, develop the draft vision and goals for Minneapolis 2050, and identify key community priorities.

This summer, you will find us at community festivals and events across the city where we will inform people about comprehensive planning generally, raise awareness of the planning process, and also invite residents to be involved.

We really want to build a following in this first phase.

And then at the same time, we will also conduct targeted outreach with key stakeholders and community partners to better understand community priorities and build strong relationships throughout the entire Minneapolis 2050 planning process.

Later this week, we will launch our project website, which will serve as the central hub for information and updates and opportunities to participate.

We will also use existing communication channels, including social media, newsletters, and gov delivery to help keep the community informed.

We all hope you include that in your newsletters as well.

We encourage folks to sign up for project updates through the website and stay engaged as the process moves forward.

Engagement is going to be a marathon.

This is a long process, so we want to be really intentional with community and making sure they understand how they can best inform the plan going forward.

Toward the end of summer, we are going to have community members, we will give them the opportunity to provide feedback that will help inform on the draft vision and goals through public survey that then will be presented to you at the end of this year as Mailing and Joe have described to you.

We look forward to partnering with community and yourselves to create a shared vision for the Minneapolis in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury and committee members that concludes our uh remarks, and we're here to support any discussion that you might have.

Thank you so much.

Members, are there any questions on this?

Okay, I will recognize Councilmember Whiting.

Thank you, Chair Charter.

Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

I know this project is a large lift from every single one of you all, and so uh it is a process I've been digging into it as asked to a community meeting as of late about a particular viral um tennis court uh in my ward and looking at the the built forms and then kind of the FARS and kind of diving into the the uh built form handbooks and everything that you've all put together.

They're quite useful.

Every single question I had were or answered in those uh handbooks, and so uh thank you for all the work and really looking forward to uh what 2050 will bring.

It sounds like today is the kickoff, so I guess what happy birthday to your 2050 plan.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Councilmember Stevenson.

Yeah, um, in the presentation, you said uh reach out for individual briefings on this.

Who should we reach out to?

Chair Chowdhury Councilmember Stevenson will be sending.

We'll be sending uh an invitation uh out to uh your offices to to gauge interest in in uh those one on one-on-one sessions um later this month.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then I put myself in queue.

Technically, it's not its birthday because it's not born yet.

You know about this, he's expecting.

Very much appreciate and want to lift up the point of like engagement being a big marathon on this.

It's going to take some time as it should, and I love that 2040 gets to be a foundation.

I'm particularly curious to talk to staff about how do we how are we thinking about prioritizing what are things that have come up and what have been your learnings?

Like that's literally what I'm the most curious about is like sitting down with the planners and hearing off the bat of y'all taking the time to implement the 2040 plan and um other department leads on like what's worked, what hasn't worked, and what do you think is the direction for our city, especially in a moment in time where like our economy and our community is changing so rapidly and so fast.

So definitely going to be looking forward to doing a one-on-one session.

I also think it would be a really great idea to do maybe a meeting with uh me and um uh vice president Osman as biz chair and vice chair too, um, just to kind of talk about it from that perspective of our committee and uh just take some more time there.

Um the other place of excitement that I'm looking forward to is the community engagement sessions.

Um I think this is a place where the council really leans into its role of representing 34,000 to 40,000 of our neighbors in each of our wards, and would love to be able to participate and come and attend the events that you're hosting, but also I know when we were doing like the South Side Community Safety Center, um, Director Amanda Harrington worked with several council members and our respective wards to host community engagement sessions and just have it ward-based to bring that type of perspective, and I'll speak for myself.

I know that that's something that I'm really excited um to do, and over the last like couple of years, have had many community members reach out to me wanting to talk about 2040 and then wanting to talk about the future of 2050, and when I was um running uh for re-election this last year, that was always like a top question.

It's like what's your vision for 2050?

Like, how are you gonna show up in this conversation?

The city's gonna tackle it, like we should talk about it.

These are the ideas that I have.

So really appreciate it.

Excited to get this kicked off, and um uh we'll look forward to the other opportunities of engagement here.

We have a few other members in queue.

Next, I will recognize Councilmember Palmasano.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you for this presentation.

Um, it will be no surprise to many people, and I will remind everyone else that I was highly critical of the process uh to develop, introduce and adopt the 2040 plan.

As I said, then we have the right goals and we got the wrong plan.

Um I am hopeful though that the 2050 comp plan can correct course to better support our priorities and goals, and I'm glad to hear that many of those goals it sounds like will largely remain the same.

In terms of engagement, I'm happy to see the engagement framework, goals and methods.

Um that looks like a really good start to me.

Um, but I will offer this.

Residents of our city felt blindsided when the 2040 plan came out, and that their input was not valued, considered, or incorporated.

So, on slide six, when it says there was widespread public buy-in.

I want to reiterate, and it says it this way, which is important that it it was on the goals.

I think there was large-spread uh widespread buy-in on the goals, but not the final plan in my experience.

And I think I'm the only person sitting up here that was here during that time.

Um that's not what I experienced as a council member that there was widespread buy-in on the plan.

Um, and we've seen that kind of stress play out over these last years.

Um I've never seen angry, you know, uh posters and lawn signs both ways about something as wonky as a comp plan in our city.

Um important things, though, did come out of the comp plan.

One was about consistency and how we treat land use projects.

Um another was the transportation action plan as mentioned by Mr.

Bernard.

Um I do like how that transportation action plan articulates into other policy and and it's really tangible.

Maybe the reason I say tangible about a transportation action plan is because it's a little more up to us as a city, right?

Like we own the city right of way and our capital budget largely helps us to fund the priorities that we put in it.

Um I do want to point out that in my experience, it was a painful process for many that residents didn't feel heard, and this is an opportunity to do better.

And it when I have been around different parts of the city, those wounds still feel raw, almost seven, eight years later.

So I am excited for us to lead the way and show that Minneapolis is up to the challenge.

I know that those here presenting today were all here, but we're not the leaders and developers of the 2040 plan.

Um it actually, in my, in my opinion, has been implemented a lot better and more thoughtfully than it was initially adopted, and that's largely thanks to city staff.

Um so I think we all learned important lessons from it, and I'm here for the 2050 planning process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Next I'll go to Councilmember Schaefer.

Thank you, Chair.

I also um not knowing Councilmember Palmasano's comments, just wanted to say thank you as well.

And knowing that we have these strong goals, but my question was are there aspects as you as staff, having heard feedback on this plan for the many years between the adoption and where we sit today.

Are there aspects of this plan that you feel like need to be tweaked or you hope to change or to dig into that need to be righted?

You alluded to one, I think, around the idea of implementation, that we wanted to really have a plan that would be, I don't know exactly if that was easier to implement, more clear to implement, or just implement it and maybe have some more accountability around that.

But am I was I hearing you right?

I guess would be the first question around implementation, and then would there be any other things that you hope to really um tweak or change as you have had this front row seat to implementing this plan and working with this plan the last few years?

Chair Chowdhury, um Councilmember Schaefer, thank you for the question.

I I would emphasize how uh important that question of implementation is, and that's why we we highlighted it here today is that um because in part because the last process was so wide-ranging and we brought everyone on board, um, there is at times a dilution of resources that happens in terms of staff available to work on things, or um, you know, you can only have so many priorities in a given uh at a given time.

So there are elements of the plan that we want to um uh bring to the this body and to the public and say, is this really uh rise to the level of importance of being in a comprehensive plan, and um be clear about if we are going to have these things in our comprehensive plan, what are the steps we're gonna take to to make them happen?

Um and we have uh examples we can dive into that I think we will intend to bring to working sessions uh where we can demonstrate that uh yeah, we have we have examples of policies where we haven't been able to bring them forward.

Um, so um uh your uh your comments uh and your question I I think are are right on point with uh where we're thinking.

Um I think uh the other thing that I'll say is that we're still in the phase of identifying um ways in which we can improve, and part of that process is gonna be involved involve engaging with you all to identify your priority priorities so that we can um we can better focus this time around on what uh is most important.

Great.

Thank you.

That's really helpful, and I will look forward to that invitation to meet and to maybe hear what some of those um aspects are more in detail.

But any time that we can have our plan um be more concrete, more streamlined, adds validity, adds weight, adds intent, and uh and a straight arrow purpose for where we're headed as a city.

So thank you for your desire to do that, and I look forward to learning more.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rainbow.

Thank you.

And I I really look forward to participating in this.

Uh as uh many of you know, uh, I inherited a lot of problems over in St.

Anthony's.

No, it looks like Beltrami, Sheridan neighborhood, and uh I I have some feedback that I like to give you privately, so uh please look me up the sooner the better.

Great.

Is there any other members in Q?

Oh, yes, I see Council President Payton.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

Uh, Councilmember Rainbow reminded me of a thought, and it's my favorite quote.

It's the future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed.

And I hear this most embodied in my Como neighborhood where it's had a like the 2040 plans, I feel like the most actually tangible in the Como neighborhood.

A lot of densities happen there, really maximizing those lots.

Uh and it creates a bit of conflict, right?

And you have you have this mix of students that kind of churn through the neighborhood quite a lot, along with like fourth generation home homeowners.

And I'm wondering, you know, one of the things one of the big tension points to me is our vision for 2040 was matching that density with transportation and kind of being able to facilitate a car-free um existence or at least a car light existence.

And I'm wondering, um, you know, come kind of a council member Palmasano's point, how you're thinking about being able to watch the 2040 plan in action for well, it's kind of hard to say a clean number of years given the amount of litigation that surrounded it, but at least enough of a track record to see some of the actual real world impacts, how they align with our those original goals, which I think were pretty universally like viewed positively.

Um I'm just wondering as we look at the kind of uneven distribution of how comp planning actually gets implemented, which is largely market-driven, right?

We can only do so much as planners.

Um how you're thinking about that mismatch of how maybe some areas have a concentrated and accelerated implementation of the plan versus other areas maybe lagging, which lead to a scenario where you have the chicken and egg problem of the density without the transit or the transit without the density creates this kind of car dependency still.

I don't know if there's any way of answering that question.

It's not that concise.

Welcome back.

Chair Chowdhury, uh Council President Payne, uh that is the question uh that we're faced with and that we try to uh address in this document.

Um I think um the way that we can try and think about it in terms of implementation is what are the areas uh of the city that where we know the growth is happening, where we can uh do active management of the impacts that are happening, and then where are the parts of the city that need different interventions to realize the vision of the plan?

Um and uh I think uh in our minds we've set the the groundwork for um uh like we want to reiterate we're not starting from scratch on a number of those things.

But um we've intentionally set up our um our working groups and systems um to partner with all of the folks that are impacted by planning uh throughout the city to make sure we're paying attention to those impacts.

So I like to use an example of um of uh how we've had success in the recent past is that um for a time period between uh 2010 and 2020.

I'm gonna approximate and fudge the numbers here, which everyone loves.

We approximately grew uh by 50,000 residents in the city.

At that same time, our vehicle miles traveled in the city went down.

So we we know that we can do this.

We have demonstrated it in the past, um, and um uh we're looking for more ways that we can have successes like that um with our partners as we as we develop this plan.

Great answer.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Is there anyone else that would like to get into cue on this one?

Okay.

And I'll just like say, jumping off of what you said, and your really great answer is I think there's a real hunger from community in having this process and what comes out of it feel more three dimensional to their lives.

Like a thing that I hear oftentimes is like, how does the 2050 plan and how does our comprehensive plan end up working for families?

What does it mean for someone who lives in an apartment or in a house to live nearby a school or close by transit, and how do we like think about it through that perspective?

Because we're trying to grow our city, and there's so many people right now pretty much lined up trying to find places to live all throughout my ward and across the city to to grow their families and look out to that future.

I've heard a lot about people asking about what does it mean to build out a 15 minute city where I can just do everything and have everything that I need in the city of Minneapolis, and I don't have to think about planning for anything beyond 15 minutes.

So really exciting stuff.

I feel like the sessions that we'll have, the learning labs will be a great space to kind of dig into that.

So I am not seeing any other members in queue, so I will direct the clerk to file that report and presentation.

And seeing no further business before us and with no objection, I will declare this meeting adjourned.