And it is live framed on Zoom webinar.

There will be no votes taken during this workshop.

So let's start with introduction of commissioners and present us around the table, and then the rest of the room, I will take off.

My Changsha, Commissioner District 6.

Target Evansing, Commissioner District 1.

Mayor Joe McGuire, Commissioner District 2.

Reina Moran, Commissioner District 4, Lynn Becker County Manager.

Gary Collins, Deputy County Manager, Economic Growth and Community Investment.

Josh Wilson Community Economic Development.

Heather Worthington, it's Holder B.

Kelly Miller, Commissioner District 7.

Can you see mouth handline?

Marina's directly staff.

Very well and administrative director and health removes.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Today's workshop highlights Ramsey County's fiscal health.

We would hear a summary of the goals of the analysis and its relationship to our work.

And now I'll hand it off to presenters to kick off the workshop.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Commissioners.

And so rather than giving you and the broader public a hundred plus slides to kind of sift through, save some ink.

That fuller version will be made available as well as a future final report.

As you jot down your notes and your questions, that later slides might hit them spot on.

So I just encourage you just so that we can get through the full uh full deck, um, hold some of your questions till um some natural breakpoints that that are Heather has.

If you have a really burning question, I understand that too.

Um Heather adapts pretty easily.

Um jump right in to um a little bit of the agenda today.

Um actually it might just be easier to just jump right into the reason for so um for many of you, you have seen a version of of this um this fiscal health analysis or kind of a high level version of this um um over the summer as part of a workshop that you all had or a um a board board retreat.

Um, but I want to kind of take us back just a moment to say that um in 2020 um in the development of the economic competitiveness and inclusion plan, that was their first version of this plan.

Um we we contracted with urban three to to develop this uh fiscal health analysis at that time.

I think many of our motivations and many of the reasons why we chose to do that is um to really insert data in as a decision making tool with our cities, with our community, with our community stakeholders.

Um as you'll see with the slides that Heather um will kind of bring to you all today.

As you'll see with the slides that Heather will kind of bring to you all today, it's highly illustrative and it and it begins to reshape what folks think about certain things around land uses and land productivity, how it intersects with county finances and city finances for that matter.

And so we wanted to kind of certainly thought that was a valuable piece as we were introducing kind of where the county was going to be in this economic development space.

The second part is around wealth extraction.

So one interesting thing we asked them back in 2020 was to overlay this land productivity analysis, overlay with historic red line maps, really to kind of begin to demonstrate how wealth extraction happens in our community at that level around value and around land.

And then lastly, I just want to call out that our community is rich with different land uses and different types of communities.

And this analysis at that time, or this analysis today and the analysis in 2020 absolutely reinforced the wonderful differences that we have across all of our 19 communities.

So really this analysis was that foundational piece of our ECI plan in 2020.

And it felt almost natural for us to start there again as we begin to look at updating our ECI plan 2.0.

As you know, um ECI plan is embedded within our intergenerational wealth and economic justice strategic priority.

And as Heather starts as I kick it over here just momentarily, um, we asked them to update the model to kind of give a five year comparison where things were and where things are at, um, begin to understand a bit more about the dynamics that are happening across the county, including within our downtown, um, and begin to kind of shine a light a little bit more on where we have opportunities, and that is in those areas around tax exempt lands.

Um I kind of hit my bullet here's spot on here, um, just around tax exempt property, be it owned by Ramsey County or others, you know, represent opportunities for us to begin to think about how we respond to property tax pressures.

Um, you know, Ramsey County is highly urbanized.

We say that in many of our talking points that we are the most you know developed uh county in the state.

So redevelopment is our business, um, and areas of highest concentration and highest productivity are important and do matter a lot.

Um, redevelopment though comes at a cost.

It typically is more complex, um, usually takes a little bit more time.

Um, but we have an existing portfolio projects that the county is working on, actively on, working really hard to expedite.

Um, and we have some additional ones that are on the horizon.

So we have ways that we are beginning and have been responding to those those pressures.

Um, and then lastly, um, a little bit around land productivity.

And you know, one of the aspects of the property tax pressures that we've seen is the shifts that are be have been happening as the county um sees some differences, you know, and not to kind of get out of head, but you know, changes in downtown where office to residential or office uh properties are um looking for you know new opportunities, new tenants.

They are me, they are absolutely having um shifting a lot of those pressures um to residential um uses and residential properties.

So, with that uh kind of table setting, I want to turn this over to to Heather and let her speed for a lot of slides.

Well, good afternoon, thanks for having me here today.

Uh, Urban Three is just so pleased to be able to work with the Ramsey County again.

And um, and I am also pleased as a former employee of Ramsey County and a resident of St.