The Rochester City Council held a regular meeting on January 22, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. in the Government Center Council Chamber. The meeting included an open comment period, a consent agenda, a public hearing on a comprehensive plan amendment, a veto override discussion on a downtown preservation grant, and a study session location update. Key decisions included approval of a land use change, override of the mayor's veto on a grant, and approval of a snow plow attachment purchase.
Thank you. Welcome everyone to the January 22nd, 2025 City Council meeting. We begin each meeting with the open comment period. This is an opportunity for anyone from the public to speak and on items that we will not be taking public testimony during a public hearing later this uh in the agenda. Each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of 20 minutes. I will keeping will keep track of time through a uh variety of methods. We have uh a uh stop light here. Uh so please know that I may need to cut you off uh uh because of the time limit. We want to be sure that others uh have an opportunity to speak. Um I'd also request that each speaker uh be concise to allow more people to speak during the designated time. Participants are further encouraged to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of the city council's ability to affect policy. Council members and staff do not respond to your comments during public comment, but will instead follow up on any specific requests separately. If you have any materials to share with the council, please give them to Clerk Geisler over here to my right, uh, and she will distribute them. You will be invited up in order that you signed up. Please state your name clearly and make sure that the clerk has your information if you need for us to follow up with you. And with that, we will start with Paula Harden. My name is Paula Harden and I am a disability rights activist. Welcome, new council members. Please include the needs of people with disabilities when you are doing strategic planning and formulating future city budgets. In the decades since the ADA was passed and amended, previous city decisions on issues often excluded people with disabilities, such as for budgets, programs, and services. Be proactive, do the right thing. Do not wait for federal or state government to provide laws or regulations to stop discriminating against with people with disabilities. Everyday details can form barriers to people who have a wide range of disabilities. Well, affordable housing is a crisis. Accessible affordable housing is an even bigger crisis. At the national level, less than one percent of housing stock is accessible despite the seven minimum requirements of the FHA 1988. And even though Minnesota state has a visitability law, if you haven't heard that word before, come ask me to define it. Like the Fair Housing Act, it has many exceptions, exemptions, and other get out of jail free cards that render it toothless despite it covering all dwellings. Stop using these excuses. Here's a thought experiment for you. What if the city budgets reflected the percentage of people with disabilities in Rochester? It's time to stop trimming the budget by excluding people with disabilities from the programs and services provided by our city government. It is time to stop excluding people with disabilities from cities' strategic priorities and vision statement. People with disabilities aren't mentioned once. Thank you, Ms. Hardin. Next up we have Vicki Hagstrom. I'm Dr. Vicki Hagstrom, and I'm here to represent child safety. Recently, an adult male in this community brutally raped and tortured a six-month-old baby girl in order to produce porn to distribute for profit to a bloodthirsty global marketplace. I'm here to find out what this city council, this city leadership, this mayor, this chief of police, and beyond this room, leaders in the political, medical, business, and religious communities plan to do to make sure that this never happens to another child, tween, teen or vulnerable adults. That is all. Thank you. That's all I have on the sign-up sheet. Are there any others who wish to speak during open comment period? Any others wish to speak? Seeing none, we will close the public, close the open comment period, and I'll ask uh Clerk Geisler if you could call call the role. Councilmember Keene. Here. Councilmember Miller.