Are you looking at your thing?

No, just leave it this way.

Thank you.

I had the same thing.

Mine was all the way on the ground.

Open larger conspiracy.

Recording in progress.

Welcome everybody.

We are going to get uh started with our August 18th study session, and we have one agenda item, which is a quite lengthy agenda item.

Uh we hope to be out of here by I believe five o'clock, so an hour and a half to discuss the 2025 action plan realignment, and we have Mr.

Aaron Parrish to start us off.

Mayor President of the Council, good evening.

Uh really happy to bring this uh one item to you this evening.

That's first as you recall uh through the course of the year you've had some conversations around what are the strategic priorities of the city council.

Um you had the opportunity to evolve those, you had the opportunity to evolve your foundational principles.

And the next step really is to then translate that into an action plan.

So, how are we gonna bring those strategic priorities to life?

How are we gonna make progress?

But also as important, how are we gonna measure uh ourselves uh with that progress?

So we we'll go through some of that.

Uh again, you have your five-anchor strategic priorities of economic resilience, housing access, inclusive growth management, responsible environmental stewardship and transformational capital projects.

And at the end of the day, this is like your vision for what you want to see accomplished in the next two to four year time frame uh for the city.

I'm not gonna go through all those, but this is sort of the uh time that you've spent on working on developing those strategic priorities, and we're here today uh for you to consider the action plan.

Um, if you have some level of comfort with this action plan, then the next step would be to have it be formally approved at a city council meeting in September.

Um just uh giving you a little bit of cadence uh for how we work with the action plan, and there this team also does some work planning behind this.

Um, but we will bring this to you twice a year, uh, one time as kind of a mid-year check, and then the other is sort of just toward the turn of the year after we've collected the data uh for the year and just give you like a more of an annual update on how we did in 25.

So the next time you see this will be that uh turn of the year.

Um, how did we do in 2025 in terms of making progress on those action plans?

And a lot of the content that's embedded within here really is sort of in this two to four year window.

Um, realizing we have plans that go out 50 years, 20 years, 10 years.

We're trying to assimilate all that into like what do we really focus on in the next two to four years that we can accomplish.

Uh and you'll all do some follow-up strategic planning as well, uh, year to year, also.

Uh so I want to go through uh just from a formatting perspective, what we do in the action plan is each one of the strategic priorities you have, we put goals under that, and with each of those goals, we've put some tactics like what are we gonna do to advance that work, and we've also uh layered in some uh uh KPIs, uh key performance indicators that will help us measure that.

Uh so economic resilience, just starting off uh in this space, and just for uh a note, I think I'll take a pause after each priority and give you give the opportunity, give you the opportunity to provide feedback on each one of these.

And uh we have the team here, they'll you know, kind of take notes and we'll evolve that based on the feedback that we hear.

Um, but from an economic resilience uh perspective.

So the first goal uh really is to develop a cohesive city economic development strategy and staffing model that complements key economic development partners.

Um the second is really to lean into a tourism strategy, um, particularly in that economic uh or that uh evening and weekend space.

And then lastly, uh, and you'll see this one carry through all the uh strategic priorities, just what can we do to optimize city services in order to support the work and and how we uh help the community make progress on each one of these?

Uh so some specific tactics here.

Uh one is uh really just talking about that role in staffing.

So you've had a little bit of a light conversation in this space around the uh economic mobility uh item that's on your agenda, um, but this sort of leans into that.

Uh tactic two is something that you've all been you know having conversation about too on an ongoing basis, just like what is our regulatory role?

How do we balance you know, doing well in the community and providing you know great development, um, but also um allowing for an efficient uh building uh an efficient uh regulatory environment that allows people to move ahead with projects, both in the housing access and economic resilience space.

Uh business retention and expansion.

This really just leans into the idea that you know every solid economic development strategy that you've ever seen in a community relies on taking care of your existing businesses that are here well.

Um, how can you lean in and retain?

It's a lot harder to go out, um, get a new business to come into your community than it is to support the ones that are here and help them grow.

Uh and then the last tactic really focuses on equitable economic development.

So we've had a lot of work in the in a disparity study that we participated in about how we do city contracting and what our opportunities are for that.

Um we have uh goals in the uh WMBE and workforce participation space, and so this also sort of relates into how do we create equitable equitable economic development.

Again, also another tie back to this economic mobility conversation and how we can uh do work in that space ultimately and our procurement.

Now, just remember these are always goals.

Um we can't mandate um you know certain requirements, but we want to encourage, so maybe think about you know our role in this space as encourage uh encouragement.

Uh the tourism strategy, just kind of transitioning into that space.

Uh, this is really exciting.

I think there's a lot of council conversation sort of in this space.

Uh one is just events, you know, what can we do and you know, reconsider existing events, what can we do to promote uh current events.

We have a lot of partners in this space, so just an opportunity to think about uh events and cultural amenities that you know will help strengthen the evening and weekend economy.

Uh we heard a lot of conversation both in the council uh space as well as just in surveys and other areas about trail development, uh both with regard to existing trails and maintaining what we have, but also exploring other trail connections.

Uh I think you also are seeing the county start to step out more in this space.

They've renamed their parks team, parks and trails.

They are going to be advancing a trail uh study next year.

So you folks on ROCOG, that's an opportunity for you to weigh in on you know what a regionally based trail strategy might look like.

Um park development investment.

I'd say there's been an amazing amount of progress made in this park space uh over the last number of years here.

Um and I think you want to continue that momentum.

Uh it's these kind of public spaces that people really connect with, um, but it also enhances the resident experience and the visitor experience uh for for folks.

So updating that parks master plan.

Um I know the parks team has really successfully used that plan to translate you know an overall vision into getting funding and delivering projects.

So it's time to update that.

Uh reviewing parkland dedication, that's always a robust conversation.

There's a legislative layer to that, there's an organizational layer to that.

Um, but we want to also just look at how can we finance park improvements?

You know, there's a variety of options there and continuing to look at uh what we might be able to do there.

I'm gonna do a little bit of a feature on the regional sports and rec complex in a moment, um, but just tactic four really leans into that space of developing the final estimates and uh moving that project forward.

Uh Tactic Five really leans into marketing and focuses on marketing.

Uh, we have a destination marketing organization with experienced Rochester.

A lot of our visitorship in Rochester kind of happens through medical tourism.

Um, but you do have the opportunity to say, like, what else can we do in that space?

How else can we market?

What other experiences can we provide to bring people to the community?

Um, and really also then thinking about sports-centric tourism.

Um, this is an oldie but a goodie, but the Chateau Theater or the Chateau, um, I guess uh really trying to get our final strategy uh leaned into there.

Uh what do we need to do for renovations?

What is our uh best operating approach programmatically?

What's gonna meet community needs, what's gonna meet visitor needs, and really trying to think about what the long-term future of the Chateau wants to be.

Um that then just trans transitions into this action plan.

For questions.

Well, I can start.

I had a couple questions, and I guess I guess um going back to goal A.

Um and maybe overall uh I kind of want to get a sense of how and when some of these will come back to us, for example, with uh clarifying the city's economic development role.

And you know, what where are we in that space now and what is the goals for that?

That would be one piece.

And I don't know if you want to answer these questions now or if you're I I can start and then pass around because I've got a call on a lot of lifelines tonight.

Okay, good.

Um let's start with that one.

Because Councilmember Palmer said you a lot of questions, and I've heard we've got a great team here to help me out.

But uh I would say an economic development.

So one thing you'll notice later in the packet is we have all these goals and tactics uh laid out in the packet.

And you know, once we get some understanding that this is the direction you want to go, we'll put specific departments, people, teams, and some you know, timing information in there.

Obviously, whatever we're doing administratively, we'll you know bring that to you more generally in the form of the updates twice a year on the action plan.

But as you're gonna see, and you'll have experienced, um, many of the items that are in here are gonna show up when they're ready on different study sessions and different council action items.

And so, you know, that'll be the mechanism in which we sort of have a more ongoing connection outside of the normal formal action plan concepting.

I would say there's a good base of information in the economic development landscape, ready at commission to study maybe three to four years ago around the economic development ecosystem.

And you know, there's still a number of things I think that are reasonable questions that could be answered.

I think part of the economic mobility process that you have on the uh agenda this evening is also oriented in this space.

And I guess with that, I'm happy for others to weigh in there too.

But I guess my uh maybe a specific question to uh administr administrators elms.

It do we have economic development on our study session schedule now, and is it something that would be a topic for a study session?

Uh council president, we do not have that on the study session right now.

I think it depends on how broadly you want to discuss it, but we probably would again some of these things are gonna require more work if the council agrees to it by staff to come up with more details to bring forward to you.

So we didn't do all of the back work before we brought you the high level.

So no, I I get it.

I I in and in my uh uh perspective, I think it merits uh a deeper dive.

Uh I'll I'll quickly move on to a couple others that I have questions on.

Regulatory commitment, there's a lot of good work that uh both council member Palmer and myself have encouraged the city to work with uh the Rochester area builders on.

I'm hearing a lot of good work coming out of that, but I don't know that we have seen it in a public setting.

You know, what and and when I say good work, I'm talking about streamlining licenses and uh permitting processes and making it easier for uh businesses and developers to uh to stay here and continue to uh build here.

And so I think that would be one that it would be good for us to see before a public setting like this.

So no need to comment on that.

Uh and then uh parks and rec what I um uh one of the discussion items that I uh encouraged during our overall discussion of the per parks and rec model was to look at uh developing guidelines and or policies around uh the agreements that we have with the clubs, associations, uh, and in particular the agreements that would uh encourage greater access and sliding fee skit schedules, sponsorships.

So that would be what I would encourage on that.

And then finally, from uh my perspective, and then I'll let other council members weigh in on the chateau.

The last uh that this came before this body was we were going to see uh not a final strategy, but from my recollection, we were going to see here is the you know top line possibilities, here's a middle line possibility, and here is kind of the maintenance possibility.

And so um wondering when that will come back to uh the council.

Any answers on those?

So council president Shebring, thank you for the question.

Uh we are hoping to bring that back uh for an update.

The chateau chateau operational assessment.

Yeah, hoping to bring that back next month.

It is well behind schedule, I'll be quite honest.

Um, there's a number of reasons for that that I won't go into for today, but we are uh meaning to look at the executive summary next week.

Um try to see if it's in a space where we feel comfortable to bring forward to you for an update.

So our goal is to bring that back next month.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Miller.

Yeah, just a quick question on goal B within this.

Uh I'm curious about how you feel of the historic district and some of the work that's happening there, retail storefronts in that district as part of the tourism strategy evening at weekend if there's a role to highlight that a bit more clearly since there are active projects going on.

Yeah, I think that's a fair thing that we could consider adding, you know.

I don't know that it's necessarily reflected here, but I think that's something we could put on the list to you know level this up.

Yeah, love to see that as an emphasis.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Thank you.

On goal E, you said key partners.

Can you just identify what those key partners are look like?

Yeah, I I mean, I think in general in your economic development ecosystem.

Um it's just be part of your conversation.

I think that the council president was alluding to just to have you know some sense of you know what that landscape looks like.

But obviously, you talk about destination medical center ready.

Um we have a collaboration with the small business development center, um, your higher education institutions locally, collider, um, you know, and many more, I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but you know, there's a lot of people that are working in this space, the the acceleration work that Mail Clinic is doing, uh the emerging sort of investments that are happening in the biobusiness center as well as the um uh discovery one, too, and all that.

So I think that's all part of it, but I'm and I'm sure there's more.

Mayor Norton Yeah, two to I'm two things.

One, I'm pleased to see goal A focusing on economic development, as I've been talking about for a couple of years, cities our size and larger often have a whole department focused on this, and we just haven't had that.

Not that we haven't had staff that have done some work, we have, but we haven't really focused.

So I'm really pleased about goal A.

Um, goal B, if we can switch to the next slide.

Um, and can you move the little black thing down, the little verbiage?

Thank you.

Um I'm gonna suggest uh implement a tourism strategy, period or comma that includes evening and weekend economic activity.

And I say that because we have medical patients that are here for medical tourism, but they're looking for things to do during the day, and there is nothing in Rochester for them to do during the day.

Um that is meaning that it's a little, it's minimal.

Um, and we do have an opportunity, and we've talked about this at the chamber and already years ago.

We do have regional assets at what as well that we don't market quite as well as we could.

So I would just say, is there a way to just implement a tourism strategy?

And you know, if you want to also look at enhancing even in weekends, fine.

Um, but I'm going to suggest if you do keep evening and weekends um on there as including that that there are things that are missing from this.

And so um my suggestion would be on tactic four.

It should say regional sports and recreation, period, not focused on just a complex, because we have multiple complexes in this community that could be activated for folks, whether it be out at RCTC or whether it be our recenter.

We have swimming, for instance.

Um we have other um sports and recreation, and I I don't think we should limit ourselves to just a complex.

And if you're gonna be honest, I think there's still question as to whether phase two should really be phase two, and that I'm concerned that we continue to use phase one and phase two when the community has been very clear that they want us to focus on the community aspect of it, which I just want the whole issue dealt with.

I really am getting frustrated with phase one and phase two because I don't know the timeline on that, and I think we need to get that community aspect uh done sooner.

And tactic six, I would say chateau, yes, and um we have had a request in this community for as long as I've lived here that folks want more of a culture community center, which can include music venues and that sort of thing.

It's a big item.

Um I was approached just recently by folks from the Symphony Orchestra from the Art Center who really want us to consider um doing something that's a broader cultural center that would include all of the arts and and culture in the community, and that came through loud and clear on the R V 2050 as well.

So I I think the chateau is something we need to deal with, and that's a really limited uh look at that.

But I think if we're really talking about tourism and bringing folks to the community, this community values its arts, its theater and music, and we should make sure that we're continuing to focus on that as well.

Council member uh Keene.

Um yeah, again, I'm gonna just try to reset and just make sure I understand what's happening here and these goals and that the economic resilience.

This is a we're talking about working on a strategy for this.

I want to make sure that anyone listening to us doesn't think we're working on closing the chateau and doing all these projects in the next year.

And I'm afraid by some of the language here, we're starting to imply that we're not just trying to make a goal of trying to understand what our future is, but we're inadvertently making commitments to things that I don't think we have any plans to do.

So, your honor, I I think a couple things, and maybe whilst just walking back to the mayor's comments.

I, you know, the phrasing of goal B, I think we certainly could take a look at that.

I mean, we have a lot of goals in the tourism space, right?

Um, as far as the chateau, I I think in you'll see a lot of these goals are very much and tactics are very much written to you know articulate that we're on a journey to figure out what we want to do with the chateau.

So Chateau is develop a final strategy, and it doesn't say what that is, it just says it could be a cultural and community center.

There's a lot of dimensions to that conversation in terms of operating support and operating models, and you know, name all the things.

Um it could be something similar to what we're doing now, or it could be any number of things.

But I think that's the intent of you know, leaving the language somewhat open.

Any of those options has a different renovation profile and capital investment profile.

Um, and so that I think the chateau is written open enough for you to have a future conversation about what you think it wants to be without saying here tonight we are going to do there.

Uh so I think realizing I think it's good, these are in process.

It these are goals and taxes doesn't mean we're gonna accomplish them all either.

Like I have a lot of goals that I don't always hit, but having them helps me make progress too.

Good.

I just want to have this discussion from the dias because I I'm afraid sometimes we get misunderstood when we talk about we're going to do this, that we're going to complete something.

So thank you.

Carry on.

All right.

Um, so and I say this uh portion from the mayor's comments on action plan feature.

So we just want to give you a feature on one of the items that's you know actively being worked on.

You know, there's been a lot of uh conversation and enthusiasm and energy around the regional sports and rec complex.

Um just want to kind of ground you in some of the the history I've walked with the project uh since it was started, you know, even prior to legislation being introduced, as well as just want you to understand some of the very discrete next steps.

Um we obviously have invested a lot of money into getting to where we are today.

Um we're six and a half, seven million dollars into phase one at this point.

Um your next discussion points for this at the city council will be October 6th, and we have two tracks that we're working on right now.

One is the debt issuance.

Um, and as you know, there's actually quite a bit of work that goes into the debt issuance.

We have rating calls with our you know bond issuing community, and we do a lot of work in that space.

Um, but on October 6th, you'd be asked to set a sale date for the bonds for that.

Um, there's we we spend money to go out and you know, basically put our materials together to uh look at that uh bonding process, and then November 17th, you'd be asked to award the sale.

And so, you know, we're on a track for the financing piece of that.

Uh the other is the construction and operations track.

So the goal would be on October 6th for you to have a bid authorization saying we are ready to advertise for bids, um, and then approving the operating agreement based on what you saw at the July 28th study session, I believe.

And then you'd be asked to consider awarding those bids on the 17th in order to you know keep keep the project going.

I will say a couple things, just I think it's important.

Um, and Councilmember Keene, I think did a really good job of saying like people attach meaning to what we talk about here.

Um, and and obviously that's happened with this project.

Um, I'll just say in in 20 uh 22, the first legislation that was introduced was for a 65 million dollar outdoor focus concept.

It was very distinct in the transmittal materials to the state that said we are gonna have an outdoor complex with indoor supportive features, which generally means concession stands and bathrooms and things like that.

So we were not committing to a significant outdoor component when the legislation was originally introduced in 22.

Uh, nothing got approved by the legislature that year, and the tax bill didn't get approved, nothing happened.

So it was basically we had hearings, but nothing happened that particular year.

Um move on to 23.

Um, the legislation was approved.

Uh, it was didn't walk in the house tax bill, never in the house.

It was in the Senate tax bill, and it was ultimately approved, you know, in the final omnibus bill in May.

Um, we had not yet contracted um and received any design concepts once that legislation was approved.

You had that same time frame when the legislation was approved.

You had a gap analysis.

That was it.

You didn't receive a design idea for the project until July of that year.

And so just you know, realizing that ISG provided that design concept with a range of 65 to 83 million.

I put a little bit more on top of that just because of escalation now.

But you know, that's where you got the indoor outdoor concept saying we could do what we consider and talk about now as phase one and phase two for let's say it was 83 million dollars.

That was still in exceedance of our 65 million dollar budget.

There was always a conversation of we need to bring more money into the project, or we need to we need to value engineer and scale the project back.

It's one of those two things.

Um that's kind of where it ended in July of that year.

Um then we went to the vote in 23.

Um, obviously, we thought we had the potential to deliver an indoor outdoor project.

That's not where we ended up.

We ended up with a new design concept, new project team, um, with uh with estimates that are much, much higher than that.

Um, where today, when you had to make that decision last February to decide what project you wanted to bring forward, um, you could have delivered the whole project, phase one and phase two.

That's probably 130 to 140 million dollar project, the indoor and outdoor components together, and about a million dollars of operating deficit.

That's the conversation you had in February.

If you want to do both, um 130, 140 million dollars, and about a million dollars of operating support for year for a year from the levy.

Um, so again, to date, we've spent 6.3 million dollars, and uh you know, we continue to obviously you know have a lot of conversation about this.

Um I will say though, we are also committed last February to you that we were gonna identify options for financing phase two, or replicating that experience in other facilities in the community.

And so, how can we do that?

Um we are gonna give you some high-level well, I'm not gonna go through all these for you.

This is really just sort of we'll call it the record.

Like, here's every action that you've taken on this item, and just sort of a very distinct sequence of of events that have taken place on this project, as you can see, um, there are many.

Um, and before just options, I'd also say like when you start a project and concepting a project in 21, um kind of in the middle of a pandemic, and you know, you're really starting to bid it out in 25.

There's other things that happen.

Um many of you weren't here.

Um we the YMCA in the course of this conversation closed.

Um we had a lot of aquatics conversation in the original gap analysis.

So when we were talking about this very distinctly in the summer of 23, there was a lot of energy around aquatics.

Um, but we've done Soldier's Field, we've done Silver Lake since then.

Those are landscape level changes.

The Eagles have created some pickleball courts, not a lot, but but incrementally created some pickleball courts.

Um there was a lot of talk in that 23 indoor concept about an indoor playground during that same time, November of 23 boundless is now open.

It was just an idea, public hadn't been in there.

Boundless is now open and available to the public as an indoor playground.

Um so you know, just some things have have happened, and on top of that, there's tariffs, there's other items, um, certainly that are just more macro level issues.

Um moving on, uh, I'll just say you have options for phase two.

Um we'll continue to work, and you we obviously you know, none of these is going to occur in isolation, but if you want to, you know, even do an indoor project today, you're gonna have to explore one of these options if you elected to not do the outdoor version.

Um, but again, if you want to do both indoor and outdoor phase one, phase two, these are your other options you have.

Um, food and beverage tax is an option, um, requires state uh legislative approval at least.

Doesn't necessarily require voter approval depending on how the legislation is written.

Um, but you know, you could put a food and beverage tax into into effect.

Very typical thing that happens in jurisdictions like Rochester.

Um you could dedicate that to you know future regional sports facilities.

Uh local sales tax or some variations of that.

You can get extensions, you can modify your terms.

Our collections are very good.

Um we gave ourselves a fair amount of room uh to collect on this project.

Uh I would expect we would have the full 205 million dollars collected well, well, well in advance of the 24 years that the legislation has given us.

So, you know, there's conversations you can have there.

State bonding again, these are these three first three all involve the state, so that's a whole other conversation.

Uh sponsorship and private fundraising, certainly another option.

Um that was lightly explored.

We didn't have anybody major coming to the table saying I want to close the gap of you know, even when it was 83 million dollars, we didn't have anyone saying I'm willing to close the gap to 83 million dollars back then.

Now it doesn't say it can't happen.

Um I think you know, we want to rely on philanthropy, that's certainly great.

Uh and the other option is you know, local bonding or local revenue.

I mean, that's certainly you're familiar with that.

You ask residents to pay for, and they can, and that's part of what you do here.

A lot of levy percent increase involved in generating those kinds of funds, and then there's certainly other options, which I think is what the question mark is, like unknown or or what have you.

So um, I just want to say, like, you know, there's a lot of conversations on this, and I think you know, it's the nature of what we do in the public environment is people attach meaning to things that are meaningful to them.

Um sports complex is a different idea than a community center.

We did not reflect that when we introduced the original legislation as a community center.

It's not what was said, not what was represented.

Um that hasn't changed.

Um, I would just say, like, you know, we're not ruling out phase two.

Um, you have the opportunity to do indoor uh uh features later.

Um, and I also think sometimes we get into all or nothing thinking on these things where if something accommodates competitive, you know, economically related or relevant items that it can't be community beneficial.

I think our experience is that it can be.

Our experience is that the National Volleyball Center, I'll use it as an example, attracts many tournaments, many people to the community, and it's really great for the local community to use.

So there's a lot of local people that make their way through the National Volleyball Center.

It's very locally relevant uh to our community.

Um, so just with that, I'll probably take a pause.

I feel like you all have a lot of great questions on this, and I'm ready to ready to answer them.

So thank you, Mr.

Parish.

Uh, I don't have a question, but more kind of a comment of on kind of where we go.

And from my perspective, I'm not here to relitigate how we got here, but where we are today is we have a $65 million uh statute that says we can't we uh can spend that for a sports center.

And we in February uh made the decision that we were we we got a cold slap in the face and said uh this is what we can do for 65 million dollars.

And the community came back and said that's not what we thought this would be.

We thought it call it phase one, call it phase two, call it uh sports complex, call it a community center.

They saw that what we were left with was the sports tourism piece of the complex, and the community piece was not there in uh in phase one.

So where we are today, and I have talked to over a hundred residents in uh Rochester about this, and uh there really is a strong feeling that this isn't what we voted for.

And uh I look and say, okay, where do we go from here?

And I look at opportunities for where can we bring in community access to parks and rec overall?

That's why I keep pushing on that access piece, and then where are their facilities that are maybe not uh used to the extent that they should be, and can we in this six-week period that we have between now and when we take our next vote on this item?

Can we work to uh enhance our partnership, for example, with our CTC?

There are six uh basketball courts in a field house that uh that is underused uh from what I understand, and the city has uh the opportunity to use that uh on the evenings.

There are so really what I'm looking for is and it and I wouldn't call it a phase one or phase two, it's in tandem with what we're doing with the sports complex that we really show the community that we want to build uh that that relationship enhance the partnership, enhance the visibility, enhance the amenities, and the uh potentially look at you know what kind of funding to enhance the facilities there.

It's in tandem with what we're doing with the sports complex that we really show the community that we want to build uh that that relationship enhance the partnership, enhance the visibility, enhance the amenities, and the uh potentially look at you know what kind of funding to enhance the facilities there.

So uh so I I want to see that discussion started uh during this period.

That's my uh thoughts on it.

Other council members, Mayor Norton.

Yes, and I appreciate those comments, and I think that heads in a direction I'm far more comfortable with.

I'm kind of surprised that this presentation on strategic goals for the year has taken a turn to be a presentation and rehash of this particular issue.

Um I hadn't expected quite that today.

Um, but I think the idea that we don't have a phase one and a phase two, we have a responsibility to the community to give them what they voted for.

And I'm sensing this inability for staff to step back and say, yeah, we've been on this path, but it's not what the community is telling us they want at all.

Um, and hundreds is an underestimate.

This has been nonstop um comments about this.

And there are people who voted yes on the referendum who use the term bait and switch a lot.

And I think that's how they're feeling.

And so, how can we put a pause rather than moving ahead so quickly?

And maybe you can do it in six weeks, and if you can't, then we move it out a little further, and say we want to address what the community wants, not phase one or phase two, but as the project.

And if we need legislative language, which I think one of our representatives or one of our senators has mentioned, we may need legislative language.

We have a session coming up ahead where we could ask them to be able to utilize the funds in two places rather than one, because we were allowed up to five areas and we didn't do five, we did four.

So I think there's other options here to get the project that the community wants done and not be stuck on it has to be the way we've been talking about it to date.

And some of the ideas that council president Schuebring mentioned resonate well uh with me and with what I've been hearing from the community, and it's RCTC and potentially even the uh the recenter.

And so when you had that little question mark at the bottom of the one page there, I think there are other things that we can do.

And I think those other things are to rethink what we're doing.

Um, and maybe this uh complex that you have assigned could be something more or something different than you currently have it proposed.

Maybe it needs to be a mild variation of that in order to work within the budget.

And then your phase two is finishing that off, and maybe not having that all done at once, but instead working on the local comput community components that folks are asking for.

So for me, that that's the input I would give you on that question mark.

Councilmember Palmer.

Um, I've been involved with this for a long period of time, and I don't think we're rehashing anything.

I think it's a a statement of facts that what we're being presented today.

Um, not everybody wants to listen to facts.

We started in January of 22 on this project, and this is what we've come up with.

Um I think there's a uh definitions that are different here, and and there's one is is community center and then community use.

And and this project has always been a community use project.

This has been one that people from Rochester will come and use.

Um it's not totally set up for for all that all the time, but it's it's not just for for people who are um traveling from out of state.

So it is a community use in the city council when I was on it and we voted for this was very that we needed community use.

It is not a community center, never has been.

And I think when people keep saying that, I think that they muddy the issue, which I think is what some people are trying to do.

Um, I think people forget that there's a difference between park and rec and how they've operated for many, many years as partnerships in the community, and then this is a different facility.

Um we right now use property tax for $700,000 for the recenter.

Um that facility is there, it's been there for a long period of time, and there's some people who've never been in the rec center.

Um people like me have sold candy bars to build the pool.

Um, and so I think it's important for people to remember that.

Uh if if pausing a project made sense, we wouldn't be continuing to do this.

The city council voted last city council and this city council to advance this project.

And I think that uh to me, when we go all for bid, that will be the uh the the communation of starting this entire project and and providing it to the community, as we said we were going to do.

I I was in 25 different hearings um in presentations to the community.

Um some people here weren't at any.

Some people had no support for this at any one time, and they still haven't got any support.

And my understanding is if if I lose five to one, it's a council decision.

The council marches is one.

I don't sit here and scream and holler and say this is wrong continuously.

And so I'm in favor of this.

I'm glad that we had a facts that were presented to us today.

And I'm I'm seriously hoping that the city council will continue to uh um work on this process.

And if we need to look at park and rec, park and rec has a charter board, they're different than we are.

We literally only give them money.

We can ask them to look at that, and maybe we need to give them more money to help out with scholarships.

That's something that the city council can do.

So that's my opinion on this this presentation so far.

Councilmember Miller.

I'll just add briefly coming back to the action plan and our strategic priorities.

I do think that there is an emerging priority about how we're meeting recreational needs in the community.

We've put inclusive growth management.

I mean, this is potentially a piece of that, but I think that there is this broader conversation that has to be had.

And the other missing piece of the puzzle or piece of the puzzle from your slide is is conversations about RCTC's operating model for their sports center.

And so I think that there is a public conversation that's happening.

I think this is a prime opportunity to talk about how we are addressing that.

And I don't know uh that it's a restructured action plan, but I I do think it based on the communications that I've had would be a miss to not have the broader conversation about how we meet recreational access and where this potentially fits in as a piece and be very clear about what it does and doesn't solve.

Yeah, and just to that point, I think, and also to the mayor's point earlier, we can work on the language in that that item, you know.

That obviously I think we I would recommend to you that you continue to have something in the regional sports and rec complex space and evaluating opportunities for other you know, rec regional sports and recreational facilities and or community facilities that offer active.

We'll we'll figure out some language that could maybe broaden that out.

Some okay, continue.

All right, I'm resetting the clickers.

I wore that one out, I guess.

Um thank you for the indulgence there.

Again, I think it's just and good, good to you know, for you to understand October 6th is really the next opportunity for you to talk about that.

And um, you know, we're we're spending a lot of time every day on this.

Also, really appreciate the idea, and I know the team is uh very significantly working on um what you talked about in terms of you know what can we do at the rec center, what can we do with RCTC?

I know Alison's you know really made a priority, uh Mr.

Zelm excuse me, has made a priority you know around uh around you know making sure we're doing that.

I also know the parks team is uh looking at like what their after-school programming looks like, and you know, right now there's a strong adaptive rec component to what happens there, but it's a big building, and so maybe there's some opportunities for a few days a week to you know use pools, engines, and try to find the sweet spot um where we can at least meet some interim need there as well.

Okay, uh thank you for for that.

Back to economic resilience.

Uh so again, this is that optimizing city services.

I won't go through each of the tactics here.

I think some of this is already talked about um when the you know for their previous conversations, but again, permitting, how do we maximize economic vitality investments?

Um for the for those that may not know, we own the bio business center, which is a very significant asset in the downtown.

Um there's some critical decision points coming in that space.

Uh we have mail leases there till I think 29.

Um, but those will be over, and we'll have to think about you know, is there adaptive reuse potential for that?

Is there other you know things that we want to think about for the mission of that building uh long term?

And then we you've all recently talked about city parcels as well.

So with that, um I think we got a lot of the economic vitality conversation or economic resilience conversation talked about, but is there anything else before we transition to our next strategic priority?

I think we're good.

Okay.

All right, so housing access.

Uh again, some of the same themes you'll see uh economic resilience and housing access really sort of lean into our community development team and some of the things they work on.

Goal A is promoting construction of owner-occupied homes.

Uh B focuses on neighborhoods that support infill, adaptive reuse, and accessible housing.

Uh this is our first real goal that's reflected accessible housing.

Uh then we have uh C supporting uh county and nonprofit efforts to effectively provide resources to persons experiencing housing instability.

And as often you do in an action plan like this, you're trying to forecast you know where we lead and where we support.

And so we do try to put some definition to that.

And then again, we have this broader optimizing city services goal.

So again, uh promoting construction of owner occupied homes, regulatory environment.

Um, for example, with the collaboration you have going on the West 80 development with the affordable single family homes being constructed there.

We're trying to look at lessons learned.

And so, for example, one item was maybe we don't need to do boulevard trees in the boulevard.

Maybe we can just require people to put one in their front yard instead.

And so just might seem like a small thing, but it you know, it ended up could end up being you know, the little things that make uh make a difference on this.

Uh, where are opportunities for home ownership innovation?

Again, there's challenges with condoing properties, but you know, where are our opportunities to rethink what a single family owner occupied home or an owner occupied home looks like?

Uh, then I think you know, a big area for us is really leaning into the legislative environment.

Um, I think there are, you know, this is a very active conversation at the state level.

Um, we want this to be done with cities, not two cities.

What can we do to incentivize responsible um housing policy at the local level while still encouraging that good strong connection between housing and land use and you know, the state allows and provides cities lots of transportation money?

How can we align and make linkages there?

So just thinking about legislative environment, partnering with the league and our delegation on that as well.

There's like minor little things like when you plat a lot, the taxes go up right away on it.

So there's a disincentive to plat lots.

Um you're only gonna plat what you think you can sell in a year or two.

Um might be some things to think about there in the regulatory space.

Uh goal B is that uh kind of neighborhood vitality goal.

Uh ADUs, I mean you've got a lot of great conversations around ADUs.

I won't like go in depth on that.

We haven't generated a ton of momentum there.

Um, and it's not the be all end all, but it's you know a good good thing to talk about.

Uh very strong conversation you all had in the short-term rental space.

So we want to continue to balance out the economic opportunity with short-term rentals, the visitor experience piece with short-term rentals, with the neighborhood vitality requirements.

Uh also uh accessible housing.

Are there anything we can do to incentivize the construction and creation of accessible units?

The state building codes don't really pick that up right now.

I mean, there's general you know, things for commercial structures, not as much in the residential space, but um, is there anything we can do to you know articulate best practices and or just keep track of you know the units in general?

Uh rental inspections and code enforcement.

Uh there is this like could we explore the idea of proactive code enforcement?

Um right now, quote enforcement is complaint-based.

Um, there's problems with that type of system, uh, unmet expectations by neighbors, harassment of people, like they're in a complaint-based model.

Um, so could you look at a proactive model?

What would that be?

Um, and we can have the tall grass conversation.

I know people love talking about tall grass.

So that was my joke for the day.

Um, so lead service line replacement and then uh wastewater lateral replacement.

Can we do something similar to what we're doing uh for water with like wastewater in that space?

And then uh lastly, the goal C is just the supporting nonprofit and county efforts.

Again, this is sort of our support role.

Um, there's a goal in here around uh facilities.

So is there a need for a different type of facility in the community?

You've all sort of talked about that in different spaces.

The county has you know been talking about what do we want to do in the mental health housing space, um other things.

So I think that's certainly a space, not necessarily something we lead, but do we want to have them uh you know uh supportive, uh location, you know, that we want thoughtful location on facilities that makes a difference in terms of how services are provided.

Uh public safety, I think you know, we have a strong role to create a good environment for our residents and visitors in the community, and so definitely, you know, we certainly have that public safety role across all of our goals, really.

Um so just kind of that really picks up uh here, and then supporting those individual housing stability efforts, kind of being engaged with any path home and uh we have a lot of investment we make in housing stability in our utility programs that sort of flies below the radar, but there's a bunch that happens through the RPU and donations they make to third parties to help uh help people uh stay in their homes and with their utilities.

And then lastly, again, uh second verse, same as the first year uh for housing access.

You can definitely um you know look at city parcels, how can they be repositioned for housing?

We've done that, and we can continue to do that permitting like we've talked about, and then again those thoughtful economic vitality investments.

So with that, um would pause if there's other feedback in this housing access space that people want to talk about.

Councilmember Miller.

Uh just a quick comment.

I I appreciate seeing some of these things come up, especially accessible housing as a priority uh within this.

I know we talked quite a bit about that.

With ADUs and some of this infill development, I wonder if there's an opportunity as well to uh evaluate the the financing landscape.

You know, thinking about the 30-year mortgage is not um typically being applied for ADUs and some of that infill development.

So is there a role for the city to play in bringing down some of the barriers to financing, whether that's revolving loan funds, some of the economic development, sales tax funds, but just understanding that as a barrier beyond the regulatory space.

Um I mean, I think we could like tie that into the barriers part of the conversation.

Um, you know, I think like a lot of these things too.

It's you know, what do we have to put in the accept the things you cannot change bucket?

And like we're not moving the needle on national mortgage rates, right?

Like that's not something we're gonna be able to do, or commercial lending and you know, and respectfully, I wouldn't ask that.

I I'm just thinking about sort of the the oversized role that the 30-year mortgage plays and what types of housing is able to be financed and how that's scaled up, and just understanding as a barrier beyond permitting regulatory barriers to ADUs or conversions of existing structures, um, what role you know financing is playing and what gets created versus what doesn't.

And um, I mean, even to the economic vitality, economic resilience of is is there an opportunity to understand how we invest in existing owners creating infill and getting some economic benefit, but not scaled up to the highest return that investors are looking at, but understand the role that we create some economic activity even through infill housing.

Yeah, I think we could certainly you know evaluate the the financing landscape of what barriers are created.

Um certainly something we can put in here.

Thank you.

Councilmember Palmer.

Well, ADU is a uh romantic idea.

And the problem that we're having is right now we we have an incentive program for them, and we don't have anybody taking the incentives.

We haven't had to my knowledge, any ADUs built infill in downtown around this area.

And one of them is just it's that cost effective for them.

One of the requirements we have that is is is delaying it is that somebody has to be the homeowner has to live in one of the two units.

If we took that away from that, you would have more people wanting to build ADUs in in the infill areas because then somebody who has a rental could build one in the in the backyard.

The disincentive to that is that some people think it disrupts the neighborhood and the neighbors don't want it.

So it's a it's not that we haven't tried to get ADUs.

I believe the only two we've had built was built by Bigelow and they're new, and it's a little bit easier to do that.

Um, but but that's a tough one.

One of the things you had on here, uh, Mr.

Parrish was the incentives for lots.

And people don't realize is that it used to be $50 for a lot tax until you sold the house and you built on it.

And this legislative people uh needed to grab some money, so they decided to tax a lot, a bare lot at the price of the lot.

And the problem with that is a builder would go instead of putting in 50, I'm only gonna put in 10 because that's what I think I can sell.

So then he goes to his his contract and say I want to put 10 lots in.

It costs a lot more to do 10 lots per lot than it does to do 50.

So if he did 50, the lot prices would be down, and then we could sell houses cheaper because the lot prices are down.

So the the fallacy about it is that the legislative people thought they were gonna get more money, they didn't because nobody's putting in those extra lots.

And so that's one of those things that that is tough.

And it was tough for us this spring to watch the state come down and tell us what the state was going to do to us as a city and demand that these are the things we're gonna do, adding cost and in in less uh local control.

So that's something on a on a legislative perspective that we don't want to have happen, in my opinion.

Any other uh mayor, Mayor Norton.

Thank you.

Just a quick one.

Um, on the last slide, I think you have um let one lead service line replacement.

It I'm I'm thinking back to a grant that federal grant that we got that was more than just lead line replacement, it was also just lead abatement and homes and healthy homes.

Is are we still looking at participating in that?

Um we were part of the state, the the statewide grant.

We were just one component of that.

Yeah, so two different grant federal grants.

One is RPU administered lead service line, um, you know, really trying to target, you know, led the drinking water, then the others led in the homes.

And I think Cindy, if you have an update on healthy homes, it's been a I think we're out of that now, but Irene or I can answer that.

I think we have expended those funds at this point.

So I think if other funds become available, we would seek those out.

We also still have our housing rehabilitation program that some of those costs can be associated with.

And we also work with RPU on funding that they have available and coordinating to be able to help different homeowners.

Okay.

And I would just recommend I don't maybe it doesn't need to be in here as a tactic, but we do have many homes that have older paint, older homes, and it it does affect particularly children living in those their homes when they have uh uh lead, they can get lead poisoning and and affect their intellectual development if we don't get that out of there.

So uh administrative zones.

Maybe just um thank you, Council President Um Mayor.

I think that's a a good point to remind people that this is the high level, and then we'll build out the work plan, which could include advertising that, making sure we're partnering with the right agencies, those kinds of things.

So there'll be like I don't know how many hundreds of sheets after this once the team gets done with it.

Ready to go?

Yep.

All right, and then uh next uh inclusive growth management.

So uh really four uh leading goals here.

The first one is integrating active transportation uh and transit efforts to support inclusive growth uh management.

Uh part of this is just a staffing conversation as you know, there's been an evolution and some of the modeling and other things that have been done at the county level, you know, it was really at one point more distinctly focused on ROCOG with some of the traffic modeling that might be changing.

So we want to certainly be thinking about that.

Um shift and travel demand management.

There's a lot of opportunity here in this space.

Uh it really our whole downtown strategy really does rely on the idea that people are going to utilize transit and alternative methods to get to work.

I think focusing on Mail Clinic is a key partner there.

I mean, there's a you know, significant portion of your your population that attaches to the clinic's operations, and so having them as a strategic partner uh can be is very important.

Uh this you'll uh be all blessed with the conversation later around transit and the RFP.

Um we're also saying in this period of time that we need to look at transit optimization.

You know, is our system doing what it is we want to do?

Is it meeting need?

Um ridership is down precipitously since the pandemic, it has not yet recovered.

Some of the federal fundings that were stabilizing that effort are changing, and so you know, we really need to think about what our long-term strategy is in transit.

Um, and you know, there's some principles that go into that, but that's an important thing.

And then the team is also uh looking at updating our 2013 88 uh transition plan, which uh focuses a lot on the physical infrastructure in the community and what our plan is to make it accessible.

Uh B is really just ensuring those uh strategic investments are integrated with inclusive land use planning to support development uh that is tax land and service efficient.

This is sort of the grow smart um concept in here for tactics, so really just continuing to make sure if we're investing in sewer and we're also aligning it with where the water wants to invest, where the electricity is efficient to exist, just making sure all those infrastructure items are uh maximized and that we are doing it in a smart and strategic way.

And then we have some ongoing funding requests both federally and at the state level in this space as well.

Just continuing to review those growth areas.

Um again, that kind of walks with a lot of these all really interrelate.

Um, annexation, you know, as you can tell, like part of our conversation is how do we you know strategically maintain land availability for us to grow in the future, um, having some annexation priorities based on the market need, improved plans, and really looking at our existing orderly annexation agreements will be important.

Uh I think the tactic four is really a financial conversation, but just helping people understand you know what um is the fiscal impact of different types of development in the community, and so there's different measures for this.

Um, but and we've done some work in this space in the past at a high level, particularly in the DMC area in terms of you know, property tax per acre, and you know, how you know density is more efficient from an infrastructure perspective.

Um, but obviously there's you know things you got to balance out with that in terms of you know consumer preferences and things like that too.

But it's important to understand, you know, when you grow, uh the way you grow has an impact on your your levy and the way you have provide services and all those things.

So that's tactic four.

Um services.

Uh, this just kind of picks up with as we grow.

Um, what are some things we have to think about?

So you have the fire station, you know, idea in here.

You'll be hearing more about the library in the coming you know, weeks and months uh as they are starting to kind of hone in on their master planning.

That might even be something you want to talk about in the budget uh conversation, and then uh really just looking at deferred maintenance on our police training facilities and other shared training spaces.

And then uh really just looking at deferred maintenance on our police training facilities and other shared training spaces.

And then as we've talked to you uh a variety of times, uh we just need to always have a strategy for investing in our liabilities, right?

Um we have a lot of facilities out there that need investment.

We have a lot of streets that need investment in other public spaces, and so just really taking care of those things that people know and expect.

Uh, see is uh supporting uh in fill and TOD development.

You're making about a 200 million dollar investment in a BRT corridor.

It would be a big miss if you don't follow that with a certain kinds of development behind it to help the ridership to help that transportation and land use uh connection.

Uh so maximizing the link investment also um is really important and thinking about how you can incentivize TOD development in our TOD corridors, and then lastly, just uh looking at a variety of other items, uh just that dry we do we're in the growth management business generally as a city in many facets.

So, you know, what are the things that we can do here with our TIFF policy to encourage the kind of development you want to see and your strategic priorities?

Um and we have a couple of of items in here about how we do business.

So, like one water, one team is an idea that says should uh RPU or public works environmental services, you know, be more interactive or engaged or connected and and one team.

You know, you're dealing with a kind of a common resource water and all different forms, but that's something to think about.

Um, want to be sensitive to the idea, like that.

We have people that are out here doing the work, and you know, there's change that comes along with these types of ideas, but it's also like can it be better for the resource?

And that's something we want to think about.

How can we make it better for the resource and the community?

Uh it's kind of an integrated utility planning.

We sort of capture that in previous items.

And then lastly, this organizational services optimization, um, really just starting to take a look at um what's the next step for us to think about how we do our administrative and organizational services.

You know, right now I'll just say like as examples, you know, we have a finance team at RPU, we have a finance team with the city, we have an IT team with the city, an IT director with the city, we have an IT director at RPU.

Is there a way to really rethink that where we provide common support?

Um, and I don't want to um you know say that there's not a lot of important things to think about when you're having that conversation, um, but there is sort of an efficiency effectiveness.

How can we best provide organizational services for the betterment of the community ultimately and potentially save some money as as well as doing things uh in an amazing way?

So that's that's a focal point that we'd like you to consider.

And I guess with that, before we transition to environmental stewardship, I'm happy to take any questions or consider any evolutions that you have in this space.

Councilmember Palmer.

I have a chicken and egg question.

So you keep talking about a traffic study, and we're doing a large investment in downtown Rochester.

Don't you wait until that investment is done and kind of know where the traffic is going to go and the needs we're gonna need and with the BRT to see, you know, are we going to get 10 riders or 10,000 riders or 10 million riders or how how this all works out?

So I mean, to do a study now during 18 blocks of construction, does that make sense?

Yeah, I uh and maybe if you're talking about the staffing and the transportation space, um, I think we're always trying to have a good model in place for how we look at development, whether it's in the BRT area or whether it's elsewhere in the community as you're evaluating development.

So I think there's constant transportation needs.

And I think it's the answer is yes and yes, and this may be not a helpful thing for you, but the answer is yes and yes.

Like in some regards, you're not gonna know you know how much traffic might migrate over to Civic Center Drive when Second Street Southwest goes to one lane, because that's part of this project, by the way.

Like it's gonna be one lane, and so people are gonna want to drive somewhere.

Um so I think you gotta think about that, but then you also it's the hockey analogy, like I got to think about where the fuck is gonna be.

Um, so I'm not like chasing it behind all the time either.

So I think it's yes and yes.

Well kind of, I mean, you look at the buses and you mentioned bus ridership, it's two million and two million riders in 2019, we're down to 600,000.

And and you know, nobody thought about COVID, but it's here.

Have we reacted?

Are we changing what we're doing?

And so if you change this downtown, it's my analogy would be how do you know when do you need to know where the traffic flows and you know, you go back to they'll say in on parks and stuff, open a park and let people walk and then put the sidewalk where they walk.

And so we there's the chicken and egg and in problem.

The other problem I'm having is and we keep saying infill, and we all want infill, nobody doesn't want infill, but I don't know exactly where infill would take place in Rochester.

And you know, we've asked for maps, we've asked for ideas of where infill is.

Um, you know, describe to me where an infill spot is in Rochester and and give them to us so we know we have 20 acres or 200 acres, and this is where they are, and why aren't they developed?

I mean, I would assume the infill in and what is a description of what infill is.

Yeah, I think without going into it, I some of the KPIs we have on this really are about where are acreage that's available for development with services, right?

Or with limited services that need to be extended.

I think that's how you're you're targeting it.

Like, why pay twice if I have acreage available and it has services?

Why would I extend more?

Now the answer to that is like we can't control private landowners, and we never will be in a position to control private landowners.

We can encourage lots of things, but sometimes people just aren't not yet ready.

And we've seen that conversation, you know, play out in different different spaces.

So I think it's just maximizing where you have services and and really trying to prioritize your development within that.

Thank you.

And to that point, at our last week's uh council meeting uh during the presentation on the UDC.

Uh we I did ask for a map of in fill, and I think Miss Eden said at some point we would get that.

So council member Miller.

Yeah, thank you.

I I'm really glad to see some of these areas come up.

I mean, to Councilmember Palmer's question.

I think uh the question is is demand flexible in transportation, and I would argue that with staffing it can be with integrated programs, working with Mayo Clinic, making sure that our transportation system works to move people around and gives them options.

And I think that that's I see some movement in that direction.

I'm really glad for that.

Uh I would also just reiterate that I I think that transit optimization is key.

Um we've designed a ridership or a model of transportation to cover the city and then scored it on ridership, which are just fundamentally different goals.

So I think that's an important conversation as we design a new version that works in the total landscape of where we are.

And then to goal B tactic four, I think it's key that we more clearly report and communicate both to this council and to the community um the long-term impacts of how we develop.

And I'm glad to see that coming up.

I've um been asking for an update to that DMC um uh revenue or property tax per acre, and would love to see that go further and further analysis of services.

And I think um to the point of some of the prior council meetings and how we've communicated subsidies of both our EV charging technology and our parking structures and pass those costs along.

I think um clarifying where there are subsidies in our system and where there aren't helps us to make better decisions and um often changes the perception of that consumer preference and taxpayer preference if they really understand the financial implications of the decisions we make.

So I think that's really helpful direction there.

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh one of the things that I don't find anywhere in the document, at least to my recall, uh, but might be assumed in many of them, probably best fits under goal D tactic four is the use of AI to better maximize the work of the city in order to better serve uh the the residents.

I think that's a fantastic point, and I think that's worth um thinking about how we could reflect that better.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, and I think an example to Mr.

Wall would be our 311 system, something that we invested in and is helping us out, and I find it to be effective.

Mr.

Shrewbring, I I asked for a map a year ago, and uh I've not seen one.

So for some reason we're hesitant to give us a map.

Um, as far as as outreach, and what Mr.

Miller was saying, if you look at the the the simple numbers, it costs about 300 uh uh a year to maintain your roads for your your single family home in the intake for property taxes about twelve hundred dollars.

So there's a there's a large spread there between what it costs for single family to be there and and what the added benefit it is to Rochester.

Um some people will say that, oh geez, you have to add a fire station.

We've had one fire station since 1974.

So um it's important to realize what real numbers are and not just what somebody thought in a in a survey or a uh college plane, Mr.

Parrish.

All right, um I think we we have two goals to go in 20 minutes here, so just giving I can do it.

So the responsible environmental stewardship, uh again, a lot of these things work together, but this one is really you know, how can we, you know, the goals are aligned around transportation and buildings, the normal areas of greenhouse gas emission.

You know, it's always about balancing out financial viability, like what are costs there?

But like we do want to have a strategy there, and then what our community transportation electrification would look like.

And then this again is uh in the building space, so focus on that.

Huge effort, obviously, with RPU's 2030 plans.

Uh, you'll hear more about that in September.

And as you are aware, you know, they're doing some surveying and studying around rates in that right now.

Uh, just continue to look at our you know, things we're doing already with energy savings and advanced metering, like how can that be relevant to people to make good decisions in their buildings?

Same with commercial benchmarking, that's a legislative requirement for buildings over 50,000 feet.

They're doing that.

Um, what are we gonna do with it?

And how do we gonna you know make progress and educate her on that?

Uh community commercial energy, commercial and residential energy efficiency and beneficial electrification.

It's just you know, how can we switch people from fossil fuels to electric, you know, that's gonna be eventually renewable and carbon-free.

Uh, then city facilities, as we you know, we we have a significant facilities portfolio as we're doing renovations and constructions.

How are we gonna bring our footprint uh down?

Lastly, uh not lastly, enhancing uh Rochester's natural resources, so really thinking about what we can do in that urban forest and you know, canopy.

I know there's a couple investments you'll see in the budget process related to this.

Uh air quality, you all had a great conversation about that.

Water quality, there's a lot of conversation you're gonna be having in water over the next couple years, and so just be ready for that in terms of our potable water supply and what we have to be thinking about there, uh, as well as our our surface waters, as there's some additional planning happening in that space.

Uh, how can we optimize city services?

Um, I want to just say that uh natural gas franchise fee has been a funding source for potential sustainability investments, but also many other investments.

So that's a topic you know that we would bring forward, and you can think about how that uh could work and/or what it might be invested in.

Um I want to just um you know, uh calm council Mr.

Palmer's nerves on the waste management one here.

This one is basically saying, like, I think it's good to pause in this space until the county's MERF comes together so we have an idea of what conversations might be helpful from a city collection perspective.

Um the county will take a while to deliver that project.

Um we need to understand what our opportunities are in that space.

Uh we also have just reviewing uh this was a council uh question, just peer implemented best practices for single use plastic bags, so we can bring some information back on that.

It's a pretty tight window of what has really happened out there, but we're happy to give you information there, and then just always you know leaning into that data-driven decision making.

So questions or thoughts on how this might be evolved.

Continue good, good, okay.

Oh, dead councilmember Doring.

Again, I would just encourage you to uh throw some environmental goals in with the land management stuff as well.

So to be conscientious that uh environmental stewardship also goes with how we use the land.

I know that we're conscientious of that, but just to make that very uh clear and very um transparent in those plans.

A lot of these are synergistic across the things, but definitely important part of that.

Uh transformational capital projects.

So the the four areas here, just let's focus on excellence in delivery.

Let's give you uh great information, let's be neighborhood aware and cognizant, um, and and just give you you know good project reporting tools.

And I think the team has come a long way in this space from the time I started here about eight years ago to now.

And then we can always keep doing better given the level of investments that we're continuing to make here.

Uh so system and process alignment again, these some of these are internal, but um just you know getting people to collaborate.

Um, but this is a lot about being on time, on budget, close to engineers estimate, um, and making sure that you know we're not having to have tougher conversations than we need to allow the conversation we just had a little while ago in this space.

Um, and then again, I think you don't want to be stagnant uh during this time.

We have a ton of delivery to do, um, but we want to be preparing for those handful of projects that are really gonna start transforming the community in that 2030, 2035 time frame.

Um, if you think about bus rapid transit as an example, we started working on that in 2017-2018, and your first rider might get on the bus in 2027.

So long lead time, lots of funding, lots of planning.

Um, and uh you know, you want to think about like what are some of the things we want to look at.

So uh we've got Civic Center Drive, I mentioned that.

We've got South Broadway, phase two bus rapid transit.

Uh really thinking about what we can do in the trail space.

So another trails reference here.

I mean, it's with DMC, the 20-year legislation.

What is 2.0 look like?

It's I mean, we're year 10 now.

Um, so start to think about when the legislative environment might be right to want to reconsider that.

Probably not right now, but we start to think about what that one might want to look like.

Then water quality and this is back to the municipal water supply that we kind of referenced here.

And then this is all this.

I'm not gonna go through all these, but really just uh making sure we have the team, the processes and people necessary to develop uh develop things, and also tactic eight being really important, like what's our glide path of these items.

So, you know, how do we keep a good cadence with council education and update?

You walking with the decisions, but not being overburdened with details.

So making sure you are we're you know doing our best to put you in a policy making role.

So with that, happy to answer questions in this space.

Question uh council member Keene.

Uh thanks.

Yeah.

Um so I've not surprised to some of my peers here, but this is the one I'm most interested in today.

This new strategic priority and um again how we approach it in the you know in the coming year, but also in the coming years.

This is a four-year, four and a half year outlook.

Um when I think about the projects in front of the city and the commute and some of our community partners in the city of Rochester.

I see a lot of risk for delay.

I see a lot of risk for sloppy handoffs, and I see a lot of risks for future finger pointing about who did what wrong.

And I I'm trying to head that off.

I'm really I I'm worried about when I when I'm talking about these projects, I there's there's so many of them.

There's the bus rapid transit, there's park and rec relocation that's going on.

RPU is developing this major thing with the power supply plan for 2030.

Um, the Sixth Street Bridge, water treatment plan upgrades going on.

There's so many huge things going on right now, and that's when I think of these transformational capital projects that are going on.

Um I do support the four goals uh that we're that we're approaching and how we're doing this, but uh I also want to just put uh put forward my view of the two main goals for this strategic priority.

Number one is I do want city staff to feel a heightened sense of personal responsibility and professional commitment to this work.

Um every department head should have the goal of not being the person who comes in here to tell us why things aren't going to work out.

We we just have to head it off.

And that doesn't happen without thinking about it in advance.

Um the other goal, number two for me, is I want to communicate to my peers and to my future peers that um that that this work is the about the work in the coming years.

I want I want us to respect the commitments that we've made in the past um and not change them as we're moving forward.

Um again, I support the four goals and I and I get that we're doing it, um, but I do want to restate that this is so important for us.

The business of the city continues tonight.

We're gonna have talking about new processes or improvement things.

Um, and that'll that'll happen for the next four years.

Um, but I think we have to keep in front of us as a council, not not this is not for the staff, that we can't just go on to the next thing because we've committed to these things and they don't get done without focus and attention.

Uh and that's why I'm so pleased to see this on our strategic priorities to help it keep that, keep it in front of both the staff and the council.

Um, so with that, I again I appreciate it being on there, and I I'm uh I will say I personally want to stay focused on this and help us get these projects done uh and and work with our community partners like Mail Clinic, like the like we talked about Olmstead County with the MERF stuff.

We've got to be good partners with this stuff, but we also have to make maintain make our commitments that we've made.

Thanks.

Councilmember Doran.

Oh, probably surprise no one that my question is about the absolute last tactic that you have listed, and that's the glide path, right?

So in my day gig, I'm a communicator.

And I want to know if you have ideas about communication, right?

So I looked at the uh the report, the project report, and there's lots of words there with lots of tactics listed listed, star states and dates, all that kind of stuff.

And I realized that that was just a draft of a report uh that we there's no depth to that report at this point because you wanted kind of us to proceed.

Is that the kind of document that we can expect moving forward to then be able to communicate to constituents?

These are where our goals were identified by the staff.

This is where progress is happening.

This is where uh the status of these transformational projects are.

Does that make sense?

I'm looking for communication tools to utilize.

Right.

Yeah, maybe three things in that space.

One, um, definitely the action plan will get to you twice a year.

Um, you saw the initial framework.

We'll have verbal narrative updates within there.

This is how it's going.

Um, we've in the past have adopted sort of a you know, yellow, green, red sort of flagging for you to think about so you can see where things are going well and maybe not where they're going well.

Um I'd also say like um strategic or inclusive community engagement.

I'm trying to remember the foundational principle.

I think that I got it.

Um that's an overlay to everything we do here.

So we just think about that, like that's an important part.

So we don't have a set of tactics under that because that's sort of a who we are and how we do things type of type of thing.

So we'll continue to reflect that.

But agree.

Um macro level action plan will be a reporting tool.

And then I think we'll also have other mechanisms to help you understand day-to-day what's going on with projects.

So my concern is that we'll only see that action plan update twice a year, and it's not an ongoing living document where we might be able to see progress throughout the course of the year, whether that's not a formal, not a formal report, right?

But where we might be able to access something to say, hey, I'm concerned about air quality monitoring systems.

And I'm just kind of curious when that report.

I'm just making up uh an issue when uh the website will be updated again.

Instead of me saying, hey, I gotta wait until April to tell you when that is going to be for me to ongo to a dashboard to to look that up or not take city staff time to say, hey, when is that going to happen?

Is there some sort of tool that we can use so someone can just type something up?

I think there's yeah, so I think I understand the interests.

I think we'll evaluate how we can best meet that.

Um, and it seems like a reasonable thing to do.

I I do know there's different iterations of things within the teams that have been developed already that could be easily expanded.

Cindy's got a very nice sort of chart of all the projects and the general sequencing.

Um, and then it might be just to what level of detail um we might want to talk about, but that is sort of embedded in this timely effective projects and reporting piece.

So I think the intent is to have something more than twice a year.

Um I see Allison wants to say and also it might be a yes and yes.

Right.

Because if it's not all the way updated because someone's focused on doing the work, I wouldn't want someone to say, oh, it's nothing's happened here.

But in in reality, we still want you to connect and ask the question because that might have been the week that they made progress and they didn't put it in to the to the document yet.

So we still it's an iterative process.

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

I I appreciate Mr.

Keene's fervor for uh the last goal and sign on to that further.

There's lots of ways that one can write uh the history of a city.

We have that going on in the Star Tribune right now, as regards Duluth about a week ago, a large editorial about who's going to shut the lights off in 10 years or so.

And uh then today a couple of editorials by the mayor and uh the city council president uh as to why that uh observer of Duluth Council uh of Duluth city life is is wrong.

Well, uh that we might double down on uh how is it that we all might uh contribute toward ensuring that we uh actually accomplish the grand visions uh that we have and I really would underscore that with Mr.

Keene Mayor Norton?

Two comments.

Um one, I guess I'll just because this came up last.

The one thing I don't want us to do is to become so inflexible that when things change, whether it be the COVID pandemic or we do a plan and we don't get it implemented for multiple years, and things have changed since the time we started the plan.

I've seen this happen in the city with long-range plans that were made back in 2015.

I mean, those it's a different world than 2015.

And we become so inflexible because well, look, the plan says X that we have to do X.

So while I support the idea of moving forward on a path on these important projects, I just want to say we we have to always remain flexible enough and and curious enough to make sure that we stay that the path we started on is a path we need to continue on and not be afraid to say, well, wait a minute.

Things have changed, and that idea from 10 years ago isn't relevant any longer.

So I'm just asking for you to continue in the years ahead to to question things, be curious about is this still the right direction and are we still headed on the right path?

Um so I want that was one thing I wanted to say.

And the second is this was on the one prior to your last one.

Um you don't have to go back, it's all right.

Um you're talking about I'm using the wrong word, condensing is the wrong word.

But um when you have different departments that have a staff, you know, communications.

We'll use that as an example, and this isn't the one you were talking about.

But you know, oh well, this department has communication that the you know our PU has communication.

If it's all you're doing is bringing folks in-house when it's there's one person over there and it's gonna be replaced with one person over here, that's not really uh an improvement.

So I hope we're looking very carefully at not just condensing for the to say we've condensed.

Um if it really isn't going to give us more efficiency and less staff.

If the staffing is two there and two here, then why are we even doing this?

If it's working, you know, the what they work on over there is so specific to their role that it wouldn't really benefit us to have them here.

So I just, you know, that's just a cautionary statement that look very carefully at what we condense.

And I I think back years ago in the city of Rochester, where the city and county tried combining things, and we did so only to find out after the fact that it wasn't really what we should have done.

And in fact, at that time there was a lot of pressure from the community, and I think of some of our business partners who were pushing us to do something because it seemed like it was going to be more efficient and more cost effective, and in the end it was not and did not work.

So um just to be really careful about what we choose to, and the wrong, I don't have the right word, it's not condensed, but you know what I mean.

Centralized.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Uh Mr.

Parrish, why don't you wrap us up here?

Oh, oh, I'm sorry, Councilmember Miller.

Go ahead.

It's okay.

We can do it after the wrap up.

I okay.

No, Your Honor, I believe that's it for this this evening.

And um we'll I thought you had some timelines there.

Did you go through those?

I think um I think we've covered enough of that.

Okay, I think it's Councilmember Miller.

Sure.

Just a couple of questions about uh a couple of things, either here clarification or uh uh a couple of areas that we reviewed this year that I I didn't see here.

One was you mentioned fleet electrification.

I know there's also been conversation about fleet centralization operations of is there an update on that?

Where where are we and where might that fit in the auction plan?

Yeah, so I think you could put that under that broader organizational services.

Um I'll just say we're proud to report that um with the conversation around fleet.

Um I think we're like 90% there, and it's really just been organic and natural and felt good.

I think people saw that it made sense.

We have a little bit left to do there.

Okay, but I'd say the vast majority through attrition, et cetera, we were able to make some of those changes.

Great.

My other question was about uh we received an update from Mr.

Metz uh about disability access, language access plans.

Uh do those incorporate here, uh if so, where um I know there's talk about accessibility under housing and making inclusive growth management, but I I'm just curious where um the work is on that now that he has finished his fellowship.

Yes, we've passed on some of the work, you know.

For we'll just I'll give you the example of the language incentive that we have for our teammates, you know, that's being administered differently now, but still being administered.

Um I think you know, we'll continue to manage accommodation requests, the forms that are still there.

Um, one of your budget conversations is in this space as well, though, to discuss continuity and how that might work.

Um so they'll continue that.

And I think we'll also pick up some of these items that were still remaining as we scope the 2013 ADA transition plan update.

Certainly, some of those things might be relevant for that too.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Parish.

Administrators are schedule of study sessions.

Budget season is here.

So we have held a lot of time for you, not an hour and a half before you have a council meeting at 6 p.m.

Um, so we do have that scoped out.

Um we will have the presentation done by Wednesday to go out in the uh packet and then um some links to the detail book.

The book is like 600 pages long, so don't get too well maybe get excited.

Um, but that has a lot of detail in it.

So the intent was to provide the overview information, get some feedback, and then have those other study sessions available depending on the conversation at the dais um to be able to provide you more detail um on the things that um you have questions, concerns, ideas, or just want more information about.

Thank you.

And uh I will not be here next Monday for our study session, but I will watch it.

And uh Councilmember Wall has graciously uh agreed to serve as presiding officer next week.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh with that, we are adjourned.

Yeah, I might.