Please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Under God.

Liberty adjustment.

Thank you all for being here for our October 6th uh regular city council meeting.

We open all of our council meetings with our open comment period.

This is an opportunity from for anyone from the public to speak on items that will not be that we will not be taking public testimony on during a public hearing later in the agenda.

Every each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of 20 minutes.

Participants are also encouraged to limit comments to generally topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of the city council.

If you have materials to serve to share with the council, please uh give them to our city clerk and case all over there, and uh they'll be distributed to us.

If you uh uh the city council does not respond to uh questions during open comment period, but if you do have questions, uh know that uh members of our staff or council members will get back to you.

With that, I will start with uh Jason Bale Bach Bachin.

Go ahead.

You have two minutes.

My name is Jason Bale Bachin.

Um I'd like to address concerns of the RPD and uh um can you see if your uh mic is on it?

It should be uh green.

Yeah, it's green.

Okay, perfect.

There you go.

And um, so I'm self-represented litigant, and I do audits and stuff on police force to make sure that they're doing things that are correctly into the constitution, and uh every time I go down there and I do one of these, I'm met with um harshness, disregard towards the constitution.

Um just there's nothing that they do that is anywhere that they're supposed to do.

I want that it be known to them that they are under contract, a verbal contract when they take oath to be you know, taking the constitution to the highest and its people.

So they need to either do that or they're under US 42 um 1983 color law, they will be sued.

Um and then under 18 USC 241 and 242, you guys employ them, so therefore you can be held accountable too.

So I would hate to have to go through those drastic measures.

I'd just like to see them, you know, perform to their contract is all.

You know, I've I've been going through for five years a trial that I was arrested because I had the same first name as the guy.

I've had two homes taken away.

I mean, it's just ridiculous.

And uh I went to file charges on it.

The sheriff straight said I don't want to deal with it, and then they closed the window to me.

So I don't see how that is protecting my rights, my safety, or anything like that.

So I just want to know that you guys are gonna be able to do that.

Otherwise, I'm gonna have to say that the militia, the local militia would have to probably cover the laws for the constitution being covered, and stuff like that seems RPD and the sheriff's department doesn't want to do it.

Seems RPD and the sheriff's department doesn't want to do it.

And um that's about it.

Thank you, Mr.

Bale Bachin.

Next up we have Craig Martins.

Oh, I'm Craig Martins, and uh it was John Kennedy who said ask not what your country or your city can do for you, but what you can do for your country or city.

We, the city and surrounding community have given our city council 65 million over 60 16.4 years for a sports complex.

We thought it would go to build a facility for us, our friends, our children, our grandchildren, where we could exercise, stay in shape, reduce our stress, and meet for community functions.

Our city council had a different plan to use the 65 million for a sports complex that would economically develop and benefit restaurants, hotels, motels where there is already an existing hotel motel tax.

Tonight is the night.

Will the city council vote for hotel motel restaurant economic development, or will the city council pause and recognize the community's input and provide a sports complex for the community?

So here it is, City Council.

Ask not what you can do for your community, but what you can do for us, your community.

Tough decision, tough job.

Thanks very much for serving.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Martins.

Next up, we have Guy Havchalk.

I might I may have screwed up your last name.

Hi, Guy Havilick.

Havilick.

Thank you, Mr.

Havel.

Thanks for thanks for letting me talk to you today.

I want to comment on the this isn't really I want to I wanted to comment on the public realm priorities in the Kutsky Park neighborhood.

It's an exceptionally important topic for those of us who live there.

I'm a retired IBMer and have lived in Kutsky Park for about 50 years.

We've seen great progress in this neighborhood, particularly in the trails network.

Judy and I walk those trails frequently.

First thing I wanted to talk about is the natural environment, the tree canopy, the uh the natural setting.

You know, Cascade Creek flows through that area.

It is it's it's just fabulous.

It's kind of we like to think of it as the bridge between the bustling downtown concrete city and the modernish suburban areas.

That neither downtown nor the suburbs have that natural kind of environment that we and the visitors and residents love.

So what I think this this uh public realm project can do is help us preserve that natural feel of the neighborhood.

I think it does that.

Second, the non-automotive traffic through our neighborhood is is changing dramatically in in the last 10 or 15 years in the summer.

Judy and I are sit on the front porch a lot and watch these people going back and forth.

It's a steady stream of residents and visitors and workers from from the neighborhood, people who park in the neighborhood going downtown to work.

We've made a lot of good friends with these people, not just people walking, but there's lime scooters, private scooters, bicycles, wheelchairs, strollers.

It's just a marvelous concoction of these things.

Thank you, Mr.

Havilick.

Is my time up?

You two minutes are up.

Thank you.

Uh, that's all I have on the sign-up sheet.

If you'd like to speak, come forward, state your name, and you have two minutes.

Good evening, Brenda Quay, um, owner of DT Rot, MFLLC.

I had a hard time getting here.

The signage isn't good on the city council.

Um, we are in the process of building an 80-unit workforce housing development in downtown Rochester that's taking down three officially blighted houses south of Discovery Square and west of the co-op.

We're thrilled that we're able to do that.

And I'm here today to talk to you about the developer um parking policy that is gonna go in front of you tonight.

We've been speaking with Nolan for quite a long time.

We've been in discussions with the city since February.

We have a red line contract, and I can tell you as a 25-year commercial developer that being able to do that and build only half the parking is allowing us to build 40 more units of affordable, not affordable, but workforce housing in downtown Rochester.

It's a great policy with autonomous taxis and things like the uh the Tesla that can drive itself.

Our parking situation is going to train change dramatically over the next 10 years.

I think it's really important that you understand that there are autonomous taxis that have been operating in five U.S.

cities for a couple of years now.

And it's going to dramatically change how people move through cities.

So I'm just positive for that.

We really hope that you support developers.

We're trying to do our part to provide uh workforce housing for people in downtown Rochester that not only enlivens the city uh but helps with the housing crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Quay.

Uh others who wish to speak.

Anyone else who wishes to speak?

Step forward, state your name.

And you have two minutes.

Thank you.

My name is Cameron Mullen.

I'm the secretary for the Cusky Park Neighborhood Association.

I'm actually backing up what Guy Havilic was saying earlier, talking about the funding for uh the public realms project with DNC's budget.

Um this is incredibly important project for us.

It's the first time that we've really felt like we've had a say and been able to give insight um on the safety and spreading the community atmosphere that we hold and passing that on to the uh the communities around us and into the Mayo campus.

And that's something that I think that has been missing a lot.

And I had something beautifully prepared.

Forgive me.

Um but it's it's we've we've been very amazed by the work that has been put in by DMC and the city and Gell and Tool and everybody else in between and Mayo's interest in it.

Um it's something that we've never experienced, and it is truly amazing.

And we look forward to like we want to see what comes next, what comes of this.

Gail's plan is fantastic.

Um, so we just ask for your support for this.

Thank you.

This is our public comment period.

Anyone else wishing to speak?

Anyone else wishing to speak?

Seeing no one, I will close the public comment period.

And thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.

Uh, next up on our agenda, uh, Clerk Caseel, will you call the roll?

Good evening.

Councilmember Keene.

Here.

Councilmember Miller.

Here, council member Wall.

Here, Councilmember Fredericks, Councilmember Palmer.

Here, Councilmember Doring.

Here, Council President Schubring.

Here.

Mayor Norton present.

Thank you.

Next up, we have our city administrators report, Administrator Zelms.

Uh, take it away.

Thank you, Council President, Council members, Mayor Norton, uh, members of the public.

Um, we're grateful to still be in the RPU room.

And I am grateful to report that we think that you will be in your council chambers on August on.

I went back in time or forward October 20th of this month.

So we are still um working through all of the details, but we're hopeful that you'll be back there on the 20th.

Um, and I just want to thank all of our teammates as I always do at the beginning of this for acting with respect, integrity, safety, and excellence, and everything that they do.

Um, very much aligned with some of the comments that you just heard.

Um, did also want to point out that it is fire prevention week.

And for those folks who are not going to stay with us all evening, you can get to one of those uh open houses at 7.30 this evening.

They're also going to be held at 5:30 um from 5:30 to 7:30 on Tuesday and Thursday of this week.

And that will be at all five fire stations, um, um, station one through five.

And you can um find them on our website um if you're not familiar, but I'm guessing you know where your local fire station is.

Um, so head out and you can um have some experiences with our um local fire department personnel.

Um, also this autumn, we are going to be um having the annual friends uh book sale.

So that will be at the public library auditorium on Friday, October 10th from 10 to 5.30, Saturday the 11th from 10 to 5:30, and Sunday the 12th from noon to four.

Um you can stop by for used book at books at great prices, and that helps um the friends support the library.

Um, so check that out.

Um, it's also the tree planting season.

So the community tree planting, um, we are looking for volunteers to assist the parks and recreation department as well as our partners at our neighbors who will be doing a fall tree planting at Northgate Park.

That will be this Saturday, October 11th at 8 30 a.m.

is when it starts, 2107 24th Street Northwest.

You can check out the details at our neighbors.org.

And then the last thing I have is just to remind folks that if you're interested, we are helping to shape the future of public music through a survey on that closes at the end of this year.

That is focused on the forward and forward concert series and riverside concert series.

You can visit RochesterMn.gov to complete the survey.

And there is an entry to win a prize.

So if that's something you're interested in, please head over there to Rochester Mn.gov and look for that survey at our public music department pages.

That's all I have.

Great.

Thank you, Administrator Zelms.

And I also wanted to personally thank Mr.

McCullough for his uh hospitality here.

So thank you.

Next up we have the uh mayor's report.

Mayor Norton, go ahead.

Are we all gonna get that hospitality?

No, this is okay.

Thank you.

I've just a couple things to uh to share this evening.

And um, the first off is again our second to the last Rochester Vision 2050 report out.

Uh this time we found that one of the topics over last year's survey that rose to the top uh was uh nutrition of all things.

Um, and so the folks in the community had things to say and their desires for what should be right in our city.

And one of them was to make food affordable and accessible.

Their comments were that one of the most consistent concerns in the high cost is the high cost of healthy food, making it inaccessible to low and moderate, moderate or middle income families.

Many noticed that processed or junk food is far cheaper, which is true than uh healthier fresh fruits and vegetables, and that the pricing disparity contributes directly to poor health outcomes, obesity, and food insecurity.

And uh one of their policy suggestions was uh to consider taxes or restrictions on sugary, highly processed foods to encourage healthier choices.

Um the second thought in that area was to expand local food systems such as farmer farmers markets, gardens, and local sourcing.

Um folks express support for building a robust local food system that's sustainable, community-based, and accessible.

Um, and then uh they want year-round access, community gardens, public greenhouses, um, greater food sourcing in schools, grocery stores, and restaurants, and support for regional farmers.

Their third item was addressing food insecurity through community support.

Again, uh noting that food insecurity is a serious problem that not everyone has access to meals, and they recognize and appreciated the local charities and food banks, but want more robust systematic city support.

Um, increased cultural inclusiveness and diverse food options was the fourth uh topic that came up.

They want the food landscape to reflect its growing diversity.

They called for more options that are vegan, vegetarian, halal, plant-based, and specific to different ethnic groups, both in grocery stores and in local restaurants.

Um, then provide education on nutrition and food skills.

Um, I think many of us think some of these things, and they do fall in the county's realm and public health's realm.

But they uh this education was a reoccurring theme, saying people had a lack of knowledge, skills, or confidence to eat healthful healthfully.

Um, and they the city can play a role in empowering families with cooking and gardening skills.

And lastly, improved nutrition in schools for youth.

And again, that does fall in the realm of the school system, not under the city's purview.

Um, but they uh talked about wanting that they appreciate having the free school meals, but there's concern over quality, nutritional value value, and the taste of these foods.

So that's uh the second to the last topic that came up as uh one of importance to our city residents.

And uh we'll finish up next meeting.

Uh, next on our agenda is the uh build better public meetings project, which we uh started.

And some folks have already left, so I'm disappointed to not have them here.

Uh, what we have, but we have two options for anyone who is here, whether you speak or not, to talk about and share information with the council and me and the folks at National Civic League about your experience of civic engagement at our meetings, whether it be the city council meeting or whether it be our boards and commissions.

So there's a QR code on the table as you leave.

If you would grab that and scan it and give input, or if you prefer a hard copy, there's also a hard copy that you can fill out and leave here or return it to City Hall or at the next meeting.

So we'd really appreciate that input.

There'll be a couple of other opportunities in the next month or two for more public input and more discussion about what we could do to make our meetings better.

Moving ahead.

So another fun uh item I'm going to mention is the annual education summit cradle to career has been holding these for the last several years.

The mayor's office uh coordinated with uh Cradle to Career this year and we're sponsoring uh Dr.

Amit Sood who is going to do a free public uh keynote uh at the end of the day it'll be the last event um right about the dinner time there'll be some snacks for folks uh and you can uh listen to his keynote which is really about how to find calm during a busy day we're specifically targeting providers so people who take care of children whether it be parents or teachers or daycare providers or anyone in the community who feels they need a little self self-help um you can go here Dr.

Sood and I would say that's at the end of the day the whole event this year is free and it's at the Mayo Civic Center this year.

So uh Cradle to Career has a free day long educational summit uh really good workshop so I'd encourage you to attend and it's an honor to co-sponsor them this year.

Um next um I just wanted to mention uh we've talked about our sister cities and how we're growing that program this next year we're looking at a June trip to Germany we're um kind of still working out the details but right now it's looking to be June 12th through 22nd and uh we're hoping to have a delegation of about 20 or 25 people from Rochester to visit both of our sister cities the one that's just the one Chuckazama formed almost 50 years ago and the one that we've started more recently in the last say 10 years with um and that's Mooseburg this one that we have more recently is with Munster and that's specifically to climate change and sustainability.

So encourage folks if you want to know more there's information on the website uh check it out and see if that might be something you'd be interested in.

And last but not least we are getting ready for mayor's medal of honor.

There's a QR code here and again you can go to the mayor's website on the city's page we would encourage you to think about people in your community in your neighborhood who really reach out and help other people to provide services for folks who need help or who excel in their area and um so take a peek there's about a dozen work um different areas that you can nominate someone for um and we would really love for you to do that there are lots of wonderful people in our community and this is our time to let them shine and to thank them that's it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to our order of the agenda uh so uh we have a change to the order of the agenda uh we know that consent agenda item F6 will be uh polled and so I would entertain a motion to hear item F6 immediately following the passage of the consent agenda as it has impact on our public hearing item uh G2 which is our master fee schedule I'll move approval a move by council member keen second seconded by council member wall all in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay motion passes uh moving on to our consent agenda uh as I mentioned councilmember Palmer has pulled item F6 are there any other items to be polled if not uh I'd invite a motion to approve in block items F1 through F5 and F7 through F22.

So moved moved by Councilmember Miller.

Seconded by Councilmember Fredericks uh any discussion council member wall yes thank you uh I considered pulling F5 simply because of its momentous nature it is something that we have talked about uh a lot in the last month or so I think it's a huge investment on the part of Rochester and Rochester public utilities to move us forward uh in our use of uh energy responsibly there are some in our community who would say that we should ignore uh green energy altogether and uh use uh other kinds of uh fuels but by state statute we uh cannot do that by my reckoning I believe RPU is being very responsible in getting into this market and cornering uh some energy that will be of uh good good um responsible use of our money uh over the next years and meet our 2030 goals so I'm happy to support F5 and simply want to lift up for the public that this is a very huge step for Rochester and for RPU.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any further discussion seeing none all in favor say aye.

Aye any opposed say nay motion passes moving on to discussion on item F6.

Uh this item, uh, the developer parking uh agreement policy was pulled by council member Palmer.

Council member, go ahead.

Yes, I pulled it for I pulled it for a few reasons, but um I won't be supporting this.

Um the the first paragraph of of the memo that we received states that all the the agreements are all separate are all different and and unique.

So it's hard to have something that all your your your items are unique.

So um to me, this should be a guideline.

Um, and I don't think that uh we should have it be a um hard and set fast rule.

I believe it says somewhere in there that they would take two months to um come back to the developer to do this agreement.

I don't think that that's an uh appropriate amount of time.

Um, and so I I don't support this.

I think people forget that development is is um important for downtown Rochester, as we heard one of our speakers say today um that it's important that we we have uh an item like this um for upcoming.

I also believe that once we get our rapid bus um system in, we'll have fewer and fewer cars downtown and we'll have fewer and fewer people on our parking ramp.

And as we already know, our parking ramps are not full, and um it's it's not, I don't think a um a good thing to have.

So I'll make a motion to um um deny this and um that'll be by motion.

Uh motion made by council member Palmer.

Is there a second?

Seconded by council member Fredericks.

Councilmember Palmer, any more to add?

Well, I mean, uh I would like to change it to be a guideline.

And you think if this was a guideline, I could support this because um right now making it into a uh an entire um it it just it just makes it very hard for developers to work with us and and see what we can do for developing downtown.

It it if you remember um 15 years ago or 20 years ago when these were done, um, some of these were very important to get the downtown to move ahead again.

And I don't want to see us put the brakes on that.

Thank you, council member.

Councilmember Fredericks, any more to add?

Is Mr.

Shield here to kind of give us a if you can come to the podium and just give us a oh uh Mr.

Yetzer is going to speak to it.

Just give us kind of a brief uh rationale uh for the policy and and remind us of our uh previous discussion on the item.

Yeah, thanks, Council President Schuberg, mayor, members of the council.

Um again, uh there is nothing about this policy that is suggesting we should not be supporting downtown development.

Like I don't know that I can say that any more clearly.

Um what I want to be clear is what this policy does is provides predictability to development.

Um it it provides a framework for the staff to work within.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that there's no more negotiations.

This provides guiding or a policy uh and a framework for the city team to be able to negotiate development agreements or parking development parking agreements.

Um these are big time financial decisions that you're making.

The on average in 2025, the parking ramps were 75% full.

Um, I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that some of these agreements are lasting longer than the life of the ramps that you are agreeing to have them in.

And so those are significant financial decisions that you folks are tying us to when we make those decisions.

And so I think it's important that we have a policy that ensures we're making responsible decisions.

I agree with councilmember Palmer as we um implement bus rapid transit and things like that.

There uh hopefully is less of a need for parking, and and which in my mind actually points even more so to have this sort of flexibility within these agreements rather than tying us to a number of stalls in perpetuity.

And so uh those those are the reasons behind it.

Um I think first and foremost, our parking downtown is meant to support the businesses of downtown.

And if we're tying it up in agreements, if parking goes offline, we are obligated to provide the developer parking and not parking for businesses in the downtown.

And so, more than anything, I think there's a misunderstanding of what the policy is intended to do.

Um, it's intended to provide clarity and ensure that we are making responsible financial decisions, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Uh council member, I actually have a question uh just for clarity.

Uh Mr.

Yester, can you talk about um how this is really about future development and how it may impact current developers?

Um well, this is only I mean it's really only about future development.

Uh, this has nothing to do with existing downtown businesses.

Um, there are some of the development parking agreements that we have that expi that will expire, and when they do, we will try to bring them closer to alignment with whatever is approved for a policy.

Um, but it does not impact existing development or existing downtown tenants.

It does not impact um employees who are utilizing monthly parking.

It it doesn't impact um any of those sorts of things, which I think is some of the misunderstanding that's out there.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Palmer, I am going to go to this side first and then come back to you.

Councilmember Keene.

Uh yeah, let me just start out by, and again, I I've been in discussions with many people about this uh the last couple of days.

And the arguments I'm hearing against the policy, and there's four of them that I've heard.

One is it hinders development.

We've already heard that.

We've heard increasing costs.

Uh there's this idea that our parking is underutilized, and this is a way to improve utilization.

And the other thing again, Councilmember Palmer mentioned every project is unique and we don't want a one size fits all.

Let me just try to address those.

The hindering development, again, just like uh Mr.

Yetzer says, I just don't see it.

This is not a matter of whether parking is going to get built at what cost.

This is whether they're going to build it or use the city's parking.

And I think what I want to make sure is that increase that idea of this if if it is given away, it is more of a subsidy.

And I know that's not what these agreements are, but that's where the increasing costs come from.

If the developer can assume that the city is covering their parking, I could see how they could say it would increase it would uh improve margins.

Uh, as far as underutilized assets, this one really bothers me too.

This is our parking right now is a bit underutilized, but it's almost like saying there's uh storefronts around downtown that aren't full, and they ought to just give that space away and let other people use it.

And I they business doesn't operate that way, and we try to run parking as a business, so we should have some business controls in this too.

My business, my biggest argument for us approving this policy tonight is this city council is supposed to be a policy setting board.

We're not we shouldn't be involved in engagements and setting things up.

Our staff should be doing that, but we should be giving them guidance through policy.

And that's what we're trying to do with this this uh this police being put in place.

Uh the main reasons our city has parking as a parking enterprise is to support a vibrant downtown economy.

And that's all that's both the you know, the employees, the the businesses, the residential is going to be down there, but also the commerce.

Um, some things that I want to make sure my peers and I remember as we approach this.

We've entered into some agreements over the years that we probably shouldn't have.

And I blame that a bit on councils, not on staff.

I blame it on not giving the guidance we should be giving.

Um we we continue to use this thing that we run parking as an enterprise.

That means we run it as a business and it should pay for itself.

When we give away assets like that as a council and thinking we're being magnanimous, we are putting the others who pay for these assets at risk.

We're not providing the subsidy ourselves.

We're asking the others who use parking to to cover the fees.

Um, our city already provides, because of votes we've taken, we provide about $2 million in subsidies to keep the parking lots, the keep the ramps free at nights and weekends.

We think that's a good trade-off for downtown viability, but that's money we're spending that we that we've not we've got to keep in our minds.

Um I asked my peers to support the idea that we'll we're a policy-driven decision making and and don't leave our staffs to negotiate everything in in the uh on their own.

Um, I do agree that uh every one of these projects is different, um, but that doesn't mean you can't have guidelines.

And this idea that this policy says one size fits all is just not true.

When you go through it, you'll see there's a lot of flexibility within the policy.

Thank you.

Councilmember Miller.

Thank you.

I I think Councilmember Keaton covered most of the points I'd hope to make.

Um, but I I guess uh one point that hasn't come up is we've taken some other uh or we've set ourselves up to have some other discussions about parking policy, particularly with parking minimums.

And I guess my question to Mr.

Yetzer or other staff is how does that interact with the development process and how does that policy perhaps pride provide some flexibility and pro-development um policy from this council as we work towards that downtown change?

Yeah, it's it's a good question.

Um I'll attempt to answer it here in that zone, what zoning requires and what this is seeking to do are two totally separate unconnected actions.

We are in fact you folks have asked us essentially to remove the downtown parking requirement.

So the city is not requiring this parking, and yet that doesn't stop the development community from coming and asking us to subsidize it for them.

So um, this is not us, this is not something that we are asking them to provide.

This is something that they are seeking to provide.

Um, and and we have an asset and we should use it to spur development, but we should use it responsibly.

But I I guess just to belabor the point a little bit, um, with parking requirements, obviously, developers are choosing in coordination with their financing, how many parking spaces to provide looking at market conditions.

And we are saying we are no longer requiring in these downtown zones any you to provide any parking.

That's fully within your purview with your financing to how much parking to provide with your development.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

We have not yet adopted that, but we are on track to do that with the UDC update later this year.

So I I would just argue that these do interact a little bit, and that we're talking about what parking is required, no longer any in the downtown zone from the city, and then where that parking gets allocated, whether in city-owned ramps or newly constructed spaces as part of the development.

So I think just important to clarify that we are taking several actions in the course of this year, thinking about downtown parking and developer support.

And I would just put that out there because I've also heard from developers who want some flexibility.

And I think we've we've we're on track to provide that.

Uh I would also add or reiterate what Mr.

Keene said is that I've heard from quite a few downtown stakeholders, uh, particularly business owners who are concerned about the cost of monthly parking contracts.

And um this obviously is not a policy change there, and we've have in the fee schedule a stable rate on those for the next two years.

But I I guess I I would like to reiterate as well or ask the question if we did not approve a policy like this, what pressures might be on those other hourly parkers and monthly contract parkers?

Would that put pressure to increase those costs or increase those fees over time?

Yeah, thanks, Councilmember Miller.

It's it's a bit of a crystal ball question, right?

Because I'm I'm gonna take that a step further and assume that you know, time passes, and as time passes, so does the age of the parking ramps.

And so if we also if we enter into additional parking agreements and then we also assume one or two of our ramps passes its useful life, you're absolutely correct.

We are looking at raising rates on monthly parkers to pay for the construction of a new ramp.

Um, and so that's exactly what could happen if we're not responsible about it.

Because if those parking agreements for developer assistance would not be subject to renegotiation of rates, is that correct?

Okay.

And I guess just the final point is since we operate the parking as an enterprise fund, right?

We do have to make the books balance.

We're not going to the tax levy.

We've we've made it clear as a policy level that users will pay for these fees, not just the ongoing yearly operations, but also long-term maintenance or provision of parking.

So yeah, that's correct.

It's a question that I've asked myself.

If if we're not uh introducing a policy that puts it closer to the developer paying the fair share, then where are we passing the cost off to?

Because at some point parking is not free and somebody has to pay for it.

And I guess final two-part question is when might we consider ongoing reevaluation of this policy at what interval to see if it's working.

Yeah, I mean, like any good policy, we'll we'll um be making uh updates as we learn more.

The policy specifically calls for running the percentage past you guys.

I think it's every three years.

So at least that much.

And I guess my final question, uh, and I appreciate Ms.

Quay bringing up the the changing.

Member Miller, you've had three final questions.

Okay, but go ahead.

Go ahead.

Uh but as as far as crystal ball question, 10 years into the future, transportation is changed.

There's autonomous vehicles, there's changing parking needs.

What we've set an interval here of setting 10-year contracts, a seven-year plus of renewal, right?

Correct.

So that gives us some flexibility to adapt to changing transportation patterns.

Absolutely.

And uh it's a it's a good point to bring up in that um nothing says that at the end, nothing in the policy says that at the end of those 10 years we can't enter into another agreement with the the development, but it's important that we stay nimble enough that if a development enters into a hundred parking spaces, but after 10 years they learn they only need 25.

That's a benefit to them as well.

And so we we would prefer to keep these things nimble so that we can keep them relevant.

Thank you.

Uh Mayor Norton.

This is just a quick follow-up to some things that have been alluded to, but uh, I'm gonna read uh uh two sentences from an email that we received late today.

Um we've touched on it, but we haven't been really clear about it.

And it says the city should be making it easier for people to come downtown to shop and dine, not to make it harder or more expensive by making it easier to park, more people come downtown, successful businesses attract more business, which means more tax revenue for the city, right?

Three cents, sorry, I can't count.

Um, and I just want to have someone reiterate this is not raising the rates on individuals coming downtown to shop.

This is about developers and contracts with the parking ramps.

And if it's done properly, we should have more, not less available parking.

If people are a little more careful about theirs number of spots or renting or paying for.

Thanks, Mayor Norton.

Um that's correct.

Yes, this does not impact those coming downtown to shop, dine, etc.

Uh, this policy has no impact on those.

And in fact, the focus is ensuring that those spaces remain in our system and that we aren't um irresponsible with those spaces and end up tying them up in other agreements.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is not new information.

Um, we talked about this at the study session.

And it's it's kind of funny because Mr.

Yetzer and Mr.

Keene both have said guideline, and and that's what I was looking for as a guideline, not a policy.

And there's a huge difference in the terminology.

And during the study session, other people have said, yes, I could support a guideline.

It's interesting also that uh Mr.

Yester brings up building new ramps.

Um we haven't built a new ramp six was built, but our oldest ramp was built in 1965, and we invest money in keeping our ramps safe.

And and so, you know, since 1965, we've had the ramp on 2nd Street.

Um, I'm not sure what the useful life is of a ramp, but that's a pretty long time to have one in there.

Uh we are increasing the fee.

We're increasing the fee to the developer, which is then going to be onto the housing stock.

And our number one goal in Rochester is get more housing stock.

So I'm not particularly sure how that fits into our number one goal.

It was said about the two million people or two million dollars that we spend on nights and weekends.

You're not spending two million dollars in nights and weekends because no one's down nights and weekends using the ramp.

It's not full.

If if our ramps were full, then you could say yes, we're missing an opportunity cost.

We are not missing an opportunity cost when your ramps are not full.

And our ramps are about 70% full, I guess, is with the last information we got.

That means they're empty 30% of the time.

And so I think it's important to remember why do we give away um of nights and weekends?

We want more people to be downtown.

Why do we give it away?

It doesn't cost us anything.

The ramp is still there.

And if we're not using that ramp, it doesn't make a bit of difference.

So that's why I made the motion.

Um, in if this motion passes the way that I hope it does, then we'll come back with and and redo it as a guideline.

And that's where I like it to be.

Uh council member Palmer, could you restate your motion?

Uh to deny the the um um motion.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say nay.

Nay.

Motion fails, five to two.

Is there an alternative?

I'll make a motion to uh approve the development parking agreement policy as presented in the package.

Uh moved by council member Keene, seconded by council member Miller.

Yeah, I'll just further discussion.

No, I'll just add.

I mean, again, this idea of like policy guidelines.

I think it's an interesting thought.

Maybe we could have done it.

I would rather do that during our working sessions than be changing when we're uh on the dais.

Uh, I want to go back to this increase in costs.

I I just don't get it.

I mean, if if I'm an individual doing something and someone pays for my parking, that certainly reduces your cost, but the cost of parking did not change, it's just who's carrying it.

And I I this is one I just could not get my head around where people were saying this saves development money and stimulates uh building.

I mean, the parking is already built, and and I think we're trying to use it for the purposes it was it was built for there's a motion on the floor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye, all opposed say nay.

Motion carries with uh Fredericks and Palmer voting nay.

Uh moving on to our public hearings.

We have two public hearings on our agenda this evening.

Uh, before we begin, I take I'd like to take a moment to clarify the process for our public hearings.

Staff will uh first introduce the item and uh then if there is a uh applicant or applicant representative, uh they will have up to 10 minutes to discuss the their item.

At that point, I will open the public hearing.

Uh members of the public have five minutes each to speak to the item.

Uh uh once uh I close public hearing.

Uh the applicant will have an opportunity to uh come up and uh answer questions regarding that may have come up during the public hearing.

After that, uh council members will be invited to ask questions of staff and or the applicant.

And uh after that, we will entertain a motion.

So with that, I will go to item G1, which is a final plat uh by West 34 Partners, LLC Badger Heights final plat, and Mr.

McGill.

Take it away.

Uh thank you.

Uh Council President Shubring and Mayor Norton, members of the council.

Good evening.

My name is Desmond McGill with community development.

Uh, this is a final plat subdivision for the badger heights development, uh, consisting of 55 residential lots and two outlaws for future residential development.

Uh the site encompasses a total of about 33 and a half acres uh located at the northeast corner, uh located northeast of the intersection of 50th Avenue Northwest and Valley High Road.

Uh the preliminary plat for Badger Heights was approved in May earlier this year, uh, which included 84 single family lots and two outlots.

Uh outlaw B of this final plat is intended to be a second phase for the project uh based on the preliminary plat, uh major land subdivision.

Uh that area will have 29 additional units.

Uh the final plat is consistent with the uh comprehensive plan and the underlying zoning districts.

Um, and uh the preliminary plat is consistent with the uh previous approval uh of the of the plat preliminary plat.

Uh the subdivision will help the city uh address its uh current housing shortage and uh the uh development or community review committee is uh recommending approval of this subject to two conditions of approval.

Um that concludes my uh introduction.

I'd be happy to answer any questions that the council has.

Thank you, Mr.

McGill.

Is there a representative step forward, state your name, and you have 10 minutes?

Uh good evening, council president.

Good evening, Council President Schubring, Mayor Norton, members of the council.

I'm Jeff Brown.

I'm with North Rock Real Estate representing West 34 partners.

Um we agree with the two conditions from community development and are here for any questions if you have any.

Thank you.

Short and sweet.

Thank you.

Uh at this point, I will open the public hearing.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite Mr.

Brown back up for any closing comments.

No comments, but here for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council members, questions for staff or the applicant.

Councilmember Keene.

I'd like to ask Mr.

McGill.

I just I have not seen the word before about the final plat mylars.

Can you explain what that is?

Uh sure.

You can um after the uh council approval, the uh uh the developer will make a submission of a mylar package to us uh as far as uh which is just uh like a plastic, if you will.

Uh the uh plat will be uh um I think it's lasered on there.

Um, and essentially uh, you know, there are some things that we can hold on to uh until we're ready to record it.

Um sometimes we have conditions associated with the platyon condition them uh to be completed prior to us taking it to the city or the uh county county uh property records office for recordation.

I again I apologize, but I'm still not getting with the concept here.

I I've got a word and something I'm supposed to approve, and I don't know what it means.

So uh I think what you said, it's sort of like it makes it more final and it gives you proof that it's gonna happen.

Is that what a mylar is?

Yeah, we have these two items here that we need to check off, if you will.

Uh and basically we we won't take the the uh final document to be recorded uh until such time those those two conditions are satisfied.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um but but it will be exactly the same as what you're seeing here tonight.

Is there some reason?

I I've been reading these for a while now, and I this first time I've seen the word mylar in there.

Is there some change in our process or no?

No, we've we've always had mylars uh that come through uh at the very end.

I think Mr.

Yetzer may have a clarifying point.

President Council members mylar is just like a document that uh that the engineers prepare and bring in and we sign off.

That's why that's why I'm just trying to get that into the record.

Yep, it's just uh a piece of like film paper that is used to solidify the plat document.

Very good.

Thank you.

Is there a motion on this item?

Sure.

I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution approving final plat number CD 2025-032 plat by West 34 Partners LLC to be known as Badger Heights with two conditions for the subdivision of 33.56 acres of land into 55 residential lots and two outlots.

Move by council member Doring and seconded by Councilmember Palmer.

Any more to add, Councilmember?

Any further discussion?

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

Uh, I was pleased uh to read this item.

Um, Mr.

Brown and his partners have uh provided really good and responsible growth on the northwest side, and I look forward to this addition as well to our housing stock uh to make Rochester a more inviting place to live.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to item G2, which is our 2026 master fee schedule, Mr.

Parrish.

Mayor, President, members of the council.

This is the public hearing for the 206 fee schedule.

In essence, this is a master adoption of all the fees that uh advance your budget that you've talked about.

This was talked about at previous study sessions.

As noted, you've had a few of policy adjustments this evening.

Those are reflected within this schedule.

The goal would be to have this considered for this evening, and then we move on to first reading and second reading, ultimately having a position for adoption and to be in effect come January.

So many fees uh within the schedule.

Uh this has been presented to you in the study session, but we're just happy to answer any questions that you might have at this point.

Thank you.

Uh this is a public hearing.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite uh questions for my colleagues.

Or a motion.

I'll make a two-part a motion.

Uh, number one, approving the ordinance, establishing the 2026 master fee schedule, and number two, directing the city attorney's office to prepare an ordinance for first reading on November 3rd of 2025.

Motion made by Councilmember Keene.

Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Doring, Councilmember Keene.

I'll just note as uh Mr.

Parrish said that this is a slightly different.

We used to do this at the beginning of the year.

We're trying to get it done now in advance so that when we're doing the budget approvals, we have the fee schedule included and it makes sense.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to our reports and recommendations.

Uh, we have H1, which is the 2026 and 2027 destination medical center corporation budget operating and capital.

Um, Miss Steinhauser is on her way to the podium.

On my way to the podium.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, Council President Schubert, Mary Norton, members of the council, Cindy Steinhauser, Deputy City Administrator.

The well, now biannual, depending on your action tonight.

Um, DMC capital and operating budget and uh work plan.

Um so there we go.

Uh what's going to be asked for you this evening is to approve um the proposed capital plan, the work plan, the operating budgets, and a working capital loan.

Those are the four action items that are included uh that the DMCC board acted upon at their meeting on September 26th, I believe it was.

And so now they come forward to you for your action.

So want to talk a little bit about this.

This is a a year-long process generally.

Um, it starts in begins in May.

In May, there is a joint board meeting that happens between the DMCC board and um the city council.

Uh we also had partners this year in May 22nd talking about um the vision and the priorities for the DMCC organization going forward.

Um, then from we take that information, what we hear from that joint that joint meeting, and we then at a staff level try and translate it that into what feels like a recommended budget that really aligns with what we heard coming out of that joint session.

We then have board working group meetings that happen in August.

It then goes to the recommendation goes to the DMC EDA board in September, then to the DMCC board for um formal action, and then comes to you for formal and final action.

Again, this is a both say yes model.

So both the DMCC board and the city council uh must approve the budget.

What we're talking about is a two-year budget.

We are asking you to consider a 2026 and 2027 operating budget.

We're bringing this forward.

It aligns with the city's own two-year operating budget process.

And so we had that conversation last year, didn't get there and felt like it was appropriate given a number of things this year.

So not only um a two-year operating budget, but then also in front of you is a six-year CI projected CIP.

Uh what the two-year operating budget looks at is three priority areas.

We want to advance um and complete current projects that are already under underway.

We want to sufficiently support infrastructure, public and private infrastructure investment and adjacent to the bold forward and bound um work being done, and also preserving resources for the five-year update that is currently underway and nearing completion.

That the DMC has a 20-year plan.

It's updated every five years.

That becomes a roadmap for the budgeting process as well.

What's important in this in this vote for you to consider is understanding the funding balances here, the different sources of funding.

You can see what we're talking about in terms of what's available, which is and what's originally available, what's been spent or already committed based on prior action and what remains for the remaining nine years left of the DMC legislation.

The relationship between the line that says city DMC aid, which is that 128 million that we agreed to spend unlocks 327 million.

The transit aid is restricted funding that can only be spent on transit related dollars.

And you can see the line share of what has been spent or committed is related to link BRT.

The remaining balance will continue to support transit related initiatives, whether it's related to capital replacement of link BRT or future analysis of link mode shifts options.

We did some analysis and said generally, if we look at about 20 million dollars a year, give or take, we what that means through now through 2029 is about 81 million dollars of funding, and that preserves then 100 million for the final five years.

This is a this is a guide for us in our conversation, is not um your action tonight doesn't lock it in.

There's flexibility to amend as opportunities become available in future years.

So this is what is guided our recommendation.

Um here is uh in front of you is a little bit more of a detail to the capital plan.

And again, um want to say it's focused on those three three areas that I talked about.

And so it breaks down into the the actual numbers break out into five specific categories.

How we support new infrastructure projects, and there's three identified underneath there, um, advancing prior approved projects, advancing prior approved transit projects, um, preserving money for out years based on what ultimately becomes part of the recommendation of the five-year update, and then also supporting operations.

And so, as you can see from what we're talking about here, we're generally looking at in 26 about a 40 40.8 million dollar um budget.

In 2027, we're talking about a 44.7 million dollar budget.

Now you can see with the detail below how that breaks down under each of the different budget categories, whether it's uh aid, GSIA or transit.

So, what does it mean in terms of greater detail?

So, the biggest new item is supporting new infrastructure projects and aligning investment infrastructure for public and private growth.

What we're recommending for um the 26 and 27 is uh nine 38 million dollars, but it you're splitting it 19.185 million in each year.

And I'm gonna go into a little bit greater detail on a future slide, but that's what we're talking about with the downtown public private investment.

Interim wayfinding, we heard loud and clear, and we're working on and actually having a meeting this week around interim wayfinding, a strategy that we're rolling out in partnership with work that RDA has already done, work that Mayo's already done, and I'm really excited to can bring forward an update on that very soon.

Um, and then creating an allocation for strategic redevelopment or strategic development, and I'll talk about that in a little bit.

Um prior approved projects, the Six Street Bridge Infrastructure Project.

There's one more year left of DMC funding for that project in 2026, but 2.5 million.

That's a previously approved project.

And then there are transit dollars in 26 and 27 to complete link BRT.

When we talk about downtown public private infrastructure, here's what we're talking about.

We're talking about um roughly uh 25 to 30 square block area.

Uh the direct impact area really captures the heart of where the bold forward unbound in Rochester investment is happening by Mayo Clinic.

That's in the blue, the blue buildings, as well as the blue lines on the street.

That is Mayo's infrastructure investment in this area.

The green area is where we're talking about making investment, and we're talking about both below ground and above ground improvements.

Below ground improvements, we're including things like the um you re previously approved a UPY agreement.

That's a utility power underground infrastructure agreement.

You approved a couple of those.

Um, for to the extent that we have costs associated with those UPI UI agreements, it comes out of this allocation of 38 million.

Um it also accounts for underground improvements that not only replace aging infrastructure, but more importantly, provide upgrades and expansion to allow for future growth and future development for the area.

And so when we talk about the broader impact area, that's exactly what we're talking about, restoring connectivity and creating greater capacity for development to occur.

And that supports a guiding principle of maximizing opportunities, which is thinking about infrastructure improvements to avoid avoid future disruption and digging once.

The other uh space that this investment will happen is in the above-ground improvements.

It's applying the guiding principle of connectivity, thinking about thoughtful approaches that connect to neighborhoods and downtown in and around this development.

And I'll talk a little bit about that.

And I have some images to convey what we're talking about when we're talking about above ground um elevated experience of investment.

From an operating budget perspective, it not only includes, as I said, the um the annual expense for the DMC EDA organization, it includes city project management expense.

There's a small amount there for city administration, but then also the DMCC corporation.

And so here's just a little bit of highlights of what that means in terms of the support that is for the DMCC corporation.

I think it would be it's helpful to understand that this is truly a partnership.

Yeah, you know, not quite two years ago now.

You made an investment in supporting transformation in Rochester.

Your strategic priorities include transformational capital projects.

And we collectively said Mayo's um investment, $5 billion investment will not be successful if we don't have the right teammates and the right partnerships on board to support carrying that work through while still allowing uh additional development to continue to get service delivery like they have been getting for decades in the city of Rochester.

So here is an org chart that really helps show uh not only the strategic transformation and partnership impact team that that I'm responsible for, but you can see the green funded positions are the DMC funded positions and how they live across the organization.

Now it just means they live in those those buckets under Ryan Yetzer and Chamatuola.

They don't necessarily report to uh Ryan and Chow.

They just live in their categories, and there's a dotted line over to our team.

You also see some of the um positions in yellow, which are some of the positions that you brought on to support bold on bold forward unbound.

Um, and then the brown or rust colored position is a uh a split funded position that's both DMC and city funded.

So definitely an integrated partnership that we're we're involved here.

So again, what's in front of you is um the recommendation for a 26-27 operating budget that is detailed on this chart, as well as the 26 through 2031 overall CIP.

Um, the out years we we focused a lot on what the next two years are because that 25 or 30 square block is a whole lot of work.

There's a lot happening in between there, and that's where we're focusing and we'll do a uh a reset in understanding what we can have the capacity to do in out years, and it will be again guided by the uh five-year update of the DMC 20-year plan.

So that is the request before you.

When we talk about above-ground infrastructure and what it means to invest in that area, this is what we're talking about.

We're talking about um people focused people focused spaces, pedestrians is a priority, which is one of our guiding principles.

And so we tried to call out here and help people understand through visualization what we're talking about with that above-ground investment.

Now we recognize that the footprint of the corridors that we're doing may not be able to accommodate all of this, but it is um uh an assessment that we will go through of each corridor of what of these kinds of things can we accomplish in that above-ground experience.

And another visualization, um, and I really appreciated the comments um from the neighborhood earlier this evening because we've been really, really intentional about wanting to hear from the people that are going to experience this space 24-7, 365, right?

And so what we've been hearing, the themes that we've been hearing, we've tried to convey in these images that it's people focused spaces and connection.

It's public spaces activated with opportunities for people to gather.

It's supporting multimodals, multi-modes of transportation, but again, people focused first.

It's spaces of respite, right?

Comfortable, engaging environment, art, tree canopy was important, preserving what is really great this about this neighborhood.

But what I really appreciate is that everybody engaged in this process also understands that there is an opportunity for further density and development to occur, but to occur in a very sensitive way that again preserves what's really great about these neighborhoods.

I would just then finish by saying that work wasn't happenstance, it was very intentional.

There were teammates and putting all this together, including the engagement from city administration, from public works, from community development, GIS, communications, finance, um, and of course, our partners over at DMC for getting us here to the recommendation that's in front of you.

So with that, happy to answer questions.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Thank you.

I have a few questions here, and it's perfect segue into what I'm going to talk about here.

There's a lot going on.

And one thing you didn't mention in there in all the people involved was the city council, actually.

So to start out, I support the DMC budget, DMCC budget.

My concern is with the process.

To quote the request for action for this item, the DMC budgets are aligned and consistent with city council strategic goals and overall direction for the city.

Who made that determination?

To go to two years.

Nope.

The determination that the DMC budgets are aligned and consistent with the city council strategic goals and overall direction for the city.

I mean, I would say we did that at the staff level when we look at your um when you look at your strategic priorities and we look at um the other documents that you have adopted.

Uh we look at um the organization's mission statements, your vision statement, your comprehensive plan, the litany of um plans that you've adopted from active transportation plan, sanitary sewer plan, stormwater management plan, all of those inform the conversation.

And we believe that this recommendation of investing in um growth does align with those prior actions of the council.

And you're right, I'd be remiss in not acknowledging the council's role in this.

It's important.

Okay, so the staff determined that.

Your honor.

Maybe just one notation.

I also would be remiss if you didn't mention the briefing sessions.

I think that was also part of you know the pre-work that goes into development of the budget.

Yes, thank you.

Um as uh deputy administrator parrish indicated, we did do briefing sessions to make sure we were on point with what we heard and that what we were bringing forward was in alignment with what we heard.

Right on.

So to continue quoting the request for action, the public has been notified and attended the DMC Board of Directors meeting on September 25th.

Additionally, commute community engagement occurs through the process of updating the DMC development plan and during the creation of the DMC's annual work plan.

Lastly, individual projects have undertaken extensive pre-engagement throughout the project design and implementation.

I think it's great that we're engaging the public.

My concern, as I stated earlier during the Peace Plaza funding discussions, is that the city council is being ignored until the final nod.

When we get to the end, we just kind of get it put in front of us.

The RFA also states it is important the city council can to consider these actions at this time as the DMCC board will only have one more meeting.

Pardon me here, trying to get through my stuff.

The RFA states it is important the city council to consider these actions at this time as the DMCC board will only hold one more meeting prior to the end of the year.

If there are any issues, questions, or concerns, they must go back to the DMCC board for clarity, finalization, and approval before coming back to the city council for consideration.

Administrator Steinhauser, the DMC board only meets four times a year, correct?

That is correct.

Right.

So if they approve something that the city council wants changed, it complicates things getting passed, correct.

If they if they approve something that the city council approves wants changed, it complicates the process, correct?

We have to take it back to them.

I'm building a case here a little bit.

Sure.

Okay.

We have to go back to them.

When I when I raised concerns before about the lack of city council input before initiatives, go before the DMCC board, I was told I could attend and make public comment.

If I show up at a public comment period and you're presenting something, and I and and I ask questions or I'm questioning questioning you, are putting out contradicting stuff at that point.

Don't you think that's a bad look for the city?

If a if a city council member shows up at an open public forum and starts asking questions that are contradicting maybe what's being said.

Right.

What I'm leading up to is I would just like more engagement from the council before we know before we get to a final here's the vote.

I trust Mayor Norton and Randy Schuebrings, President Schubring's input on these things, but they're two of the eight council members.

You know, it I just would like to have a little more group input on some of these things going forward, especially with all the things you just listed.

That's a lot of stuff.

It's a lot of money.

I have I have another, I'll get back to it.

You guys can go.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I I do think Councilmember Fredericks makes a good point.

And I think it's something that we've talked about uh since the beginning of this council, which is having a uh glide path where we deliberate issues, and I think and uh uh Ms.

Steinhauser, uh, when it comes to DMCC uh items, if we can maybe do a better job of bringing those items to this body during a study session prior to uh the uh DMCC board hearing it that way uh Mayor Norton and myself are getting on a public record the feedback of our colleagues that then can uh inform our decision making at the DMCC board.

Is that a fair kind of yes?

So uh so I think I think we can do a better job on that as we can on a lot of our issues.

So yeah, if I might just I think that that's the intent of the briefing sessions, right?

DMC meets February, May, September, and December.

And so we start this process in May, right?

After strategic planning and after the joint session, and um knowing that the board doesn't meet until September is why we do those briefing sessions, but we can certainly come back internally and talk about how we might improve that and how we might do it as a study session and still be in alignment with um DMC protocols and legislation and what forth.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Keene.

Uh just kind of a philosophic point here, I think that we're the the votes in front of us are have to do with budgets, but we're showing other sort of downtown infrastructure improvements.

It would be my understanding that we're showing those as examples of things that can happen as opposed to approving a certain project or a certain design.

We're really here dealing with budgetary items that are uh that are in front of us.

That is correct.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

Well, while uh a budget like this can't include everything, uh we did some work in the Peace Plaza this uh past summer.

Uh is there money in uh the next two years budgets to uh do more work in the plaza?

Should the uh feedback from the work that we have done thus far uh not satisfied the community?

It currently does not include additional funding for uh Peace Plaza.

Uh we are continuing assessment to see what additional work um might be needed, if any, and the similar to our to your budget process, we could either come back with an amendment or during the supplemental year consider uh an additional request.

So it's not as if uh there couldn't be a request in the summer of 26 or 27, even if it's not indicated as such in in the document.

We that is correct.

Okay, yes, absolutely.

Uh second, um I think uh Rochester Public Transportation, which last week uh provided a free fair day, and uh uh my association was invited to come downtown.

And uh we uh only two people took me up on it, and that's fine.

Four of us rode downtown.

And uh quite to Mr.

Keene's point, uh, I realize that the beautiful pictures are not what we're going to find in uh two years or three or five years.

Uh however, uh we already found great things that happened downtown.

It turned out I I became kind of a tour guide, uh, both of projects and the challenges uh as uh we walked around downtown and uh these other two people who don't spend time downtown were just amazed at everything that is happening.

It was just exciting to uh talk uh about these things, including Ms.

Quaid's uh uh proposed development, uh, which uh came up as we walked down Discovery Walk, and we were not able to get onto the fifth floor of two Discovery Square anymore.

That's locked up, so I couldn't show them the whole panorama of uh downtown Rochester.

But I I just I'm really excited about the I'm maybe more of a booster uh of downtown than I perhaps uh could be or should be.

But uh there are even in the construction, there's already so much excitement down there that I'd love to share that with the the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's what we love about you, council member.

You are a booster.

Council member Miller.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

Uh I just had a couple of questions, uh, mostly about the CIP attachment, because I I see the the map and the blue and the green, but I don't see all of those segments on the actual project summary.

And I I guess particular corridors of interest, um, Seventh Avenue.

I don't see any specific projects.

I know there's a neighborhood information meeting next week for the uh the West Logistics building.

And I guess I'm just curious as we've heard a lot from community members and see these um pictures and other things, elements like varying the power lines, like is that in scope?

Does that CIP from the DMC budget approval contemplate that sort of quality both for the usability of the space, but the ability, as Mr.

Havlic mentioned, of overstory trees being able to develop fully.

So I guess I'm I'm curious like how detailed is this CIP and why don't we see Seventh Avenue Northwest or and I guess Southwest too, as well as First Street Northwest around the West Logistics building in that project summary file.

Um okay, so let me just try and talk through those.

So I think what you're referring to is the Excel spreadsheet that lives identifies block by block and give some detail.

So for 7th Avenue, I was trying to find the pointer here to try and point for people, but I'm not sure I can do it here.

Is it this the so it's it's not there?

Oh, it's going off.

Okay, so for Seventh Avenue, and then for Center Street west of 6th Avenue and First Street Southwest, west of Sixth Avenue.

We um that came about as a result of um Miss Carlson's work and engaging the neighborhood.

And so uh we do not have the level of analysis like we do on the other blocks in terms of what is the utility infrastructure, what's the per block cost?

So we have at the bottom of that spreadsheet, you will see there is an uh a line item for Kutsky Park investment.

And so of that 38 million, eight million is an allocated line item, thinking about these areas that live beyond the block by block detail that's provided in that spreadsheet.

So does that answer that question?

That answers that question.

Thank you.

All right.

Then to your question about bearing uh overhead wires.

So it is an active conversation, actually.

Um Tim McCullough, Ryan Yetzer and my separate meeting.

I think it's tomorrow, actually, about um just overall collectively, how we want to approach bearing underground wires, where is it reasonable?

Recognizing RPU, uh, the pros and cons for RPU in terms of maintenance versus cost versus what it means in terms of creating the very environment that we talk about in terms of preserving tree canopy and all of that.

So I would say that there is a definite openness to looking at how do we approach bearing under overhead wires.

Um, in can it happen everywhere?

Maybe not because of what already exists underground, but to the extent that it can happen, what would it take to do that?

What are the dollars associated with that?

The block by block numbers are based on um real estimates from recent projects that public works uh team have provided in terms and RPU team have provided in terms of utility replacement costs and so forth.

So I think more to understand in that regard, but we are we are meeting on that very issue about bearing underground wires.

Okay, and and might we expect wires.

How how might we expect an update on that?

Because I it's an active conversation in the neighborhood.

I've received quite a few contacts about excitement and concern about the the linear park on the west side, both as it's been reduced from 30 feet to 26 point some feet.

And just as that incrementally is used for other things, how the best quality of park that can be there, and I I think particularly to this tree canopy is again Mr.

Havlik mentioned what limitations overhead wires can have on landscaping and experience of that.

So I just would highlight that as something I think is it's really important, particularly in that one block, but how it extends from there as well.

And to your question when we might expect an update, I will know more after.

So we have a joint meeting with uh Mayo teammates to understand the timing and sequencing of their projects.

We are meeting internally on Thursday to prioritize which blocks we said let's wait and have that meeting until council action.

And then we meet with the Mayo team on Friday to say, okay, these are our priority blocks in 26 and 27.

And how does that align with the pace and the order in which you're going to be in these blocks?

And so we create alignment there.

And then it's an analysis of okay, block by block, what does it mean to think about and consider bearing overhead wires?

So I think it'll take us a little bit to get there.

Um I'll know more, I'll get a sense of it after you know these two meetings we have at the end of the week.

Okay.

And then not directly related to this, but related to this area with the West Logistics um neighborhood information meeting coming up.

Oh, yeah.

How do comments uh from attendees, neighbors, residents at uh that meeting impact how the city interacts, like thinking about the experience of the public realm.

I I know I've received comments about concerns about the loading dock, particularly with noise uh being an open yard and what the screening is and how that experience looks like on the north side of that block, and didn't necessarily see it in the uh packet for that or necessarily in this.

I see sample elements, which to Mr.

Keene's point as well.

It's there's a lot of to be definedness of this whole thing.

Absolutely.

Uh, but I would just highlight that and and wonder how residents might be reassured that that is that experience is a priority there too.

And how they're best uh engaging with city staff and with council on the experience, particularly I I think it's that trucks backing up at different hours of the day and how that noise impacts noise, was a quality of the natural respite that was mentioned as well.

Sure.

I I'll I'll have to lean into Mr.

Yitzer to speak to the noise issue, I think perhaps, but um, when it comes to private development, so uh this is a daily conversation that we have across our teams, right?

And I know um I'll not to call on her, but Miss Woodward is really leaning into this because that is going to come through as as developers submit their site development plan and as her team reviews it and looks for compliance around UDC, the uh design standards in the DMC district, and what we're trying to achieve in terms of um an elevated experience.

And so that is an active uh effort that her team does every single day.

So when it relates to private development, it's really tied to that SDP.

When it's tied to projects that we are going to be in the public realm doing, it's like what we're doing right now with Sixth Avenue, right?

We're doing lots of engagement around what do people want to see.

It's informed by a lot of the work that uh Miss Carlson has already brought um forward in the um Gale report.

So when it comes to the public projects, we're gonna be out there in the neighborhood doing lots of engagement.

Um when it comes to private development, I would encourage everybody to be involved in the NIM meeting and give that feedback because that is what Miss Woodward uses to um inform, you know, final approval.

I think that's a fair statement to say.

And then I don't know if uh regarding the noise ordinance.

I I we'd have to circle back with you on that because I'm not sure that I have an answer related to that.

Well, thank you.

I I think that that's very clear on the the NIM comments go to community development for consideration of the site development plan.

So I I think that that's really helpful information.

And I have a final question that I will promise is a final question, but I'm gonna come back.

Go ahead.

Are you gonna ask it now?

Are you I I do have two folks in the in the queue.

I do have a question as well.

I I'm going and I do have uh council member Keene and Councilmember Palmer and uh Councilmember Fredericks in the queue.

But uh from a cadence standpoint, tonight we are looking to pass the overall budget, the two-year budget, first time two-year budget.

Uh uh, talk to us a little bit about how the these projects as they formulate and become projects.

How will those come to us?

How will they come to uh the DMC board and us?

And then also keeping in mind uh council member Frederick's request for a longer glide path for the council.

Sure.

So uh in terms of the uh public projects, the underground and above ground projects, you they have to be designed first, right?

So you will approve design contracts, those will come to you.

Um then uh as the project gets designed and there's public engagement around that, depending on what the project is.

Now, there might not be public engagement around sanitary sewer or stormwater, but there might be, I don't know, maybe Tyler wants to do that.

But um, particularly when it comes to the above ground.

Um, so the design contracts will come back to you when we want um at different steps along the project, we bring updates.

So, for example, we're coming to you on November 10th study session with a sixth avenue update on where we're at with that current work, right?

So we will bring projects back to you at intermittently, generally bring it at like 30 or 60 percent to make sure we're on target with what you envision and what we want to ultimately advance as a final design.

Then we put the construction bid documents together, those will come to you for approval um and award, and then we would bring updates like we normally do on other city projects.

So um that that is how you will see them, how the DMCC board will see them.

We will come forward at their quarterly meetings with updates uh like we do with all of our projects.

Um, some require more detailed updates than others, and uh we look to our friends at DMC to help guide us in understanding where the board wants to see more detail in those um in that work plan in those project updates.

Uh and so the what was the rest of your question?

I apologize.

I think we covered it.

Okay.

Giving us this council a uh preview uh to uh to those projects as they percolate up to the DMCC board.

Oh, yes, and and as we understand what projects, what streets need to happen first, like we're gonna bring that to you.

We want you to understand.

We originally thought we were going to do third avenue, but we're gonna do Fourth Avenue with them and with with our partners at Mayo instead, or you know, so we want to to make sure that you have this schedule and understand what we're thinking about what is what streets are going to occur when.

Thank you.

Councilmember Keene.

Uh, yeah, I wanted to make a couple points here.

I was following up on council member Miller's comment about the park, but I'm again we're in a budget meeting right now.

That park, I believe, is a private proc by Mayo.

And I would thought that idea of the overhead lines would be part of their project and not part of DMC or city spending.

That is correct.

That but we're also evaluating on street projects.

I understand, but I again I'm I thank you.

Just trying to keep it make some um the other one, just on uh the the comment, the discussion on NIMS.

I'm listening on this, and I go to a lot of these different NIMs, and Mayo runs really good neighborhood information meetings.

Uh, they have enough people there, they're keeping track of what's going on.

I think they're turning it in.

I can't say that for all NIMS, but I I think that idea if people are going to mails and giving comments and and there they have you know, not just the architect there, they have the landscape people, they have the operations people, uh, they have the mail staff.

So I think they're being run very well and and they've also been well attended.

So I think that's a good way to get input on these things.

Um, I want to also comment on council member Frederick's thing here.

And again, this is my oversimplification, which I have to do to keep up with all the stuff, but we're on a we're in a yes and yes model with the DMC, but they are the first to act, we're not the first.

So my take would be is if they come forward with the budget in that, and we've show we should should have shown some sort of concern with that prior to, or want other projects that aren't getting funded.

Our ability, our our control is that we don't approve those.

And the yes and yes model says those projects or those investments do not happen.

And I think if if uh I I have not seen, I mean, I've seen a couple things over the years where it was there, there was that some of that consternation.

But I think those we should be ferreting those out in those in those small group meetings and making sure we're getting early eyes on what's happening at DMC.

But I think there is some onus on us to communicate as a majority that we're not this is not our priorities and the investments not what ours, but our control there is the vote no, and then though I mean it's the law that will not those investments will not happen.

Is it I have it right?

That's correct.

Councilmember Palmer.

Well, to go to Mr.

Keene's um thought process there.

Um I interpreted what what President Schubring and Um Mr.

Fredericks was saying was that we do a study session prior to going to the uh um uh DMC meeting, which makes more sense.

I'm not a fan of the small group meetings for the simple fact that you're not in public and we can't discuss, and I can't listen to my other council members.

So I don't see where it's a real difficult part to have a short study session ahead of that, and then um uh you can have DMC approve it, and then the city council can approve it and almost make it on a on a um consent agenda, which I think makes everybody easier.

Um, but I want to clarify something you said.

I I don't think I heard it correctly.

Seventh Avenue, did you say you're spending eight million dollars in Seventh Avenue?

No, no, sorry.

Um Seventh Avenue, and then when you look at Center Street West and First Street Southwest of Sixth Avenue, that is an area that we identified in the line item of eight million dollars because we've not done the block by block analysis like we've done on the rest of the blocks.

So we we just allocated everything east of Seventh Avenue for two blocks.

No the eight million allocated for Kutski area is Seventh Avenue and then Center Street West and First Street Southwest of Sixth Avenue.

And how far will that go?

It goes to 11th Avenue.

Okay.

And I'm confused on on the overhead power lines.

We have a policy that the the landowner pays for the bearing of lines that they want them to be buried.

We're not using DMC money to bury power lines and private property, are we?

No.

We are just the conversation is around as we think about these neighborhood improvements.

And if we're in there doing streetscape along Center Street or First Street Southwest, is there an opportunity to bury overhead lines as part of in as part of the public realm streetscape project to support what we heard coming back from the neighborhoods in terms of um you know preserving the tree canopy, the um enhanced elevated experience through the neighborhood.

So we're just in a conversation, starting conversation with RPU about what's the art of possible in burying overhead lines, not just in Kutzkey, but in these other projects in these other streets, Dr.

Well, RPU has a policy, and I just want to clarify.

Well, that's not our policy now, and so I would I would not be in favor of that.

I mean, I could understand it'd be far cheaper if you're in the area and we're going to be dropping a line during when we're there.

That makes more sense, but I think that the the owners of the property need to be assessed the value of doing that, whatever the lower cost is.

Because I mean, RPU has the A policy, and I don't I and I don't want to see us using private money or private benefit to for for homeowners in the one area because we don't do it anywhere else in Rochester.

I think uh the sense is that it isn't just private benefit, that it is a benefit area-wide.

That it is so how does how does that benefit somebody out in Ellen Hills Drive?

I'm I this area, the broad impact area here.

But if I'm on Ellen Hills Drive and I want to have my lines buried, I have to pay for them.

Now, if we redo the Hills Drive and it's an added cost to do it, I would pay you'd be assessed per lot for that.

And so I don't understand why we wouldn't assess we see as part of the streetscape enhancement strategy.

Okay, and I council member okay.

More questions?

Okay.

Councilmember uh Miller.

Thank you.

And I appreciate that the downtown in my view is is more of a public space and there's shared public and private benefit to the improvements to the street.

So I don't see it as block by block improvements of any of these designs of just accruing to the homeowner who's adjacent.

I think it's a much more in my view, holistic view of the public space and improvements of respite for visitors, residents, employees of Mayo Clinic, and others.

My question was uh about the tool design contract and how the results of that study may or may not be reflected in this 2026-27 budget, and particularly thinking about the north-south connection.

I see three north-south segments highlighted here.

I see Seventh Avenue, Sixth Avenue, and Second Avenue with segments that are highlighted in that.

So is there the possibility of this budget implementing the recommendation from that, or is that a future budget cycle beyond 27?

The improvements to 6th Avenue specifically are a part of this but recommended budget.

Okay.

And when might we expect to hear the results of that tool design active mobility network report?

We will be bringing that to the November 10th study session.

Thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Fredericks.

Uh is there a motion on this.

Council member Doring.

Oh, Councilmember Doring, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I was just going to make the motion because we're getting in the weeds a little far on a budget uh question.

When yeah, so I'm gonna uh move to adopt a resolution approving one the two 2026 operating budget of uh five million.

Yeah.

I don't want to read this whole thing.

Can I just move to approve that or do I have to read it all?

Uh it's a lot of Kirk Caseel or uh attorney spinder Craig.

Is it required that a council member read uh the action?

Council president, not verbatim.

I move to adopt uh the resolution to approve the 2026 and 2027 destination medical center corporation budget as presented in our council packet.

Second.

Move by Council Member Doring, seconded by Councilmember Keene, Councilmember Doring.

No further comments.

Well, I just I I just want to say I I this is a big project.

It's a and it really took a lot of big thinking to look at uh this neighborhood that is next to the bolt forward on bound in Mayo Clinic, their five billion dollar investment, and really looking at the uniqueness of where this major health care facility sits in a neighborhood, it isn't usual across the country that uh that they're right there in the neighborhood.

And the just the uh the creativity to say, let's take advantage of what we have here and uh and make it better.

And I and I remember when I uh worked at Mayo Clinic and was a new employee, I used these streets to uh uh walk during my lunch hour and go down to the trail.

And I was a runner like Councilmember Palmer about 15 years ago.

But and uh it was really one of the first places I looked to uh Rochester and patients and visitors and others uh really use that uh neighborhood.

And it as you mentioned, it's a changing neighborhood.

So I I think it's a really creative plan and looking forward to seeing the details as they come forward to us.

Councilmember Frederick.

Thank you.

Thanks for your work on this, Miss Steinhauser.

Um, all I'm asking is just in the forward, let's just get together and get at the table and go over what we're gonna be proposing or what we're gonna be asking for, or what have you, before we just get to the finish line.

Thank you.

Comments.

Uh all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If folks can take their seats, we're gonna get started.

Please take your seats.

We are going to continue the council meeting.

Sorry.

Next up, we have our transit fall service changes and Ms.

Show.

Good evening, Council President Shubing, Mayor Norton, uh, Council members, I'm Iashong.

I also have here tonight Sandra Narr, our transit planner.

She'll be doing the heavy lifting.

I'll just do the quick intro.

So we have an agenda here that we're gonna go through.

As I said, Sandra will go through the uh transit fall service changes for this fall.

Um, she'll go into more details about our public engagement and where we're at and um the routes that will be impacted.

Uh why are we doing this change?

Um service changes happen uh occasionally uh throughout the year.

Some are uh bigger, some are less uh minor.

Um our previous uh service change was back in May when we moved over to Central Park.

Um, the one previous to that was actually around this time, same time last year that we made some fall service changes, and previous to that about spring.

So technically it's not like a spring or fall, but that's kind of how it's been landing.

And um right now we're looking at a fall service change.

We're doing that uh based on what we're seeing in regards to our operations cost and our ridership.

Um in 2024 and 25 um and 23, our local match was five percent.

Previous to that was 20 percent.

Um, we're looking at a 2026 local match of rate uh increasing to 15 percent um and potentially uh going back to 20 percent.

So in that outlook of it, we're looking at our current cost and our ridership and kind of peeling back some uh layers of the onion to manage that uh uh foreshadowing of what our local match is gonna be.

We also have cares funds that we have been using to uh bridge the gap of our um funds for our um revenue and our expenses, our local match as a uh for our revenues as a reminder, it comes from fairs, advertisement, and sponsorship.

We're looking at um again, we'll go into more details about our service hours changes, but uh looking at building an efficient transit system.

Uh we have uh historically through the pandemic, um, been managing our uh services uh as it was previous to COVID, looking at ridership.

Um in fact, today we had a MIPTA conference, which is the Minnesota Public Uh Transit Association conference with also Wisconsin, and a lot of the transit agencies are saying seeing the same things that we do in regards to like uh right sizing the transit system, and that's what we're trying to do at this point.

Um, it'll be uh not a one time, but it'll be multiple times where we're gonna be revisiting this.

Um, and also making it as I mentioned for future expansion readiness.

So this is just one step in in the next direction of um changes to come.

So then council members and mayo.

I'll begin by giving an overview of our current system.

So currently our PTOP steady routes, two of these routes are Espress routes that say about three parking rides.

We have other neighborhood routes that run from around 5 a.m.

in the morning to around 7 p.m.

in the evening, and we have other routes that only run during the peak.

That's between 5 a.m.

and 9 a.m.

And then between 2 p.m.

and 6 p.m.

We also have six evening and weekend routes.

These routes only run during the evenings and weekends.

On an average weekday, we are seeing ridership of about 3,000 in our overall system, and that equates to about 100 riders, 100 burdens per route.

I have a graph here.

The horizontal access shows the routes, the ridership is on the vertical, and the red line is what our average ridership per day by routes is.

You would see that again, we have our 550x, which is the espresso route being our highest ridership.

We have 411, 413, 409, 408, and 409, which are all routes in the northwestern part of Rochester.

Aside our 20 CVs routes, which are just evening and weekend routes, we have routes such as 217, which is in the southeastern part of town.

We have 314 southwesting, 103 north east, 307 southwesting, and then 202, which is also in the southeastern part of town, being some of our lowest ridership routes.

And this ridership data is what informed some of the recommendations we are proposing for this fall.

As part of our service change process, we usually begin with staff reviewing data we have received over a few months and making initial proposals on what should change in the upcoming service change.

After we have these initial proposals, we go out to the public to get your feedback on how these proposals we are suggesting would impact their lives.

So the whole month of September was dedicated to public engagement.

We had a virtual open house that had about 15 participants.

We had three in-person open houses in different parts of Rochester to get closer to the neighborhoods.

These open houses were held around 7 p.m.

So to give people a chance to get back from work and then attend these to give their feedback.

We also had an online survey which ran throughout the month of September.

We had over 14, over 400 responses from these.

We also engaged our citizens' advisory on transit committee to get their feedback on these changes.

And lastly, we engaged with the CD's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Office to hear about what their recommendations are will be on these changes and how they feel equity concerns should be addressed in these changes we proposed.

This is just a summary of what we had from these engagement activities.

The proposals we took out to the public to start with was that the discontinuation of four routes, which is Route 101, 202, 217, and 309, and then a proposal to slightly extend Route 314.

Based on the engagement activities we had, I'll go through each of the routes and what we had.

So for Route 101, we had consent from 103, sorry.

We had consent from neighborhood from residents who live in the Northern Heights Drive neighborhood.

They were concerned about the increase in travel time if we take our route 103 and they are supposed to depend on Route 102.

I'll go over these changes with pictures on what these routes look like just for context.

Route 202, majority of the residents mentioned that they could easily use other nearby stop options on other routes.

So it wasn't a major problem.

Route 217, what we had was that nine respondents that 52% of the respondents for this route were not sure how they're going to make their trip if this route goes away.

And then 48% mentioned they had other options they could use.

For route 309, majority of them said they could use other stop options nearby, so it wasn't a problem.

Lastly, the route we're thinking of extending slightly was 314.

And from what we had, only 2% found this extension useful, and they didn't think even if this extension was done, they were going to use it.

So based on this feedback we had for consent for route 103, we decided that we're going to slightly extend route 101, which is more of a direct route that serves downtown Broadway, goes up to Northern Hills and gets back.

We are going to extend that route slightly to give riders a more direct connection downtown.

So this travel time will be still 10 minutes as they currently experience.

The previous proposal was going to take them 23 minutes to get downtown.

So this 10 minutes were the best was a better idea for them.

Also on route 314, since most riders didn't find this extension useful, we decided not to do it.

Again, as part of the survey, we asked our respondents or residents in Rochester, what other areas in Rochester or destinations in Rochester they would like to have access to transit to.

We had the airport coming up, and again, we had over 400 responses, and 48% of those said they wanted service to the airport.

The second destination that came up was the Umsted County History Center, where we had 13 people or 13% of our respondents saying they wanted access to the homestead history center.

We evaluated what it would take us in terms of our revenue hours and cost to be able to provide services to the history center and then to the airport.

We have a current route, which is 314, that could be slightly extended to provide service to the history center, but this will cost us an extra 23,100 per year.

And to extend service to the airport, we have Route 206 that currently ends around Target South.

There could be a potential to extend 206 to serve the airport just six times in a day.

And that would cost us an extra 25,300.

I would say that this current service change is more of a reduction in service hours to make our system more financially sustainable.

As time moves on and our system is more financially sustainable, we would definitely consider these service extension options.

But as part of this fall, these were just evaluated to see what it was going to cost us.

But these potential changes that's to the airport and history center is not part of this full service change.

Just wanted to make that clear.

So the details of this force change, we are proposing to discontinue four routes.

And this is both informed by data reviewed by staff and then the public engagement.

We are proposing to discontinue four routes, that's 103, 2022, 217, and 309.

We are going to make frequency adjustments to the evening and weekend routes, that's 21 to 26 and route 102.

We are realigning four routes, 101, 116, 204, 306, and 207, and all other routes will remain unchanged.

In doing these changes, our current number of routes is steady is going to reduce to 26.

Our revenue hours is going to reduce by about 10%, similar to our costs.

We are going to be reducing our operating cost per year by about 1 million dollars in a year.

So currently, even if we take away these four routes and realign the six routes, 99.8 of our existing boardings will still continue to remain within a 0.2 mile distance of a stop.

And that's about a five-minute walk.

After we make these changes, the number of residents in Rochester who have access to a stop within a 0.5 mile, which is about a 10 minute walk, will decrease from 77 to 75%.

And that's really because okay, I have to describe the mark.

So I have a mark on the side.

The blue color is what our coverage will be after taking away these four routes.

And then the greenish color will be areas where service will be lost.

And this is mainly along Marion Road Southeast and then 50th half and highway 14.

So after these changes, again, the number of people who have access to service within a 10 minute walk will reduce from 77 to 72%.

Jobs that have access to transfer within a 10 minute work will reduce from 94% to 93%.

And lastly, households that lack vehicles or a personal vehicle will stay the same as it is now.

So currently, with our 30 routes, 94% of households without vehicles are within a 10-minute walk.

After these service changes, still 94% of these folks will still have access within a 10-minute walk.

Again, this tells us that those who rely on transit the most are still getting access to transit.

I'll start with the proposal on the frequency changes.

So currently we have six routes, that's 21 to 26.

In the evenings from 7 p.m.

to 10 p.m., these routes operate every 30 minutes.

So they make a trip from downtown, go to the neighborhoods, and come back downtown.

And they do each of these six routes, do six of these trips every evening.

The average ridership we get per evening is about 21 on each route.

And that's roughly about four people on each bus that makes a trip.

Our proposal is to change the frequency of these evening routes to every 60 minutes instead of every 30 minutes.

So currently, if we have two buses every hour, we are going to have just one bus every hour to provide service.

Based on our ridership patterns, we notice that in Rochester and in Rochester Public Transit, our system, our peak hours are usually where we get the highest ridership, are usually between 5 30 a.m.

to around 8:30 a.m.

And then later in the evenings, between 3 p.m.

to around 6 p.m.

So really between 9 a.m.

and 3 p.m.

is considered off-peak where ridership is low.

And during this off-peak period, most of our routes operate every 60 minutes.

These evening times from 7 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

is still considered off-peak.

So we thought it wise that it's better to align the off-peak that's between 9 a.m.

and 3 p.m.

frequency, which is every 60 minutes, to be similar to what we have later in the evenings because we don't even have much ridership on these routes during this time of the day.

On an average weekday, currently with these six routes operating every 30 minutes, it costs us about 3,429.

Once we make this change to change this frequency to every 60 minutes, it's going to cost us 1,697, which is almost a half reduction in what we are currently doing.

Moving on from the evening routes, the next proposal we have is on route 103.

103 is a peak only service that operates only in the mornings and in the late afternoons.

103 runs from downtown.

Goes to Northern Hills Drive Northeast, serves Northern Heights.

It also serves East Circle Drive, goes to the Century Hills neighborhood back downtown.

So with a map there, 103 is the red route, 101 is the black route, 102 is the yellow, and then 116 is the grid.

So the route we are referring to here is the red one, which is 103.

The proposal we have on this route is to discontinue it.

This route currently has 40 stops on there.

34 of these 40 stops will continue to be served by either route 101, 102 or 116.

This is the route where we had feedback from residents who live in the Northern Heights neighborhood that if we are taking away 103, the option will be to take 102.

103 is more of a neighborhood route that runs, has a lot of deviations and is going to take them 23 minutes to move from where they live to downtown.

But if we make a change to 101, 101 is more direct, it serves the northern heights area and gets back downtown.

It's going to take them 10 minutes.

So that is why we decided.

So you see 101 proposed.

This is not what 101 currently looks like.

But because of this comment we had, we extended 101 to serve the neighborhood.

Also, 1011 currently does not serve the Century Hills neighborhood.

Again, if riders had to depend on other routes, it was going to take them too long to get downtown.

So we extended route 116 slightly to serve the Century Hills neighborhood before it goes back downtown.

You would see I have three X's on some stops.

Those are inbound and outbound stops.

So 3xs means six stops.

These six stops that are losing direct service because there's no other routes that overlaps in that area, are all within a 10 minute walk of another stop on another route.

So really they wouldn't be catching the bus where they currently stand.

They would have to work an extra 10 minutes to be able to get access to transit.

Again, transit access is maintained.

These three or six stops will just have to walk a few more minutes to get access.

And these six stops account for about 13% of the routes level ridership.

And this 13% is about six boardings on an average weekday.

The next proposal we have is on Route 202.

Route 202 serves the southeastern part of Rochester.

It starts from downtown, it goes on Broadway, serves Third Avenue Southeast to Sixth Street Southeast, and then 15th half southeast back downtown.

And 202 is the blue route.

203 is the orange route, 204 is the purple.

204 is a red and 205 is a purple.

Again, 202 is a route we are referring to, which is a blue one.

It's also a peak only route that runs every 30 minutes.

Our proposal here again would be to discontinue this route.

Again, this route has 24 stops on there.

Once we discontinue with 20 of these stops, still have service via either route 203, 204 or 205.

These four stops that lose direct service.

Again, these are the stops with a red exit excess in there, are also still within a nine minute walk of another stop.

That's the stop on 15th of and 11th Street.

That's where Costco is.

So again, these riders still have an option within a nine minute walk.

The riders on these four stops that lose direct service account for about 12% of the route level ridership, which is roughly again about six boardings on an average weekday.

The next proposal we have is on Route 217.

217 is the green routes as seen on the map.

So 217 also runs from downtown, it serves third half, serves 12th Street Southeast, Marion Road and 50th AF Southeast.

The proposal we have on this route again will be to discontinue it.

This route over the course of nine months, which is the data we have currently studied, has been our lowest performing route.

On an average weekday, this route is getting about 35 to 40 riders on a day.

And this route makes six trips.

So a trip from downtown goes through the neighborhoods back downtown.

We do that six times in a day.

In an average month, this route is getting about 364 boardings, whilst our average route level ridership is about 2,220.

Even with this proposal to discontinue this route, 23 out of the 30 stops on the route will still have access to transit either with Route 205, 206 or 204.

The stops that will lose complete service will be seven stops.

And these seven stops are on Marion Road and Pearl Street Southeast on 50th Ave and Mighty Oaks, and then in the Valley Side Estates area.

I'll like to mention that this is the same area where microtransit was a pilot of micro transit was done a few months ago.

And this area still saw really low ridership.

Ridership picked up on micro transit after the area was extended beyond this area.

So we made a decision again to discontinue this route because it has been our lowest performing route.

And if our system has to be financially sustainable, we would have to allocate resources to where we get most ridership for now.

And then with time, if there's any other development in this area or demand that would need transit, we will reconsider this decision.

The last route that we are making a proposal to will be Route 309.

Route 309 mainly serves downtown.

Sixth Street Southwest, it goes all the way to Apache Mall.

It serves the crossroads college and the crossroads plaza before it moves back downtown.

It's also a peak only service that operates every 30 minutes during the peak and then 60 minutes of peak.

The proposal again on this route will be to discontinue it.

Out of the 30 stops on this route, and the stops again are the bubbles on the route.

28 of them will continue to be served by either route 307 or 306.

The two stops that will lose service, which are the ones with the access, will be Sixth Street Southeast and 12th Av, and then Sixth Street Southeast and 8th Av.

Again, these two stops are still within a 10 minute and 9 minute walk to the stop on 7th Ave and 6th Street.

So these riders again continue to have access to transit, but would have to work a few more minutes to get access.

And these two stops account for about 2% of the ridership on this route, which is roughly about one boarding on an average weekday.

So that summarizes the proposals we are making to routes.

Again, we are discontinuing four routes and making slide route adjustments to other six routes.

Looking ahead with these proposals, our tentative start date on these will be November 24th.

We have a comprehensive public awareness campaign, which would include making updates to our website to social media, posting notices on our bus stops and transit center to be able to let our riders know of these changes we have coming up.

Again, we would continue to monitor ridership patterns.

I would like to state that this is a first step in more service changes to come in the next few months or years.

And this might be a 10% reduction in service.

We just decided to make this measured reduction because we want to monitor how ridership patterns change after this after the service change and make better informed decisions in the service changes to come.

We would conduct ridership surveys after the service change goes live to see how people are understanding the service and how people respond to these.

And that's what I have for council today.

I'm ready to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms.

Dane.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, I have a uh quite a few questions in what I'm disappointed in is the fact that your ridership is down by 65%, and you're only trying to save 10% on the budget.

Um, which doesn't make any sense to me.

You're also talking about taking money out of the reserves from 5% to 15%, which means that the reserves are sometimes going to go away.

Um, so so I don't, I don't know where we're we're we're going with that if we're driving down the transit fund.

Um you did mention microtransit pilot, which uh point out that you're at 232 dollars per ride, which I don't know how anybody can defend that at all, but um, you um seem to want to.

The evening right route cost is 26 to 56 dollars per rider.

That's just not acceptable.

Um, you're also your your citywide service is only hitting 75% of the people.

So we're not even serving all of Rochester.

Our fees are our revenue is way down, our ridership is way down.

Um, you know, we have 800, you know, if you have 3,000 riders a day, that's 15,000 riders a week, that's 800,000 riders.

That's down from 2 million riders prior to 2019.

Now, I've spent a lot of time reading on and different articles on transit in the United States, and we have transit funds going bankrupt.

I don't want Rochester to have to put property tax into transit.

And I don't think dropping this this cost down by only 10% is is is a good idea.

No, I know we have no action tonight, but but I think that we need to do a far better job than what we're doing.

And I know that we have a rapid bus coming up, and I would hope that we would redesign our system to feed into the rapid bus and into our our park and ride that we're building at the rec center.

So again, I'm I I don't know if I'm making this clear, but I'm very uh disappointed in that we're not dropping um a route and we're not making this system more cost effective for everyone.

Councilmember Miller.

Thank you.

I have a few questions as well.

I numbered to seven, we'll see how it goes.

Um I will start by saying the first final question.

The first final question.

No, first comment is I largely agree with what council member Palmer is bringing up.

Uh, what I see in this presentation is uh a system change to maintain coverage within budget.

And in my mind, that does lead us over time to a place where we're smaller and smaller and smaller number of riders.

And obviously, those there are trade-offs, right?

We have a city that's nearly 57 square miles.

We cannot financially serve 100% of our residents.

Um, people choose to live very far from other amenities.

But at the same time, I hear over and over that we're scoring our system on ridership and we're designing it for coverage.

And I wonder what metrics we should be studying and including in these reports that look at opportunities to actually increase frequency and thereby increase ridership.

So I'm I'm just curious.

Are you thinking about those?

I know there's some proposed service expansion destinations within here, but I don't hear how do we make our high ridership lines higher ridership because they are working for people.

Thank you.

I would say I'll respond to Councilmember Palmer's question and then to Councilmember Nick Miller.

So I understand that we are only cut in service by 10%.

But it is important that we do these service changes in a measured manner, because in as much as we are cut in service, we would still be promoting transit and trying to increase our ridership to increase revenues.

So we would cut service, do it in a measured manner and have time to study how ridership changes based on the kind of service changes or proposals we come up with.

Cut and service by 40%, we should be ready to expect that our ridership would decrease by 40%, which will further drop the revenues we are getting.

So, in as much as we are doing a 10%, we have a plan to also continue to have a heavy presence in Rochester, attend events, promote our transit system, work with our community partners such as Mayo to continue to make transit known to our residents, and that way we can promote transit more to be able to gain more riders to increase the revenues we have.

So it is a 10% reduction, which is fair to start with, but continue to monitor how people respond to these changes to guide how we make future changes.

And Councilmember Miller, based on your question, our system is really designed for coverage.

You would see that about 75% of residents in Rochester live within a 10 minute work of transit.

Again, when you study our ridership patterns, you'll really see that most of these riders are commute riders who are leaving home in the morning to get into work.

So there is a need to balance that coverage we have to be able to provide service much closer to them so they wouldn't have to walk or drive more distances to be able to access transit.

We are reviewing or evaluating our system based on ridership.

But again, I presented some data on how many people still have access, how many low-income residents still have access, and how many jobs are still within transit access.

So it's a fair balance we are trying to make over time.

And if our system is more financially sustainable at a point, we would be able to put more frequencies or more service on our high corridors, such as Broadway and other second street and other high corridors to get that balance between our ridership and coverage.

So it will be a process to get there.

Sure.

And I appreciate that.

And I wanted to add a few points.

So I agree with uh Ms.

Narr here.

Um, some other things that we are uh haven't really talked about.

We talk about routes and um our coverage, but there's all other mechanisms that we can do.

And I in our transit development plan, um, the previous one and in this one coming forward, we'll also look at our rate study.

Um, do we increase rate?

Uh there are certain times where or certain agencies that have increased rates during the peak periods.

Do we do that?

So in this next plan, it will evaluate what that would could be or recommendations.

So that could be something that could happen.

Um previously also we never we uh I can't remember what year it was, but we didn't have um coverage or we didn't provide service on on holidays or weekends.

Um, those are other opportunities then to take a look at our services and see if that's something that would be feasible.

So there's other different ways to cut operations costs and still provide coverage.

So I I guess so to go on that, you plan to max like maximize if we're going from ridership to coverage and what what do we most prioritize?

What I hear over and over is coverage.

And I I guess what I don't hear in this is how to how do we have a vision thinking about BRT, thinking about redundancy, how do we connect people into these nodes?

I I don't hear a vision of how we actually provide a high quality service that increases ridership.

So with a plan on how our system would interact with BLT, we are still working on what that interaction will look like, whether we'll take all fixed routes of second street and just have BLT and have people transfer on to BLT, or whether we'll still keep some of our fixed route systems on second street just to provide that connection.

So that plan is still being worked on and will be finalized and presented to council when that is ready.

Uh to Ms.

Shang's point about rate studies.

Uh I would love to hear uh maybe a study session, others, some some development because I also see other um systems in the US looking at partnerships to reduce fares.

Um, I mean, it seems like Mayo is already doing that by providing uh full payment for whether their commuting, their employees are commuting or not on our system.

I mean, I hear you're talking about rate increases.

Is that the only thing that you plan to study?

Um, well, what I wanted to just uh talk about was just the rate itself, right?

So there's that opportunity of whether it increases or decreases partnership with uh others is an opportunity.

That's something that um would be considered.

I mean, we obviously have a partnership agreement with Mayo for our BRT, and that can be looked at and um uh pursued in regards to the whole system.

Um we have paratransit also that is involved.

Any uh rate adjustments to our fixed route also impacts our paratransit, and that's a requirement from um federal transit administration.

So those are things that we would need to look at.

It's just the regulations and the impacts to the whole system.

Okay.

Uh there was a mention of rider experience surveys.

Are you trying to reach out to people who are not riding?

I mean, again, we've heard the the decrease in ridership.

Obviously, people are choosing to not ride for a variety of reasons.

Do you have do you feel like you have an understanding of why people are no longer riding?

So the rider rider experience survey was in response to the service change to see how people are feeling about it and how it's changing their patterns.

But we have attended a number of community events in Rochester where we get feedback from residents.

We had a transit training there.

We had people come over, we told them how to use the app.

So these are all ways we are trying to get people into feeling comfortable with using the transit system and being confident that they could use it.

So we are still reaching out to other people who are not carried riders.

We have our communications team for the CD helping us on social media and on our website to post good information about how to use transit and why they should use transit.

Okay.

And I guess my final comment or question would be about the you you asked for feedback about future service expansion, mentioning the history center of the airport.

Are there opportunities to pilot uh a more flexible service to and from the airport that's actually based on passenger data from the airport itself to whether that's a node in the future BRT system or downtown?

Because again, I I'm hearing coverage, but I just because there's access from the airport to another part of town along a meandering route.

It it just feels like we're imagining well, it's there if you don't have any other option.

So I would say that our pilot for micro transit had the airport as a note.

At the final period, and I would just note that too, because it was not a destination throughout.

Yes, it did.

And we had some ridership from the airport on micro transit.

And again, we had our survey which is telling us people want to use it.

So I would agree with you that there could be a potential pilot of some sort, whether it's a deviated routes.

I can't commit to an express route at this point, but whether it's a deviated route that would go to the airport.

So that could be considered in the future.

Okay.

I'll look forward to future conversations.

Councilmember Wall.

Yeah.

I'll follow up uh just a little bit on Mr.

Miller's comments.

Difficult to talk about expansion uh in an environment uh that is shrinking.

However, uh, in thinking about the airport and or the history center, is is there a timeline uh for study and or action as to what uh those routes may mean for Rochester?

I would be honest and say there is no timeline at this point because our system is not in a financial state to be able to support service to the airport and history center.

However, we just wanted to get the public sentiment on if this is supposed to be done in the future, would they want to use it?

And what we are getting is yes, they would use it.

Once our system is at a point where we can support service expansion, we will consider that.

But for now, we are not committing to any of that.

So it's an interesting fact uh rather uh that this is might be something that people want rather than a real potential for expansion.

Yeah, so I just want to add um that when we do another service change, we will re evaluate it again and look at that.

Um, there are some obstacles to the history center.

Uh, there's no good pedestrian crossing.

Uh, we'd have to be make make sure that we can take our buses in there and turn around.

So there are some issues physically on doing that.

So if that was a route that we wanted to pursue, we'd have to make sure that's feasible.

Um, so I don't know if there's like a timeline per se, but um definitely that uh as an interest, it would be evaluated once again when we redo another service change.

And I think the problems that you correctly point out are are likely solvable problems.

Uh moving on to a little bit different uh tack on slide uh six.

You uh talk about feedback, and all of the feedback that I read is on very low ridership routes.

Did we seek only feedback on low ridership routes?

The feedback we sought was based on the proposals we sent out to the public, and these proposals were to discontinue our low ridership routes, okay.

And that is why the feedback is based on those.

So then I would hearken back a little bit uh again to what Mr.

Miller said.

Um it'd be kind of nice to uh get some feedback on these routes work well for us.

Why do they work well for us?

Uh is there any way that we can make them work better?

I think I read today that the Minneapolis system is down to is come back up to 50% of their uh pre-uh uh virus time.

Uh, we're not quite there.

Is it fair to say that virtually generalizing?

Um are Rochester and Minneapolis more common than less common in terms of uh public transit?

50 percent, 65% down.

Um I would say that uh in fact, just this morning um at the conference, uh I sat in a room of all the CEOs from different agencies in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and we're all varying.

Um it depends on the the industry of that system.

So universities um are coming back differently than we are.

Um there's different agents, like for example, Green Bay is back um at their pre-COVID numbers.

Um, so there's different uh agencies that have different um bounce back.

Uh I would say that we are not um too different from other agencies where we are still not at the pandemic level.

But what what agencies are saying right now is like we may never be back.

It's it's a different, it's a different um uh uh time for us.

And so we need to look at different um uh tools in the toolbox.

Uh some agencies are looking at um the microtransit filling in, uh doing core services in the in the heart of their city, and then for the out outskirts, it could be a different type of service.

So there's different things that we're gonna need to look at.

Um we may not have to do just fixed route services.

Um, so there are different things.

So that's uh as far as like how we are similar to others.

Um, there are some agencies like us and some that are doing better than us.

And my last question uh is there much in the way of ridership represented in the numbers you've shown us tonight from the 75th park and ride.

Secondarily, do you expect the North Broadway park and ride to give the system a boost?

A big boost, I mean.

So currently the routes that's 550x, that's the 75th Street Park and Ride is our highest ridership routes.

On an average weekday, we are doing about 350 bulletins, and that's the highest in our system.

Definitely you've seen what's happening with a park and ride that's providing 15 minute service because that's the only route in our system that provides 15 minutes.

Once the North Buddhist park and ride is done and we provide similar levels of service of 15 minutes, we can be assured of some higher ridership from the park and ride as well.

So that has proven to be a great uh investment by the city of the city.

That is a great investment.

Okay, thank you.

And the service levels as well help.

Mayor Norton Thank you.

I appreciate these comments.

Um couple things.

So I'm gonna share a couple of concerns I have, and then I have just two quick questions.

So one, when I hear that the evening routes are going to drop to one per hour.

And maybe there's a question here.

I worry that someone's not going to, if they get off work or whatever, you know, I'd like to know what population is taking the bus from 7 to 10 p.m.

if that are they going to sit around for 59 minutes if they miss it to wait for the next bus, or if you lost another customer.

And in that case, is that six, you know, is it even gonna be worth having any service?

So I'm wondering how you're gonna measure that and what is that 7 to 10 p.m.

ridership?

So on those routes, again, the ridership is about 21 pair routes between 7 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

And in the survey we put out, we had a question on what time periods would you prefer to take the bus if it's going to reduce to every hour.

So we had a few time windows, 7 to 7.15, 7.15 to 7.30.

So we have that data to guide us on which if we had doing just one bus within an hour, what's time period with big work best for people?

Also, we have our transit app, which is a real time app that tells you when the bus is going to arrive.

So you wouldn't have to leave your workplace and be at a transit center for 59 minutes.

You could track when the bus is going to come and depend on how long you have to walk to the stop.

You just leave your workplace maybe five minutes based on how close you are to the stop.

Also, we've made a few improvements to Central Park.

We have lights down there now.

So even though it's going to be in the evenings at least, there is some lights to make people feel more secure that the parks.

So again, the transit app will help you track when your bus is going to come.

We did a survey to guide which time periods to pick in Central Park is getting some improvements with lighting.

So that should help in the evenings.

Okay, I would just say I do worry that you're gonna lose ridership by going one per hour.

And then at some point you have to make a decision whether you have enough riders to even keep any of it.

So I hope you're watching that.

The other point that you made multiple times is it's a nine to 10 minute walk.

And a nine to 10 minute walk in the summer is great.

A nine to 10 minute walk when it's 20 below zero, and you have to make sure you get there a few minutes early, means you're out in the cold for 15 to 20 minutes.

And that concerns me.

And it concerns me for a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons that council member Palmer mentioned earlier is you know we have we need ridership on buses.

My experience on the buses has been sometimes there are only a few riders, but there are people who can't get to work any other way.

It is their one and only way to get to work.

They are non-drivers, they live alone, they don't have family to take care of them and drive them places.

And so it is crucial infrastructure for us to have.

And yet I'm afraid we're making it so uncomfortable with a 10 minute wait in the middle of winter in Minnesota that, you know, like I said, some are great, winter not so much.

Again, I know you're trying to do your best to make ends meet.

I want to make sure that those, if there's four people on the bus, that those four people who have no other way to get to work in this community can get to work because they're valued employees downtown or wherever they're going, and we don't want them sitting at home not working, right?

They want to work, they love their jobs, and we want to make sure they can get there.

The questions I had were smaller buses.

Is there any savings?

Is there any way?

Um having buses that aren't the large buses when you only have four people on a on our on a route.

And you know, when you have four people on a route and we have the large bus goes around, is there any cost savings and taking smaller buses rather than the large one?

I can't help but think there isn't for gas alone, but uh on the non-electric routes.

But have you thought of that at all?

Or is it just big buses or nothing?

Yeah, so that that's a good concept.

Um, and it may, I don't have numbers um in my head to spit out on what the savings would be.

Um, but comparably when you look at smaller buses, um, unless you go from uh like the the paratransit vehicles that we have, um, it's not much of a savings in regards to capital or service.

Um our transit fleet is uh set at um a certain number, and we are getting um our capital to replace our vehicles are per grant.

Um and so when we look at our transit reserve, our local match comes from that uh reserve.

And uh we're looking at uh state funding or federal funding to uh do the bulk of that capital.

Uh we currently have funding um approved for um, I can't remember, it was four or six vehicles, those are the big buses.

To change that through the grant, it you gotta go through regulations of state and federal because it's already identified for the big vehicles.

If we were to also look at um replacing our current uh vehicles with smaller vehicles, that needs to go into the next set of um level of approvals for vehicles, and we're we're not there yet.

So we could slowly switch it over, but we can't switch it over on a dime like that.

Um, also uh when we look at the system overall, uh, the way the buses are assigned isn't uh bus is assigned to a certain route.

It's it's assigned.

Um you probably can explain this better, uh, blocking of the um services, and you don't assign the the vehicle to the route, it's to the block of time.

So and the the last comment I had is um having taken the bus, like council member Wall this week, uh I found myself at a 10-minute break in the middle of a route, which was highly irritating.

I had gotten on the bus, I went about two minutes and then we sat for 10 minutes, and that's not gonna encourage people to take the bus either.

So I perhaps that's because we've rerouted due to using Central Park and having to keep buses moving through there, but I guess I just wanted to say getting on a bus, going two stops and then having a 10-minute stop was not was not cool.

So the good news on that routes, I believe, is 102.

It's not going to wait for 10 minutes anymore.

It's going to be a direct route.

Good job.

Councilmember Keene.

Uh yeah, thank you.

I've got a couple of same things you want to say here.

But first, just um, you know, as a council member, I I really do like having a but useful and successful public transit.

So this sort of meeting here, this is makes me very nervous.

Uh when you're in a system that basically, you know, you I think what you were explaining is you we start with these pre-COVID numbers and we're not there, and we had this relief on our uh the way our business worked.

Um, but I guess I want people to take special note.

It was Ms.

Young when she talked about it, federal federal and state was 80%.

When COVID hit, it went to 95%.

We're working our way out of that.

But as we work our way out of that, our numbers at our support side is not where it needs to be to support the size of system we had before.

Um, you know, we we talk about uh things about recommendations for you know the future and strategic things and other locations, but right now I believe we're tactically responding to the business pressures we're dealing with.

And I I guess I'm I support what the staff is bringing to us.

Uh I do have one specific question though, on just some of the charts when you talk about savings and routes costs or the cost per ride was 26 to 56 dollars.

Is that full system cost or is that the impact to the municipal budget?

That's full system cost, and the 26 to 56 was just on our evening route.

Yes, yeah.

No, I know those were the one.

I mean, I did see by going to some of your meetings.

I mean, I think that was a good starting point to say what are our routes that are very efficient.

I don't think we want to be attacking those if trying to save money.

I think we we so these are these are good things.

I I really struggle with councilmember Miller's thing about like we we do we try to design for coverage, but then we rate ourselves by by ridership.

Um, I I like having the coverage, but I think what you're when you're in this environment right now when you're talking about reduce, reduce, you're gonna be reducing and you're gonna have these impacts.

You might think you're saving some money, but you're gonna get less ridership.

That impacts your revenue again.

Uh, but this idea of we were at 80% covered through our our our operational grants and we went up to 95 and now we're going back.

That's a big financial hit.

Um, but I'll tell you what drives me nuts with them with the uh our main transit customer here, the mail clinic uh is the organization hurting transit the most right now.

Um, they work with us on things like the city built out the new parking ride.

Council member Wall talks about it 75th Street.

Uh, they know our plans, they work with these are very advantageous advantage to mail because they were renting spots other places.

But mail employees come in and say, no, we don't want to drive the other thing.

And what does Mayo do?

They put them new white bus things and compete and basically take ridership away from Rochester Public Transit.

Um, that's the example on the north side of town.

A similar thing happened on the south side.

So Mayo wants to, you know, wants to be a partner.

Obviously, they're a major partner going into our future, but then they act like, well, we have to keep our employees happy, or they act like and when it comes right down to it, they compete with us for public transit.

And I I just don't know what to make of it.

I I'm I'm watching as um as we go forward now, we have major agreements with Mayo going into bus rapid transit.

Um, I I think they are are coming at us as good partners.

Their world has changed dramatically.

They've sent uh no to go to the pre-COVID numbers.

That number of people don't come to downtown for their jobs anymore.

I don't think that's gonna change, but I I I'm not a crystal ball guy here with this.

Um, so I commend the staff for trying to do the changes they need to react to it.

Um, I agree that as we get forward and we have a spine up second street that we probably have to get away from the wheel and spoke methodology.

But I think right now, I I want us to be tactical and figure out a ways to reduce our costs.

Um, council member Palmer says, like, I don't want this going on the levy.

I'll take it a step further.

If we get to that point, we would probably will not have a public transportation system.

I mean, if it if it's if we're running around and and people are not because our city spread out too much, because our main employer wants has other priorities for how we get their people to work.

If that's the case, we're we're we can't run a successful public transportation system.

And that's what scares me going into this.

And I appreciate the work you're trying to do to keep it afloat, but I think we have to get better partnerships going forward too.

Thank you.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

A lot of things that have been said that I want to clarify.

Um I used to work downtown and I would take the bus downtown.

And and being a night and weekend person downtown, you can't take the bus if it's not dependable.

And you'd stop the buses if it was too windy, if it was too snowy, if it was too cold, and you're not dependable.

And then all of a sudden you're not showing up on time.

You you cancel routes.

And so if I can't depend on you to get me to work, because my employer doesn't go, oh geez, the bus wasn't there.

My employer would say you're done.

And so that's if you're not dependable, that's that's a problem.

You have an opportunity that it's any other transit fund would want.

A large major employer that everybody has to go down to that one particular spot.

And for some odd reason, you guys can't figure that out.

And that's frustrating.

And that's very frustrating.

And in Mr.

Keene, you got to remember Mail Clinic pays for 2,000 riders a day to ride the bus.

We only have a thousand paying customers other than the mail clinic people.

So you flash your badge, you get on the bus, and you and you get to go.

So that's one big thing.

Mr.

Wall mentioned the cities.

Well, the cities have a quarter cent sales tax they just put on for transit.

The problem with theirs is that they have nothing but crime.

And that's the reason people aren't riding it.

But for us, I'm frustrated when I hear the history center for two years.

We've talked about the history center.

What do I hear?

Well, we don't know if we can get the bus down there or not.

Well, take the bus down there and check it.

It doesn't take that much to figure out to take the bus down and go, it can make the parking lot or it can't.

But for two years, I've heard, oh, we don't know if the bus can make it or not.

It can't be that hard to take a bus down and figure that out.

Um zips, you talk about zips and it's on 75% on time.

I can't imagine somebody with special needs waiting for the damn bus to come and you're not going to be there, or you might be there 75% of the time, and you think this is wonderful.

You know, 75% is not wonderful.

And I don't understand why we're standing here listening to this and in well, we're gonna take more money out of reserve.

Do I sound frustrated?

Yes, I'm very frustrated because what's going to happen is like what happened in Philadelphia.

You're gonna lose your bus system, and Mr.

Keene is right, it's not gonna come out of the property tax.

And you have federal government, you have the state government who's running out of money who aren't going to be throwing money into transit.

So I don't know what you plan on doing.

I go back to the pilot program.

232 dollars per ride.

Now that sounds like oh, we got a grant.

No, 20% of the cost came out of our transit fund to fund that.

And the conclusion was well, we don't know if it worked or not.

So I don't want to hear we're gonna do microtransit at 232 per rider.

So um, those are the items that I have.

We don't have time on this.

You all think this is going to be just fun and games, it's gonna run out of money.

And when it does, we're we're we're just playing up the river without a path.

So something has to change here, and you can't just keep taking it out of your out of your reserve funds.

Councilmember Miller.

So I guess maybe I'll just preface by saying I'm more optimistic about our chances and would start with a question that's open to anyone of asking, are people traveling less?

Yes.

On the bus, but generally, are people taking fewer trips, not just commuting?

People are traveling less because more people are waking from home after COVID.

So it definitely that has an impact.

But I guess I would ask Mr.

Nemeyer because uh what I hear at Rokog is our traffic model shows increases, continuing increases.

So sure, commuting is down, and we've seen survey, but that's part of the trip.

So I'm optimistic that we can compete with other modes of travel with our transit system.

And I think Mr.

Keene brings up a great point with our relationship with Mail Clinic.

And I wasn't going to mention this when it came up on the slide for the DMCC budget, but I think I see an opportunity with a new staff member who's coming in to manage some of these mode shift programs and relationships to Mr.

Palmer's point.

What do you do if the bus isn't reliable?

What do you do if it's too snowy?

Well, travel demand management programs with employers have guaranteed ride home for people who the bus works 95% of the time, and then every so often you have to go home early to pick up your kids from school.

Something's happened, the bus isn't coming because of weather conditions, they're alternates to make up for that.

And so I'm optimistic for steps that we've taken, and I would just highlight as we talk about people getting to and from work, they have to live somewhere.

And as we look at our comp plan saying it's important where we where we develop housing and where we people need to go, this is the reason that our comp plan envisions a different future.

So I just want us to understand the death of our transit system alternative, but I don't think that we're there.

And I think we have some real opportunities to lean into these partnerships because Rochester is a city with a major employer who is moving a lot of people around.

And I look forward to how we increase that relationship because I cannot imagine that their private um employee system that's competing with our ridership is very cost effective for them.

And so I imagine they're spending a lot of money that could go to a lot of different modes, and I hope that we are a competitive service of choice over time for those trips.

And um, yeah, I again I just think there's the doom and gloom, but I am still optimistic.

People need to get around, people want to live in our community, our community is growing.

And I think that transit, especially as you mentioned, Green Bay and other transit agencies that are thinking about alternate models of differentiated service between a core area and access to the outlying areas.

I think we have a lot of opportunity to be inventive.

And I would love to have opportunities as council to have further study sessions to learn what you're learning from these conferences and from other agencies that are seeing a different trajectory for ridership.

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, again, I just want to clarify some of my comments.

I did I do know the specific situations with um mail with the the 75th Street uh and then going back to renting spots at IBM, also offering the public transit.

Uh, do you want these routes and we just don't move fast enough for them?

So they set it up.

And I do consider that competition for our business.

So I I stand by what I said.

I'll add to that though, too.

We have our own problems in Rochester Public Transit.

We've had route troubles, be routes being canceled.

We've got uh this construction stuff that goes on.

And if you were a customer of ours, you're now going over to this other park to be there, and then that has to change because something else stands.

And it has I I sat through some of these meetings with the public.

They weren't well attended, but the ones that were there were frustrated.

Um, and we we also have this mental mindset that said, Oh, we have this app, and all you do is this, and then you realize how complicated the lives are of some of the people that are using this.

They're not routing riding riding the same route every night, they're looking for another thing.

If the other one comes earlier, it's a complicated world, and we need to get better at it, just as and and we need these good partnerships.

Uh Mayo is a partner in terms of providing ridership, but when they added white bus new routes because they had they probably had employees that didn't want to drive to 75th street, it's very frustrating for me because now we're we're the ones holding and carrying 75th Street for this great client of ours, and then they're just going and setting up somewhere else.

That's hard on me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh, I'll just wrap it up by saying, I think you're feeling a lot of anxiety among your council here.

We appreciate the uh the uh 10% reduction and really uh the the focus that you put on that, but really I think I'm like uh uh council member Miller, optimistic, but I really want to see some strategic thinking on how we are going to go in uh in a new direction, responding to the environment that we have.

Uh um, you know, you're your meeting with your colleagues with the other agencies.

What are the good ideas coming out of Green Bay?

What are the good ideas of those uh those municipalities that are uh uh maximizing their ridership and to uh again to council member Miller's point, looking at the the routes that we have that we are successful, why are they successful?

And how do we then maximize that?

And how do we how at this point with BRT coming in a year and a half?

I want to know how those nodes are going to work because and and how those folks that are coming into second and and uh that that it's going to be a successful uh successful transit route for them.

So I need to see that urgency, and I think you're hearing that from me and my colleagues.

So thank you very much for the the work that you're doing, and we look forward to hearing hearing more.

Thank you.

Moving on, uh, our next item is H3, which is the community-based partnership sports and recreation programs.

And we have Mr.

Paul Whitman here to uh walk us through this.

Okay.

Okay.

I thought I okay, thank you.

Good evening, uh, council president, council members, and uh mayor.

Uh I'm Paul Whitman, director of parks and recreation, and we're here this this evening to take a closer look at the great work of community organizations that deliver sports and recreation programs throughout the park system here in Rochester.

And we will respond to uh feedback and some direction we received from council during recent study sessions and some previous meetings.

And many of the the ideas expressed that you express align uh perfectly with uh similar discussions we've had with the park board recently.

Uh we're going to respond to uh uh uh your recommendations on related to public awareness and marketing of programs, including some steps that we've already taken in this direction, and this will include include a funding request this evening, as we have learned.

Um there is a cost to uh marketing and promoting programs, and we uh we uh with the help of Jenna Bowman, our communications and engagement director will uh provide some uh direction in that area.

Uh most importantly, equitable access to all city programs and services is a priority of this council council and the entire city team.

And we will outline our approach and identifying potential barriers uh to programs and any programs uh gaps that may exist, and then we'll talk about how we can work to it uh with council and with the park board uh to address those needs.

Now, as you can see, we're on pretty common ground when we talk about the importance of sports and recreation programs in the community and how it how it contributes to a healthy community.

This is a summary of a survey conducted by the National Recreation and Parks Association, where 98% of adults agreed that it's important for youth to have uh accessible access to uh recreation programs.

And uh 98% is significant.

Uh even in parks and recreation, it's difficult to get uh adults to agree on many things, but uh that 98% is significant.

If you think about that, that's people that don't participate or are not participated in sports activities.

Uh, they feel it's important because of the benefits.

Another survey by um NRPA, and I uh is 80% of adults surveyed are looking for free and low cost activities in their community, and that's both in their role as a participant and their role as the head of household looking for activities for youth and uh young people in their homes.

And uh I just wanted to end my comments by looking at uh just reminding you of uh many of the things uh that you have approved and that we've worked together on to provide those type of activities, if you think over the past two years.

Soldiers Field Park with the support of uh DMC and federal and state funding and uh the mini activities in the uh courts.

Uh the uh aquatic center tends to take center stage, but there's backs basketball courts and improved playgrounds and other activities that are provided, and the lights are working as they're supposed to at the basketball courts now.

Uh uh you look at the improvements uh underway at Silver Lake Park, the planning that's moving forward for uh MLK, uh Allendale and Slattery Park with new uh pickleball amenities and pickleball courts, and then uh numerous neighborhood parks where playgrounds and other amenities have been improved or added.

So we're we are going to talk about programming, but just want to let you know it's uh the that we take a holistic approach, and there are numerous activities uh that uh we've worked together to provide.

You're gonna hear more about uh program specific information this evening.

I'm gonna turn the time over to Ben Bolt.

He'll be followed by Jenna Bowman, and then at the end of the presentation, we'll all stand for questions.

So thank you.

Mr.

Bolt.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, uh, Council President, Council members, mayor, uh, tonight.

Thank you, Paul, for getting us started.

Uh, just wanted to share some updates from the last time I was before you in July talking about some of the programs and partnerships and facilities and how things operate within our system.

Uh, this is a slide you've seen before here about how uh a lot of programming is offered through the park system.

Uh, and a lot of those program partners come in and help us make our facilities uh take them to the next level.

Uh, examples here, a couple of the improvements that have happened at RCTC over the years on the state property there, whether it's youth baseball or um football uh investing into that infrastructure, indoor facilities are very similar with um swim club and hockey association, others really uh helping us expand what we have for facilities.

Again, those um partnerships do uh come with some time that those partners need to run their programming, and we'll talk a little bit more about their programming and some subsequent slides.

But other community members and groups and and renters of these facilities also do enjoy the updates that are made to these facilities by our partnerships.

A few things that I wanted to highlight here on some of the ways that we've been working uh either with our internally uh amongst our park and rec team, as well as a lot of the great partners that we have in our community to expand uh opportunities over the last couple of years.

Um I'll just run through these quickly.

Uh, first one being some water safety or swimming lessons that are provided.

There's several partners listed there that have all made these things possible.

Um, the public school system investing into their middle school pools and keeping those open and providing them to us to be able to offer this programming.

Rochester Swim Club provides a lot of that instruction and lifeguard time to come in and help.

Uh, one of the programs that I was directly involved with is called the Fishes and Apples program that University of Minnesota Extension also helps with.

So they come in with that nutrition education, and then we offer the water safety lessons as well.

And that's been a really good combination there to help um folks from uh across uh the community.

Um really trying to target uh uh those in like the Riverside Elementary area and along uh Marion Road.

Uh and they've also done that partnership as well uh down with the Oak Terrace folks in their pool also.

So a great program, uh kind of a variety of programs that I'm all lumping together into water safety lessons.

Can I ask you a question, Mr.

Bold?

Are all of these programs are they are they free services?

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, so these water safety lessons are all free.

Yes.

Yep.

And uh yeah, jumping in, Paul, uh, or director Whidman, I should say, alluded to a few of these things earlier of updates that we've been able to make across our system, a variety of funding sources there to expand all of the amenities at Soldiers Field, um, other aquatic Silver Lake Pool will be coming online next year.

McQuillan Splash Pad construction is underway there to open next spring.

Um, MLK splash pad is also one that will be coming in the near future.

Um so just trying to create a variety of ways that the community can enjoy outdoor aquatics.

Um, uh one small program.

We we work with uh we've worked over the years with several leadership creator Rochester classes, which is a program offered by the Rochester Area Chamber.

And uh their project over this last year, the 24-25 class took on a project to create the youth connection sports trailer.

It just launched in July, was at one of the Safe City Nights events and is um going out to an event here uh later this month.

So it's uh uh trailer where we're able to compile a whole wide variety of equipment that's needed to run different sports.

We work with community groups who want to host events, and then we can bring the trailer out with parks and rec to provide that equipment.

You'll see later one of the barriers that we've identified is oftentimes there can be a challenge of getting their hand of a participant having access to the equipment they need to participate in a sport.

One small way that uh we've been able to partner with the LGR class to provide that amenity.

Um, one of our park and rec programs with accessible recreation expanded that quite a bit over the last couple of years with Sue Miller uh running the program.

We've added a second after-school program location.

So we're running that both at 125 Live and the Silver Lake Station, as well as expanding the Meaningful Day program, which is an adult program uh that's run during the days at Silver Lake Station.

That attendance there has continued to go up.

And uh also creating more awareness and marketing along with the help of the communications team for things like the adaptive equipment that we have in our inventory that we can help make more available to community members.

Um as I mentioned on the previous slide, a lot of our partners have helped to improve the infrastructure that we have across the system.

A couple recent examples, and there are more examples in this.

I just for the sake of uh the font size and items on the slide, didn't want to put too many on here, but Cook Park, uh the Rochester Area Pickleball Association is actively fundraising to help with some Cook Park improvements.

Um, the tennis community is also actively fundraising to uh kind of put the finishing touches on the Kutski tennis court improvements.

Um the adult softball association invested quite a bit into updates at McQuillan softball fields over the last year and a half.

Rochester Active Sports Community has been a great partner with us at Game Haven, uh, improving those trails, also at um Northern Heights Park to make some improvements there.

And really the list goes on.

There's a lot of those community partners who have come alongside our department to be able to improve and enhance the infrastructure that we have.

Uh Councilmember Miller, more of a comment uh just about the accessible rack program, noting even beyond recreation, the ability that they've had this summer to be part of the tile mosaic for the Silver Lake Pool to contribute in artistic expression and beyond the recreational needs, the social needs, and seeing their place in the community.

I think it's just worth highlighting as well.

Yeah, that's a great, great example.

Thank you for that.

Um, so since July, one of the things that I've been working on is to gather more data from our community partners, and I wanted to highlight a lot of the great work that I believe our community partners are doing in the areas of recreation and sports.

So uh went out and had conversations and correspondence with 16 of our program partners and uh kind of a quick list that I compiled.

I I would say we're north of 60 partners that we have across the park system, but 16 that I received data back from after again, those um communications and conversations, but they represent about 23,000 participants uh in 2024.

Um they were able to uh work through their process of being able to provide about 700 scholarships that equated into 86,000 that was um given to community members to help them be able to participate.

And they do that for a variety of ways.

They'll find uh corporate sponsors to be part of their organization.

They'll run large events, tournaments, and the profits from those tournaments are able to go back in to offsetting the cost for their uh recreational level programs and um just really making a budget to make it work so they can try to create those opportunities for more community members.

Um getting back to that equipment comment earlier about the new trailer, several groups will organize equipment share.

So whether it's a participant kind of aging out of the program or moving on to the next size, they'll donate their equipment back into the system to be able to be utilized by a new person starting up with the sport.

Um and many of them will run uh programs or clinics or things that are free that they can go so a child could try out a sport, or some of the programs just across the whole series of the program is free.

One being the all comers track meet that the running club runs down at Soldiers Field every Tuesday night during the summer.

Though that's all a free complimentary program that over 300 kids show up every Tuesday to run track and field events at Soldiers Field.

Um, youth hockey does try it, try hockey days at the recreation center.

And we already talked about the water safety lessons.

And these are again just a couple examples.

Um, Rochester Area Lacrosse, their entire six and under program.

So just those real beginner lacrosse players, they run that whole program for free.

They don't charge any entry fee for any of those kids in that six center program to participate.

But I think the other thing that I really wanted to highlight here is across these 16 and other partners that maybe aren't represented on this slide, they offer an entry-level program that's uh under 100 for a first-time participant um to participate.

So trying to make it accessible and as affordable as they can to come in and participate in a program and those really recreational level programs that our partners are offering.

Um, and and we just get to be the host site for them across the park system.

Um, so again, in those conversations I had with the partners, a few barriers here.

And I think part of the work that we want to continue doing is um, you know, we've heard earlier this evening about, you know, if we talk to the folks who aren't participating in something, that that's I think really the next level of what we want to work on as far as engagement.

But this these are some barriers that were identified by our partners from what they've heard of potential participants or those who weren't able to participate of what the challenges are.

Um, so quickly participation fee, transportation, getting to where the programs offered, the equipment that's needed to participate, um communications, raising more awareness, scheduling, whether that be you know, the family scheduling, um, scheduling in the facility, time the programs are offered, and then just familiarity with the sport, you know, as a sport that uh perhaps a certain um segment of the population or culture hasn't heard much about creating again, creating that awareness and making those sports um be more familiar and maybe even taking one step beyond that.

You know, some of the um sports that are out there, recreational opportunities.

There could be some um uh ability there for us to be able to offer some new programming in sports or or recreation that isn't currently available through some of the more traditional sports.

And now I believe I will turn it over to Jenna.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, it's always a privilege to join my colleagues, Director Whitman and Mr.

Bolt.

Um, and I probably shouldn't admit, but parks has been one of my favorite departments to work with over the last seven years.

But I say that because it's been pretty incredible to see the progress we've made um in those in that short amount of time, knowing even before I joined um the department was doing a lot of work to both raise awareness and continue to do all the great things that they're doing.

And as you heard from Mr.

Bolt, uh, that is in a big partnership uh with our community organizations.

Um, so what you'll hear um in in my slides and meant to be in the conversation is I think we should be pretty excited.

We have a wonderful opportunity um to really advance awareness, if you will.

And through awareness, as Mr.

Bolt indicated, is it gives us a better opportunity to kind of set that baseline foundation of folks having a good sense of is what they're looking for out there?

Uh, do they understand what we currently offer, as Mr.

Bolt indicated through our partners by way of scholarship um uh offerings, and then it allows us to dig in even further and say, if not, then what's our opportunity to address that?

Um, so you know, with communications and marketing, it's typically a multi-tiered approach.

Um, and so you'll see that in here.

And that's kind of like the question I'm imagining one of you will ask me, is the chicken chicken and egg here, right?

But I think I'll say it's a yes and probably throughout this entire conversation.

Um, but well, welcome dialogue as we go through.

So, first you'll see we have an objective here.

Um, I think it's always important when we you know ask ourselves that why we come back to a bit of that North Star.

And there's a couple um uh specific words in this objective I want to highlight, and that's one that I already covered um with which is that awareness piece, um, and also promote access and inclusion for all, right?

Um, so this is something not only tonight, but as we were to progress with this, but as you heard Mr.

Bolton director Woodman said, is like this is going to be our charge in multiple iterations as we move forward.

Uh so also indicated it's not as though we haven't been doing anything, but we also know there's great opportunity.

But just highlighting a few things that we've been up to.

Um, so again, over the past number of years, but especially in the past couple, um, we've really been working hard to make sure um updated, accurate, uh helpful information is out there.

Um so highlighting uh just activity through our website.

Um, notable that the rec center is the third most viewed page on our our website.

Um also highlighting our outdoor pools and beaches was the sixth most viewed.

And if you think about the time in Minnesota when people are looking for uh to Mayor Norton's point earlier about our cold weather, that's not typically when they're looking for information about pools or beaches to know that that is the sixth most viewed webpage, it means we've had got a lot of interest.

Um we've also seen a lot of interest.

Talk about another one of our partner programs with First T, a lot of activity there, as well as people spending time.

Um, and that the rec center page has the most views and generates the most event clicks.

So again, we've got a good foundation there with what we're seeing with the information.

Um I also wanted to highlight uh so another piece, if you remember this back from May, um, this was the second consecutive year that we had this mailer that went out to the nearly 64,000 residential mailboxes in Rochester.

Um, can you can you pause for a minute?

Uh Councilmember Wall.

Well I just I just wanted to make comment on the mailer uh because it came to a home near me, not mine, but near me.

And they said, What did you people waste on sending this to all the people in in Rochester?

I already knew uh what the cost was.

I said it was about 50 cents.

And they went.

Oh, thank you.

So thank you.

Appreciate that.

And I think that's a point to note that we we really are proud about um trying to look for ways as an organization that we can leverage a process in which to utilize those dollars effectively.

And I think this has really been one of those shining stars.

So with that, we also asked for feedback.

Well, you can't uh council member Wall opened the door.

I'm gonna ask a question before you get further down into the awareness campaign and uh that work.

I wanted to ask a question about the um the survey data and uh uh the partnership they uh Mr.

Bell talked to 16 partners and there are the 700 scholarships.

From your uh conversations with the partners, did you find that they were saying that people aren't aware of the scholarships or the free service that they provide?

That piece, I I know awareness of all the programs is important, but was that uh a specific uh uh finding that you came up with from your from your your focus groups and studies?

I would say generally, yes, being able to provide more information and uh kind of more equitable awareness to that would be valuable.

Um, most of the partners I talked to, they were fortunately in a position where those who were requesting a scholarship, they were able to grant um a scholarship to those individuals who needed it.

Um, but that yeah, they they um were many were interested in, you know, is there a way we can help to create more awareness out there of both the program but also the way that trying to make it available to all community members.

All right, yeah.

Um, so just a couple other pieces to note, because I think it's helpful just in the context of um some of the recommendations you see later.

But 70% of respondents um thought that the events and activities were helpful content.

I think we throw know through the um mayor's year about youth that activities and events are something that not only our youth, but our community are interested in knowing about.

Um at 83% noted that they like seeing information about events and activities.

Um, also notable, I mean, parks are just the achievers here, I guess tonight.

Um, but the total QR code scans that scans that we had was just about 2700 of those 307 were scanning to the summer aquatics, um, and 275 of those were accessible rec.

And 275 of those were accessible rec.

So you want to talk about a pretty neat success story.

And I I marked it so it was easy for me to grab, but you can see parks in total this year had a page and a half.

And that was both Summer Aquatics and the Accessible Rec program.

And if your eyes can see to this particular picture here, that has to do with the accessible bike.

And I remember a teammate of ours, Rachel Peterson came and said she had had a conversation with Ben and Sue Miller.

And to hear that the interest that came from awareness that these bikes were available, had parks looking for other grant opportunities to help fund more of these bikes.

So again, as we talk about that model of togetherness on both awareness and further understanding what is missing, what does the community want?

I think this is one of those great examples.

And back to Councilmember Wall's point, trying to do so in a pretty effective, cost-effective manner.

So also current activities, uh probably not as spry as social media, a big part of what we do.

I won't go through each of these bullets.

Uh, they've been in your packet, but just to note a couple of things, we have seen some positive growth.

Um, and while we are focused just specifically on the parks page, know that we continue to cross-promote not only the main city page and Instagram page, but to specifically note some success we've had through through park social media.

Um, folks love to engage with this content, which is um wonderful to see.

Um, and this this, I wanted to call this out specifically.

You know, you might wonder, we're not talking about golf, so why are we covering golf?

But if you recall, as we work through the topic of golf, one of the focus areas was making sure again, awareness was out there.

And so we've been working with uh parks in this last year, invested just over $8,300 through a variety of mediums and partners, whether it's through Rochester Local, through ACE Facebook ads, or through something like a print um publication like Shopwise.

Um, we've been very happy about the success.

My understanding from Director Whitman, as well as our Garf golf team is that um, even with some challenging weather, golf numbers have been good.

We can't take direct credit from that, but I I think it also indicates that when you show up, have good programming, couple that with thoughtful investment in marketing, you have that win-win.

Um, and I also want to note here, you know, as we move through, as um uh Mr.

Bolt mentioned, um, and director Woodman will cover as we move into the next step slides.

We intend to both, we would intend to both move forward with marketing activities, but with that understanding, is that we continue to be nimble and there's still work to be done and outlined in each of these bullets, and I won't go through all of them, but I'll highlight a couple, is that it's that tailored outreach.

So as we are having more conversations and understanding maybe where is there an information gap, um, we can then tailor that messaging.

Um, maybe that includes an overlay of um multilingual outreach, right?

Whether that's through multilingual social media ads, whether that's print materials, um, if we are also doing uh maybe park-specific mailer, um, we can not only have that sent in English, but have Spanish and SMALLY are two other top languages, have that available, have that available digitally, work with our community connectors, um, a whole host of ways that we will be thoughtful about inclusive communication and marketing in the context of our activities.

And then this one, if we look to our friends of the north to Duluth, um, and something that we have talked with parks about and feel that this is something in the very near future would be a great pilot for us, is really that one-stop shop.

So instead of clicking around in the internet, trying to find out, okay, if my child or grandchild would like to do soccer, maybe they want to do basketball.

You're not scouring the internet, but in leveraging our partnerships that we have, it is a one-stop shop to try to hopefully get that information, make contact.

Um, and so this is uh we'd be taking inspiration from Duluth, but looking to do the same thing on our city site.

And I think before I get into the next slide, which highlights um what we'd be proposing for some ideas around paid marketing, just know that we'd also be coupling it with things like updates to the website, um, partnering with RPS and community education to see if we can get more information about our events and activities and offerings through that sort of publication or through that sort of platform.

So we are very much committed to using both paid and free uh methods to advance this work.

So this comes to the piece that we're partly in front of you today to have a conversation about, um, which would be some investment options.

Um, I imagine you've had an opportunity to look at these to make it simple, really some of the big differences between the two is on the $55,000 side, you see a higher level for radio and online display advertising, as well as the inclusion of essentially a half a year every other week of a digital uh billboard.

I will note, you know, times have changed in terms of how we think about radio, even some folks stream radio.

That's how they listen to the radio.

Some still listen to it in their car.

That's how I do it.

Um, some do both.

So that when you see radio, I just want to note that because it is a slight change.

And just um in terms of that online display, um, that's also if you're on a website and you see those ads that show up and you're like, how do they know I live in Rochester?

That's through those partner sites that there's um specific display advertising that'd be showing up through the web.

So um again, as I mentioned, while this is meant to be a guide and a fairly good recommendation of how we would intend to spend those dollars.

Um, we would be uh nimble and responsive to what we might learn throughout the course of the next year in partnership with parks and having these ongoing conversations and utilizing these dollars, you know, as you indicated, council member wall to the best of our abilities and being really thoughtful.

Um and I know I note the one mailer here.

Um we would still intend to do that summer mailer.

I have to check with my colleagues across the city to find out if we have support.

I'm hopeful that we will, given the feedback that we've gotten.

Um, but just to note that this eight page mailer would be an addition to a summer one.

I think we need to work with parks and our partners to identify is that more of a beginning of the year in that particular timing.

But um, just to note that.

So I think we're I can pause there before we go into the next step slides if that would be helpful or would turn it back to director.

Council member Miller.

Thank you.

I actually have a question about this, but in relation to the prior slide, the first bullet is, or I guess two back mapping facilities and programs.

To my knowledge, we don't have a tool online or in any form where somebody can go and pull up a map of the city and see where the parks are and what those parks have on like an intuitive geographic overlay.

Is that true?

It's there.

We are as you probably as you saw in your council packet.

Um, I think the last meeting, we are we will be moving to a new website provider.

And I know um my colleague Liz Gas has spoken more directly, I think to Ben, but we are optimistic that that facilities directly will be improved, and not to put our GIS colleagues on front and center.

But I think as we continue to navigate through of what's working or whatnot, what's not, we do have some tools at our disposal to look at making that a better system.

Would I I guess so it is the ideal solution a GIS map?

Because I I would just posit that that's less immediately user-friendly.

And it's probably sorry, council member.

I think it's the language that's probably being used by mapping facilities and programs.

We intend it's not the actual mapping, but more working with the parks department as we have to really understand, you know, not only our facilities, our partner facilities.

Um, we just had gotten a communication from our colleagues at RCTC about some upcoming programming they intend to have.

So it's where do we have the facilities?

What's the programming, you know, aspects of is everything accessible?

What does that mean?

And so having that information as we can as we move into and continue the marketing, that would be one of those things that we're tracking.

So not that and I agree it would be helpful to layer things on, but just and I would uh just loop in council member Palmer here too, because I think something we've consistently asked about is a trail gap map.

And I think of our parks amenities, as I've mentioned in the past as both the facilities, the programs, obviously, but physically the facilities and the connections to them.

And I think we would be well served by some consideration of how we're helping people, much like there's find your council member, find your county commissioner, put in your address.

Where are you on the system?

What's nearby?

What amenities are there?

How might you get there of helping people access the things that we know are invested in across the city?

And then layering and programming and getting people there at the right times and the right message.

But I think we're missing a fundamental tool.

Um, and I know that that's not in our budget, but I think that as we think about these communication strategies, the the tools that are available for people to use on their own that are highly useful would be something I'd love to see how we get there.

Uh, to the point about the investment options, I guess my my only question between the two is do we have any way to gauge the value of spending an additional $10,000 on radio and billboards?

So, what I would say to that, council member Miller is we tend to use uh the the thought process, if you will, of the the seven by seven.

So that's seven times seven ways.

Um and I didn't I have to admit I didn't exactly mean for this to equal out to seven with the $55,000 investment it happened to.

But I mean, I will say that we're trying to catch people at all different in all different parts of their life.

We are all consumers, including we are consumers of local government, whether that's services, information, you name it.

So, you know, I there is thoughtfulness in both of these.

Um, I think, you know, I would say between we've had good luck with the billboard, that's one of the key ways our our our music team gets the information out about the the concerts.

I will say it that in particular is relatively cost effective when you look at the per week week rate on that.

Um, and then in terms of radio and online display, um, you know, that could also be something if I I mentioned it or showed it there in terms of like what the breakdown per month would be.

Um, if you think about that in terms of radio and the online display over the course of 12 months, you're looking at just over a thousand dollars, which I think we know the cost of everything is expensive.

Um, so that would be my biggest probably explanation is with the 55,000, it gets you a bit more reach and variety of what we'd be seeking to utilize in outreach.

Um I will still say, you know, what we've had to date to work with in the context of parks budget and how lean they run their budget.

Either of these options, I can be confident in saying we are going to move the needle.

And that's why I think as far as this conversation goes, I think we should all be pretty excited about what it will allow us.

And I am I fully support us moving forward with this.

I I guess I'm just trying to better understand as we think about a different area of recently investing in the council chamber upgrades and using a dedicated funding source that's based on cable fees, which are precipitously declining.

Is radio experiencing that same decline?

Do we have listener numbers?

We have some sort of proxy for that, or are the park uh numbers based on like you said, public music reaching people.

And did people indicate in that survey that they heard about or arrived at the concert because they saw it on a billboard?

Yeah, I know right, uh, I'm sorry, I know uh that music has launched their now post events uh survey, and that's a specific question they asked, so that will be helpful.

They asked the same question last year, and they still uh you know had radio partners this year.

So I would say yes.

I mean, we all have, I think it's what, a 46 second attention span.

So we get you in your car, we get you at the stop light, then you see something through your email.

There's no perfect science.

And I'll also say I think we know if you came back and said, hey, we can give you a budget of 20,000, we'll work with it.

We will optimize that to the best of our ability.

I could also sit here and say there's a case to be made that this could be double, and I could tell you what it could do.

Um, but again, I think the the optimism here is that I really think we will make we will move the needle, um, which is I think success for all of us.

I'll I'll look for my colleagues input.

I I could support either.

Uh I think you council member.

I'll just add, I I think awareness is important, and uh I could go with either of these options.

I guess where I'm struggling is I don't have clarity on the objectives.

If it's overall awareness of uh the programming so that potential uh participants, thank you, council member, uh in uh access the the uh services or is it to uh to get folks that don't know about the the services and uh and uh and access to free programs, scholarships.

So I I don't know, is there clarity around that, or is this kind of a blanket here's what we offer?

Is it overall yes?

And I think that's I not that it was an exact chicken and the egg, because I don't think that was in your intent, um, council president Shubring, but that we have a good understanding of where we can start now for awareness building.

And then I think as you'll hear from the parks department, our intended engagement activities, this will continue to be an iterative process.

We could be in front of you in a few months and say, hey, here's well, you will hear from the parks department coming probably back sometime in December.

Um but we will continue to learn.

But if we think about and the beginning part of the I2 spectrum of engagement, the first level is inform.

And so I think through that we are actively engaging in an engagement step through that information building.

So it will be getting some initial information out there, including that the development of that landing page.

We could spend a couple of months just promoting that landing page, including that we intend to have a feedback loop on is there something here you're not seeing, right?

And then from there, we may learn through ongoing conversations, okay, we're now in this space.

So what does that look like to market with our partners?

What's kind of the start and stop of that?

So there's no, I'm not trying to skirt the question, but I think it's to say we've got a good sense of where we can start, um, a good a good understanding of the the tools at our disposal, um, and then a plan to keep checking in on are we pointed towards achieving this objective?

And I think just being honest and saying this is not a one year, um, this is a multi-year um, and that's a good charge for us.

So, what you're saying is that this awareness campaign is to launch, get awareness of the programs, they think about it, and then you're going to have greater uh greater engagement with the community engagement and better understanding of the gaps through that.

Yes, and I think we'll yes.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor Norton.

I think you were getting at the point I wanted to get to, which is the objective is great.

We have long needed to get information out about our wonderful park system.

People sometimes know their favorite park, but they don't know the really wide array of things we have to offer here in this community.

I've complained for how long have we been mayor?

Seven years about the rec center and people not understanding it's a city amenity.

And I think that's something we can promote.

But I hope we get to this place that council president Schubering was talked about, which is what more can and should we be doing to fill the gaps in this community?

We do a lot, no doubt.

But there are other things that the community is asking for, and one of them we'll be talking about here soon on our next item is you know, if we're going to do more offer more offerings and make sure they're available, will that be added to this marketing plan and how will that iterative process happen?

And you don't have to tell me now, but I I did want to kind of get to that same point that it's great that we're marketing.

I'm thrilled we're doing it.

I want people to know what we have because we've got a lot, and I hope we can continue to add to it and make sure we're giving people what they want and not just do what we've been doing because it's what we do.

So thank you.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

Um, I would support the $55,000 only because I think that's a good plan.

You're the communications person, and I have to trust that you uh uh know what you're doing, and I do know that you know what you're doing.

So um I appreciate that.

Um I I go back to the website that Mr.

Miller was talking about, but I've looked at the park rec one where you can find out what each park has and where it's at and trails and and I noticed within the last year we've added um markings for for uh trail uh markings.

So if you want to run a 5K or ride a bike on a 5K, it's on there and and those things are helpful for people.

Um, I know that people look at the at the swimming in area a lot um because that they're always looking for those kinds of things.

So I think you know, I'm not the communications person, you are, and I trust what you're um proposing and uh look forward to to um seeing this move ahead.

I've got a question about um your uh how do you how are you measuring success for this initial uh if it's 55,000?

I think there, um thank you, Council President Schuberg.

I think there we are working with our, we would be working with our providers um as well as that feed feedback loop, um, you know, and looking for ways to check in with the community.

I mean, you all are great uh helpful participants in that.

You know, I'm sure we will hear we've been moving the needle, we haven't.

I mean, to council member walls point, I I saw the mailer.

Oh, I didn't see that P, so I wasn't aware of that.

Um I'm happy I'm aware of it now.

I would hope, as we saw with Accessible Rec and you know, the particular instance with the mailer, our our teams are hearing, um, whether it's through kind of the park central office or at our facility.

So um, council president, I I can't say there's a perfect science to it, but that we'll be checking in on a number of fronts, both looking at the hard numbers as well as looking for you know that anecdotal feedback, um, and again, using that um to refine our approach and look to make some differences.

I'll also say I think you can all appreciate how a level of um to a point, you know, staying the course.

And that's why I also wanted to be transparent and saying I think this is more than a one-year thing, and we're not asking for you to make that decision tonight, but that it's in partnership that you know we are we are putting in the effort, but we're making the we are doing the hard work to look at that assessment and saying, where have we found success?

Maybe where haven't we?

And then how do we make the refinements to find more success?

Thank you.

Uh, I'll let you move to your next steps and then we may be ready to take a motion.

Okay, as I mentioned, uh we're working with the park board in this uh same topic and uh apologize to the board members who are listening in tonight.

They're gonna hear the same presentation again tomorrow because it's our park board meeting.

But uh it will be a little bit different.

We're gonna carry forward the the great feedback we received from from you and share that in the meeting and start a process where we're uh working with the board to come back with the recommendation.

Uh and that will include the community engagement that Jenna outlined that we're working working together uh to build and uh and then continuing to the discussions with the partners, and that'll be a loop.

Uh hopefully we'll get information as we do the engagement that we'll present to the partners, just see if there's a need that they can uh provide or address or how do we work on that together?

It could be very well could be the scholarship fund that was originally proposed.

It may be uh something different, but we want to make sure we model it uh and direct it towards the needs.

Uh and that uh kind of lands us where uh Jenna talked about is hopefully we'll have uh some good information to make a request to council uh in December.

And uh so that uh outlines the process.

Thank you, Mr.

Wade Whidman, uh Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

I'll make a motion approving up to $55,000 for communications and marketing investment from the 2025 contingency funds.

Second move by council member Palmer, seconded by council member Keene.

Councilmember Palmer.

Nothing.

I think we've done a good job.

Uh I'll just add I am very excited about the awareness campaign.

So good for that.

I'm even more excited about the community engagement and really better understanding those gaps.

Uh, and so looking forward to to that assessment and then um in then your December uh looking at what kind of requests that you may have for uh scholarship and other needs.

So I'm glad you have that on there.

Did you want to do that?

Yes, thank you, Council uh president.

I just wanted to note I neglected to um include in my remarks that um our colleague uh director Motella is not here with us this evening, but we've been actively engaged with her um in the context of the development of the proposal with the communications and marketing, as well as um the four of us just met this morning in regards to the community engagement.

So I just want to acknowledge her contributions as well as the knowledge and awareness that she's bringing to this process with us.

Great.

Thanks for that acknowledgement and acknowledging the three of you as well.

And good luck tomorrow at the park board.

We have a motion on the table.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Uh motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Now we will move on to our uh item H4, which is a two-part uh motion uh or item, which is the advertisement of bids for the Rochester Sports and Recreation Complex and directing staff to finalize an MOU on uh RCTC partnership reimagination.

Council President, I would request that we um take these two actions separately.

Okay.

Um so uh when uh time for a motion comes, I think making a motion on either of these uh to uh to start the ball.

I think uh that would be in order.

I don't know that we need to uh suspend the rules for that.

So uh mayor present members of the council.

Um I'll be brief here.

It sounds like I've got 46 seconds uh based on the attention span that we talked about a minute ago.

Um but uh I'll do my best here.

Um this really I mean we're at a point now.

We've been doing a lot of design work on the regional sports and recreation complex project.

Um certainly uh based on your February directions, spent a fair amount of money acquiring land, uh procuring design services.

So we're just over seven million dollars into the project at this point.

Um really appreciate it based on our last study session uh that the council encouraged us to uh further engage uh with RCTC and so really just trying to think about how can we meet the indoor uh needs uh for regional uh facilities as well as how can we meet the outdoor needs.

Um, we've obviously been on a very strong trajectory in the outdoor needs space.

Um and I think we have a lot of opportunity to further discuss how we can uh meet those indoor needs.

Uh so very plainly, the request is to um authorize advertisement for bids.

It's a great time to be uh bidding this work right now.

Um contractors that do this kind of work are lining it up for next year.

Um, we're in our best position to get competitive bids.

Um if we wait, we do run the risk of being in a less competitive environment and experiencing cost escalation and the amount of one to two million dollars.

Uh as we prepare the bids, I would note that we presented a number of alternates within the bidding so we can navigate to our budget, um, which has been an important part of uh this conversation.

So we do have a number of bid alternates um that have been developed as part of the process.

Um we would uh go out for bids.

Uh they will be brought back for your consideration at the December 8th meeting.

Maybe one thing to note is uh we will, as part of the bid process discover um whether we can deliver the project in 27 or 28.

There's a fair amount of turf associated with this project.

Um and so we'll bid it as if delivered in 27, as well as an option to uh deliver the first four fields in 27 and the remainder in 28.

Um, so that's really the context uh for the regional sports and rec complex uh meeting the outdoor need.

Um want to move on then.

You received an updated MOU today uh with regard to RCTC.

The focus of that really is to identify options and opportunity to meet near-term needs within the parameters of our existing agreements.

How can we do uh better there in terms of maybe opening up some scheduling for the community?

Um, how can we enhance the marketing as you just heard um here today?

I think we have a lot of opportunities and things we can do in the near term to collaborate and meet indoor need.

Likewise, you know, back in February, the council also challenged us to continue to look at how we can you know reimagine partnerships, how we can best meet those indoor needs.

Certainly there's an opportunity we believe uh to consider that with RCTC.

So this MOU says let's have a conversation about near-term opportunity.

Let's have a conversation about how we can reimagine um in the long term.

So, what we would ask with regard to a motion on the RCTC MOU would be to authorize the approved and revised MOU that we provided uh this afternoon.

Um, and then we'd also ask the council to consider how we want to uh move forward with the negotiation process.

So um, I want to just acknowledge um Mayor Norton and uh Council President Schuberg, they're really integral into advancing our conversations with RCTC.

Um, it would be helpful, I think, as we move forward, just for the council to you know demonstrate some consensus that the negotiation team would be um myself, the Mr.

Zams and uh the mayor and the council president, and so just so we're all on the same page as far as that goes.

Um we don't have timelines.

That's maybe one thing to note uh within the revised MOU is that we don't have specific timelines, but you know, I think we will try to report back to the council the progress we're making.

And obviously, you know, we hope to be making great progress.

Um, but we're working with a partner here too, and we just have to acknowledge that we all have processes that we have to go through to get decisions.

So, with that, I'm happy to turn it over for your questions and for your consideration of those two separate motions.

Thank you, Mr.

Parish.

Uh, I'll just uh begin things and uh I appreciate uh council member Doring's uh uh desire to pull apart these two issues.

And I I think that's a good thing.

I think a friendly amendment would be uh I would like us to uh take the RCTC uh partnership first.

And two speaking to both of these issues, uh one I I want to commend uh the staff and Mayor Norton and uh for expediting this and really bringing it to the fore uh because we did hear from our community uh that uh our uh our uh sports complex in uh the South that we've been moving forward on, that it was missing a major piece that a lot of uh our community felt was a part of what they had anticipated, which was community access.

So I I appreciate the the uh the presentation before this.

I I think getting to those gaps is a uh another long-term way of improving that access.

But I think the RCTC opportunities to, as you said, re-imagine that partnership and looking at the agreements, looking at the uh cooperative uh operations that we could envision, looking at the facilities and looking at you know how can they all be enhanced, and then to the previous point that we let our our uh public know about it.

But uh I think it's important that it go uh uh go in tandem with any uh uh bid authorization and uh and uh that we use the next two months, October, November, and if the uh bid authorization passes this evening, that we use that time uh so that when we when we see those bids coming in uh first week in December, we have some meat on the bones on uh this our RCTC partnership and have a somewhat of a vision as to where it's going.

I will support authorizing the bid uh because I also think that will give us more information.

We'll know what we're looking at as far as the costs for construction.

And uh I said I was anxious uh on an earlier item.

I'm kind of anxious about where that bid may land.

Uh and I think really uh pushing uh the partnerships that we have with RCTC.

And I just have to say that uh that uh RCTC and Dr.

Boyd have been really uh wonderful at uh getting uh this so quickly, uh uh this beginning setting the table for uh for discussions and uh the the um minscu leadership was here in Rochester a couple weeks ago, and I heard from a couple of those members that RCTC is a jewel in the MinSCU system, and a part of that jewel is that community connection that they have and the the facilities they have.

So uh I'm looking forward to that partnership and I will support this.

Councilmember Miller.

Yeah, thank you.

I I'm really pleasantly surprised and glad to hear how well the conversations have gone.

And I I would look forward to supporting uh the continuation of a task force with the mayor with deputy minister of parish with administrators elms and council president Schubring.

I would also uh love to separate these items and and do this one first.

Um because when I look at the MOU structure, uh my biggest question in the long term is what are the potential funding sources?

And I think that's a big question as we think about the bids for another facility and how we fund even under an arrangement where a shared understanding of the needs uh um between the city and RCTC and how those facilities might work for improving community access.

I don't see any identified funding sources, and that's my big question of we might get to a great point of let's do this and then not be able to fund it.

Uh council member Keene.

Uh thank you.

Um what I'd like to do to help us move along here is make a motion to direct staff to finalize the MOU with RCTC or continue to negotiate a similar framework to optimize near and long-term recreational facility needs.

Second uh move by council member Keene and I heard Councilmember Miller seconding.

Yeah, I I um again, I'm I've gone through a bit of this and I'm good with it.

I actually do have one thing that I can't get figured out right.

I heard uh council member Miller call it a task force that it's um parrish, Zelms, Norton, and Shoe Bring, but I'm not sure what that means.

And I'm still uh trying to figure out if that I mean I'm used to staff being the team that's doing something, and they're taking direction from the council.

I'm not sure if that's what this group of four does or this group of four brings a different a different perspective to it.

I'm also looking at the two person, two elected officials, two staff, and saying, Do we have is is there a better way to do this?

So though those things I'm uncomfortable with.

I believe I can vote with this right now because that's not part of this uh the the motion in front of us or the paperwork there that talks about these A, B, C and D people in there.

I see I see council our city administrative Zelms wants to speak.

Uh administrators, council president, council member keen, I guess sort of a separate quizzical look on my face is related to whether you're having us finalize an MOU or if you were intending to approve the MOU that was provided earlier today.

Yeah, my motion was to approve the MOU that was provided earlier to move us forward.

Okay.

That was where I was confused.

Yeah, is that is that what uh council member while you seconded or uh uh council member Miller.

I'm happy to support that.

Yeah.

So do we do that?

We have the right, I I know the words were a little wonky.

They were written.

Yes, I just wanted to clarify if that's what what was happening.

And I can speak to um to uh your other uh question, council member.

Uh so Mayor Norton and I and uh and uh administrator Zelms and administrator parrish began those discussions, but we we did talk about adding another council member to that to really give give the group more balance, and I think I can speak to my role on that.

I really look at it as representing the council, and I know I try to keep a good pulse of our council, and so being there is also being very conscious of what is my council going to uh support.

My objective would be a successful partnership that goes all the way to those funding uh uh mechanisms but touch points to make sure that whatever we uh we come up with can be successful at this council table so uh council my oh did you well i i guess i'm still not sure what do so uh a vote on this does not solve solidify a group of two three or based on your motion you are just authorizing the mo you with that motion okay i i think i i'm comfortable with that i think this discussion of participation it should happen with or without the the motion but um i i again my experience is this is new enough that i haven't seen this before where we're we're basically assigning task force type that to work with staff i um i know we did this one other time back in 2019 and it didn't go well so council member uh palmer yes i'm gonna make a motion to amend the motion to include adding additional two more city council members should have to control is there a second to that motion uh motion dies not having a second uh so we do have a motion on the table is there any further discussion the motion is uh oh i'm sorry council council member freder's go ahead i'm gonna back it up quite a bit here we're using the acronym we're using the acronym all night long but we've never explained what a memorandum of understanding is which is an M O U.

Okay we've been using that all night pertaining to this project this consideration what is an MOU exactly entail yeah your honor and council uh member Fredericks i that's a really helpful clarification and I should have uh been more clear on that so you know we have a series of existing agreements with RCTC that cover the fields the sports center the dome um and so those are more formal structured you know reflections of our relationship um this mo you really is just sort of a it's like an intent um to how we're gonna have this conversation that would ultimately translate into something more formal like an agreement or an amendment to an agreement um important point to note at the very end of the MOU says this is really non-binding on all the parties so I just wanted to get that on the record I do understand that but I really want the community to understand there's the only thing being set in motion here is we're just going to discuss it.

It's a framework for how we're gonna have the conversations really helpful clarification.

And maybe if I could add to that that any thing that even if it's in concept would have to come back to the city council for approval whether that would be an adjustment to an agreement a more formal MOU for how things might operate in the near term or we would be coming back to you likely with updates and some sort of glide path with the reimagining I mean reimagining agreements that have been in place for 40 years not necessarily um a swift process but you know making sure that there is agency.

And so my thought would be if you do a in a future motion or not appoint um some sort of group that has sort of the support I guess for lack of a better word of the city council um that they are really there to hear and ask questions and and no decisions can really be made as a result of the MOU unless it's made through a formal action of this body um but it would because it is different and I'm grateful I wasn't here in 2019 for the thing that didn't go well.

But you know if if there's something that is being portrayed differently than what we've been hearing from the city council or concerns like that we would need to be coming back to say is this still you know on the right track that kind of thing or how are you feeling about this and so I think some of the near term is probably less concerning when we're talking about how do we advertise things slightly differently can we adjust scheduling and hours um but the longer you know if you're looking at reimagining something um significant uh that could get a little bit um to some of the points that have been made so it really because it's different I'm rambling now I lost my train of thought so just kept talking um because it's different than what you've experienced it's saying like this this in group of people are the people that are able to speak on it so that in those meetings if there's someone else that's sharing information that's not it doesn't have the the intent of the city council um so if if you do that that would I think be sort of formalizing those are the people that are speaking on behalf of the city having said that no one has made a motion about that just to clarify I've made a motion I just didn't I don't think it includes this about that.

Having said that, no one has made a motion.

Just to clarify, I've made a motion.

I just didn't, I don't think it includes this.

About that.

Yeah.

What I'd like to do, just ask the city attorney.

What I'd like to ask is a point of order.

I'd like to proceed with the idea of doing the vote and then have this discussion on participation as a separate non-voting thing that we can just do this more uh ad hoc.

Is that reasonable?

Or do you we need to vote and understand that it's two city council or one city council or mayor?

And or do should we just vote on the the mo you and then talk about the participation?

Thanks, council member.

Um, I agree with I think both of your suggestions vote on the particular motion that's before you move on to the question of appointment with whatever level of formality you want.

It does not need to be a formal voted approval uh of the participants from my perspective.

Thank you.

I mean, is there do we have consensus?

Is that seems reasonable to go forward with?

I think that's a great idea.

Thank you, council member uh keen.

Mayor Norton.

Just quickly, this is an opportunity that we have um that kind of showed its itself in a very timely manner.

We've all been struggling with moving ahead with this sports complex in different ways.

Um because of the feedback we've been getting from the community.

This is giving us an opportunity to meet everyone's needs.

It allows us to move forward with the economic development portion of it.

It allows us to have a discussion that could potentially solve the problem of how do we give that indoor space for the other types of access to athletics and activities that the community told us they wanted and thought they'd voted for.

So I think this is a win-win situation.

I think we need to take full advantage of the willingness of Rochester Community and Technical College's president to come to the table and have these discussions.

And you know, whatever decisions are made, we'll come back to you and and have to meet your you know, thumbs up or thumbs down.

So I think this is something we should absolutely try.

Uh all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay?

Motion passes.

Moving on to the second part.

Oh, uh, council member uh do we want to have our in our our informal discussion on participants?

Yeah, let me just try it this way.

Again, I I know the mayor's been involved in this early on and has been able to bring the right people to the table.

And I know council member Schuebring is um, but when I think of the will of the council, I I think we've not that's not been the majority opinion.

So what I would suggest is that we have council member Wall, if he's willing to also participate in this, because I think he brings that uh a different balance to the mix.

And um, I would trust that I would expect through that sort of involvement, we'll probably get uh we we'd probably be more likely to succeed in getting something going forward that um that would represent the full council.

Is there a consensus on that?

Absolutely welcome, welcome.

Are you are you accepting the nominations?

Great.

I I guess we'll just one other thing to say council president Shubrink threw me for a little bit of a loop saying, and I think we'll have it done in two months.

I that that's a quite a stretch for me.

But I yeah, and maybe uh thank you for that.

Uh council member uh the keen, uh, maybe my enthusiasm for it, but I didn't necessarily mean done.

I think some greater insight on what we could do is what it is a better way to phrase it, but thanks for helping me clarify that.

So we have uh the second part to our uh council member Palmer.

I'll make a motion.

Um screw me authorizing the advertisement of bids for the rochester sports and recreation complex project number J2870.

Uh a motion on the floor uh by council member Palmer.

Is there a second?

Seconded by council member Fredericks, discussion council member uh Palmer.

Any further discussion?

Uh count uh council member Miller.

I appreciate the discussion tonight.

And I guess I'll just say that I am grateful for Council President Schubert's optimism of carrying this forward to the next step, but uh fundamentally I don't see how things have changed from the last time we took a vote, and I do not plan to support this at this point.

I've heard from a couple of community members who are definitely in favor.

I've continued to ask, and I think the resounding consensus that I'm hearing, at least from people in in my district, as much as the mayor is saying, is that I do not hear a strong enthusiasm for this.

I feel like there is a lack of engagement and trust at this stage.

And so I do not plan to support this tonight.

Councilmember Dory.

Yeah, I'll along with Councilmember Miller.

I do not plan to support this either.

Um I do appreciate the time that I spent with city staff uh earlier earlier this week or last week, uh talking about the performa, uh some increased community access uh there.

Um it still did not meet uh what I heard the needs of the community uh and and those needs being expressed.

Um so I I as well will not be supporting uh going forward uh with this evening.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any further discussion uh uh uh uh clerk uh cancel please call the roll.

Councilmember Keene.

Aye.

Councilmember Miller.

Nay.

Councilmember Wall.

Aye.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Aye, Councilmember Palmer.

Aye.

Councilmember Doring.

Nay.

Council President Schuberg.

Aye.

Uh passes five two.

Thank you.

Moving on to our ordinance second reading.

Mr.

Spindler Craig.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Item K1, an ordinance rezoning approximately 5.48 acres of land located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Bandel Road Northwest and Overland Drive Northwest, pin number 078-598 from MXS Mixed Use Street to MXC Mixed Use Center and amending ordinance number four four seven eight, known as the Unified Development Code of the City of Rochester, Minnesota.

Is on a motion on this approval.

Moved by Councilmember Keene.

Seconded by Councilmember Wall.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, any other business this evening.

Uh administrators.

Um, thank you, Council President.

Just for the record, I did want to note that we do not plan to have a study session on October thirteenth.

Um, so we don't have training for you.

You you know it all.