OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Rochester City Council Study Session - October 27, 2025

City Council — Monday, October 27, 2025
BodyRochester, Minnesota
SessionCity Council
DateMonday, October 27, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:22:14

Transcript — Verbatim
0:04

Well, I was just gonna say I said my shorts on things that Palmer's short is.

0:12

I thought about it.

0:13

Thank you.

0:18

I felt no I felt no pressure riding the button today.

0:22

Did you write a button?

0:23

No.

0:24

I'm doing I left too late.

0:28

I didn't look at Hirdwood Video as much faster.

0:31

I got past most of you now.

0:45

She's on the show.

0:53

15 seconds.

1:00

One thing.

1:05

Everything we said.

1:06

So it gets captured.

1:08

That's why we're welcome everybody to our October 27th Rochester City Council study session.

1:17

We are five council members and SANs, a mayor, two council members, and a city administrator.

1:23

And we have two uh topics on our agenda tonight or this afternoon.

1:29

Uh we have our uh legislative uh priorities, and then we're going to hear about uh community engagement and 311.

1:39

So uh we'll start with Heather Cochran and our uh legislative agenda.

1:46

Thank you, Council President Schubring, Council members, Heather Corcoran, your legislative affairs and policy director for the city, and maybe we'll if I go to the next one.

1:58

There we go.

1:59

Thank you.

2:01

All right, well, uh today we're continuing our annual process to review and put forward to you all for feedback the proposed legislative priorities that would be carried forward during the next legislative session.

2:13

Looking for your um adjustments, any amendments at its additions, deletions as you review the proposed priority before they'd be considered for final adoption sometime in November or December.

2:27

This is an annual process you all are familiar with during the summer.

2:30

A big thanks to many of you who served on the league's policy committees and helped provide input into our state association that represents uh most of the cities around the state and is an important partner and stakeholder at the Capitol, along with other groups that teammates serve on through their professional capacity.

2:46

Councilmember Wall, Councilmember Miller, Keene, Doring, and the mayor all served on uh policy committees or task forces for the league, and then we had a handful of teammates who also provided input.

2:56

Huge thanks to them uh for helping uh put forward some important issues uh on Rochester's priority list onto the the league's priority list, and vice versa.

3:05

You'll hear some issues that emerged during the league's conversations that we may want to consider, um, including more directly in our own.

3:13

Uh we then convene uh uh two opportunities for teammates uh from all departments to provide feedback about legislative uh issues that might be impacting their ability to best serve residents in the community, and we gathered that up, and that's uh also included in some of the proposed priorities.

3:33

You'll see we have a legislative working group that also helped provide preliminary feedback on some uh emerging issues um during the interim of session here, and then you all are reviewing these uh and it's almost November.

3:46

You'll then consider them for final adoption either during uh your November council meeting or December council meetings.

3:52

We'll continue outreach with our legislative delegation.

3:55

The legislative session begins in February this year, which is a little bit of a later start, and then we'll um hopefully wrap up by May and continue uh participating in our state and national uh associations.

4:08

Before we dived into next year, I wanted to sort of just recap real quick the previous year to remind us what we came out of.

4:16

So a historic in many ways, there was a tie in the House after special elections were resolved after the first month or so of the legislative session.

4:25

A power sharing agreement was established, which resulted in co sh co-chairs for all the committees, nearly all of them, and uh things had to have bipartisan support to move forward out of committees and onto the floor.

4:37

The Senate also was as close as it could possibly be without uh with uh DFL um majority by one vote.

4:44

It was a budget year, and thankfully the budget was passed before the July 1st uh trigger, which would have resulted in a state government shutdown.

4:52

And I wouldn't have usually put bonding year on here the same time as a budget year, but turns out there was a bonding bill past this session, uh focused primarily on state assets such as uh Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, state agency buildings like DNR buildings at state parks.

5:07

There were very little to none local government projects in that bonding bill this past session, despite a lot of great effort and support from our local delegation for our priorities.

5:20

So looking forward as we're thinking about next session, again, starting February 17th, wrapping up third week in May.

5:27

Likely a House uh tie will repeat itself again.

5:31

There are, of course, some special elections that could result after a Senate special election gets resolved on election day if a current House member wins the Senate seat.

5:42

Um that uh also during the interim, of course, we had the uh tragic assassination of the Speaker Merita Hortman and attempted assassination of um Senator John Hoffman and his family, which resulted in a uh a special election for that seat and a new elected leader of the DFL House party who um has met with the uh speaker, the Republican leader, and they've decided to continue the share power sharing model.

6:14

So again, there will be a repeat of the co-chair model, presumably going into next session.

6:19

Again, needing bipartisan support for anything to pass out of the House committee.

6:23

There could be a bonding bill.

6:25

I think we should uh be optimistic and hopeful.

6:27

Hope Springs Eternal.

6:28

Uh, of course, we won't know until probably the final week or two of session if that's going to happen, but having it focus on local priorities would make sense given the focus last year that left that out.

6:38

Federal budget impacts was something that you saw on this slide.

6:41

If I would have predicted for last session and also for this coming session, based on the large bill that was passed on July 4th of this year at the federal level, and then also obviously the current federal government shutdown impacts that are starting to emerge, and a select committee is examining those in the interim, and then an election year.

6:58

So all the seats are up for grabs, and that always results in an interesting dynamic at the Capitol.

7:08

So looking at uh, and you might think this slide could have been about most of our priorities from last year that didn't quite get it uh across the finish line.

7:16

They also are similar to ones that we would look for focusing on in the coming year.

7:21

Uh legislative at the Chateau Theater providing some liquor license authority that did not make it across the finish line last year due to there being no overall liquor bill that that would have been included on.

7:32

We were one of about a dozen cities that missed uh that opportunity there.

7:37

There was continued discussion on housing and zoning.

7:39

We expect that to continue, and we want to be uh a part of that conversation and providing insight into what's working well for Rochester as a leader in this space.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Public Engagement█████████████████████████████29%
Legislative Advocacy███████████████████████████27%
Customer Relations███████████████15%
Economic Development████████8%
Public Works██████6%
Infrastructure And Capital Projects████4%
Energy Independence███3%
Public Transportation███3%
Community Engagement██2%
Summary of Proceedings

Rochester City Council Study Session - October 27, 2025

The Rochester City Council convened for a study session on October 27, 2025, attended by the Mayor, Council President Schubring, Councilmembers Palmer, Keene, Doring, and Wall, the City Administrator, and key department heads. The meeting focused on reviewing the legislative priorities for the upcoming session and providing an update on the Communications, Engagement, and 311 Division's first year of operations. Council members provided significant feedback on the clarity and messaging of bonding requests, the accuracy of language regarding home construction, and the need for stronger public relations strategies to improve community trust.

Consent Calendar

  • [No items were placed on the consent calendar; the session was treated as a study session for discussion and feedback.]

Public Comments & Testimony

  • Councilmember Palmer: Expressed strong opposition to the phrase "poorly constructed homes" appearing in the legislative priorities document (Page 30, bullet 5), arguing that Rochester does not have such homes and the wording is inaccurate. He further questioned the necessity of a request for building official training regarding energy codes (Page 38), noting that certified officials already enforce minimum standards and lack tools to enforce non-code green initiatives.
  • Councilmember Keene: Stated a position that the legislative delegation received positive feedback when emphasizing that bonding funds are specifically for resizing infrastructure to allow for infill development. He also expressed concern that over-emphasizing the "phasable" nature of projects might cause legislators to allocate smaller, insufficient funds, arguing instead for a clear request for the full $9.2 million funding amount. He raised a position regarding the "Big Sky" passenger rail project, suggesting it should be pursued via a Council Initiated Action (CIA) resolution at the federal level rather than as a state legislative priority due to timeline and relevance concerns.
  • Councilmember Wall: Expressed support for the legislative team's efforts but voiced a pessimistic position regarding the limited availability of state bonding funds, urging the council to present the "best pitch" immediately. He emphasized the need to clearly articulate Rochester's status as the economic engine of Southern Minnesota to secure investment.
  • Councilmember Doring: Expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of standardized response times and consistent ticket status reporting (e.g., tickets marked "closed" while issues remain open) within the 311 system. He stated a position that the system must be improved to provide data on requests exceeding 100 days in status to identify bottlenecks.
  • Councilmember Wall (Rebuttal): Expressed discomfort that council advocacy is sometimes required to resolve resident 311 requests, indicating a position that the system should function reliably without council intervention.
  • Councilmember Palmer: Stated that while he appreciates the 311 service, there is a position that consistent standard response times (e.g., 48 hours or 24-hour acknowledgement) must be established across departments to manage resident expectations.
  • Councilmember Keene: Expressed a position that the Communications Division has not done enough to engage in positive public relations that puts the city in the best light, distinguishing between factual communication and storytelling. He proposed a position for the city to adopt a metric for resident trust and satisfaction similar to customer service industry standards.

Discussion Items

  • Legislative Priorities & Bonding Requests:
    • Director Cochran presented the legislative agenda, highlighting the removal of the airport and riverfront projects from the bonding priorities list and the addition of sewer/water infrastructure and Civic Center Drive design.
    • Council members discussed the strategy for requesting $9.2 million for sewer/water infrastructure. Councilmember Keene suggested emphasizing the funding amount over the phasable nature of the project to avoid fragmenting funding. Director Cochran countered that having a secondary project (Civic Center Drive) provides a long-term strategy for future bonding cycles, though Councilmember Palmer strongly advocated for focusing solely on the primary $9.2 million request to maximize impact.
    • The group discussed the "Big Sky" passenger rail proposal. Councilmember Keene proposed a resolution to seek federal inclusion of Rochester in the route, while Council President Schubring and others recommended handling this via a separate CIA or resolution rather than mixing it with state legislative priorities, especially given the project's federal nature and potential controversy.
    • Specific legislative items were debated, including the removal of the building official training bullet due to its redundancy and the removal of "poorly constructed homes" language. The Council agreed to remove the building official training item and noted the discrepancy in the home construction language.
  • Communications, Engagement, and 311 Update:
    • Director Bowman reported on the 311 Division's first year, noting over 40,000 phone calls, a 99% success rate in routing calls, and high usage in Ward 4.
    • Council members raised concerns regarding the marketing of the 311 service, the lack of standard response time metrics for voicemails and service requests, and the transparency of ticket status updates.
    • Discussions occurred on the need for a dedicated metric to measure resident trust in the city government. Councilmember Wall suggested a quarterly strategy to celebrate city successes to counteract negative news cycles and improve the city's image.

Key Outcomes

  • Legislative Priorities Adjustment: The Council instructed staff to remove the building official training bullet and the phrase "poorly constructed homes" from the legislative priorities document prior to final adoption.
  • Bonding Strategy Refinement: Staff will incorporate Council feedback to refine the messaging for the sewer and water infrastructure project, clarifying the impact of "resizing" infrastructure for infill and potentially reconsidering the emphasis on the project's phasable nature versus the specific dollar amount ($9.2 million).
  • Rail Project Protocol: The Council agreed to treat the "Big Sky" passenger rail participation via a separate Council Initiated Action (CIA) or resolution at the federal level, distinct from the state legislative priorities, pending further review.
  • 311 System Improvements: Staff committed to following up with specific data on voicemail response times, service request status consistency, and the discrepancy in call volume between wards. The Council directed staff to explore establishing standardized response time expectations (e.g., 24-hour acknowledgement) for all departments.
  • Public Relations Strategy: The Council encouraged the Communications Division to develop a strategy for quarterly celebration of city successes and to actively pursue metrics for resident trust and satisfaction to improve the city's public image.
  • Future Calendar: The next study session is scheduled for November 10th to discuss downtown transformation and Sixth Avenue mobility, followed by a November 24th session on natural gas, DMC updates, and the 2026 calendar framework.

Meeting Transcript

Well, I was just gonna say I said my shorts on things that Palmer's short is. I thought about it. Thank you. I felt no I felt no pressure riding the button today. Did you write a button? No. I'm doing I left too late. I didn't look at Hirdwood Video as much faster. I got past most of you now. She's on the show. 15 seconds. One thing. Everything we said. So it gets captured. That's why we're welcome everybody to our October 27th Rochester City Council study session. We are five council members and SANs, a mayor, two council members, and a city administrator. And we have two uh topics on our agenda tonight or this afternoon. Uh we have our uh legislative uh priorities, and then we're going to hear about uh community engagement and 311. So uh we'll start with Heather Cochran and our uh legislative agenda. Thank you, Council President Schubring, Council members, Heather Corcoran, your legislative affairs and policy director for the city, and maybe we'll if I go to the next one. There we go. Thank you. All right, well, uh today we're continuing our annual process to review and put forward to you all for feedback the proposed legislative priorities that would be carried forward during the next legislative session. Looking for your um adjustments, any amendments at its additions, deletions as you review the proposed priority before they'd be considered for final adoption sometime in November or December. This is an annual process you all are familiar with during the summer. A big thanks to many of you who served on the league's policy committees and helped provide input into our state association that represents uh most of the cities around the state and is an important partner and stakeholder at the Capitol, along with other groups that teammates serve on through their professional capacity. Councilmember Wall, Councilmember Miller, Keene, Doring, and the mayor all served on uh policy committees or task forces for the league, and then we had a handful of teammates who also provided input. Huge thanks to them uh for helping uh put forward some important issues uh on Rochester's priority list onto the the league's priority list, and vice versa. You'll hear some issues that emerged during the league's conversations that we may want to consider, um, including more directly in our own. Uh we then convene uh uh two opportunities for teammates uh from all departments to provide feedback about legislative uh issues that might be impacting their ability to best serve residents in the community, and we gathered that up, and that's uh also included in some of the proposed priorities. You'll see we have a legislative working group that also helped provide preliminary feedback on some uh emerging issues um during the interim of session here, and then you all are reviewing these uh and it's almost November. You'll then consider them for final adoption either during uh your November council meeting or December council meetings. We'll continue outreach with our legislative delegation. The legislative session begins in February this year, which is a little bit of a later start, and then we'll um hopefully wrap up by May and continue uh participating in our state and national uh associations. Before we dived into next year, I wanted to sort of just recap real quick the previous year to remind us what we came out of. So a historic in many ways, there was a tie in the House after special elections were resolved after the first month or so of the legislative session. A power sharing agreement was established, which resulted in co sh co-chairs for all the committees, nearly all of them, and uh things had to have bipartisan support to move forward out of committees and onto the floor. The Senate also was as close as it could possibly be without uh with uh DFL um majority by one vote. It was a budget year, and thankfully the budget was passed before the July 1st uh trigger, which would have resulted in a state government shutdown. And I wouldn't have usually put bonding year on here the same time as a budget year, but turns out there was a bonding bill past this session, uh focused primarily on state assets such as uh Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, state agency buildings like DNR buildings at state parks. There were very little to none local government projects in that bonding bill this past session, despite a lot of great effort and support from our local delegation for our priorities. So looking forward as we're thinking about next session, again, starting February 17th, wrapping up third week in May. Likely a House uh tie will repeat itself again. There are, of course, some special elections that could result after a Senate special election gets resolved on election day if a current House member wins the Senate seat. Um that uh also during the interim, of course, we had the uh tragic assassination of the Speaker Merita Hortman and attempted assassination of um Senator John Hoffman and his family, which resulted in a uh a special election for that seat and a new elected leader of the DFL House party who um has met with the uh speaker, the Republican leader, and they've decided to continue the share power sharing model. So again, there will be a repeat of the co-chair model, presumably going into next session. Again, needing bipartisan support for anything to pass out of the House committee. There could be a bonding bill. I think we should uh be optimistic and hopeful. Hope Springs Eternal.

SUMMARIZED BY OPENPUBLICA AI
TRANSCRIPT VIA PUBLIC VIDEO
openpublica.com