The Saint Paul City Council met on January 14, 2026, at 3:31 PM. Six members were present (Noecker, Yang, Kim, Bowie, Jost, Coleman); Councilmember Johnson was absent. The meeting covered consent agenda items, first reading of an ordinance, multiple public hearings, legislative hearing appeals, and a discussion on immigration-related actions.
Here. Coleman. Here. Johnson. Joe's here. Kim. Here. Yang. Council President Acre. Here. Six present, one absent that being Councilmember Johnson, and she is excused. Welcome everyone. Thanks so much for taking time to join us for our city council meeting today. We invite everyone to join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. One nation under God. Liberty and justice for all. See none. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Six in favor, none opposed. The consent agenda is adopted. Item number fourteen is first reading of ordinance twenty-six-two. Changing references in the legislative and administrative codes from animal control to animal services and correcting typographical errors. And uh for those of you joining us or tuning in, um, we always have three readings of any ordinance. The first reading we have a staff report, so folks know what the ordinance is about. The second reading the next week is a public hearing, and then uh the third week is final adoption. Sometimes we have a little more time between those if we need time for amendments or more consideration. But you'll see that there's first readings, there's public hearings, and then uh this week we don't have anything for final adoption. But the first reading of this ordinance, um, because it's the first reading, we'll have a staff report, so we welcome up director Angie Weesey from the Department of Safety Inspections. Welcome. Thank you very much, Council President, and good afternoon, Council members. Uh, this is super straightforward but incredibly lengthy. Uh but uh the term animal control is very outdated in the animal services world, and uh it comes from a time when animal care looked a lot different than it does now. Uh one of the the drivers to make this change now is that we're preparing to move into a new space, and we want to brand that new space with animal services rather than the uh outdated term of animal control. Um, and this is like probably the most fun presentation I will ever get to do in front of you. And so I picked all of these lovely pictures that were sent to me from animal services over the last couple years. And uh like the cat in the the cage at the bottom there was just left outside of animal services one day. That's they arrived to, and she is not happy to see us. Um the iguana was found at large and was reunited with fortunately with its very, very relieved owner. Um that turtle there is uh native to the Sahara Desert, but is known to be a digger and got uh escaped from its enclosure. We don't know where, and and oddly enough, its owner did not contact us uh to retrieve it, so it was rehomed with uh a foster family. Um the goose is a name that I cannot pronounce, but it's a domestic goose, and those feathers being frilled like that is how they are. Isn't she beautiful? Uh so yeah, there's a story to all of these, and we we do a lot more than than dogs and cats. Uh and we just we provide a number of services that uh that are more than just control of animals, and uh any animals that are not reunited with their original owner, we work really, really hard with uh nonprofits to do fostering and to re-home uh every animal that comes into our care. So here I hit the button on my computer instead of this one. Uh this is just a summary of the changes. We uh uh one of the big ones that we've already taken care of is to change the name of the actual titles of the folks working here. So they used to be called animal control officers, HR we worked with, and you all approved the name change some years ago to uh animal services officer and animal services manager.