It would behoove us to get a little bit more information about a lot of our topics.

Um, so we spent the last month doing that, and I'm going to in a moment um turn it over to Mr.

McVeigh to share more about what we learned and how we did that engagement.

Um I believe all of the council members were engaged in different parts of different conversations with different department directors.

Um then we also got some feedback from Miss uh Ms.

Britt, Dr.

Britt, um, as to her thoughts on the different what we heard and what she thinks would be most viable.

Um before we dive in, I also want to clarify something for the record.

We um misstated um an element of the college bound program at the last meeting, and I just want to be really clear that um the program is not it is automatic enrollment, so student children as soon as they are born are automatically enrolled in the program.

Um parents then have the option to add additional dollars to the program or participate in other ways, but it is an automatic enrollment, so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear for the record, and apologies to the department for having had that be misstated last time.

Um with that, I'm gonna turn things over to Mr.

McVay to tell us more about what we've learned.

So um thank you, Madam Chair.

I will try to give cliff notes to all this because I realize there's a lot going on in here, and I don't know.

I'm really sorry we sent this out in this format, honestly.

I mean, it works.

Um Ms.

Vang was very supportive of how this was all put together, but I realized it's a lot to digest in a very short period of time.

And um I will start off with um Council members, thank you for working with myself and with uh Miss Vang to make the interviews with department heads possible and with their program management staff.

Uh the general I'm gonna give you thirty-six thousand foot level overview of our interviews, and then we can get into the weeds with each individual department.

Um all four departments that are interested in the work that we are doing.

Um here at the audit committee, however, there is some hesitation generally to undergo an audit currently, as in like this calendar year.

Um that was unfortunately expressed by all four of the departments that we interviewed.

Um a lot of it's due to timing.

For one thing, there's been uh transition.

Um several departments have new um department heads.

Uh there's also the concern about available staff resources and triage with us as we can deduct these audits have being said, it's actually not gonna be that significant of a lift for them because we're gonna be doing a lot of the work ourselves.

Um, and then there was also a question about data utility, which we can get into a little bit um, we can get into further details on that with some of the departments, especially like with DSI in particular.

Um they all generally expressed a preference for a latter half of 2027.

That being said, we do have we are in conversation with Ms.

Vang last week.

There we there are ways to maneuver in terms of how we scope our questions, which we tried to do as you'll see within the um research questions that we proposed.

These are just to facilitate conversation, they're not actually the end all and be all at this point in time.

But uh circling back the um in terms of the latter half 2027, I actually and Ms.

Vang agrees with me as well that we can do audits yet this year for some as long as we frame the research questions in a certain way.

Because um, for instance, like with the Office of Financial Empowerment, there were questions that they had with um, and I know Councilmember Johnson, you can speak to this as well with uh equity in terms of their outreach to the public because they admit they agree that there are they need to improve on that, and that there's a lot of people that don't know about that particular program of college bound, and also in a whole range of things with uh DSI as well.

Um, we can really get into the weeds on that one because it's such a massive department.

That being said, um I don't have much more to add over a general um summary for all departments.

Um we can discuss individual departments, and I imagine it'd be a conversationalist you want to go through each um uh research question line by line item.

I will add um as a mile one just minor clarification, Adam Chair.

We have not heard back yet in full from Dr.

Britt regarding uh the uh costing.

She gave it basically at this point we have a very rough idea of where we're going to be in terms of cost for these audits, but she was we haven't gotten a specified um dollar amount yet from her, and it's in a lot with timing.

It was kind of like a rough estimate.

She needed to have more time to look at it.

I imagine she's gonna get back to us this week, if not early next week.

So it is Tuesday, so fingers crossed.

So with that being said, Madam Chair, I defer back to you.

All right, thanks so much.

Um again, Mr.

Pai for both that summary and also for coordinating so much of this work.

Um I think it would probably be helpful to hear from those of us who were part of the different conversations if we have things to add um to what you just shared.

Again, as you mentioned, we have very, very comprehensive um summaries in front of us.

Um, but it might help folks wrap their heads around it to hear from any any reflections or suggestions or insights that council members or anyone else did.

I Mr.

Lassetter or Miss Delworth, you did not participate in that conversation with department directors, right?

So any summaries that we would share from our conversations, and I don't know if either of my colleagues wants to start I can hold Ms.

Johnson.

Yeah, I mean, I I participated in the um college-bound discussion and appreciated kind of hearing from the director uh about not only just some of the program pieces but where they're currently at, and just getting clarification.

One of the things that I kind of shared with them as well is that this body really considered that topic as part because it came up in some of the mayoral discussion and conversations we had with the mayor.

And they just shared with us just how um at this time, you know, they they also kind of share with the mayor as well.

It doesn't appear that that they felt very strongly that this would be necessarily helpful to their program or hurtful really, just overall they're in a place where they're even doing their own real evaluation work as we speak because the program is getting to um kind of its it's its point in time where they can actually go through and do some of this work.

And so just even in the questions, you know, I specifically was like, would this be like helpful?

Would this be you know beneficial to you all if this if the committee brought this up?

And I kind of got a sense that they didn't have uh they didn't have really strong feelings that it would be.

I mean, I I would look to my colleagues for the discussion, but my kind of takeaway from it was more so that um that's not that there wasn't really they didn't feel like there was much to really offer to the audit process, and so it just didn't I left feeling that this wasn't necessarily the route to go and that the conversations that they had shared even with the administration was predominantly that they were in a good decent spot right now on the program, they were reviewing things as they spoke, but that the team itself wasn't gonna be as active or helpful as we might want them to be if this was brought up as a topic.

Thank you.

Um, Ms.

Colton.

Yeah, I've had I think we had a pretty similar conversation with public works if they're one of the departments that's seen not just new leadership but leadership um and that was not previously a part of the department.

So I think they're you know similarly are asking a lot of the same questions and are undergoing their own the same questions, but same types of questions um and undergoing their own internal evaluations and decision making around how to get things done in the department.

You know, I obviously I think unlike with college bound, our public works department has been around for a very, very long time, and so there's probably a limit to how much can change under any individual director.

So maybe that's an argument for going forward anyway.

But it was very similar in that it I think that the department was concerned about duplicative processes when they're already in the midst of doing some of this analysis about a lot of staff time going into this when they want it going into their own processes that are being designed to work and answer the questions that they want answered.

I I definitely walked away feeling like some of the conversations we've had around public works would be really valuable for an audit topic down the road, but that this timing did not feel like the right time.

And I think that that that was a shared perspective amongst those who are in that meeting.

Um thank you to you both.

I can share, I was in both the DSI uh conversation and the district council reform conversation, and um I think that both departments started in a similar place to what I'm hearing my colleagues say, um, sort of this a reticence I would say to lots of reasons why this isn't a good time.

DSI, it is very much the case that Polly is the new innovation there, and that we I think there was a general agreement among all of us in the conversation that we should not touch anything that has to do with poly, because it is literally just being rolled out, and there's just it it's too soon to tell um how that is doing, and um certainly to compare that over previous um iterations would really be apples and oranges.

So um giving Polly some time to get started, um, at least a year we discussed um seems prudent.

We did, however, talk about a number of questions that could be asked and answered without now, um, without waiting for Polly.

Um one interesting question that came up was this idea of um the the perception of DSI's work with businesses and permitting versus the reality and how a few really bad experiences, really bad permitting processes um can color the rest of how people perceive the department and how the department is seen generally to engage.

And we went down the road a little bit of talk asking, you know, should we interrogate those small number of examples where things went really badly and try to figure out what went wrong?

Because if the risk is so outsized for the few that go really wrong, then it would really be a huge impact of just making sure that whatever those things are that went wrong don't go wrong again in the future.

There might be a sum poly connection with those, obviously, or some things that Polly might help with, but it didn't seem so um it didn't seem like the overlap was so complete that you couldn't look at those cases and learn something from them even now.

Um and then there was also a potential question about outdated license ordinances that aren't in alignment with state law.

This could definitely be something that would be studied, could be studied now.

Where have where are our ordinances no longer in in alignment?

Um what's the impact of having these out-of-date ordinances and what should be changed?

So those were two sort of um, I think they're both in the summary that you have here, but those were two that stood out to me as really interesting topics that could be studied now.

Um, and then for the conversation with PED about the district councils, um there was a general consensus that because each district council is so different, we would really be talking about auditing district councils themselves, individual district councils, all of them, because it would be difficult to audit, say PED staff's interactions with district councils and understand much about the situation given how different they all are.

Given that we we sort of landed on some questions related to the fact that we have contracts with district councils, but we don't often we don't necessarily have um we don't know if our evaluation of those contracts is still aligned with our expectations of district councils because the system was created in the 70s, um, looking at whether or not we are still measuring performance in the way that we expect performance to be.

So for example, um not just how many people are engaged, but who was engaged were the people who were engaged representative of the community.

Um how do district councils evaluate their own work?

How do we know if they're effective?

How do they know if they're effective?

What do we want engagement to look like in today's day and age, you know, compared to maybe when these started in the 70s.

So there were a lot of interesting questions there that again even though we do have a new director of the department, she's been a deputy director for a time.

She's um served in the city council office for some time.

So it's not so much change in that direct department that I think, and district councils obviously have been around for a very long time, that that would be too fresh and too raw to audit.

So a couple of things there.

Um then lastly, I can just share director Britt director, Dr.

Britt's email to us.

Um she said, I took a look at the proposed next round of topics.

I definitely suggest not prioritizing the college-bound topic given the likely changes coming up and the potential for considering it later in scope.

Of the three remaining topic areas, it looks like the district council reform, business licensing, and building code operations might be the two most optimal choices for the next round that also have staff buy-in and openness to change as a result of the study.

I think the street maintenance study would be critical, but it appears that public works and the street maintenance division might have better openness for the study selected for future consideration.

That being said, any of these three seem worthy of immediate consideration by the committee.

So, clear as much.

And again, our goal is to recommend three.

Three, eliminate one and recommend three for the council to choose two.

So look to at least this point, call all of us for open discussion, suggestions, reflections on what was shared and what was in front of us.

I know that what was shared, chair.

Yeah, thank you.

I know that it was shared just of like a record of like the template, but I just want to share Commissioner Yu Bay that I love that.

I want to appreciate this.

I don't need um Spark notes for some of it, and I do appreciate the thoroughness as always that comes with uh the work uh uh you know, I would say of the folks that are here, but your work specifically.

So thank you for getting that through.

Um I just would pay attention to um you know just some of the cost estimates who for each of them and may share that uh it could be helpful to have um some balance there, but I think from what I'm hearing, you know, I I don't have any reason to recommend college bound at this time personally, and so I would offer that as a suggested rest of the three except for that one.

Madam Chair, or I'm sorry, Councilmember Coleman.

May I think back on what council member Johnson just said.

Um the um folks at OFE were very interested in us looking, um, taking a second look at them maybe in like two years' time.

But definitely right now is not the time.

And honestly, I mean I was just looking back at my notes from back in June, and again, the only uh there was never any mention about college bound in our um survey that we have for residents or in our survey that we have for city staff, and it only came up um four separate times at district councils, and it was just in passing.

I think they're in terms of interest in the community.

I think that there are topics that are far more timely than college bound right now.

I think it'd be really interesting to look at them though in say 2028 perhaps, if they have the time and resources for that.

So anyway, um, Councilmember Coleman, I'm sorry.

No, I think that's great and super helpful.

I feel very good about dropping college bound.

I just want to make sure I'm understanding.

So there's the district council reform question for PED, that seems very clear, but then there's two potential separate questions for DSI, one around the small handful of very negative cases and one around sort of outdated or creative ordinances and regulations.

Is that accurate?

Yes.

And uh there are those were the ones that came up in the conversation.

I think that what Mr.

McVeigh did beautifully was then take those ideas and even further elaborate on them so that really any one of these numbers could become many of these could become an audit topic.

So what we're really presenting to the council is three bucket or three buckets, large buckets within which we would try to gauge what people are most interested in and then scope something even more specifically than that.

But yes, to your point, there's um there's numbers of audits within each of these.

Got it.

Okay, that's it.

Then yeah, I mean in that case, so if if the three buckets that would be setting the in forward are PED, DSI Public Works, I would do that.

I would then recommend to the council that we move forward with DSI and PED.

And it I feel like public works does not feel as ripe at this point.

But again, if we have to choose three, and then we can narrow sorry, just trying to understand this process a little bit better.

Then does the council have any input in how we narrow the DSI and or if we were to split that into multiple?

Yes, we would bring these, we would essentially bring these back to the council.

We would talk to our colleagues about what um flavors within each of these are most interesting to folks and see if there's consensus that develops.

Um then we would put forward a recommendation, essentially resolution to the council based on what we hear back.

Got it.

I will say I think that building code operations, and Mr.

McVay remind me of um I think that was the one that was we didn't talk about that very extensively, and I think that might have been because it had a lot to do with poly um so uh Madam Chair, part of the reason we didn't get into as much detail the building code is for two reasons, because A, Pauli, and B because of I don't know if you recall, ma'am, but there was mention of uh ongoing litigation with DSI and potential um ramifications at audit um topic.

That particular we'd have to frame it in such a way basically if we were to conduct a performance audit.

To be fair, this is my professional opinion.

We are the legislative branch.

That's the problem of the executive branch.

So at the end of the day, we have that discretion to make in terms of forming our own opinion, how we scope our audit topics.

But again, we're a very collaborative body and we have a very collaborative process, which I think is actually beneficial to everyone involved.

And so I'm always amenable to uh to work with the executive when with those kinds of concerns within reason.

Emphasis on within reason.

And I would remind the committee of that as well.

So thank you, Mr.

McVay.

And yeah, the litigation specifically relates to DSI's fees, um, and so that we would really need to avoid fees generally looking at that, because while some things are under litigation, they really need to stay as they are.

Um but yes, the if you look at page two building code response times and efficiency, a lot of what the building code came down to, because we don't we don't actually um affect the building code, that's determined by the state.

What it was really about was our inspections, our um property code enforcement, and again, so much of that is gonna be changing with poly that it just felt like it didn't make sense to evaluate that.

Licensing, on the other hand, while it also will use poly, um was there were additional questions that could be asked that weren't just poly-specific, um, especially again going back to some of those like worst-case scenarios that felt auditable now.

May I add, Madam Chair?

Um Director Jean mentioned that, and I'm trying to remember um one of the name of the uh one of her uh senior managers at DSI.

Um but he raised a really excellent point that it would be really nice to look at how we are aligning um our regulatory stance, especially because we have responsibilities with over 300 different licenses here in St.

Paul.

I did not know we had that many.

I was quite surprised to hear that.

But um seeing how we are aligning those actually with state standards and also seeing if there were any reason to update the legislative code in particular with regards to these licenses because some of these business licenses may be rather antiquated.

And so um just wanted to bring that up as well, because I just that just came back to my memory.

So that's all I have to say.

Thanks, Mr.

McVay.

And yeah, and unlike um most of our audits, that would actually be a legislative action that we could take as a result.

So it wouldn't be um hoping that the administration does something with what we found, we could actually act on that as a council.

I'm hearing um general comfort with the idea of moving forward, district council reform, um business licensing, and then um I know you had said Ms.

Coleman building code operations as well.

Um I I think basically what I was trying to convey just now is that that felt a little bit it kind of seemed like it more came down to business licensing after we had the conversation, even though it looks like it's two topics.

Um so I think that would only be two topics we would be advancing if we limited it to that.

Ms.

Johnson.

Yeah, can I ask uh just a contextual question?

I guess regarding so I guess like the Department of Public Works.

I think I I understand some of the hesitation.

I guess I am wondering just like they share kind of a little bit about why not now.

I you know, I I am curious, just kind of a little bit more if we could say a couple more things about that meeting just because of how long they've been doing the work and while they are somewhat of impacted by Polly, not to the extent of where I see some of the questions being, and so I was just wondering a little bit more.

Totally.

I'm happy to answer that, although Mr.

McVeigh, you should definitely jump in.

Um I'll just say quickly, I think their concerns, nothing poly related, just that they are that Dr.

Barber felt strongly that they were in the process of themselves doing a lot of this evaluation and determining kind of what our best practice is, doing a lot of the cross-jurisdictional study.

And so I think my impression, and again, Mr.

McVay, correct me if this is not yours, but is more concerned about it being duplicative and taking up additional staff time.

So I I don't think it's the end of the world if we move forward with this.

I just agree that if they're asking the exact same questions just on a different timeline, it might not be as fruitful as some other paths, but I have no skin in this game.

Still working.

Um thank you.

Um I guess I it's interesting because when we got a different response from um, you know, now I'm trying I'm blanking on who we just did the audit with last year, and they were looking at um, you know, some of the same um, you know, they were doing their own internal thing, and when we came in to talk about doing the audit, we partnered with them, and it came out to be a very good parks and libraries.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's like it I think it could be framed differently because we wouldn't come in and be duplicative.

We'd come in and and actually partner with them and actually give them some resources that they wouldn't have had, maybe, um, with what they're doing.

And we have some history in doing that.

That's exactly where we got to in the conversation is like how do we do this in a way that feels like it compliments the work that's happening, and that maybe asks different questions, but obviously done in very close partnership.

Their request was still the more time that we heard from a couple of other places that you know this could be a great topic a year and a half from now, two years from now, a year from now, even but again, that was just their perspective.

There was um, if I may add, Madam Chair, there was uh in Councilmember Coleman, you can probably speak to this as well.

There was a general consensus of what during our interview with um public works.

They didn't have they were struggling to come up with generate uh research questions for us to consider as well.

And we ended up drawing a little bit what I put in here in conversation with Ms.

Veg was um research questions that actually were used by other um cities for their own performance audits um elsewhere in the country, looking at street maintenance and pothole report or pothole repair, excuse me.

And so um we didn't get a lot of um input from public as much input in public works as say like what we did with um DSI or from um OFE or from PED.

And so I actually moved the opinion that and um colleagues, I would uh love to hear your thoughts on this.

But I think public it would be really there's a lot of interest in the community looking at public works.

I think there is um Ms.

Dilworth, you um I think put put it really well that we can really work with departments to really frame uh research um study questions questions and value.

2020 is that 2023?

Yes, I think that's from before my time.

So um but we can do that, and uh where was I going with this?

Oh, yes, I remember now.

We can do that in uh perhaps actually just have to have it later on in 2027 because um we were thinking that we could potentially we could that could be the very first topic that we do for our next cycle, basically, potentially we'd have that ready to go.

Listed that's something that a the committee wants to do, and B that the council agrees with as well, potentially.

That was something that Ms.

Vang and I discussed last week a little bit in passing.

I think only maybe 30 seconds on it, but it's something that is possible.

So thank you, Mr.

McVay.

Yeah, and I will I will throw out to the group as well.

I mean, we had this, we decided to have three topics recommend to the council who would choose two topics.

We can always recommend two topics to the council and just say these are the two we think would be best and share the ones that we considered in addition and why not, why those didn't rise to the top, and then the council can always decide they like one of these other ones better and bring that forward.

But if we're if we're really feeling like some of these are great topics, but not for right now, and there are a couple that are great topics for right now, specifically district council reform business licensing.

Um by the way, right now, again, for the second one of these in particular is not until the beginning of 27 at the earliest.

So right now is definitely not right now for either any of these.

Um I think it's important to keep in mind that we could we could recommend two.

So just throwing more into the mix.

Ms.

Johnson.

I will just share that like if this came to me in form of three, I would really be interested in the public works, honestly.

Um I think the three street repair, I'll just my personal opinion is three the street repair and pothole laws of the three are as my personal favorite.

Um I hear the the conversations around maybe you know, thinking about their process and where they are as a department, and with that respect, I also think there's a ability to really showcase the work that the department is doing around uh repairs and street maintenance repairs in a way that I think this audit could be really actually helpful to that.

Um I think there's there's a lot of questions that get had about potholes and street repairs in the community, and that's where like I think but I think also just going back.

This was supported too by several district councils um and the topics.

I was trying to remember recall how many but I don't have that one in front of me.

I do.

Okay.

Um but just to like I just would put that in of if these three came to me, then I would want to have a conversation with Director Barber about kind of fully understanding that because I probably would be of the mindset of the council to move this one forward.

But Mr.

McVay.

Fifteen out of the 17 district councils.

And also it was mentioned four times in the survey.

So I just want to bring that up as a person who's just like it's often talked about in my area.

Um, and so I hear the department, I completely understand that.

I think the difference and distinction I'd offer just from being a part of all of these conversation is that there's heavily relates to being relatively giving very little data for us, like to actually make the process and the audit process correct like helpful, and they're planning to do a lot of significant changes.

So even though there's there's just not going to be that much data there in comparison to an a department that is integral to the work that we all do.

I think there's a slight difference.

Um, but we just offer that as a as a couple pieces not to say it at all.

But I think if I personally have an interest in that.

Um but I also think that like so do 15 of the 17 district councils.

Including I think all of them in my ward.

Thanks, Ms.

Johnson.

Ms.

Coleman.

Yeah, I felt super strongly that this was a good topic to bring forward.

I only offered the perspective that the department shared with us, and so I have no objections.

I want to be super clear that I don't object to moving forward with it.

I just I think that we will have to navigate how to work with the department that doesn't want us to do the audit, but I imagine that that has been navigated in the past, and that will not be the first time we'll have to experience it.

So I have I have no concerns about going forward with all three of those.

I do think the point that Ms.

Silworth made earlier is a really astute one that I think a lot of departments are saying don't study us because we're studying ourselves.

And to the extent that we can frame it as let's help you help yourself.

You know, take some of this work off your plate.

You can study some other aspect of yourself.

There's enough to study that might be received differently.

Um I'm looking to the room right now.

I think the proposal is to eliminate college bound and recommend the rest.

And I'm seeing some heads nodding.

So I'm gonna formally make that motion.

Um is there further discussion of that motion?

And Mr.

Lost Eddards.

Yeah, Chair Nick, I yeah, I feel that there's a consensus developing around that of uh dropping the college bound.

I would just put in, you know, since that was the mayor's um suggestion, you know, in the interest of maintaining that relationship, um, you know, circling back uh with the office, and um we've been working on the self-assessment tool and maybe offering that as an interim, you know, that um what questions does the mayor's office have and want to have answered, and maybe that could be put in the self-assessment in the meantime.

Um that that could maybe be you know a good use of that um tool and a way to also maintain uh goodwill between this body and the mayor's office.

Thank you for reminding us of the very uh fruitful line of discussion we had last time about the self-assessment as sort of another like audit light self-audit idea.

Where can you update us on where that creation of that tool is at?

Are you you both working with Ms.

Bang on that?

Or Noah's working on it?

And no, yes.

Um we've been going back and forth on uh Mr.

Uh McVae.

You had two examples that you found and we're reviewing them.

Okay.

And the idea was maybe to have a subcommittee kind of further develop it and maybe there'd be a standard set of questions that would be in each one and a custom set based on the topic, so it hasn't been kind of ironed out.

Okay.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to or I should say I didn't have the forethought to bring this up with Ms.

Vang that maybe we should put have just a brief moment uh to discuss this on the agenda, but I'm hoping that we can actually um touch on uh the self-assessment in aug I don't know if we're meeting in August, either in August or in September.

So and then go on from there.

I was very um supportive of uh Mr.

La Setter's uh suggestion of having a subcommittee of the committee look examine this in depth because we do have one um version that is from an institution of higher education, and also I have came up with another um version that actually is you similar to what's used by um Minnesota Management and Budget.

And so one's a little bit more rigorous and the other one's a bit more user-friendly, but perhaps if we can merge the two together, that could be very useful for departments to use, and that could actually be an ongoing practice where they are completing those self-assessments every year, providing them to us as a committee so we actually understand their internal control framework that they have and where things are going well, where things where we can really tailor our research questions.

I was so excited when I saw that email, actually.

So I can't help.

Anyway, great.

Well, we will definitely add self-assessment to the next agenda um when we next meet.

And I I think the question of whether we meet in August or not really relates to how quickly we can get a resolution together um and talk to our colleagues and adopt um two of these, and then because our next role as an audit committee will be to affirm the scope, which will take Dr.

Britt working on scope, which we'll my guess is we're not meeting in August, but we'll see.

Um I think it's on everybody's calendars, and we have the option to cancel it, and it probably will be.

So I will add that to our next topic, our next agenda, whatever it is.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Johnson, yes, just a question for clarification.

We are dropping building quote operations from the recommendation.

I think it makes sense to just call this business licensing because I really think the department is clear that there's not much we can do on building code right now.

Okay, well, I yes, all right.

So our three topics to be clear would be district council reform, business licensing, street maintenance, and pothole repair.

The council would be asked to choose two of those for the next calendar year, end of 26, beginning of 27, getting us through mid-27.

It's always ish when it comes to the audit committee.

Good timetable though.

Yeah, yeah.

It's great.

We're becoming more efficient.

We're improving our operations continuously as auditing.

Quality management's improving.

Exactly.

Next time we'll audit ourselves.

Okay, um, so with that, uh, any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

All right, motion passes.

Thank you all.

We have our three buckets of topics, which we will now talk about amongst ourselves how to bring those to our colleagues.

Um not right now.

After this.

With that, that brings us to our second topic, which I believe is a much briefer one, our community engagement update.

I would look to Mr.

McVay for an update.

Okay.

Let's see.

I forgive me, council members that I see too and colleagues, I need to get myself organized here.

So there we go.

Okay.

So uh between June and now, I actually met with my two final district councils.

I've got at our last meeting, I said, I'm done now.

Well, um two district councils actually reached out to me and want me to come meet with them in person after they had reached out and provide feedback to us um in correspondence.

So it's like, sure, I will come present to your board, meet with folks in your neighborhood, happy to do that.

And so I met with uh Pain Phelan on uh let me pull up my calendar here.

Uh let's see here.

Pain Failin on the 23rd had a wonderful conversation with folks there, and prior to that, I actually stopped over and met with the folks in Frogtown.

And uh also yep, that's it.

So and we had a very good conversation.

Um with a lot of folks, and um they gave us a lot of different ideas.

I did remind them that we are actually currently in the middle of at that time we were doing our risk assessment and narrowing down topics for um further committee discussion, ultimately also for council consultation, which they understood that, but they gave us some ideas to take into consideration for um the future, which um I need to document that, and then I'm gonna give make sure that Ms.

Vang has that um at a later date so that way we can bring that to the committee, say in 2027 or 2028, whenever we get around to that again.

That being said, um I am I actually was able to meet with all but two of the district councils over the um and otherwise I was able to have conversation with all of them um through email or other written correspondence.

So I'm really thrilled about that, and I really just want to underline how much I appreciate our district councils cooperating with us and making this all possible.

Um got to meet a lot of really wonderful people through this process, and I'm looking forward to doing this again next year and continuing this forward.

So that being said, I am going to shift gears and I'm going to be meeting with several civic organizations.

I'm not gonna be doing that until this fall though, because I'm a little busy right now with my internship in Capstone for grad school for one of my master's degrees, and I'm gonna be up in Canada for the last two weeks of or not the last, well, technically the last yeah, the last two weeks of August through the first week of September visiting friends and cousins.

So I will be touching back on that in September for certain things.

Uh some of the organizations I hoped to get in touch with is um the League of Women Voters, St.

Paul, and Minnesota Foundation, the Citizen League, um, the Chamber of Commerce, Neighborhood House, Isaiah, which um my church is actually involved with Isaiah, so that's gonna be pretty easy for me actually.

Um the Asian Economic Development Association, um, the Brown Community Center, um, the Alliance, the Downtown Alliance, Open Arms, Star House, and a few other organizations as well, but I'm not gonna go through the list because we you all have much more important things to do than listen to me, rant.

So Mr.

McVay, first of all, thank you so much for all of your work.

And we've been I've been hearing from folks who are aware of us now in a way that they never were before, and it's because of you, so thank you.

Um would it be possible?

I think it would be great if you could share the list of uh specific organizations you plan to visit and give us the opportunity to add names.

I'm thinking about groups that are that tend to be more critical of the city inside St.

Paul is one that comes to mind immediately.

Um St.

Paul Strong is another one.

I think it's important to be reaching out to our critics as well as neutral friends and also neighborhood groups that aren't necessarily district councils that like Railroad Island neighborhood group comes to mind.

So we could probably beef up the list and then you know from there definitely prioritize the ones that are most important because there will probably be a longer list.

I will I gladly accept so please.

And continue to call on us to help also um we can definitely add that to the next agenda item if that's something the committee wishes to do, Madam Chair.

Great.

And I am the committee's humble servant, so if anyone wants to make suggestions at any time, I would gladly accept them.

So thank you.

Any questions on community engagement?

All right.

Well, with that, um, that brings us to the end of our agenda.

I hope everyone has a very safe and happy summer um until we see each other again, which is probably gonna be in September.

Um, if um Miss Dilworth has if we not don't see each other until she has retired after 31 years at the University of Minnesota here.

So thank you.

Um until then, we are journal.

Thanks, everyone.

Can I speak?

Thank you, Brave.