Call please.

Councilmember Bowie.

Council President Naker.

Here.

Councilmember Joast.

Councilmember Coleman.

Here.

Council Vice President Kim.

Councilmember Yang.

Councilmember Johnson.

Seeing four present, three absent.

Councilmember Johnson is excused.

Great.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to our policy committee meeting of the week.

We have two items on our agenda.

The first one is a presentation on the bike rack permit program.

And we are pleased to welcome Jimmy Schumacher from Public Works to get that presentation.

Welcome.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Jimmy Schumacher.

I'm in the Department of Public Works.

I'm here today to talk with you about kind of formalizing something that we've been trying to formalize for quite some time that will allow kind of custom or branded bike racks in the right of way.

So I have a pretty short presentation.

Again, this is something we're will probably come to council for a new ordinance to permit these.

And so we're really just trying to formalize the program.

So I don't consider this to be very controversial at all.

It's something we get asked for, you know, with some regularity from district councils and business districts.

Hey, I want a snazzy branded bike rack in front of my my business.

And uh up to this point, it's been, like I said, a little bit muddy on how we've done this.

And so this is really just formalizing uh a program.

Um so I want to talk about the goals and outcomes of such a permit.

Uh and I'm calling it a permit, but it's almost kind of a program.

Um, and then just as kind of a refresher, maybe setting the the table about how how and where you might see bike racks in the city.

Um, and specific when it comes to the the um custom bike racks, um uh how we've done it in the past and how we'd like to do it in the future.

Um so just as a reminder, this is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about kind of a branded or custom bike rack.

Um, this is an example that currently exists at a few locations in um in Highland Park along Ford Parkway and kind of Ford Park Right, Ford Parkway in Cleveland.

Uh, but also there's some other areas.

Union Park has a few of these, uh, the North End has a few of these, but then there are also businesses that maybe uh I think if you were to drive on grand, you'd see a cat cafe.

Um, and you'd see some uh you'd see some branded or custom bike racks out in front.

So that the the goal of this program is to get more bike racks out on the street.

Um there are businesses that are asking for this, and you know, that they're for public use, it's not just for that business.

So it um uh they're they're willing to fund this and put them in the public right-of-way.

Um, and really this is permitting private installation in the public right-of-way.

So it's kind of like a Venn diagram.

Uh, we're trying to allow this, and we haven't really been able to to date.

Um, it would uh kind of having this permit or the program would allow us to track installations.

So sometimes to be honest, they've shown up on the street, and it would be nice if we could kind of track them.

Uh and then specifically, I think that uh the council might be interested in you.

You all know, of course, you you came up with and developed and funded the commercial corridor organization assistance program, C COPE.

We're working on a different name.

Okay, okay.

I struggle with it too.

C COP.

Um, and so uh what kind of the impetus for coming here is or kind of the kick in the pants to actually get this formalized is because there are new dollars that are given to commercial corridors and and business organizations, um, and a lot of them say, hey, now we have this money, I'd love to put some of these custom bike racks.

And so again, this has been something that we've we've wanted to do for a while, and this new program that you all funded is kind of giving us the encouragement to formalize it.

Again, you know all about this.

Uh, one of the eligible um criteria, one of the eligible activities or funding criteria or uh expenses, one of the eligible expenses is for beautification on corridors, um, and this is one of those things, custom branded bike racks.

So, again, I think as this program continues, we will probably see more more business organizations saying, Hey, I'd love to do this.

I really love these uh custom branded bike racks.

Um, and we would as a city like to be able to say yes, this is how you do it.

Um so just as a reminder, I want to take a step back and just say, you know, we you might see bike racks all over the city, just very quickly.

Um, you know, this is on Payne and Ward 6.

Um, here you see a couple bike racks.

These are just standard city kind of boring bike racks.

They're just kind of a uh stainless steel hoop, they serve the purpose just fine.

Uh we are pretty good at that.

We have a program already for that, a business like Cookie Cart or Brunson's up the block can say, hey, I'd love to have a bike rack.

It doesn't need to be a fancy one.

And I go out and I look at the site, make sure there's space, and then we actually purchase those kind of boring bike racks, and they get installed by city forces.

This is a little bit different, the kind of custom thing.

It's they would go purchase it and they would have a private installer.

Again, that's what the permit is hoping to allow.

Mr.

Schmacker, just a quick clarifying question.

So for those, the current state, when it's on public property, but the business requests it, you said we purchase it, so it's completely publicly funded.

Correct.

In that case.

Yep.

And is there are those funds?

I know they're never unlimited, but we we have enough of those for any business that would request that funding if they want a bike risk.

We've yep, we're we're really limited, not really by funding by but by kind of our capacity as staff to install those.

And that's why this is kind of a unique what I'm talking about today is this is a unique program where they can hire a private installer if they have 20 of these branded bike racks that they've purchased.

We don't really have the internal capacity to keep up with that and do that all over, especially with this new C Cope funding source.

So this permit is allowing them to say, Oh, hey, hey, here's a here's a private installer.

We'll buy the custom rack, and then we'll pay a private installer to install them.

But yes, we have a small pot of money in public works that is used for various things, including these kind of standard bike racks.

And so here are here are a few examples on screen.

Uh, this is front of OBS and Ward 7.

Uh, this is on Selby, kind of Cathedral Hill in the middle, and then right outside of City Hall.

And so um, like I said, it comes in a request for the business.

That I go out and look and make sure there's space and there's concrete, and then I mark them, and then our crews go and install them.

But that's not what I'm talking about today.

There's also just, you know, to kind of capture the universe.

There's also private property.

You know, on private property, people can do whatever they want.

You know, you could install any bike rack.

So this is in front of SPPS, this is in front of my menards, and then this is in front of a church in uh kind of Summit Hill.

I love my menards.

Um Ms.

Just had a question.

Thank you.

It's also my menards.

Um I was looking ahead at one of your slides.

Um, when these are getting installed by a private installer, it says that public works reviews the design.

So does that mean that public works is, you know, since this is going to be attached to the public sidewalk that belongs to the city, they're making sure that it's anchored in a way that's not gonna damage the sidewalk, basically, is that correct?

Yep, that's a big part of it.

Yeah.

Uh, like I said, in so on in this slide, um, Councilmember Joost, um, there are uh there are these custom racks that have shown up across the city.

Um for a variety of reasons that used to be an installer that was local that we kind of trusted and they were qualified to do this, and that's where you see a lot of these racks have shown up.

There are a couple on this photo that kind of showed up, like I said, without us knowing about it.

Um, and so we want to make sure that someone isn't drilling into the sidewalk and maybe like hits a utility line underneath the sidewalk or damages the sidewalk panel.

So this permit, um, and that that has been a concern of ours in the past when we see one show up on the street, it's like you know, how did that show up?

Did someone just with a drill go out and do it?

Is that a concern for us?

Um so we like I said, we about five years ago when some of them in Highland and in the north end uh showed up.

We actually worked with a private installer, and that worked.

They have since moved to Florida.

Um, so they don't exist anymore.

Um, and so now that they're gone, we have gotten requests over the years like, hey, I want one of these.

I saw this in the north end, I saw this in Highland.

Where do I get one?

And we've kind of had to say, like, ooh, we don't really have a good way to permit this.

And so what's happened is sometimes they'll just show up, and we don't want that.

Um so we're really just trying to create the program that allows this.

Okay, great.

Yeah.

Um, so so like I said, that for a variety of reasons, these are problematic the way that these have shown up.

Um, and then uh so this new approach would, like I said, allow private parties, so district councils, business organizations, really, even just a business, any business, uh, to find competitive prices from qualified installers.

Um, we want to make sure that the racks are being installed by a qualified installer, like I I said, uh, insured.

So if they do hit an underground utility line that they're insured.

Um again, uh, this program and permit would allow staff, me to document where these are.

We also have kind of an inventory of bike racks across the city, and they show up, and we we don't we haven't documented where those are.

Um another thing to your point, Councilmember Joast, is that they are sited correctly.

A lot of times bike racks are installed by someone uh and they end up right next to a street light pole, and it's like, okay, we can't even use this.

So creating this permit and the process that goes into me going out there and making sure that they're in the right place means that they'll be cited correctly and ultimately more easy to use for someone biking.

Um and then designed correctly, that's kind of a nuance, but you know, some bike racks, you see them out on the street and they're actually really not that easy to use.

It's like you kind of have to fumble to lock to it.

So uh again, this permit would allow us to say, let's see your custom rack and make sure it's designed in a way that people can use them and it's not complicated.

Yeah.

Ms.

Coleman.

I had a question about the um design piece.

Do we very pro all of this?

It's great.

It seems to me that just like the plain silver metal bars would allow more bike that they just seem way easier than these very pretty Highland Park ones.

Do we see like a decrease in how many bikes can be attached to one of these racks, or like is there a little bit of a trade-off between a nice design and efficiency?

Council President, Councilmember Coleman.

Uh yes, and that is kind of we've actually heard, for example, in some of the ones in Highland, the design that was used on those in Highland, it's kind of a pain actually to lock your bike to, which is like going against what we would like.

You can kind of see in this example, like where do you put your lock?

Um, and so I think again, part of this program would say, okay, Highland District Council or whomever, let's see the design that you're that you want to use that you want a fabricator to make, and let's make sure that it's actually user-friendly and doesn't cause problems.

Um, so you know, we haven't, you know, we don't really track the amount that any single rack will use.

I I would say just kind of candidly, the standard boring bike rack is probably the easiest to use.

But on the other hand, you know, it's a trade-off.

Do you, you know, there's there's some branding and kind of some um, you know, bring more neighborhood identity, I guess.

Um, we're definitely willing to allow it, and I think the designs can be such that they allow a bike to be easily parked.

Ms.

Yang.

Thank you.

Uh well, speaking about the designs, I'm just wondering if there was a design that maybe a community group or just some private business owner they wanted to install, but then the design wasn't appropriate.

Is that something that you all would make the decision on?

Like whether they can have a design like that.

Yeah, council member, council president uh and council member, uh, we haven't run into those yet.

Maybe there's something out there, nothing that I've ever seen, but that is, yeah, that's definitely like you they're it the way that it's worked now, uh, kind of this like uh gray area, they could conceivably uh design something that would be inappropriate or against city values uh and could end up on the street.

I will say that there's no guarantees someone doesn't do that again, like there's no you know, enforcement arm that's going around cruising looking for bike racks.

Um the hope is that this will be easier to do, and therefore would kind of cut that off, you know.

Is it does that answer your question?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it does a bit.

I I was just thinking of that.

I mean, um I I haven't heard of issues like that happening either, but you know, when it comes to designs, like people can sometimes have different thoughts on what that looks like, or like what you said, like values too.

So I'm just trying to understand like what would happen in a situation like that.

Yeah, if you know, if if a bike rack showed up in the public right of way um and it uh was inappropriate or something, uh the city could definitely go and remove it.

So that's what we would do.

Great, thank you.

Yeah.

Um, I just have a couple more slides here.

So um where was I here?

Yeah, um, the other thing is, you know, there is some confusion that if a bike rack is purchased by a private entity and installed in the public right of way, like who owns it?

You know, what happens if that business moves away and then the new business says, oh, I don't like this or something.

Uh this process would say once installed, so even if a district council purchases them, installs them, the the process would articulate that that now becomes city property once installed.

And that's just how I think that's the cleanest.

We've thought a lot about this.

Like, that's how we want to do it.

And so that would be very clearly outlined.

Like you are you as a district council are purchasing them, you are installing them with this permit, and then they become property of the city.

Um, and then again, I mentioned kind of staff capacity.

We we install maybe I would say 20 of the boring bike racks every year, give or take.

Um, but you know, there's there's if if a if a district council or something said I'm gonna order two dozen of these and put them all over um uh the area, we we probably couldn't keep up with that.

We just have too many other priorities.

We just have too many other priorities, and so this allows this permit allows them to go out and find their installer and kind of knock them all out.

Uh again, so this is this is just kind of in the weeds, but this it'd be kind of a two-part system, and really what we're asking city council to weigh in is an ordinance that would allow this permit.

And this is kind of a very specific, it's a permit that allows the installation in the public right-of-way.

Um there's another half of this, it would be kind of an informal agreement, it would just be kind of an administrative agreement.

That's what's on the left.

So we would approve the locations of the racks, we would approve approve the design of the racks, and then I'm using district council as an example.

District council would gift those to the city once installed.

Um, they will work with a fabricator.

There are there are plenty of companies that make custom bike racks, um, and then they will hire the installer.

And you know, there's already some companies that said, hey, you know, we want to be your installer, and then we will maintain them in the future because they will become ours to own.

Ms.

Trust.

I um I have another question about when they get gifted to the city, does that require any council action to accept them?

You know, council president, council member, uh, I think so.

Um, I don't know that for sure.

Um, I see stuff on the council agenda frequently that says you know, the city will accept this gift.

I I I think so.

That's something I need to talk a little bit more with the attorney's office.

I'd love to hear your input if you if you have some.

We haven't we haven't crossed that yet.

Um, but I'm imagining a district council will order these, we'll say, hey, you got to gift these to the city, and then does that need to take some council action?

I I don't know the answer to that, but I think so.

I think that was that was why I asked the question.

It feels like the answer is yes, and I think um, you know, depending on how many of these we get, maybe it's not gonna be a ton of these coming through council, which would probably be fine.

But if there's also any way to simplify it so we could um uh maybe we can just pass one type of action that gives someone the authority to accept them, but it also feels like maybe it's a question for OFS because if we are accepting sort of money or some type of property that maybe it does just require action every time.

But um, yeah, we can yeah, I'm really interested to hear your input on that.

I I'm imagining a scenario where you know a district council orders 10 of them and they're like, oh wait, you know, we've done we've done the gift to the city council.

Oh, wait, we want two more, and then do they need to come back for those two more?

It seems like I do know that the uh C COPE program is kind of collectively for this last round of funding, maybe is you know, that's a PED program, is trying to like maybe put in one big order.

Right.

So I think that would be an efficient way of doing things that like you know, all of the racks for all of the business corridors get kind of gifted at once, but definitely interested in like an efficient way to do that.

Ms.

Bully, thank you, council president.

Um, thank you so much.

Um, Jimmy, is it shoemaker or shoemaker?

It is shoemaker.

Shoemaker case.

I got it wrong at the beginning.

Okay, good to see you here.

I'm um excited for this uh this policy review.

I have a question particularly around you mentioned uh the C COP RC, the commercial corridor um grant program.

Um are you and I and excuse me, I I missed the beginning part of it.

I don't know if you know, want to steal your thunder in terms of you explaining that again.

Um would are you seeing this grant program, like a portion of those funds being designated to something like this to that bike permit, and do you have like a a bar park of you know how much you think should be I guess granted, or is it just more so like an eligibility?

Like if you want if a district council wants to purchase these um bike racks that they're allowed to through this grant.

Sure, council president, councilmember Bowie.

Um yes, that's a great question.

So um we are seeing I was in a meeting just last week with all of the commercial corridors that were interested in bike parking.

And there were maybe of you know, I think there are 18 of the commercial corridors, and I I think maybe five or six were on the call, and those were the ones that were interested, and you know, kind of raised their hand and said, Hey, I want to spend some of my money on these branded bike racks.

So, you know, maybe five of the 18, but um my understanding is that this is a program that hopefully will continue.

Um, and so we could see more of them.

We could see any one of the corridors want to add more.

Um this is the neighborhood beautification, this would fall into that category.

Um, I don't have a great sense of the cost.

I mean, in my experience with ordering just kind of the standard bike rack, uh, I think they're like 180 bucks a piece for the standard bike rack.

Now, once you get into like the branding, I think you know that obviously would cost a little bit more.

So but they are kind of shopping around to different vendors to say, you know, hey, if we ordered 50 of these and there were five different designs, could we get a price break, for example?

Um so does that did that answer all your questions?

What was your other question?

That's helpful.

I do have another question, a follow-up question.

Um what the um uh proposal for a permit, um, do you have a bar park particularly around like how much the permit will cost?

Um, like because you know, I think that's another thing too, where um, you know, we just want to make sure it's accessible as possible.

Yes, thank you.

Council President, Councilmember.

Um, I don't have a sense of that yet.

Um this is we haven't we still need to create the permit um, but I can definitely report back on um on what it would cost.

The the idea is that the installer, just like other, I mean, this is considered a very minor construction activity.

It's not much, it's literally mounting, excuse me, mounting some of the bike racks.

Um, and there are I think there are kind of standard uh fees for something like this, but yes, we they are a business organization is spending their money on putting something in the public right of way.

So I agree with you that we'd want to make this.

I mean, this is these will be available to the public, not just the business.

Uh so I agree with you that we'd want to make this as accessible as possible.

It's a very minor construction activity.

So I can get back to you on that for sure as we develop the permit.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And Mr.

Schumaker, sort of to the questions that my colleagues have been asking, I do think it's worth um just making sure that the agreement is really carefully thought through, especially with regard to maintenance in the future.

Um I know we sometimes run into this with public art where um ownership is unclear, um, and our responsibility to maintain the art in its original form is unclear.

And I could imagine you know, a very stylized bike rack that uh to your point, the manufacturer moves to Florida.

Um and you know, is is it on us going forward to replicate what was there or not?

I would imagine not, but I just want to make sure our expectations, the expectations on us are clear if we're taking ownership of something that um might be difficult to replicate.

And I would also say just uh just to consider um whether or not the the gifting to the city is is important to us to happen right away, or whether we want that ownership to live with the responsible party as long as they are around, and maybe there's some reverter to the city if at some point the district council can't or won't, or the business can't or won't maintain it.

I'm just thinking through um, especially if it's the district council or the business that has the contract with the installer originally, it might be just easier for them to be the ones who reach out if it's damaged and needs to be replaced rather than for us to get involved.

And obviously that brings costs to us as well that we're not foreseeing right now.

So maybe the reverting to us is sort of a last resort rather than an immediate gift that happens.

All things I would defer to your expertise on, but I just I think these questions are all kind of of a of a nature like like that, thinking about that future state.

Council president, thanks.

Uh yes, one thing that I did that's not shown on screen here is to your point.

Like we've tried, we've thought about like, okay, say uh, you know, someone installs this beautiful new custom rack, a car happens to jump the curb and runs into it, right?

You know, we don't want that to happen.

Ideally, the sighting is such that that won't happen.

Uh, but that could happen.

Um we have thought about, and I don't know if we formalized it yet, that the city, if we own it, we will replace that, but we will replace that with a standard boring rack, which you know, I I'm hope you know, bike racks are supposed to be pretty sturdy.

You know, they're not, they probably don't require as much maintenance.

Um, but to your point, yes, that is a responsibility that the city is taking on.

And so what what we had planned to have in this kind of agreement is that once gifted to the city, the city will take on ownership and maintenance, but we will not replace it with, you know, we're not gonna stock a whole handful of some branded bike rack for few for 20 years from now when that gets struck by a car and knocked down.

The idea is we would replace it, still offer a place to park your bike, but not the custom rack.

So that is one thing that we have thought about.

That's that's helpful.

Thanks.

I think Ms.

Coleman had a question.

Just a couple of more questions, sorry, on this line.

Um, curious if you know what the average lifespan of a bike rack is.

And also like the maintenance, so I'm thinking if it gets damaged, that's the primary way in which we have to maintain bike racks.

Is there anything else that we're talking about when we talk about maintenance in the future?

Council President, Councilmember Coleman.

Um I don't know the average lifespan of a bike rack.

Um I think yeah.

Um thing that can happen that we've noticed um outside, I think I'd say the most common thing is like uh, you know, something that's been clearing snow, like a bobcat runs into one downtown.

Um I I don't know if there's tons of examples of that.

Uh, but that could be one, you know, a parked car kind of backing up and hops the curb and backs into one.

Uh again, there aren't a ton of instances of that.

Um the other thing is if it if they're paint like the ones that we install, the boring ones are just galvanized steel.

So they don't rust uh and they don't require repainting.

You know, we've heard a couple people say, oh, this bike rack that's been there for 10 years is flaking paint.

Uh can you guys come out and repaint it?

That is a maintenance burden.

And so we have started to install racks that are not painted.

Um so to your point, if uh district council or a business organization um wants a colorful branded bike rack, they can do that.

Um, but painting is probably the next thing.

I it's not something that requires every year painting, you know.

I don't know the answer how long that paint lasts.

Um but eventually it'll you know it'll flake off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think um I was just gonna add to to Councilmember Coleman's comments.

If you know, it sounds like if they're um like a stainless steel or or galvanized that can you know resist corrosion, they should last for I mean they could last for several decades.

I think when it comes to the maintenance, maybe what would be good to think about is the like aesthetic maintenance versus more so structural and functional maintenance.

If the paint is shipping, the bike rack still works.

Are you are is you know, public works required to go out there and fix it.

But if it's if if the steel is corroding or if it gets hid or vandalized, then that seems like that would be more appropriate maintenance for us to handle.

Council President, Councilmember Joast, uh, yes, I agree.

Um we have started to install this is really getting in the weeds.

We have started to install plastic spacers between the anchor and the bike rack itself, which resists some of that metal on metal corrosion.

So that's one thing that we can do.

Uh we also install tamper proof bolts uh on each leg, so someone can't just come out there and like you know use a socket wrench and take the bike rack and take the bike.

Um but you're right.

If it if it gets damaged such that someone could kind of pull it loose, we would go out and cut that one out and reinstall it.

Um because that to your point, like that eliminates the function of the bike rack to securely lock your bike to things like shipping paint, the bike rack still functions.

Uh I I've heard maybe one business say, hey, can you come out and paint this rack?

That rack was on Grand Avenue, it was pulled when we reconstructed Grand, and a new rack was put in its place.

Right, Ms.

Yang.

Thank you.

I just have a last couple of questions.

Um Jimmy, I'm wondering if you can break down for us.

Well, I know you said earlier you don't have an amount for what the permanent cost would be, but can you explain what would the what would the fee be for?

Is it recouping the costs of the labor for our public work staff going out there trying to document things?

Because if it's being installed by a private contractor, then it seems like well, I'm I'm just trying to understand like what would the money, the cost be for.

And then is this a one-time permit fee, or it would there be some ongoing costs for whoever wants to get the permit?

Council President, Councilmember Yang, uh, you're right.

There is not, we are using a private installer, so the installation is not being funded by us.

Um we haven't to be honest, we haven't thought a lot about the cost yet.

Um, I would have to we're you know, we would talk to our right-of-way division who handles uh permits.

I agree with you that you know it's a it's seemingly a one-time operation.

There are some things that are permitted, you know, you have to renew your permit every year.

I I don't know.

I can't imagine that that would be uh fair to ask someone to re especially if it's then gifted to the city after installation.

So um my hope is that we can keep this permit fee pretty minimal, but I can re like I said, I can report back on that.

Sounds like that that's a priority for you all.

Yeah, that'd be great.

I mean, I I would like to see it be a very minimal fee too.

Yeah.

Um I think that trying to inv and um incentivize district councils and businesses to put up the bike racks would be a huge win for us.

And so um doing that by keeping the costs very low would be really important.

I would, I mean, like if my question would be like, is there is there a need for a fee at all?

You know, if not, then I I personally would be okay without having that.

I think it it seems like it's more important for public works to just um make sure that you are you're able to document where these bike racks are.

Um, and if it's suddenly like our property, then we're we're in charge of trying to do the replacement for the bike rack.

And so, you know, maybe it makes sense to to keep a fee there.

I'm not sure, but I'm just like throwing it out there that if there doesn't seem to be a need for a fee or like justification for a fee that I would also be very supportive of not having a fee to, but I'll look to you all for guidance on that.

Councilmember Yang, great.

Yeah, I can I can report back on that once we get down the road of a permit.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I would just jump in to say I for my perspective, I think it's important that we cover our costs for doing any work.

So I I agree with Ms.

Yang, we should keep it as low as possible, but I would want to make sure that the department is being compensated for any work that you're putting in that you can't put in on something else.

And I I think we're not able to charge a fee beyond the cost of our work.

Okay.

Um hopefully that's already baked in.

But um, Ms.

Bowie.

Thank you, Council President.

And just yeah, echoing that um point that you made.

Um just looking at the uh slide, particularly around what our public right-of-way processes, and it does look like it is staff led.

So even if someone, if a business was to request, it looks like the staff is the one who's assessing the site and also um installing the racks.

So if we can get a snapshot of like how much does that cost, because I imagine you know that would help at least like create a projected cost for um for the district councils.

Council President, Councilmember Bowie, yes, that's a great point.

We can um yeah, when when I go out just kind of again, the standard boring racks, I go out and look at the site, I make sure there's room, I put two little dots on the ground with with you know, kind of marking spray, and then our our traffic operations division comes kind of behind me and then installs them.

And we get kind of an internal bill from uh traffic operations, and we we it shows X amount of racks cost this much.

So we could do some math to find out like generally, you know, how how much it costs.

Um the the installation of this again will be you know obviously privately funded.

So really the the there's the administrative task of kind of issuing the permit.

I you know, I can talk to right-of-way about how long, you know, what that takes, and then it there would still be some work on my end to go out and cite the racks to make sure they're in the the appropriate spot.

But yeah, there is some information we can use to kind of you know do some reverse engineering on costs.

And just a follow-up question, um, can you share like what are all the staff that's assigned to like installation?

Like um, I know like public works has a huge um um um department, um, but if you can just list like what are like our city staff um that's assigned to it, I don't know what the the actual terms are, but you know, if you can list that.

Sure, yeah, uh council president, councilmember Bowie.

Uh yeah, it's basically uh when we do one for a business that that the city funds um again, just kind of the standard boring rack.

Um we I usually get kind of an email with a standard form that's online if you were to go to St.

Paul.gov slash bike parking, you'd see this form under neighborhood bike parking program.

Um and it's just a very simple one-pager uh a business, uh say ACE hardware.

They say ace ace hardware, here's the contact, here's the um uh the address.

I would like you know, X amount of racks outside of my business.

Uh and then I go out, so me.

Okay, I go out and look at the site and make sure that there's space in the boulevard, make sure there's concrete.

But you know, we can't install a rack into a grass boulevard, obviously.

Um, and then I go and mark them, and then I send that list of all of the racks that I've marked over the city uh to our traffic operations division um in public works, and uh I place the order to the vendor.

Um we've used uh a Minnesota company that uh the past couple years, the racks get shipped from there to traffic operations on Dale Street, our big our public works warehouse.

Uh and then I send the list traffic operations go out when they have the time and install those racks in the field.

So it's really me uh and um a few staff that I've worked with in traffic operations.

Got it.

Thank you.

So it sounds like a win-man show here.

Well, kind of.

I see Ms.

Jost, and then we have an entire presentation about our climate action resilience plan.

And we've spent a lot of time on this a very small program.

Yes, um, because we care and we have a lot of questions, so I just want to make sure we're balancing our time properly.

No, I you're doing beautifully after Ms.

Just, I think we will try to uh move you along though.

So Ms.

Just.

I was just gonna thank you, Council President and um Mr.

Schumacher.

I was just gonna add to Councilmember Bowie's question that it sounds like that was for the very basic rack that has already been it's like a proprietary rack, it's already been designed and approved.

But when we start looking at these custom racks that public works has to approve the design, which maybe would require some minimal engineering review that would add another person or more effort.

Still me.

It's still you, okay.

Uh uh I uh council president, councilmember Jost.

Um, oh yes, that is true.

There would be some I like I would work with uh the idea is that we eliminate the amount of back and forth.

And I've told this to some of the district councils that you know it can't be some big huge spiral uh bike rack.

You know, it's gonna be kind of boring.

It's gonna be like the ones that you see that I've shown on screen.

Um so really what I will be looking for um is will this function?

Will it be easy to lock to you know, I don't expect a lot of design iteration and time spent on that.

Um, but this is the first time we've done it, so we we shall see, I guess.

I think like I'll just add it.

I I didn't imagine that maybe there could be bike wrecks that are more substantial than that, like more artistic and big, and so I guess maybe making sure that district councils and folks know that that's not really feasible, would be important too.

Council President, council member, yes, we there is some great guidance out there, not developed specifically by us by um APBP, the American professional bike and pedestrian planners.

Um that has some really great guidance on like what is good bike parking and what is bad, because there are a lot of examples of bad bike parking and bad bike racks that are like totally unfunctional.

Um so the idea is that we would provide some resources to point people in the right direction so they're not going down some path that we wouldn't approve, anyways.

Cool.

Great.

Well, is there any other information you haven't shared with us today?

Uh Council President, no, thank you very much for having me here today.

We are really grateful for your time, Mr.

Schumacher.

And uh, I just want to say this is sort of the this is the platonic form of a policy session.

Like this is what we want because what you've done here today is you've come and presented an idea and gotten feedback.

Hopefully, that was helpful from us on different considerations as you prepare an ordinance for our consideration, um, rather than sort of having the ordinance come for first reading and having a staff report at that point.

So I just want to note that um this is exactly what we're hoping to do more of with the administration to have this opportunity for back and forth prior to um legislation moving forward.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, this is I I did kind of I was wondering what exactly I'm uh was doing.

Yeah, doing here today.

Um and so I'm really glad to have that feedback, and I'll share that with others in in the department to make sure that this is a to make sure everybody knows that this is a really good avenue for kind of developing this stuff.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for having me.

Looking forward to seeing the draft, and it sounds like you might have a lot of willing sponsors of it around this table.

Great.

Okay.

All right, we will do a hard pivot, not really hard pivot, a soft pivot.

It's related to our climate action plan.

Uh, and want to welcome up Liz Boyer and team to uh take us away.

Thank you.

I didn't pleased to hear that there was a welcome.

Good morning, thank you.

You're good.

All right.

Um council president maker, council members, uh good morning.

My name is Liz Boyer.

I serve as the climate action coordinator uh for the city.

This is a position that is seated in the Office of Financial Services.

Um, and I am really excited to be here today to share this draft plan with you.

We've been working really hard on it over the last year.

We've had some great community conversations, we've had great um conversations across city departments, and I'm really proud of the draft that is here in front of you today.

And I'm also really happy to hear you say that what we're trying to do is bring it to you in this initial kind of form and get your feedback and get your thoughts and get your questions.

It's a lot.

There's a lot um in this plan.

Um, and honestly, we could spend um you know an hour on any one of these topics.

So, first of all, before we get too far into it though, I would like to introduce uh my colleagues who are here today.

Quick reminder that in um the city of St.

Paul, we have a decentralized climate and resilient staffing structure.

This was established under um Mayor Carter's administration and chief resilience officer Russ Stark, who instead of kind of standing up a climate or sustainability office, um, we decided to embed folks in the departments um where that work is happening.

And we all kind of um were loosely uh then directed by the chief resilience officer in the mayor's administration.

Now Mayor Her has selected a different staffing structure for her administration, and they've already been Mayor Her and the Assistant Mayors have been really great partners with us in figuring out how we can adapt this structure that was established under a different administration with her.

So quickly.

So there's five of us who consider ourselves to be what I would call climate core, and we're across different departments in the city.

So Cecilia Govric is our energy coordinator.

She's with me in the Office of Financial Services.

She manages the energy use and energy efficiency of our city-owned and operated properties.

Then we have Erin Kaiser here, who is who is in public works.

She is what's your actual title?

EV charging and electric car share program coordinator.

She manages our EV car share and the charging, and she also is starting to kind of dip her toe a little bit more into shared mobility a little bit more across the department.

Behind Aaron, we have Kurt Schultz, who is our clean energy manager.

He's in planning and economic development, a little bit more on the outward facing energy use and sustainability.

And just to kind of he's been here for a real long time, so it's really great.

We can always say how did this used to be?

Can you tell me how is this how's so that's another uh really great feature of uh on the other hand?

We have Dave Schrader here, who is our newest climate core team member, resilience and housing program specialist is his title, and he oversees the power of home and um healthy homes programs, which we'll talk more about in a minute.

Okay, so uh first of all, my goal here today is to provide some context on climate planning and climate action work in the city of St.

Paul.

Share a little bit more about our progress in the five years since the original CARP was adopted, um, give you a kind of a broad outline of the structure of the plan that's in front of you.

Um, and um hopefully that will make it easier for you to review the plan.

We're really eager for your thoughts and your feedback and your questions, and I know you just got this, um and there's a lot there.

So, like I say, we're trying just to kind of set it up here and looking forward to staying in conversation.

Um, all right, so our currently adopted CART plan was adopted in 2019.

It was built on the strategic framework for community resiliency, which was adopted um under Mayor Chris Coleman's administration actually in 2016.

So uh Mayor Carter came in and um this the currently adopted plan was built on that.

The overall goals of the current plan are to be net zero greenhouse gas emissions community-wide by 2050, net zero community or net zero and city operations by 2030.

There are over 170 actions in the CARP.

More on that in a minute.

Um, so you can see here that we have made progress on our emissions reductions in the city of St.

Paul.

This is our this is a screenshot of our climate action dashboard.

This is our public-facing tracking and communication and information sharing tool where we report out on our climate actions.

Um, so uh about 67% of our overall greenhouse gas emissions in the city are from buildings.

Um, the next biggest uh um amount of emissions is transportation, which is about 32% of our emissions citywide.

Um so I'm gonna start with giving you some updates on uh emissions reduction work that we have done in our buildings.

This is our city buildings and operations um decarbonization slide here with some progress.

So this is Cecilia Govric's uh program area.

She has just completed a really comprehensive um decarbonization plan to help give us a roadmap on how we can decarbonize all of our city-owned and operated buildings.

Um not to intimidate you, but that plan alone is like this thick.

She's got them on her desk.

She's really excited to share them with you and get them off of her desk.

So more on that to come as well.

Uh, we have made progress on our uh city-owned and operated buildings.

We have about a 46% reduction from the 2015 baseline.

The next step in that decarbonization plan, there are specific electrification plans for about 11 of our buildings.

We're adding more on-site solar.

She keeps getting all these grants that she applies for, so we're working to implement the projects that are funded through those grants.

Um, some specific examples, geothermal going in at Como in the middle there is uh rooftop solar at the North End Community Center.

The new Hamlin Library also is going to have geothermal.

Uh we also are working on our city fleet conversion.

The city's first all-electric fire engine was put into service last year.

We're installing level two chargers at several city locations in order to be able to service and charge EV vehicles when we're able to purchase them.

We also are in the midst of developing a fleet decarbonization plan for how we could, what would be our comprehensive roadmap for converting as many of our vehicles as possible to EVs.

So sort of stepping back then to citywide initiatives.

We could reduce our emissions just by using what we already use more efficiently and by focusing on energy burdened homeowners.

We can, it's a win-win.

The heights is going to be all electric heating and cooling.

We also are working through updating our sustainable building ordinance.

This is something that Kurt Schultz is leading.

This the SBO applies to all new city buildings, new private buildings that receive more than 200,000 in public funds.

We are just getting started on an update for that ordinance as well.

Doing a lot in terms of the note, sorry, Miss Boyer, since I might have been the last one to figure this out, but to my colleagues, the presentation that we got printed out is stapled backwards.

So if you turn it over, you've lost.

Looks like I was the last one to figure that out, but just in case.

Thanks, Ms.

Boyer.

Story of my life.

It would be mine that gets stapled backwards.

To keep us on our toes, it's good.

Okay, so our EV car share, the largest municipally owned car share, electric car share in the United States.

Aaron keeps that operating smoothly and efficiently, and there's never any wrinkles or hiccups with any of it.

It's a partnership between the city of Minneapolis and the city of St.

Paul that it's actually run by the nonprofit our car.

We also are installing EV chargers across the city.

They let's see, do I have a picture of one?

Not really where you can see, but there's a public, one of the chargers is public, and one of the chargers is for EV.

Another big accomplishment is Jimmy's still here, is our new bikeway installation across the city, trying to make it easier for people to not use cars as frequently as they can.

And just you all know the climate justice advisory board, so just a reminder that all of this is overseen by the Climate Justice Advisory Board, CJAB.

Making sure that equity and inclusion are centered in all of in all of our work.

Okay, so just one last plug for the dashboard because all of this and more is there.

So CARP 2.0, one of the action items in the CARP was to complete an update every five years.

Things in this sector are changing really quickly, so there already is emerging science and emerging technology.

So we wanted to update the plan overall.

I also at the beginning mentioned that the current plan has 170 actions in it.

We wanted to have some kind of a way to focus, focus our work down.

So as a part of the update process, we also decided to develop an accompanying five-year action plan that would help us to guide our work over the next five years.

We had technical support from fabulous local firm, local climate solutions.

If you like the writing in the plan, which I adore the writing in the plan, you can thank Abby Fitness from Local Climate Solutions because she really did a lot of the drafting, and she's a brilliant writer.

And Wilder Research helped us with some community engagement support.

So for that community engagement, CJAB, you'll see here had a CARP update advisory committee.

CJAB has had three areas of focus over the last year.

One was the rethinking I-94 project, which resulted in a comprehensive decision memo that they passed on to all of you.

And then their third area going into this next year, too, is an energy burden subcommittee to help us implement and focus our work to help alleviate those who are most energy burdened.

So the CARP Update Advisory Committee, in addition to CJAB members, we had 26 members from across the community.

We had the they met almost monthly for most of last year.

They showed up, they were engaged, they were connected.

It was a really great group.

They learned, they advocated, they guided us as we were thinking about how to organize the plan.

They supported us when we got discouraged because it's such a massive undertaking.

So the engagement activities that we undertook.

We had a web survey, we had engagement at community events, we had listening sessions, we had the 2025 climate forum, and then we had a community conversation toolkit, which we knew we wouldn't be able to get to all block clubs, district councils, church committees who wanted to talk about this and provide input.

So we created this toolkit, which was essentially a six-page overview of climate change in general, climate change in St.

Paul, overview about the planning process, guides about having difficult conversations, and then really specific instructions for how they could get feedback back to us, and we ended up getting about 20 responses through that community conversation toolkit as well.

Throughout all of these forms of engagement, we asked people what were they already experiencing and or concerned about.

We asked what do community members want to see in a sustainable city.

We asked what already exists in our communities that we at the city might not know about, and if how there is some way that we could engage or better support it.

And then we asked really specifically what should we prioritize in this five-year action plan.

One thing that we made sure to talk about in all of these conversations was the city's ability to influence versus the city's ability to control in a lot of these areas.

The cities, as you all very well know, our actual ability to control is limited, and we didn't want people to think we were going to come out with a plan to do things that we actually can't do.

So we talked a lot about control versus influence throughout all of the engagement.

So what did we hear through the community engagement?

We heard that we want people wanted us to prioritize healthy communities.

There's concern about air quality and extreme heat.

There is support for active transportation facilities across the city.

We heard people's thoughts on resilience and preparedness.

People are worried about the financial impacts of climate change.

There's a lot of support for resilience hubs, community-led initiatives.

We also heard that people, especially, for example, at the climate forum, council member uh Johnson was there and can attest to this firsthand too that people afterwards said to us, I had no idea the city was doing all that.

I didn't know this, I didn't know this.

So we heard from people, we want more communication, we want more information about what's happening and about what we personally can do, uh, support for clean and efficient energy, low impact transportation, and then we heard a lot about recycling and trash management as well.

So we took all of that community engagement at the same time that all of this was happening.

We were having really uh focused and intentional conversations with our city colleagues across all departments.

We asked, um, we asked our colleagues, what are you working on?

What uh you know, we can the five of us consider ourselves to be the climate core, but there are people who also would say that climate and resilience and sustainability is a focus of their work.

So we made sure to incorporate, you know, what do you think should be prioritized in the next five years?

Which of these actions do you know we're not going to be able to get to in the next five years, so we shouldn't even put it in our five-year action plan.

So we were doing all of that as well.

So the plan that came out of this is a result of that work.

Um, the first kind of piece of it, there's context.

There's a really great page about our vision for 2050.

Also, I should say it's not pretty yet, it's just the content.

We haven't done any of the formatting.

There's going to be a lot of maps and charts and images to be added.

There's overview of climate change.

There is more detail on projected local impacts, and then more about climate hazards, what what uh what we know is more likely to happen here, and populations who are especially vulnerable for those hazards.

There's a there's um a lot of focus on that.

The meat of the plan is our objectives, targets, and actions.

Each one of those categories includes equitable outcomes, you'll see, and these are the eight categories.

We had originally thought that we could keep the same categories from the CARP and just kind of refresh some of the language as we got through the conversations and were talking with people.

Implementation funding and partnerships is such a key part of it, and the actions were kind of spread throughout the plan in the currently adopted CARP.

So we decided we really needed to pull all that together.

Um we didn't have a separate community resilience section either, um, and nature-based solutions is also a new category.

So those are the objectives, targets, and actions are organized around those categories, and then we have the five-year action plan, which we ended up with 25 uh priority actions.

They're organized by the same categories as the overall plan, and each of those priority action items includes the following details: the the control versus influence piece, where the project would be located, uh, the departments that would lead it, what kind of a project is it, a brief summary, anticipated funding need, anticipated funding sources, potential project partners, um, and then the time frame.

So it kind of just gives you a little bit of an overview, more details than you'll see with some of the other actions that didn't get included in the in the 25 priority actions.

This is an example of initiative number one.

And I chose to highlight this as the example because it's a pretty important one, and all the other uh priority action items and kind of the implementation of the plan in general.

We'll come back to how we collectively decide to fund climate action in the city of St.

Paul.

So we're proposing that we adopt a target to spend at least one percent of the city's budget on climate actions.

Bless you.

Um while this funding would be supported by other capital expenditures, we think it's critical to be able to identify that the climate funding that we're that we're allocating to this to this issue.

Um so for the 2026 budget, that would be about 8.8 million dollars.

Depending on, we have never done uh kind of an overall assessment of climate funding because a lot of this work is woven into other things that the city does.

Um we think depending on how we define climate funding, resilient sustainability funding, we're probably pretty close to this um amount already.

Um you'll also see that we have another action that isn't in the five-year or in the five-year action plan, but we have another action where we say um the the city would strive to identify external funding and grant sources um to match this amount as well.

Sorry, Ms.

Joe.

Um Thank you, Council Presidents Boyer.

So with this goal of 1%, so that would be 1% each year, is my understanding of the city's budget.

But then would there also I have two questions?

Would there also be just you mentioned other funding sources?

Would there be another goal of this is how much total money that we need?

And then my question is does that amount either the city amount or additional funding we need, is that enough funding to actually meet the goals of what we're trying to achieve.

Uh Council President, Councilmember Joes, thank you for that question.

Um, yes, there would be other goals.

We are constantly going after external funding um to achieve other goals.

Um, number two, no.

Um we have not done an overall assessment of what uh every you know implementing every single action on the plan would cost, uh, but it would be a lot more than 16 million dollars, which would be if we would have one 1% from the budget and then um you know a goal to match one percent.

Again, it's hard because how you know it depends on how we define it.

So the Hamlin Library, for example, that's however many millions of dollars construction project that is overall.

Um, you know, there are there's an EV charger there, there is geothermal there.

I can't remember if there's solar, there's solar there too.

So, like, would we parse out like we wouldn't say that whole project is a climate project, um, but you can see how it would get pretty weedy in the details if you go through and try.

My this is my um personal bias is that I feel like we could spend a lot of time doing that, and I think we should think about it as a guide instead of like uh you know, we're gonna get down to the cent here.

I yeah, I think um I I agree that would take a lot of analysis.

I do think that there is somewhere in the middle where we can make sure that we we have enough funding to achieve these goals just because of how critical that they are to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and so I would just want to know that we're um and I also understand that I'm thinking that total cost is much more than what the city can afford alone, but just knowing that we're on track.

Uh I understand you know, a lot of our our overall plans, like our bike plan, you know, in the same way we haven't done an assessment for how much that's gonna cost or projected that out.

Um, but it it would be helpful just to have a better sense of where it puts us, just with how how critical that this work is.

Council President, Councilmember Joes, thank you.

Um I and we actually have started to do that.

So these are the 25 priority actions here organized by category that they are in the plan.

And for each of these 25, we do have an estimated um funding, we have an estimated cost and potential um uh funding sources.

Some is city budget, some is partners, some is you know um uh grant potential grant sources that are also out there.

So a good first step towards that could be we could just add this up.

Like here's how much we estimate the the 25 priority actions would cost to implement.

Here's the you know, kind of our our expected range of um funding, you know, cost across funding sources for that too, just to kind of give us a ballpark.

Because I appreciate what you're saying.

Like the scale is so enormous.

How do we organize our thinking about it?

Yeah, that's super helpful, just even that information.

Yeah.

Ms.

Yang.

Thanks, Council President.

Um thank you for the presentation.

I'm wondering CARP 2.0, is that something that's available online already?

Yes.

So uh council president, council member, yes, you have uh draft of hot off the presses.

Okay.

Um we have um on our Engage St.

Paul site, we posted the draft back in November.

We had some community groups who have been really involved in the process and wanted to see the draft.

So we posted largely the version that you have in front of you.

Um we have been incorporating some feedback as we go.

So you have what you have is more updated than what's online right now.

Um uh uh the mayor's office also just completed a review and had some um thankfully not too drastic feedback.

Um so that has been incorporated into the version that you see as well.

Um, and we'll replace the version that's online with this version now.

But yes, it's out there, and um we have heard from people we're kind of wanting to have conversations about it as it goes along.

So we've heard from community groups.

Should we wait to comment until there's a public hearing so that it can be documented in the record?

And yes, I I understand that, and we're here and wanting to have conversations with you now.

So if you have we've been telling our community groups and our advisory board and other um you know, individuals who are interested.

If you're seeing things that like big gaps, if you're seeing things that you think aren't um what we talked about reflected, please let us know.

And largely what we've heard from people is compliments and um a uh uh request to give them a date by which you all would need to hear their feedback.

Um but to your point from earlier, we're really we're we're trying to make sure that the draft that comes forward is not a surprise to anyone, incorporates big picture feedback from uh from you know across the city as well as our community partners.

Very good, thank you.

I have a few more questions.

Thank you, Council President.

Well, thank you so much for sending um or having the draft online.

I look forward to going and reading through it and looking at the 25 priority actions here.

It is very aligned with what I've been hearing community members share about what they want for the future of climate and resiliency in our city, also very aligned with where I would want us to go to.

And so I want to thank you, the the staff and the CJAB, also community members who've been very engaged in this process because it is a huge heavy lifting to be able to even produce, you know, turn everything into a plan.

And so I just really commend you all.

I'm wondering, um, well, just like in terms of the priority actions, I see a few things here that are um I would say very related to some of the bigger issues that have come up in my ward, like with Northern Iron and the pollution, the health impacts that have occurred on to generations of families in the east side here that also have gone, I would say acknowledged, not you know, not acknowledged until as uh recently.

And so I'm wondering like, is there like anywhere in here other than like air quality sensors?

Um are there ways in which you like you know, an issue like Northern Iron would would be covered as part of the the priority actions.

And then the other question I have is I'm wondering whether the the plan to expand uh EV car share charging stations to the Greater East Side is still on track to happen too.

Uh Council President, Councilmember Yang, uh yes, the um air quality sensor item is uh um I would say inclusive of the Northern Iron.

Um, and there were uh there's a couple across the city that we talked a lot about um both the health implications as well as again the city control versus influence piece of it, and then um the overall regulatory structure.

We uh I I don't think we actually had someone from the MPCA come and talk, but we talked about it at length at our advisory committees too.

Um that was a piece of it.

The other piece of it really was around um the rethinking I-94 project, which led our internal groups and the city to think kind of you know, more broadly across the city, like where are our highway corridors and and what are the concerns here and um what's the science, what you know, what's the emerging science on it.

Um, and the third piece that I would say really came up in the air quality talks was the wildfires.

The um that summer it was the Canadian wildfires um that really impacted us here.

Um, and as you all know, our ability to directly influence any of those three things as the city is limited.

Um, so the idea being that we would partner, we would put air quality sensors where we can, we would gather data, we'd gather information, and then use that to influence um the decision makers who can directly influence it.

Thank you.

And you had a second question about EV car share.

Oh, EV car share.

Uh, yeah, we are super excited about expanding EV car share.

Um there's was a recent win where we got some of the funding that the federal government was attempting to claw back was reallocated to us.

So high high five all around.

Um it it is central.

The EV car share program, I would say is central to our um efforts and and goals of reducing vehicle miles traveled across the city.

Um the other thing that I would say about it is it was created um under a different set of circumstances than we have right now.

Some of the insurance, some of the maintenance, some of the cost pressures that we're trying to figure out how to address in an ongoing program didn't exist in this same way when it was created.

So, how are we going to adapt?

You know, you uh we came to you all for uh one-time funding to help fill a gap that our car had.

So, thank you for that.

Um, and this is conversations that we're having going forward.

How do we structure this program to be um sustainable for the long term and also serve people who um who might not have access to other car share um opportunities and expand it on the east side as well?

Yeah.

Okay, oh can you just confirm for me like the the efforts to try and expand to the greater east side that's still happening, is that right?

Yeah, the whole thing was reinstated.

Yes, the whole project, the whole project was um the the clawback was unsuccessful.

Okay, thank you.

And then uh just uh the last question that I have is I'm wondering if there it has been conversations around partnership with the county because some of the items here, especially around waste and the furniture reuse center, like those are things that the county can lead on, and and we can have a stronger partnership with them on.

And so can you speak a bit to that too?

Uh, Council President, Councilmember Yang, absolutely.

Uh, we had representatives from Ramsey County on our CARP Update Advisory Committee.

We have um monthly, if not more frequent check-ins with our um partners over there at Ramsey County, they've gone through a little bit of a restructuring of their climate and resiliency office as well.

Um, so uh yes, they were really involved in in the process of it.

We have ongoing active partnerships with them, both in waste management and recycling, as well as um uh workforce.

Uh we that's that's a uh action item that's in here as well, and um and is uh addressed in the content to talking about how this collaborative committee, the um green jobs committee really formed evolved out of an ad hoc relationship that city representatives had with county representatives as well, knowing that they have the programs and the funding, and we have the need to make sure that whatever our climate goals are, we need to have trained solar installers.

We need to have um electricians who can come in and electrify everything that we want to electrify.

Um, and so being sure to work with them through through our um full stack collaborative um with the city.

There's all kinds of things going on at at PED.

Exactly.

This is one of these things that could be another hour-long conversation.

So, yes and yes.

Thank you.

Um, Ms.

Just and the Ms.

Billy.

Yeah, I just thank you so much for your presentation.

I was just wondering if you could share kind of the timeline of um, you know, I look forward to reading this, but when you you when you would like feedback from us and what we're looking, what we're looking like for the schedule for adoption, like what is that schedule and timeline?

Council President, Councilmember Joseph, thank you for that.

I will say we have extended the timeline um a couple times.

We had originally intended to bring it to you for adoption last fall, um, and then decided to do another round of going back to city departments because we heard a lot of things from them initially.

We felt like we incorporated that feedback, but we wanted to do another round of going back to make sure that that what we have in here was accurate.

So we delayed to do that.

Um then the mayoral election happened, and we decided to delay a little further again to make sure that um incoming mayor her had a chance to weigh in and um feel ownership you know over the plan as well.

So we delayed that.

Assistant Mayor Nick Stumo Langer has been, I have briefed him, and he's provided his feedback on the plan as well, which has been incorporated.

So I feel like we we met that.

So I guess I would send it back to you all and say, you know, how like a month should we plan to reconvene in a month?

Should we plan to do it a little longer than that?

And the other caveat that I would add to that is the reason that we feel okay about continuing to delay the plan adoption is because number one, a lot of the things that are in here are already happening.

We're working on a lot of these action items.

So it isn't a case of where we're waiting for the plan to be adopted before we can do anything.

Number two, really creating this updated plan has been to me a part of the climate action process for the city in and of itself.

At each of our conversations that we had with folks, people said, thank you so much for just being here and having this kind of I it's I think about this all the time, and it's so hard to connect with my neighbors about it.

Um so thank you.

So we've kind of used it as an excuse, you know, or a tool to get that feedback as well.

Um, and then thirdly, just to make sure that it represents what your goals and your visions are as well.

I think all of those reasons are worth make taking the time to make sure that that we get it right.

Um, so it so it sounds like it's it's very close to being ready to go, basically.

Um, I guess I'm maybe we can talk about it.

I I'm just gonna throw out end of March out there at the latest.

But um I don't know.

I I do think we should adopt it, you know, soon.

Um, and ideally for us, you know, the summer and the budget starts to get busy, so I'm just gonna that's that those are my thoughts.

Council President, Councilmember, thank you.

That wouldn't align really well.

So the pieces, the only pieces that we're still waiting on, we have been for some of the targets, the actual how we're gonna measure our progress.

We have um been going back and forth with Excel Energy, wanting them to provide the data in a format that's usable to us.

Um, and I feel like we're getting close now to to getting that and being able to update um those targets, and then once we have that, we'll be able to do the mapping and the charts and kind of the visual pieces of it.

But we didn't really want to start down that process until we know that there was like general uh you know agreement and support about the overall structure of it.

Um so if we kind of have a target of the end of March, that would give us plenty of time to get those things done and to get an actual polished final version of it ready to bring back.

Sounds good.

I like I like end of March, and it sounds like um you'll you can take our feedback today, and then we would be ready to see it whenever you're ready to bring it.

And I agree with Ms.

Joe's sense of sense of urgency about it.

Ms.

Bowie, I'm gonna jump in quickly after that, and then Ms.

Yang.

Okay, thank you, Council President.

Thank you so much.

I um really appreciate this work.

Um, I agree that we can have series of um of follow-up, particularly around each item here.

Um, but as someone who represents ward one and also has a metal refinery in my ward that um been having so many environmental hazards and and impacting the health conditions, uh, particularly this uh refinery is right next door to our Brocktown farm, which is like the largest public farm and actually in the country.

And when I think about just all of the advocacy that's been going on over the years, bringing attention to it, you know, I I definitely hear you in terms of like what we could have control or influence over.

Um, but you know, with my role and my position, it's really important that we at least take some type of position around we do not stand or tolerate um um this level of pollution, and there are some some relationships that we can make at the state level to actually hold some of these companies accountable.

I really want to lean into that.

Um I have a question, particularly, and I you know, I I don't see it on here, and I'm not to put you on the spot, but particularly around the community resilience resilience um um segment of the plan.

Um I and I know we are leading with equity, but it's also concerning to me, and I'm just saying this in terms of someone who you know fights on the intersection of climate justice and environmental justice and racial justice, um, that we don't have in here like um uh assessment of you know race of income and also health impacts, uh, particularly, you know, coming from Rondo, we understand in my neighborhood that it is like talking about transportation is also talking about racial justice and how I-94 was a freeway that was built and uprooted that African American um neighborhood and corridor.

Um and then we have it in Frogtown, a refinery that's in a predominantly community of color, you know, um that's polluting that neighborhood and all the health impacts that we have seen, whether it's across race, our incomes is very important to highlight.

Um so I'm just curious to know as you are creating this community resilience plan, you know, where is the um I guess the investment in terms of also advocating around like racial justice is really important.

I know we have a reparations commission.

I think this is something like I think this would be great for them to also review um this plan because they can maybe bring some partners.

Um, but if there's already partners that you're working with, I don't know if um the relationship with reconnect rondo, but I know if they've done uh um extensive amount of research um on this topic, but I'm just curious, particularly, you know, just the piggyback off of um council member Yang's question, you know, aside from like the air quality sensors, where are we really getting a clear picture from the city around you know, where this is having some racial um um targeting, you know, and harms, particularly in our communities of color.

Uh council president, council member Bowie abs do you have the actual plan or just my okay.

I have this plan the actual plan, not just the slides.

Oh no, I don't have the or actually okay.

So uh you so in the introductory part before you get to the um c the targets and actions there, um starting on page 18, there is a section about climate vulnerabilities.

Um, and this is where we do that analysis, largely relying on the counties uh vulnerability assessment that they just recently completed.

Um and these are the are the maps and the features that we haven't we want to make them prettier to be honest with you before we put them in there.

Um, but this is where we this is where we talk about all of those.

So you can see urban heat and the heat island effect.

We list out the specific neighborhoods where this is a primary concern.

Um we talk about vulnerable populations and why they are exceptionally vulnerable to that particular hazard.

Um, and then in addition to people, we have sections where we talk about the natural system uh potential implications or or vulnerabilities from that hazard and the infrastructure um uh vulnerabilities from that hazard.

So you can see we go through um we talk about the environmental justice communities too.

Uh, but this is the part, and again, this could be another whole hour too going through the the assessment of the hazards and the vulnerabilities.

The way that I talk about it when like in our community meetings is I say, you know, we we know what the hazards are.

It's warmer summers, it's warmer winters, it's more extreme heat, and then more weather extremes.

Um, and then we give examples of all of that, and then we say if you are already vulnerable, you know, you have asthma, you are more vulnerable to this particular um hazard that is a result of climate change, and here are the reasons why.

Um, and a lot of it it it's all connected with socioeconomic and racial and the historic um injustices in our neighborhoods, you're absolutely right.

So we have a whole section where we talk about that and address it.

Then you will see um these are the five, these are the 25 priority action items, but there are lots of other actions, bless you, throughout the plan as well.

If there are some that you feel should be lifted out of their particular section and added um to these to the five-year actions, we would love to have more conversation with you about that's exactly the kind of feedback we're hoping to get.

Um and I would be happy to meet with anyone uh between now and March, whatever the best process is for to do that.

We're we're here and excited and willing.

I just have one little follow-up too.

Thank you so much for um I did not see this, so um, thank you so much.

I I'll take some time to review this and and to add to it.

Um, but I just wanted to expand, particularly around you know, the importance of having you know uh a framework or a lens around like public health.

You know, I know the conversations that's happening in my community now is around like life expectancy expectancy um rates to where if you depending on what zip code you you know are born in, like your life expectancy can be shortened or expand.

Um and we understand the you know these hazards have a huge role to play on that.

Um, and also I I would be curious to know just like what are the partners that you are working with, particularly around the public health, because there's there's you know an understanding of like what the hazards are, but then there's you know, what is repair looks like, what does like solutions look like, what does resiliency I think you know, I understand with the city, you know, we're we normalize resiliency conversations and resiliency plans, and that's really essential.

you know are born in like your life expectancy can be shortened or expand um and we understand the you know these hazards have a a huge role to play on that um and also I I would be curious to know just like what are the partners that you are working with particularly around the public health because there's there's you know an understanding of like what the hazards are but then there's you know what is repair looks like what does like solutions look like what does um um resiliency um and I think you know I understand with the city no we're we normalize resiliency conversations or resiliency plans and that's really essential um but you know I don't want to have a community like being prepared or normalizing these hazards I want no I advocate for a community particularly around how do we you know get polluters out of our communities right how do we have a a zero tolerance around you know um organizations or companies that are literally poisoning our communities and like having stronger regulations around enforcing that so um and I understand that's part of the work as well but I think the reframing is really important um just because you know there's education that's really valuable and aware but you know like what do we do with that education is really important as well um and but yeah I look forward to having more conversations with you all I know like Frog Town Neighborhood Association you know has been um champions in this work and also reconnect Rondo and some of the work that they're doing with the rethinking on 94 is really important particularly around what does repair to justice looks like um for a neighborhood that has been you know impacted by environmental justices so thank you.

Thanks Ms Willie um so go ahead Ms.

Boyer I don't I don't see the time we are very close.

We're very close to so council president councilman Ruby I will just super briefly I will say reconnect Rondo was a part of our advisory committee um Frogtown Farms were actually we have a joint funded project with them I presented with them to the at a University of St.

Thomas project this year where we're working on getting St.

Thomas students there to help them yeah well that's a whole nother hour but what I would say is Ramsey County's uh climate office is actually in their public health division um and so the conversations that we have with our Ramsey County partners are all very much framed under the the the public health and increasingly if you look like you know climate work in general as kind of a uh sector it is coming more under public health now just for the reasons that you mentioned so just absolutely look forward to talking more thanks so much for that for that answer and those questions Miss Bowie I had a similar question which I'll articulate in a moment I first just want to say I really do appreciate this and I also want to shout out to uh our former chief resilience officer Russ Stark who I see is in the dedication here but I think his his fingerprints are all over this I feel like his spirit is in the room right now maybe he's one of our millions of viewers even watching right now but really it is I appreciate the call out to his leadership for getting us to this point.

Two quick comments and and I also want to echo my colleagues thanks this is such an important this this comes up probably besides potholes the number two thing that we hear about in the city council is is climate resiliency.

So um really appreciate the work and I know this matters deeply to a lot of our our residents.

The two comments one to uh to council member bowie's point I had the same question specifically related to a part of my ward um the Southport neighborhood which um is is you know it's on the west side but it's also a particularly impacted area of the west side and I see that on page 23 I see the darker colors kind of combining the high impact because of the vulnerability of the population to the the pollution the other factors.

I think what I'm not seeing in this plan and this is something I've struggled with and trying to work with my Southport constituents is we call out the neighborhoods that are most vulnerable and impacted and we talk about prioritizing them.

But then when we have our 25 priority actions I'm not sure I see how we are going to prioritize those neighborhoods with these actions.

So I felt like I've sort of been you know beating my head against the wall a little bit saying hey this is Southport is a neighborhood that is particularly this is one of those vulnerable neighborhoods we're talking about and getting you know city staff's attention on this in a heightened way um has taken a lot of explanation whereas if Southport and other neighborhoods and again I think maybe more fine grained than Hamlin Midway downtown West Side I mean I think the very specific the more specific we can be the better if those were listed somewhere and there was a corollary tie to and therefore if you're on this list you're going to get XYNZ action from the priority list then those of us who are trying to advocate for those communities wouldn't feel quite as much like we were sort of raising an alarm that hadn't already been raised if that makes sense.

So I would love to see that direct tie-in um in the plan and again the more fine grained we can be the better and the second comment is I love the tree canopy uh increasing the tree canopy coverage I think there's a huge miss here that it doesn't talk about the tree preservation ordinance that we're working on um it's a huge opportunity I would love to see the plan either at least talk about it take a position on it I hope it's favorable but either way um just not to sort of let that not be said in the tree canopy coverage because that's gonna be a huge initiative happening this year.

I think it's in the intro but not thank you council president thank you I just dove right to the 51 it's great.

It's great.

Um I'm sure you have a lot.

We can talk more about that, but in the interest of time, I'm just gonna let those comments stand and go to my colleagues.

So Ms.

Yang and then Ms.

Joast.

Thanks, Council President.

I just want to go back to the slide about the the city's climate fund.

Can you clarify to us?

I guess for some context, like I remember this being brought up by Needle St.

Paul members, uh, many of who live in the east side um when we had conversations around whether we were going to add on more months for the to the franchise fees and then the budget season last year too.

So um the the um like my recollection of um where the advocacy happened for this from for like the one percent was from them, and I I am very pleased to see this on the slide here and grateful that you highlighted that.

I'm just wondering, can you clarify to us?

Are we um should we interpret this as a way where for this initiative we're seeing it as a saying it as if we are starting from scratch where we're not putting any dollars from franchise fees into you know climate fund climate work yet, or or should we consider that we actually do have a portfolio of investments in climate, like power of um healthy homes, power of homes, and even like positions um related to climate too.

Council President, Councilmember, we are not thinking that this would be starting from scratch.

Absolutely.

We are thinking that this would include um just that the one percent would be kind of an overall guide.

Um, you know, budget conversations up till now have been yeah, climate is important, we should put money towards it, we should put money towards it.

And this um we are putting this out there just as a suggestion for kind of an overall guide.

Let's aim to have this much of our budget dedicated towards it.

And again, it opens up a can of worms of definitions because all those programs that you mentioned and more do contribute to the one percent.

Okay.

Um well, for for me personally, it would be helpful to know like where are we at in terms of this the one percent here?

How far are we in in reaching that?

Um, I'm not sure if it would be something that comes from you or and your team or if it's OFS, but that'd be really helpful going into the budget season for this year.

Thanks, Ms.

Yang.

Um, Ms.

Joost, and I think we'll let you, Ms.

Boyer, give any closing remarks.

Um yeah, thanks, Councilman, for your for your comments too.

I guess like my expectation would be that the 2027 budget would have at least 8.8 million dollars directed towards these initiatives.

That would be my expectation, and I look forward to working with with the mayor um on that.

Uh uh I wanted to just comment on some of Council Mr.

Bui and Council Mary Yang's questions about you know the the foundries and the pollution in their wards, and then I guess similar to your comment as well, some of these areas with more concentrated uh lower air quality.

Um I think being able to tie together what we can actually do, what the actions are is important because it's my understanding that a lot of those things are regulated by the MPCA, and you know, not what can we actually do?

So uh whatever that might be would be important, or or whether it is mostly just partnerships with um with you know other groups and in our state, our state delegation and other people that can have influence that that would be would be helpful.

But that's kind of my understanding of how some of that works.

And then I also um I was also just gonna just gonna uplift what you said about Ramsey County and all the information that they have that Councilmember Bowie was asking about.

There's there's one map.

Maybe there's more maps in there, but I mean there, I feel like there are dozens of maps.

They have so much information and data, um, and and through their you know, climate action and their public health group, and so as much as we can partner with them, I'm sure we already do, uh, because that's that's a big part of of what they do and information that they already have.

So if we can even you know collaborate that with them and pull it and like you know, blow up St.

Paul and look at it at even more detail, which I'm sure is we already do, but that that's I think what um what would be what would be really helpful too.

And get curbside composting.

Sorry, I digress.

I digress.

Two years.

Yes, two years.

Yeah, it's like re beer tomorrow.

It's always two years.

Okay.

Sorry.

Uh Ms.

Boyer, would you like to close?

The council president, council members, thank you so much for your attention and support.

And I am here.

Um all of us are here.

We're happy to continue the conversation, answer any questions, take any additional feedback or specifics.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We look forward to seeing this uh on or before end of March.

It sounds like we have direction from Ms.

Joost.

Um, and we really appreciate it.

Thanks so much, everyone.

We are adjourned.

Let's see if you have like two seconds.