Budget Committee October 03, 2023   10/3/2023

Discussion

• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:24
    Good morning.
  • 00:00:25
    My name is Emily Koski and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:28
    I'm going to call to order a regular committee meeting for Tuesday, October 3rd.
  • 00:00:31
    At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:00:35
    Councilmember Payne is absent.
  • 00:00:37
    Wonsley?
  • 00:00:38
    Present.
  • 00:00:39
    Rainville?
  • 00:00:40
    Present.
  • 00:00:40
    Vita?
  • 00:00:41
    Present.
  • 00:00:42
    Ellison is absent.
  • 00:00:44
    Osman is absent.
  • 00:00:45
    Goodman is absent.
  • 00:00:47
    Jenkins is absent.
  • 00:00:48
    Chavez?
  • 00:00:49
    Present.
  • 00:00:50
    Chuktai is absent.
  • 00:00:51
    Johnson?
  • 00:00:52
    Present.
  • 00:00:53
    Vice Chair Palmisano?
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:54
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:00:55
    Chair Koski?
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:55
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:00:56
    There are seven members present.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:57
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
  • 00:01:00
    Today we will continue hearing presentations from city departments on the mayor's 2024 recommended budget.
  • 00:01:05
    On the agenda is community planning, economic development, regulatory services, and our arts and cultural affairs departments.
  • 00:01:11
    We will begin with a presentation from the community planning and economic development department.
  • 00:01:16
    Here to present is interim director Eric Hansen.
  • 00:01:19
    Welcome.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:01:19
    Thank you.
  • 00:01:20
    Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee.
  • 00:01:22
    My name is Eric Hansen.
  • 00:01:24
    I'm the Interim Director of Community Planning and Economic Development Department, or CPED.
  • 00:01:28
    I'm pleased to present the second year recommendations for Mayor Frey's first biannual 2023-24 budget for CPED.
  • 00:01:38
    Here with me today are the Division Directors who, along with many team managers, helped prepare today's presentation.
  • 00:01:46
    Those Directors are Alfred Port, who is the Director of Housing Policy and Development, Steve Poore, who is the Director of Development Services, Karuna Mahajanand, the Director of Operations and Innovation, and Meg McMahon, the Planning Director.
  • 00:02:01
    CPED is a diverse and complex department of 234 highly trained professionals collaborating from five divisions, which at our core, we are here to assist people in the city.
  • 00:02:14
    Our mission is to grow a vibrant, livable, equitable, sustainable and safely built city for everyone.
  • 00:02:21
    We accomplish this mission through support of the City Council's Strategic Racial Equity Action Plan, or SREAP goals, the mayor's Inclusive Economic Recovery Work Group recommendations, the Minneapolis 2040 strategies, all together to build a thriving Minneapolis and reduce barriers in community that eliminate racial disparities.
  • 00:02:42
    Our priorities lead to the creation of safe, accessible housing, better jobs, increased participation in the economy, support for generational wealth,
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    and a mindfully and well-built and safely built city.
  • 00:03:01
    The past few years have been especially challenging for the department as we responded to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and grapple with the structural issues that led to the murder of George Floyd and the effects of the unrest in its aftermath.
  • 00:03:16
    The dedicated people of CPED have met the moment of time and have been incredibly creative and productive in meeting the needs of the community in real time through relaxed regulations, program modifications to keep people in housing and businesses open, and hundreds of housing units produced, thousands of technical assistance hours given, millions of dollars in investment, which have led to billions of dollars in development.
  • 00:03:43
    While I am proud of the extraordinary production of my colleagues in CPED, we have challenges.
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    At the center of this risk is the lawsuit to our bedrock and groundbreaking Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
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    We also risk sustaining the resources necessary to meet the needs of community, with many time-bound funding sources coming to an end shortly.
  • 00:04:08
    We need to pivot
  • 00:04:11
    to the way we also need to pivot to the way community lives, works, and plays post-pandemic.
  • 00:04:17
    And finally, we need to keep the team intact.
  • 00:04:21
    The last point might be the largest risk to CPED as our success depends on the hardworking staff and is the reason we have been so successful at such high levels of production over these challenging few years.
  • 00:04:40
    Mayor Frey has recommended a $117.7 million budget for CPED in 2024.
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    The budget includes $21 million in change items, which I'll get to.
  • 00:04:52
    And note that most of these are one-time, as usual, allocations to CPED.
  • 00:04:57
    The different color codes on the bars represent the budget for each division within CPED over the past few years.
  • 00:05:03
    In 2023, we'll highlight a surge as the department's budget had a lot of one-time, time-limited funding, which pushed our budget over $250 million.
  • 00:05:13
    This budget includes rollover of one-time American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds and annual capital rollovers from previous years' allocations.
  • 00:05:25
    In 2024, the recommended budget included including adding 10 additional FTEs by reinstating six positions that were frozen in 2020 due to the budget reductions from COVID and a request for three brand new positions.
  • 00:05:41
    Of the reinstated positions, the City Council has already approved five of these positions last year, and we're proposing to add another one in this budget.
  • 00:05:50
    These positions support
  • 00:05:54
    Housing programs, small businesses, and operations.
  • 00:06:01
    The new positions support cannabis legalization, downtown, and cultural district vitality.
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    I will go over more detail of the FTEs in a moment.
  • 00:06:13
    The employee count in CPED includes grant-funded positions, which end in 2023.
  • 00:06:21
    and will be added back and so you'll see that as a net impact to the overall.
  • 00:06:27
    At this present time, we have about two dozen vacancies.
  • 00:06:30
    Each of those vacancies are in a different stage of the hiring process and we hope to fill them as soon as possible.
  • 00:06:38
    The surge of funding is mainly related to the American Rescue Plan.
  • 00:06:41
    You see here, next couple slides, we'll talk about those impacts.
  • 00:06:46
    This is one-time funding.
  • 00:06:48
    We've received just about $52 million over the last few years in two phases and 32 projects.
  • 00:06:54
    $32 million of that went to housing and about $18 million to economic recovery and about $2 million in climate, public health, and city capacity and performance.
  • 00:07:05
    We're on track to commit and spend these by the deadline set by the program at the end of 2024.
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    The housing and homelessness ARPA allocations, as you see on the screen, have 15 projects, and we also have allocated $1.8 million for staffing.
  • 00:07:29
    Outcomes from this investment include promoting housing stability for low-income renters and homeowners, supporting persons experiencing homelessness, reducing racial disparities in homeownership, creating new affordable housing rentals, and funding missing middle and permanently affordable public housing projects.
  • 00:07:50
    On the economic recovery side, we put about $18 million into investments in an additive $750,000
  • 00:07:59
    in supporting the Sabathne Community Center.
  • 00:08:01
    And again, we're on track to spend all of these funds by the deadline.
  • 00:08:05
    The outcomes from these strategies include business fee reductions, workforce development supports, accelerating and supporting of small businesses, support for the Native American community through the Clyde Bellicourt Urban Initiative Legacy.
  • 00:08:24
    and these funds have supported all licensed businesses in the city, thousands of businesses through both business and developer technical assistance programs and low-income households through the guaranteed basic income pilot.
  • 00:08:41
    ARPA work is supporting important communities and people.
  • 00:08:43
    We developed each ARPA strategy through a racial equity lens and although ARPA is an important funding source in CPED's collective recovery work,
  • 00:08:54
    Altogether, ARPA is an important funding source for CPEDS collective recovery work as we align these investments with our overall goals to reduce racial disparities in Minneapolis.
  • 00:09:08
    Next, I'll provide some more context on the budget activities and go over each within the program areas in CPED, highlighting some key metrics and performance results, as well as some change items.
  • 00:09:20
    Note, this is not a comprehensive report of CPED's work.
  • 00:09:24
    That would take quite much longer, and we are happy to give you reports on anything that we do in the department upon request.
  • 00:09:34
    They start in the Development Services Division.
  • 00:09:36
    This is led
  • 00:09:37
    by Steve Orr and is the largest division in CPED.
  • 00:09:40
    We have 83 employees, includes construction code services and our development review teams.
  • 00:09:46
    The division has a budget of $11.9 million, which shows a moderate increase to reflect the cost of living from 2023.
  • 00:09:54
    The division is responsible to ensuring quality built environment throughout the city through the implementation of the 2040 plan,
  • 00:10:02
    and related policies all permitting and inspections for development projects to ensure compliance with the current building code.
  • 00:10:10
    Our construction code services team coordinates with property owners and contractors to ensure the comprehensive application of the Minnesota State Building Code and the applicable city ordinances.
  • 00:10:22
    CCS as it's known consists of three business lines, construction plan review, construction inspections and programs.
  • 00:10:30
    Construction Inspections performs all the required inspections for building mechanical plumbing work covered by issued permits in response to complaints regarding construction projects.
  • 00:10:41
    Programs include code compliance, truth in sale and housing, certificate of occupancy, and fire escrows.
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    The development review team collaborates with the 311 Public Service Department to serve as the front door for the city's consolidated development activities.
  • 00:10:57
    with a customer service first mission, this program ensures high quality development while requiring that building construction and rehabilitation projects meet the city's standard in terms of safety, livability, health, and environmental sensitivity.
  • 00:11:13
    As far as outcomes for development services, this chart shows permits issued since 2017
  • 00:11:19
    We get about 30,000 or more permits each year that we have to process through the Development Services Department.
  • 00:11:28
    We are on track to meet or exceed what we had in 21 and 22.
  • 00:11:33
    The chart on the right shows total construction value.
  • 00:11:38
    This is a very important chart that we use in the department because it shows how the value of the construction permits and how much development is occurring in the city.
  • 00:11:48
    You'll notice
  • 00:11:49
    that we get over a billion dollars a year in development in the city of Minneapolis.
  • 00:11:54
    And we're on track and we've done that for 12 years and we're on track for hitting it.
  • 00:11:59
    This is the 13th year.
  • 00:12:04
    Translates into a lot of work for the Development Services Group.
  • 00:12:08
    Economic Policy and Development is the next division we will talk about.
  • 00:12:12
    I have the honor to oversee this team.
  • 00:12:15
    And they have five subdivisions, the Small Business Team, Business Development, Licensing and Consumer Services, Employment and Training, and the Promise Zone.
  • 00:12:24
    The division fosters a healthy, sustainable, and diverse Minneapolis economy, meeting the needs of the BIPOC
  • 00:12:31
    The mayor is recommending a budget of $35.8 million, and that includes the change items I will go over next.
  • 00:12:50
    Some of the outcome data from the Economic Policy Division include support for job seekers, small businesses, commercial real estate,
  • 00:12:58
    developers, and business district support.
  • 00:13:01
    The small business team, the city's front door for the business community and business development, assisted hundreds of businesses and dozens of community-based organizations.
  • 00:13:10
    Last year, the small business team helped around 580 businesses and entrepreneurs connect with resources, navigate the city's processes, or receive one-on-one technical assistance.
  • 00:13:22
    Business Development awarded or closed 25 Commercial Property Development Fund, CPDF, or now called the Ownership and Opportunity Fund loans.
  • 00:13:33
    These loans totaled $12.7 billion in a direct city investment, and the Ownership and Opportunity Fund has a committed balance of $7.9 million with a pipeline of more than 40 development projects.
  • 00:13:48
    We've also awarded about $670,000 into 23 contracts for the Great Streets program to support either facade grants to small businesses or business district support.
  • 00:14:00
    Each of these programs support our SREAP goal of growing and sustaining BIPOC-owned businesses.
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    The program's rate of service for BIPOC-owned businesses exceeds 80% with these investments.
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    The Employment and Training Team helps prepare people for living wage careers.
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    Our network of community-based agencies work with a high-barrier employment seeker with career counseling, job readiness training, and job search assistance.
  • 00:14:30
    Through the adult and youth workforce development programs, we trained 830 adults in 2022 and helped place 459 people into employment.
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    almost 13,000 or 1300 students went through the step-up program this last summer.
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    In a typical summer we see three-fourths of step-up participants are youth of color and that number was exceeded in this past summer at 86%.
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    Going to the change items in this division.
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    We'll start with the Rise Up Center.
  • 00:15:06
    The Rise Up Center is a
  • 00:15:09
    proposed for one time $250,000 in funding.
  • 00:15:12
    This center is a proposed hub for BIPOC workforce development in the green building and clean energy phase fields.
  • 00:15:21
    The Center is a project of Tending the Soil, a coalition of people of color-led organizations working together to organize working-class communities of color and provide workforce development to increase BIPOC workers in union apprenticeship programs.
  • 00:15:36
    The Center would focus on apprenticeship programs in carpentry, community safety, high-rise window cleaning, and other opportunities.
  • 00:15:43
    The City funding will support pre-development expenses projected to be $1.9 million of their full $30 million development budget.
  • 00:15:52
    This is the second year of proposed funding for this Southside facility, which received $250,000 from the City Council in the 2023 budget.
  • 00:16:06
    The next is the Community Outreach and Safety Program.
  • 00:16:09
    This is the second extension of an ARPA pilot.
  • 00:16:13
    The Community Outreach and Safety Program provides competitive grants to community-based organizations to increase on-street safety patrols and general safety training.
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    Awardees use the funds to support wages and program costs for people engaged in crisis intervention, training, on-street resource ambassadors, de-escalation programs for active intervention and general community engagement, and security guard certification courses.
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    The City uses the Promise Zone to partner with community-based organizations to design, develop, and run these programs.
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    This proposal is a combination of funding that requests $500,000 as ongoing for the program and an additional $600,000 at one time for the next year.
  • 00:17:14
    The next change item is ownership and opportunity funds.
  • 00:17:17
    As I mentioned earlier, we've been deploying these funds at a great pace, and we have a very robust pipeline so that $3 million into that pipeline support somewhere between five and 10 additional projects for developers and small business owners to own commercial real estate through the city, especially in economically challenged parts of the city.
  • 00:17:43
    The next item in Economic Policy Development is the Black Business Week.
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    We had a very successful Black Business Week this past summer and we hope to continue it.
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    The Black Business Week currently has an annual funding of $30,000.
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    This would add an additional $70,000 so the budget would be $100,000.
  • 00:18:01
    And it will support and expand the Black Business Week programming and increase awareness and participation not only in this program but the businesses that we are supporting.
  • 00:18:12
    This commitment to expand this program and this week supports our economic inclusion strategies and our SREAP goals by supporting black-owned businesses and black entrepreneurs throughout the city of Minneapolis.
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    Another new item that is in front of you is some one-time funding for property management at the People's Way in George Floyd Square.
  • 00:18:43
    The City is pursuing the development of a positive site that will provide a space for racial healing and justice and preserve an opportunity for future healing at 3744 Chicago Avenue.
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    The City purchased this site this past summer
  • 00:18:59
    and the proposed one-time funding from this change item is needed to support property maintenance and management of this site, also known as the People's Way, as we start community engagement around the long-term development project.
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    The next is a partnership with the Health Department.
  • 00:19:25
    In August of 2021, the Minnesota Attorney General's Office joined a $26 billion settlement agreement with pharmaceutical distributors and opioid manufacturers.
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    In this settlement, states, counties, cities will receive dollars to fund strategies intended to aid the fight against the opioid epidemic.
  • 00:19:47
    In this $1.5 million request, we'll support capital investments in long-term treatment facilities
  • 00:19:55
    specifically $500,000 for the capital improvement needs and expansion of Turning Point, a north side based treatment center.
  • 00:20:05
    This investment will also further improve access to substance use treatment centers throughout the city with a $1 million being targeted to other culturally responsive facilities for capital projects and capital investments in Minneapolis.
  • 00:20:20
    The focus will be on preventative efforts that will address the racial and ethnic disparities that are currently present in the opioid epidemic.
  • 00:20:36
    Next, I'm moving on to our Housing Policy and Development Division, who is led by Alfred Port.
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    Housing Policy and Development Division advances racial equity in housing through the expansion of housing choice and opportunity throughout Minneapolis for those who need
  • 00:20:50
    whose needs are not otherwise met by the private market by investment, programming, partnership, and policy.
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    The department's way home 2020-2022 progress report details seven point housing strategy and highlights key progress made during this period.
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    Highlights in the presentation are example of some of these strategies.
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    As you can see, the housing policy development
  • 00:21:17
    Division has two areas of focus, affordable rental housing and affordable homeownership.
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    The graph on the left highlights our affordable rental production.
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    In 2022, we closed an historic high of 919 affordable units.
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    Additionally, during the same time period, we closed nearly six and a half times the average number of deeply affordable units at 30% AMI between 2011 and 2018.
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    The graph on the right highlights the rate of service to our BIPOC households participating in our homeownership program called Many of Us Homes.
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    The program boasts a rate of service of BIPOC households of more than 70%, with in 2022, that number being 78%, with 56% of our participants being black households.
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    Over half the developers and organizations delivering housing services for homeownership
  • 00:22:15
    are BIPOC-led and there have been strategic realignment of home improvement programs to leverage city resources with state resources through a universal application process.
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    This effort is showing promised results.
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    Over half the developers and organizations deliver housing services are BIPOC-led and there have been strategic realignments of home improvement programs to leverage city resources with state resources through that universal application process.
  • 00:22:45
    Before we get into the new proposals, I want to highlight a few that have already been approved by the City Council.
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    The first change item that was approved last year during the biennial budget is $9.9 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
  • 00:22:58
    You approved that for both 2023 and 2024.
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    And in total, that $9.9 added to our ongoing base of $8.1 million provides $18 million for affordable housing production.
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    and the 18 million dollars is sized to ensure that the levels of new production meets Met Council production goals and ensures that we are preserving deeply affordable units.
  • 00:23:26
    This money will support three to five hundred units of affordable housing below 50% EMI and sized to meet and exceed the Met Council production goal.
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    A growing amount of Minneapolis households are cost-burdened, paying more than 30% of this income.
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    Their income towards housing to this investment is critical.
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    The second item you approved last year, which will start in 2024, is $500,000 allocated for eviction representation and in support of the city's recently adopted Right to Counsel ordinance.
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    Staff had recommended $750,000 beginning in 2024 to ensure that renters will receive access to legal representation in housing court.
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    The City has approved $1 million in ARPA funding for this service between 2021 and 2024.
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    The City also received $1.2 million in CDBG COVID funds for this program.
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    And together with the $500,000 required, we will meet that $750,000 need.
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    53% of Minneapolis household renters The next set of items are new proposals
  • 00:25:00
    New proposals set for 2024.
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    This first one in response to unprecedented levels of unsheltered homelessness during the pandemic, the city, in partnership with the county and the state and philanthropic partners, made significant new investments to the homelessness response system.
  • 00:25:18
    As a result, we are currently operating the most comprehensive, safest, and largest shelter system that has ever existed in Hennepin County.
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    Housing affordability disproportionately impacts households with the lowest incomes, particularly extremely low incomes at less than 30% the area median income.
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    And more specifically, those experienced homelessness in Minneapolis are majority BIPOC residents with an estimated eight out of 10 experiencing homelessness and unsheltered homelessness being BIPOC residents.
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    Nearly a third of our encampments we see in Minneapolis occur in our SREAP designated zip codes.
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    The $1 million in this one-time request is intended to support human-centric responses to reducing unsheltered homelessness.
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    The Department will work with our partners in 2024 to deploy the funds to support emerging housing options, treatment and recovery efforts, and pre-development and acquisition support for long-term housing.
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    The next change item is $254,000 in proposed permanent sources for two positions within the housing group.
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    During the 2020 budget, we unfroze, we unfroze one position, or we had two positions frozen in 2020.
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    And we unfroze those using ARPA and a COVID grant from the Community Development Block Grant funds.
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    The ARPA position is focused on priority of making more housing options available both in policy and program design and also assists in economic recovery efforts.
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    The CDBG COVID funded position assisted with COVID recovery response, but we would like to move that position into evaluating
  • 00:27:10
    how to increase housing options, housing stability and review our naturally occurring affordable housing or NOAA work that received funding from the council.
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    This request will convert those expiring grants into a stable source from the General Fund for these two positions.
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    The next item is around our Inclusionary Zoning Program.
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    This position, this is an FTE for leading the exclusionary zoning effort.
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    It is currently funded by ARPA funds and they will expire at the end of this year.
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    This budget request will secure permanent funding for the position in 24 and going forward.
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    And the IZ program works to support low-income cost burden renters by working towards increasing production and preservation of affordable rental housing.
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    Also, there is a one-time $150,000 request in this change item that will assist with the comprehensive review of the Inclusionary Zoning Policy, which under the Unified Housing Policy requires a review every three to five years.
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    The program was first implemented in 2020, so we're about time for a review.
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    We now move into our Planning Division.
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    This is a relatively newly reconstituted division, and it's led by our Planning Director, Meg McMahon.
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    The Planning Division supports residents and property owners who invest in the city that align with the city's comprehensive plan and ensures that the work is centered on equity, especially racial equity, and is responsive to our climate emergency.
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    This division has five sections, Code Development, Community Planning, Land Use, Design and Preservation, Zoning Administration, Policy, Research, and Outreach.
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    The Division manages, reviews, and enforces land use, zoning, preservation, and environmental applications.
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    It also staffs and administers public processes, including public meetings of the City Planning Commission, Heritage Preservation Commission, Zoning Board of Adjustment, and many other local community-based advisory groups.
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    The Division performs administrative reviews and preservation permits received at the 311 Public Service Center and guides ongoing
  • 00:29:29
    regulatory reforms affecting land use and development.
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    The $6.6 million budget for this division includes the budget for the policy research and outreach team, which was recently transferred from operations and innovation.
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    Much like our development services, there's a lot of work that goes through the planning division.
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    and this chart below.
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    These data here show how many applications go through our commissions.
  • 00:30:01
    Last year we had 115 projects with 257 unique applications go to the City Planning Commission.
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    In addition, a zoning text amendment and
  • 00:30:13
    In addition, zoning text amendment and five comprehensive plan amendments were considered.
  • 00:30:17
    In total, the CPC approved over 3,400 new housing units and 260,000 square feet of new commercial.
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    However, we continue to see a steep decline in the number of variance applications, and that was expected with the new 2024 plan, which is more prescriptive by right for development in the city.
  • 00:30:42
    The Board of Adjustment reviewed 96 applications, 99% of which were variance requests.
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    Again, we expect that number of applications to go down from previous years.
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    The BOA approved 90% of the applications that were reviewed.
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    Three decisions of the BOA were appealed to the City Council of those two appeals were granted and one was denied.
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    The City Planning Team also successfully led the adoption of land use and rezoning study, which is the image on the left of the zoning map.
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    The ordinance is in flux due to the district court ruling that the city has appealed.
  • 00:31:20
    But regardless, it was the first major overhaul of the city's zoning code in close to 25 years.
  • 00:31:30
    Change items in this division include support for cannabis legislation planning.
  • 00:31:36
    Next year, the state will begin issuing licensing for cultivation, production, distribution, and sale of cannabis projects.
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    This new law will allow for the city to invest in ensuring that those who benefit from legalization are among the groups who have been disproportionately harmed by the historic prohibition.
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    Funding support for these staffing positions, one in the small business team and one in planning, will create and implement programs to provide technical assistance, education, and funding tools to support BIPOC ownership of new businesses and to adequately enforce the regulations that will be placed upon us by the state.
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    The next item in this division is an ongoing allocation to help reactivate downtown storefront expansions by way of the Chameleon Shops program that was recommended by the vibrant downtown work group.
  • 00:32:37
    This strategy is a component of strategies that we are partnering with the Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs that you will hear more about this morning, and this particular investment
  • 00:32:52
    provides an opportunity for BIPOC business owners to be part of the downtown marketplace and contribute to improve community safety by decreasing vacancies and increasing activity in and around downtown.
  • 00:33:03
    CPED will partner with the Minneapolis downtown council on this effort.
  • 00:33:11
    Finally, we go to the 5th Division, the Operations Innovations Division, and that's led by Karuna Mahajan.
  • 00:33:16
    This team manages and supports internal services, provides information for effective decision-making, manages special projects and processes, improvements of effective coordination and service delivery, and manages the resources supporting employee work to enable individual program area success.
  • 00:33:36
    Essentially, they help keep the department moving forward and make sure that the people who work for CPED are supported.
  • 00:33:49
    On your screen, you'll see a screen cap of the Minneapolis Forward webpage.
  • 00:33:54
    The Operations and Innovation team plays a critical role in moving CPED forward.
  • 00:33:59
    It supports all of our IT, HR, finance, communication, administrative services functions and helps implement new services and systems that help keep and organize and maintain all of our properties and loans that are out in the field, such as Salesforce, which is an enormous project for the department that's been going on a number of years.
  • 00:34:22
    It also supports our cultural development work that this department has been working on for the past few years to make the department a more inclusive and welcoming place and make sure that people who are in the department have opportunities to help with the decision making in CPED.
  • 00:34:38
    And finally, it helps tell our story.
  • 00:34:41
    CPED has been very productive over the last year and one of the challenges we have is awareness of this impact.
  • 00:34:49
    and so in addition to what we put out with Minneapolis Forward which is a database of activities that have occurred over the last few years in response to the murder of George Floyd and the COVID pandemic, we will be issuing or launching the race of seven stories of recovery that will show the videos of people that were impacted directly by CPED and the city's investments in the last few years and those will come out in the next couple days.
  • 00:35:23
    Change item requests in this division include the Director of Strategic Initiatives, and this will be somebody who will report to the Director of CPED, and then partnership programs.
  • 00:35:36
    The proposed new leadership position helps CPED build capacity around removing barriers to increase progress in the city's overall inclusive economic recovery.
  • 00:35:50
    We envision this role to strengthen relationships and leverage partnerships with our other government partners, philanthropy, community-based organizations, and the private sector to increase resources and outcomes that both support revitalization of downtown and activation of our cultural districts.
  • 00:36:07
    In addition to this position, this budget proposal provides funds for contracts for existing partnerships
  • 00:36:15
    The Warehouse District Live with one-time money, Lake Street Greenway Partnership with ongoing funding and greater MSP.
  • 00:36:23
    Additionally, $10,000 of this fund will be transferred to the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department to support partnerships.
  • 00:36:39
    Next change item is the FTEs that were approved that I mentioned earlier.
  • 00:36:46
    This is $578,000 of ongoing funding that will fund five positions that were frozen as part of the budget reduction strategy in 2020.
  • 00:36:56
    These positions support critical functions in the department housed in multiple divisions in the small business team, business development, residential real estate development, and operations and innovation.
  • 00:37:16
    Debts and Transfers The Transfers in Debt program administers and manages specific CPED financial resources, both with external partners in between CPED funds, the $17.9 million
  • 00:37:28
    Budget is recommended for 2024.
  • 00:37:31
    These funds are for tax agreement financing to support a wide range of city's development objectives and policies by prioritizing production of affordable housing to increase the city's tax base, remediation of continuing lands and the increase of the number of livable wage jobs.
  • 00:37:55
    Finally, I'll leave you with some administrative adjustments and transfers.
  • 00:38:00
    This slide highlights what we plan to put into CPED and remove from CPED.
  • 00:38:07
    You'll see a few things that are going into CPED.
  • 00:38:09
    $10,000 from the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department for the Cedar Riverside and Lake Greenway Partnerships.
  • 00:38:20
    and $125,000 from the Office of Public Service will be transferred.
  • 00:38:27
    We transferred for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority security into CPED and CPED will transfer $75,000 to our friends in the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department for Public Art Administration.
  • 00:38:40
    As the Public Arts Program moved from CPED and now resides in the Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs.
  • 00:38:49
    we are reducing our general fund budget by one million dollars or general CDBG budget by one million dollars and moving that into the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority to help support the mayor's proposed five million dollar HRA levy support for the Public Housing Authority and then there is a necessary adjustment that I mentioned earlier about an FTE count
  • 00:39:16
    that reduces the 2023 count reduces 2024 because we added in 2023.
  • 00:39:25
    And with that, I'll take any questions you might have.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:39:32
    Thank you so much for this thorough presentation.
  • 00:39:36
    Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:39:38
    Thank you Chair Koski, thank you Director or Interim Director Hansen for this presentation.
  • 00:39:44
    First question is, when to know when council would be able to receive an update on the UBI pilot?
  • 00:39:51
    I know it's two years, but yeah, when would that come back?
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:39:55
    So we call it guaranteed basic income, but I hear what you're saying, universal basic income.
  • 00:39:59
    So the guaranteed basic income program is being evaluated by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, and we got initial
  • 00:40:07
    like six month data, which is not statistically significant about, let's say about a half a year ago.
  • 00:40:16
    So we're closing in on getting the first year of data.
  • 00:40:21
    We're hoping that that would have a story to tell and we could start to talk to the council about that.
  • 00:40:26
    So probably early, to be honest with you, probably early next year, we would be able to come back and talk to you about the Guaranteed Basic Income program.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:40:35
    Awesome.
  • 00:40:37
    And then with the community outreach and safety, just knowing transformations that we're doing within OCS and how certain programs have been transitioned over there, is the plan for like once this is a pilot, I heard, once that's done, is there a plan to transition that over to OCS or is it to be kept in this particular division?
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:41:03
    That ultimate decision is going to be made by the mayor as we progress, but the way CPED has been addressing this program is we see the important workforce development component.
  • 00:41:14
    We also see the importance of investing directly with community.
  • 00:41:19
    CPED has been working with Department of Neighborhood Safety and other leaders in the Office of Community Safety around what CPED can do around investing in people,
  • 00:41:31
    so that they meet their basic needs and therefore don't have the community safety issues that happen in areas of low wealth.
  • 00:41:40
    And so we're looking at strategies that potentially leverage the expertise in CPED that aren't law enforcement based that might have different outcomes.
  • 00:41:50
    And so it's our expectation that this program will remain in CPED for the foreseeable future.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:41:57
    In regards to the Housing Policy and Development Division, can you share how many staff total is in this division?
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:42:10
    37.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:42:12
    And I know there was lots of reporting on the affordable housing production, but also a key emphasis of this division is policy.
  • 00:42:22
    So I wanted to see if staff could speak to how many staff are working on key policies related to housing in this division.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:42:32
    Since we have our esteemed housing director, I'll have him come up there and before he does, we have our policy research and outreach group helps support the entire department with policy questions.
  • 00:42:48
    The director team is also involved because housing impacts our planning, impacts our development services, impacts our economic development division.
  • 00:42:56
    So as a team, we work pretty closely together around
  • 00:42:58
    organizing research questions and then looking for the appropriate supports.
  • 00:43:06
    So it's not just one division looking at policy development.
  • 00:43:12
    And with that, I'll let Alfred answer the rest of the question.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:43:15
    And then just for clarification on that too, I know just in prior councils, for instance, this division was very instrumental in working with council and developing some of the renter rights protection policies.
  • 00:43:27
    that this body passed, along with developing or initiating conversations around TOPA, for instance.
  • 00:43:33
    So I haven't heard much about the status of those type of policies, and I think that's kind of the key component of our job and what I would like to see more.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:43:46
    Chair Kowski, content member Wansley, the response to the question is,
  • 00:43:55
    In addition to what Under Director Hinton referenced, that we have a policy research and outreach division within our department.
  • 00:44:05
    We also work collaboratively with external stakeholders within the city's enterprise as well as outside of the city's enterprise.
  • 00:44:16
    Specifically as it relates to your question about TOPA, we have
  • 00:44:21
    been meeting with the authors of, we call it the Affordable Housing Preservation Ordinance, which was one of the two supporting efforts for tenant support.
  • 00:44:39
    We've been engaging with them.
  • 00:44:40
    It's hoped that this year we'll come forward with a recommendation for that, and then we'll continue to engage with the authors of the TOPA policy.
  • 00:44:51
    Like I said earlier, to answer the question about the number of staff persons that work on policy work, all of our staff within our housing division are engaged with developing policy, but it depends on what aspect of the policy that we're dealing with that will then pull individuals from that and work with our pro team and work with folks in rec services and other departments within the city.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:45:23
    that's somewhat clarifying but I'm only hearing there's a reconfiguration of topa and that particular ordinance that will come forward that seems to be one policy but I think you answered the question in terms of 37 of the staff in your division are somewhat in charge or oversee policy are involved in the as the director I'm the
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:45:47
    person that's in charge of that responsibility, but I tap the resources from within our division.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:45:54
    Yep.
  • 00:45:54
    Thank you.
  • 00:45:55
    And then just last question, in regards to the strategic or sorry, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships, I'm very interested in maybe this might come to Pogo or CPAT, but getting a status report on, you know, how Warehouse Live is doing, again, seeing if that's something
  • 00:46:16
    that we should be looking to expand
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:46:29
    we had a meeting with the downtown council we partner with on warehouse district live for initial because we're still in the first real season it ends I think next weekend and just see some initial impacts and I think at the core of an investment around this is people converge on downtown
  • 00:46:51
    and we rely on that activity, not only from an economic resource but cultural and just a quality of life for the region, the state.
  • 00:47:03
    And what we've found initially, again, these are just initial outcomes, feelings, some data at their point, is people are finding that it's more vibrant and it is safer.
  • 00:47:17
    and we're hearing that from anecdotes from business owners and participants that are coming downtown and we're seeing it in preliminary data and so since preliminary data I won't share those points because I want to make sure they can confirm it and the reputational damage that the city gets if something tragic happens downtown
  • 00:47:38
    ripples for years and has, you know, it has an economic multiplier impact.
  • 00:47:43
    And so investing into strategies like this, we're hoping have commensurate or exceeding benefits to that economic value.
  • 00:47:56
    So we're trying to figure that out and give you a number of cost benefit of investing in the warehouse district live and the returns to community.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:48:04
    Yeah, it would be good to have some specific data points around that.
  • 00:48:08
    I get the whole downtown revitalization piece, but that particular corridor where I know it's very active, you have Gold Room right there, the Irish Bar, there's already businesses that encourage lots of traffic in that particular corridor.
  • 00:48:23
    and seeing from prior years what type of crime stats was there, as you mentioned, or trends and comparing that to the implementation or initiation of Warehouse Live and where's the correlation of either decrease, increase, neutral.
  • 00:48:39
    So it sounds like there's kind of a pilot phase.
  • 00:48:43
    DID will be working to gather some data on this and maybe by the end of the year, council could receive that more concrete evaluation piece.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:48:52
    Madam Chair, Council Member Wanz, we're on the same page.
  • 00:48:54
    We want to see what the impacts are by making this investment.
  • 00:48:58
    We've asked that at the Downtown Council to provide that.
  • 00:49:01
    So once we have more tangible information, we can provide it.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:49:06
    Okay.
  • 00:49:06
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:49:08
    Thank you.
  • 00:49:08
    Next, Council Member Payne.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:49:11
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:49:12
    I'm wondering if you could expand on the Minneapolis Homes Program.
  • 00:49:16
    Every time I dig into it, it seems like it's quite a collection of
  • 00:49:21
    a lot of different programs in the Minneapolis Homes bucket kind of loses meaning for me and I'm hoping that I could just get a deeper understanding of the financing programs versus grant programs versus land acquisition programs, at least the categories that are contained within the portfolio.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:49:40
    Madam Chair, Council Member Payne, I'll have Director Porte come up as well and give the details, but the importance of Minneapolis Homes from my perspective is bridging the gap of homeowner disparities in the city.
  • 00:49:56
    We lead that in the country between black and white households.
  • 00:50:00
    I think it's like 60 point spread of homeownership, and that is the ticket to the middle class and generation wealth building.
  • 00:50:08
    when I met with staff earlier this summer, the gap, if you understand, the gap between that 60 points is about $4 billion.
  • 00:50:15
    So we got a long way to go to bring the boats up to the same level that occurred when we decided that race wasn't a factor in our housing policies in this country.
  • 00:50:27
    And I will turn it over to Mr.
  • 00:50:29
    Port for the specifics.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:50:33
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, the Minneapolis Homes Program, the way that I would categorize it is it has three foci, one that focuses on the creation of new affordable ownership programs and housing opportunities.
  • 00:50:50
    The second is creating access for families to get into the home ownership space.
  • 00:50:56
    And the third is sustaining those families that are already in the home ownership space to make sure that their properties are maintained so we provide loan and grant programs to help low income families, seniors to rehab those units.
  • 00:51:17
    On the financing side, we provide development gap assistance to developers to acquire and rehab or develop new units of housing that's sold to homeowners at 80% of the area median income or below.
  • 00:51:34
    So that's a nutshell and I'm happy to meet with you and talk a little bit more in details about it.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:51:40
    Yeah, I'd really appreciate that.
  • 00:51:42
    This was really helpful though.
  • 00:51:43
    Thanks.
  • 00:51:43
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:51:46
    Councilmember Rainville?
• • Michael Rainville
  • 00:51:49
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:51:51
    Councilmember Wonsley, I couldn't agree with you more about the importance of data.
  • 00:51:56
    And I just met last week with the downtown council to encourage them to get it to us quickly, perhaps a little faster than the director had suggested.
  • 00:52:07
    Because again, it's we need to learn from that.
  • 00:52:10
    And I believe that what we're learning from this downtown entertainment district can be applied
  • 00:52:15
    into the neighborhoods where we have so many other business districts that could benefit from that.
  • 00:52:22
    But just initially, two things I've taken away from that are my observations.
  • 00:52:28
    I've gone out and observed probably half a dozen times
  • 00:52:34
    The non-armed public safety that Mad Dads and 21 Days of Peace are providing have been very, very effective in de-escalating situations to the point where there's only been one shooting in the downtown entertainment this year.
  • 00:52:50
    And as we all know in the past, we've had mass shootings down there in this area.
  • 00:52:55
    So it still has two more weeks to go, but I promise you we'll get that data quickly.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:53:07
    All right.
  • 00:53:07
    I put myself in queue.
  • 00:53:08
    I had a couple questions.
  • 00:53:11
    I'm wondering, the slide when we talked about the construction values, so sorry we're going back here.
  • 00:53:17
    I was just wondering if you could just talk a little deeper about the spikes.
  • 00:53:23
    Oh, there we go.
  • 00:53:26
    From 2021, then up to 2022, and then the decrease to 2023.
  • 00:53:30
    Just kind of help me understand what the cause is for that.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:53:36
    I can give you a layperson's response to why it went up.
  • 00:53:41
    People want to do projects.
  • 00:53:43
    There's a pandemic and supply chain impact on those years in 2020-2021 and I think there's an unmet demand.
  • 00:53:53
    But I don't have statistics and I'm going to look to Development Services Director Poore if he has any additional insights.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:54:04
    So the way we collect data is it's based on when a permit is paid for.
  • 00:54:15
    And often a permit could come in at the end of a quarter or at the beginning of the quarter, which will change how numbers look.
  • 00:54:21
    So 2021 was unexpectedly robust.
  • 00:54:25
    There's a lot of pent up demand.
  • 00:54:26
    People had maybe waited for supply chains.
  • 00:54:29
    and a lot of large permits for large projects that had already had their entitlements kind of unexpectedly came in before the end of that year.
  • 00:54:37
    So that number was rather high.
  • 00:54:38
    2022 was similar there.
  • 00:54:43
    There was a lot of large projects that had been holding off on pulling permits.
  • 00:54:46
    There's the Heinz project.
  • 00:54:48
    That's a huge permit in terms of valuation.
  • 00:54:51
    A lot of projects that maybe were on the fence decided to exercise their entitlements and pull permits.
  • 00:54:58
    So it's always a little uneven.
  • 00:55:01
    The permit activity can be somewhat harder to read.
  • 00:55:08
    What I've seen over my career is this, when things are really good, we get a lot of big permits.
  • 00:55:13
    And so there's permit activity associated with that.
  • 00:55:16
    When large permits, large projects decrease, we still have a lot of permit activity, but it's smaller permit valuation, it's a lot of remodeling, it's different choices.
  • 00:55:25
    but the actual number of permits stays fairly consistent but they're very different types of permits and so and again the planning commission can be seen as a leading economic indicator so if you don't have a lot of items going to your planning commission the next few years are not going to be as robust as the previous years so entitlements take some time to exercise so again what we saw in 2021 and 2022
  • 00:55:49
    were some projects that we did not think would actually come to fruition.
  • 00:55:52
    They did come to fruition, particularly in 2021.
  • 00:55:55
    We had a few very large projects that came into December.
  • 00:56:00
    They could have easily have gone in to the next year.
  • 00:56:02
    And so 2021
  • 00:56:08
    2022 would have looked a little lower and 2023 a little higher.
  • 00:56:12
    So you literally get into when does the permit get pulled.
  • 00:56:15
    Developers make those choices often.
  • 00:56:17
    We try to be responsive.
  • 00:56:18
    Sometimes they want to hit financing at a certain point.
  • 00:56:21
    There are other times when they'd rather wait.
  • 00:56:23
    We don't slow walk them, so we're not trying to goose the numbers one way or the other necessarily.
  • 00:56:29
    This year we've had fewer large projects.
  • 00:56:33
    We've still had a lot of activity.
  • 00:56:35
    We're still busy.
  • 00:56:36
    There's a lot of things in the pipeline.
  • 00:56:38
    So is that responsive?
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:56:39
    No, it's great.
  • 00:56:40
    Thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:56:40
    And we can always explain the numbers but honestly sometimes it's just when it's just sometimes the calendar there's cutoff dates and I know we've worked with our finance office kind of making them understand those kind of dynamics as well to help them do a better job in their work.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:56:56
    Thank you.
  • 00:56:57
    Thank you.
  • 00:56:57
    Thank you.
  • 00:56:59
    I had one other question about the Operations Innovation Team and the new position, the Director of Strategic Initiative Partnerships, just to kind of continue to add on some of the questions that Councilmember Wonsley had.
  • 00:57:13
    How many people are on this team today?
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:57:19
    Chair Koski, the Director of Strategic Initiatives would
  • 00:57:26
    report directly to the CPED director.
  • 00:57:28
    I just put it into the presentation there.
  • 00:57:32
    There are how many people in operations and innovation?
  • 00:57:35
    Ten people.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:57:38
    Okay.
  • 00:57:39
    So my understanding, if I'm looking at the org chart, it would be another box.
  • 00:57:43
    Okay.
  • 00:57:43
    My apologies.
  • 00:57:44
    I just wasn't seeing where that would be.
  • 00:57:48
    And so now that helps answer me, you know, why a director level role.
  • 00:57:53
    because I wasn't sure.
  • 00:57:54
    And then, do you expect this team to grow?
  • 00:57:58
    And of, you know, how many people do you expect this person to have report to them?
  • 00:58:05
    And then what's the timeline for hiring for this role?
• • Erik Hansen
  • 00:58:09
    So the precise roles and responsibilities for this position is still under consideration.
  • 00:58:17
    But we have found as we are kind of associated with
  • 00:58:22
    the decline in resources for CPED.
  • 00:58:24
    We still have the need.
  • 00:58:25
    The need's not going away even though one-time funding is going away.
  • 00:58:28
    We have been working alongside community partnerships.
  • 00:58:32
    McKnight formed a thing called the Groundbreak Coalition.
  • 00:58:36
    There's a number of philanthropic and private entities that are trying to figure out how to leverage resources.
  • 00:58:41
    We had a work session this summer with CPED managers to talk about how we better can leverage our resources as they dwindle in coming years.
  • 00:58:52
    and found that we're pretty good at leveraging our resources and we need some horsepower to help grow those partnerships, strengthen what we have to see if there's other money out there.
  • 00:59:02
    Because at the root of disparities is money.
  • 00:59:06
    It's not programs or technical assistance, it's how can we get money
  • 00:59:10
    at favorable rates to BIPOC-owned ownership and BIPOC-owned ownership.
  • 00:59:16
    And this would give us some capacity, we think, give us some capacity.
  • 00:59:21
    Somebody with some technical experience at a level, an executive level that has done things like this before, has some gravitas to go out there and maybe shake the proverbial money tree and then help with some of these strategies around reactivation.
  • 00:59:34
    and we're thinking about how do we activate downtown as that has fundamentally changed in how we work and how we consume and participate in downtown and some technical things that need to happen but also in the cultural districts and areas around that about how are we finding resources.
  • 00:59:52
    Every council member here has probably talked to me at one time looking for money and we look for money too.
  • 00:59:59
    and so maybe this is an opportunity for us to really have somebody who's just focused on looking for the money.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:00:08
    Thank you.
  • 01:00:09
    President Jenkins.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:00:12
    Thank you, Madam Chair and Interim Director Hanson and all of your team for the great work that you guys are doing.
  • 01:00:21
    You talked a little bit about
  • 01:00:24
    communications and really trying to tell our story and bringing on a communications director or person.
  • 01:00:35
    Can you just say more about this whole process?
  • 01:00:37
    Sure.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 01:00:39
    Madam Chair, President Jenkins, over the last few years and really for the arc of my career in community development,
  • 01:00:48
    One of the hardest things we've done in municipalities, not just in this city but other cities, is build awareness of access.
  • 01:00:55
    We like to call this the invisible handshake.
  • 01:00:57
    That's why we see participation levels in our programs between black and non-black participants different because people know that they can call me up or they can call the city or
  • 01:01:08
    and some don't and so we've been working on our SREAP goal which we established in 2018 around demystifying that secret handshake and building awareness but also the impacts that the city is having.
  • 01:01:22
    Our staff has been working really, really, really hard over the last few years
  • 01:01:26
    and it's been a challenging environment in which to work and we want to make sure that we are not only lifting up that work but by lifting up that work we're seeing you know we're giving some exposure to it so we are working with our city comms team and existing personnel throughout the the department to produce the Minneapolis Forward website which is a
  • 01:01:49
    you know just a branding name about our outcomes and programs that we have we have enacted since the beginning of the pandemic and that is just a you know it's an interactive website but it's a website so you got to get there we have elevated that through our recovery we have a recovery work team throughout this the department that's been working since the beginning of last year to help mainly get properties that have not been rebuilt after being heavily damaged or destroyed after the unrest
  • 01:02:19
    from the murder of George Floyd get back into service, but also making sure people know that there are services and resources involved and that our impact has made a difference.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:02:28
    So you'll see some— I think they've been working longer than that.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 01:02:32
    We've been working—CPED's been working a long time.
  • 01:02:35
    We've been working a long time in community.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:02:36
    Well, this recovery team.
  • 01:02:38
    Recovery team, yeah.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 01:02:39
    We made it—we did a very deliberate—we constituted a deliberate team at the beginning of that.
  • 01:02:45
    It was mostly ad hoc, a lot of folks, but it was—
  • 01:02:48
    under you know we had about two dozen properties that were sitting vacant and boarded or and not moving forward and so we amassed the you know the resources across all of the divisions and teams of CPED to talk about how do we align resources for people to get back into service and then how do we make sure that we are
  • 01:03:12
    kind of case managing them through the development process.
  • 01:03:15
    Because a lot of times property owners didn't have, they're not developers.
  • 01:03:20
    And so this was a way for us as a city to help people get through the development process, the entitlement process, the construction process.
  • 01:03:27
    We made some modifications to our developer technical assistance program.
  • 01:03:30
    We made some adjustments to our business technical assistance program and then alignment of our resources.
  • 01:03:35
    So that was very deliberate last year.
  • 01:03:36
    And then the other component of that
  • 01:03:39
    work was to start telling our story.
  • 01:03:40
    And that's been rolling out over the last year and a half, but we'll see some stories that we've produced internally with city resources around seven either participants in our system or our programs tell their story about how the city helped them in the last few years.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:03:58
    So videos, stories are, okay.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:04:03
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:04:03
    Yep.
  • 01:04:03
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:04:04
    Thank you.
  • 01:04:05
    One last question.
  • 01:04:06
    Council Member Wonsi.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:04:07
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 01:04:09
    Just a follow up on the retention of the ARPA and COVID-19 granted funding positions that are going to be transitioned over into operating budget.
  • 01:04:19
    Can you share again where those two staff positions, what divisions will they be supporting?
  • 01:04:25
    I see some of the programs, but wasn't sure where they were going to be placed.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 01:04:28
    Yes.
  • 01:04:28
    Give me one moment, Council Member, because they're in my
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:04:42
    The two positions in question are the ARPA-funded position and the COVID-funded positions.
  • 01:05:01
    I just want to see clarification.
  • 01:05:02
    ARPA-funded position
  • 01:05:07
    is going to be in the policy research and outreach team and the COVID funded position, CDBG COVID funded position is in the housing division.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:05:20
    So your staff would then bump up to 38 from 37?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:05:26
    No, no.
  • 01:05:27
    It's an existing position.
  • 01:05:28
    It's just reallocating resources.
  • 01:05:32
    That staff was once funded with COVID CDBG resources that's sunsetting at the end of this year and then it's going to be replaced with general fund dollars.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:05:46
    So the 37 is including this position?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:05:49
    It's not a new position, correct.
  • 01:05:50
    OK. And then the other one you said?
  • 01:05:53
    It's also an existing position, correct.
  • 01:05:55
    OK. And that's in?
  • 01:05:56
    The Policy Research and Outreach team.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:05:59
    So both, the two positions?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:06:02
    Yes.
  • 01:06:02
    One is in the Policy Research and Outreach team.
  • 01:06:05
    Right.
  • 01:06:05
    And the other is in the Housing Division.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:06:10
    Housing Division?
• • 01:06:11
    Yeah.
  • 01:06:12
    OK.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 01:06:13
    and we'd have to lay those staff off if this isn't successful.
  • 01:06:16
    There's the other five that the council already approved and you have two in the small business team, one on business development, a position in residential and real estate development services and then a financial administrator and operations and innovations division.
  • 01:06:31
    Those are the other five and those are currently occupied positions.
  • 01:06:35
    Okay, thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:06:38
    All right.
  • 01:06:39
    I'm not seeing any further questions.
  • 01:06:41
    Thank you so much for this presentation and appreciate your entire team being here today.
  • 01:06:46
    It's a lot of information to take in and appreciate the thoroughness that you gave today.
  • 01:06:51
    So thank you so much.
• • Erik Hansen
  • 01:06:52
    You're welcome.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:06:54
    All right.
  • 01:06:55
    Just for the record, I know some of you already spoke, but just want to note that we've been joined by Council President Jenkins, Council Member Goodman, Council Member Payne.
  • 01:07:05
    And then next we have Regulatory Services Department.
  • 01:07:09
    I will invite Interim Director Enrique Velazquez up to give that presentation.
  • 01:07:13
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 01:07:18
    Thank you very much, Chair Koski and committee members.
  • 01:07:21
    I'm Interim Director Enrique Velazquez, Interim Director of Regulatory Services, here to present our regulatory services 2024 recommended budget change items, as well as highlights on the good work that our department is performing each day.
  • 01:07:40
    Rake Services has four divisions, Inspection Services, led by Interim Director Pat Hilden, Operations and Engagement, led by Interim Director Jessica Stone,
  • 01:07:51
    Minneapolis Animal Care and Control, led by Director Caroline Herfield, and Code Compliance and Traffic Control, led by Director Ahmed Adal.
  • 01:08:00
    In Regulatory Services, our department mission is strengthening communities by partnering with residents, neighborhoods, and businesses to make the city safer, healthier, and more inviting for all.
  • 01:08:14
    Department goals are to develop code that reflects our values and priorities and prioritizes the safety of people and pets, organize our work to be both effective and efficient with data-informed proactive programming, establish career pathways for team members to develop in advance, and ensure staff is reflective of Minneapolis communities and is fully prepared to engage.
  • 01:08:39
    between January 2018 to present, 46% of our new hires have come from our BIPOC employees.
  • 01:08:48
    We'll get into department specifics in later slides.
  • 01:08:52
    Each division demonstrates our mission in different ways.
  • 01:08:58
    So priority objective number one, community functions in a way that's healthy and good for all people.
  • 01:09:04
    The department took a broad approach to priority
  • 01:09:08
    objectives and chose several measures of each.
  • 01:09:12
    Non-traditional metrics measure Minneapolis' ability to respond to communities' evolving demand for service, providing opportunities to educate as we enforce and are a measure of a healthy community functioning for the common good.
  • 01:09:26
    While these metrics also include factors outside of our control, they measure our ability to evolve and respond as well as adjust our approaches as we discover gaps in service.
  • 01:09:38
    Metric number one, percentage of vacant and boarded registered properties that have moved off of the list.
  • 01:09:45
    Work with owners to move properties off of the list so that buildings are well maintained and safe.
  • 01:09:52
    VBR properties, while decreasing in number, present complicated safety issues.
  • 01:09:57
    people enter illegally and sometimes reside in these spaces without water or electricity.
  • 01:10:04
    What that means is people live in unsanitary and unsafe conditions and put others at risk.
  • 01:10:09
    Cases are increasingly more complicated.
  • 01:10:14
    To illustrate that, many of you all are aware of a property located on the 2300 block of Lindale Avenue.
  • 01:10:22
    This property entered the vacant building registry program in October 2022.
  • 01:10:27
    utilities were disconnected and the property closed to trespass.
  • 01:10:31
    As part of the VBR program, routine inspections were conducted by the area fire inspector to ensure the property remained closed to trespass and that exterior nuisance conditions were not visibly present.
  • 01:10:45
    On one such visit, the area inspector discovered that the building was open to trespass and people were present in the interior spaces.
  • 01:10:54
    City staff reached out to the property owner to re-secure the building.
  • 01:10:58
    In the meantime, without available utilities, occupants started a fire in the building to stay warm.
  • 01:11:04
    The occupants lost control of that fire as this three-story HOD property was engulfed in flames.
  • 01:11:11
    Had the fire not gotten under control, the fire would have placed an adjacent
  • 01:11:16
    had the fire not gotten under control, the fire would have placed the adjacent residential rental property and those who resided them at risk of displacement.
  • 01:11:30
    Same for the businesses next door.
  • 01:11:32
    The building had to be demolished because what remained of the structure created a significant safety risk to neighbors and passersby.
  • 01:11:41
    Second metric we're looking at here, responding to animal bites within a one hour service level agreement, measuring the city's ability to respond to and manage animal safety risk.
  • 01:11:53
    Many city services are provided during traditional business hours.
  • 01:11:57
    That's not always aligned with when communities need service, where immediate safety is in question.
  • 01:12:04
    About 8% of the reported bites occur after hours.
  • 01:12:08
    These calls require response from the on-call animal control officers who take the calls from 911 dispatch, in addition to the more than 18,000 calls for service that they receive on an annual basis.
  • 01:12:23
    We're unable to reassign staff from elsewhere in the department due to specialized training needs for animal, public, and personal safety.
  • 01:12:31
    Providing 24-7 response for these calls is a significant burden on our small staff and our inability to meet this metric 100% of the time demonstrates the need for animal control services in the city.
  • 01:12:45
    The average for the last three years is 85% ability to meet that one hour SLA.
  • 01:12:52
    We have a small overtime budget for field, shelter, and medical staff.
  • 01:12:56
    This allocation does not cover the current level of service response that is provided.
  • 01:13:04
    So the third metric we're looking at, annual number of licenses approved.
  • 01:13:08
    Annual Inspections reflects the Division's work to ensure housing complies with codes that support safe and habitable housing.
  • 01:13:17
    A robust proactive inspections program ensures housing is safe for residents and code compliant.
  • 01:13:23
    It also ensures that housing adds to, rather than detracts from, community livability.
  • 01:13:29
    Staff approve approximately 2,000 new licenses each year.
  • 01:13:33
    Each approved license requires an average of about three inspections.
  • 01:13:38
    as community needs evolve, we shift to address them and this may come at the expense of meeting service level agreements.
  • 01:13:46
    Examples of where regulatory services has evolved to meet the need include standing up of the alternative enforcement team to evaluate portfolio inspections, the rental property and housing liaison team and animal safety net.
  • 01:14:07
    Priority objective number two, regulation helps the city function in a stable and consistent state of operations under good and adverse circumstances.
  • 01:14:17
    We apply regulation in equitable and consistent manner, provide consistent core services in certain and uncertain times.
  • 01:14:26
    The public health implication of a pandemic with escalated resident interactions for uniformed staff post the murder of George Floyd challenged our existing enforcement procedures.
  • 01:14:37
    reshaping how we engage in community.
  • 01:14:41
    Metric number one, injuries per FTE.
  • 01:14:44
    We keep employees safe from traditional injuries and escalate interactions with residents.
  • 01:14:49
    We have a responsibility to protect our employees.
  • 01:14:53
    A healthy workforce that feels good about a healthy workforce that feels good about coming to work every day helps the city achieve its goal and do good work because it's the right thing to do, not because it's the easy thing to do.
  • 01:15:08
    In partnership with the Enterprise Safety Committee facilitated by Public Works, 22 regulatory services staff will attend crisis management training to learn how to provide peer support during crisis situations.
  • 01:15:22
    Metric number two, number of animals vaccinated per year.
  • 01:15:25
    This reflects our increased shelter intakes, all animals in shelter and vaccinated, as well as increased community programs.
  • 01:15:34
    Community programming is at risk as intakes increase beyond historical highs.
  • 01:15:43
    In recent years, Minneapolis Animal Care and Control has added veterinary services, ensuring all animals receive exams, vaccinations, and necessary medical procedures.
  • 01:15:54
    In 2022, vaccinations were up 80% over 2020.
  • 01:15:59
    Over the same period, public vaccination clinics saw an increase of just 35%.
  • 01:16:05
    metric three, average number of work hours.
  • 01:16:08
    Demand continues to increase as work hours exceed 2019 levels, seeing new highs of construction and special event support.
  • 01:16:17
    Minneapolis Police Department requests traffic control assistance for community events that they are not able to cover.
  • 01:16:24
    We're placed in a position of paying for overtime or not staffing the event at all, sometimes risking whether the event can even take place.
  • 01:16:33
    Traffic control continues its partnership with MPD, with the Ward 3 office and the downtown improvement district to bring people downtown.
  • 01:16:41
    Our agents will assist in closing streets,
  • 01:16:44
    Strategic Parking Enforcement and directing traffic and pedestrians as part of the downtown entertainment district events.
  • 01:16:52
    Post-pandemic, the department work has changed.
  • 01:16:56
    Our ability to provide services depends on healthy employees and the ability to pivot and provide additional services with the same number of staff.
  • 01:17:07
    staff are not easily shifted between divisions as work in one area picks up due to the specialized training that they receive, whether it's directing traffic versus medical care and attention for animals, animal care and control.
  • 01:17:26
    Priority objective number three, the department recognizes our biggest social issues are multifaceted and many small issues come together to create a bigger issue.
  • 01:17:37
    Our work is regulatory in nature but responds to evolving community needs to minimize unintended consequences.
  • 01:17:44
    We adjust our approach if we anticipate traditional enforcement will not be successful.
  • 01:17:49
    metric number one.
  • 01:17:51
    Number of housing liaison cases that are undertaken each year.
  • 01:17:55
    Housing liaisons work with renters and homeowners to address life safety code violations.
  • 01:18:01
    This approach enables residents to stay in their homes while code issues are resolved.
  • 01:18:07
    The 52% increase in 2022 cases demonstrates community need for this high touch and very engaging approach.
  • 01:18:17
    Nonprofit partnerships are leveraged.
  • 01:18:20
    metric number two, animal live release rates at Minneapolis Animal Care and Control.
  • 01:18:26
    As animal intake increases, even with managed intake, MAC will be faced with difficult choices.
  • 01:18:33
    We dipped below 90% live release rates in 2022, and we will continue to dip as the shelter intake increases.
  • 01:18:42
    We know that over 40% of shelter intakes were from within SHREEP zip codes, about double the percentage of Minneapolis residents in those zip codes.
  • 01:18:52
    Residents rely on MAC as a safe, non-judgmental place to surrender animals.
  • 01:18:58
    Our outreach work, shown as an Animal Care Officer of the Minneapolis Pet Resource Center, provides opportunities for MAC staff to interact with and educate the community.
  • 01:19:08
    Increased animal intakes demonstrates our outreach is working and community needs remain high.
  • 01:19:16
    Third metric in this slide, percentage of staff that meets or exceeds cultural agility performance standards.
  • 01:19:23
    Regulatory services curates in-house cultural agility programming aimed at minimizing barriers to gain voluntary compliance.
  • 01:19:31
    Our self-awareness around lived experiences, identities, biases, and power directly impact how others will feel.
  • 01:19:40
    Developing a deep understanding of the needs and perspectives of others is critical to our being culturally agile and effective communic- communicators We are committed to racial equity and over the last two years We've worked with team dynamics to understand how we can actively embed diversity Equity and inclusion in our work every single day Staff feed this work in addition to their daily duties and they're getting burned out
  • 01:20:10
    Evolving community means our department must get creative and expand programming to match the increasing need.
  • 01:20:19
    We look forward to enterprise momentum on this issue as well.
  • 01:20:26
    Achievements and risks.
  • 01:20:28
    Regulatory Services has worked hard to prioritize resources and meet community needs.
  • 01:20:33
    New services in 2022 and 2023 include an overnight shift in traffic control,
  • 01:20:39
    in common outreach and management, accepting credit cards for rental license payments.
  • 01:20:44
    So credit card payments increased from about 20% to over 50% during this time, which allows us to provide a customer-centric self-service option that also resulted in an all-time low for delinquent accounts.
  • 01:20:59
    Risks.
  • 01:21:01
    With the current labor shortage, regulatory services needs to be creative.
  • 01:21:06
    Several divisions are short staffed.
  • 01:21:08
    Traffic control and animal control are projected to span triple their overtime budgets in 2023.
  • 01:21:14
    Reactive work.
  • 01:21:18
    Post-pandemic, we're seeing a large increase in work volume.
  • 01:21:21
    Disaggregated data means we cannot effectively measure if our programs are helping the intended populations.
  • 01:21:29
    Workload exceeds employee capacity in both traffic control and animal care and control.
  • 01:21:35
    Overtime is burning out our staff.
  • 01:21:39
    No allowance for increasing non-personnel costs.
  • 01:21:42
    This will be felt with nuisance abatement contracts and contractors as we continue to return to pre-COVID enforcement and compliance.
  • 01:21:51
    An example is our tree contractor.
  • 01:21:54
    In recent bids, prices increased by more than 10%.
  • 01:22:03
    Program and Staffing.
  • 01:22:05
    This slide shows our divisions in respect to one another.
  • 01:22:08
    Inspection Services is our largest division, followed by Code Compliance and Traffic Control.
  • 01:22:15
    The 2023 budget includes ARPA and rollover, so that's why you see that it's out of alignment with the trajectory we've seen from 2021 and 2022 actuals to where we're budgeted for 2023.
  • 01:22:30
    Regulatory Services is funded for eight new positions in 2024 in the areas of outreach for unsheltered individuals, alternative enforcement for high occupancy dwellings, and shelter care for animals at Minneapolis Animal Care and Control.
  • 01:22:46
    Rake Services has 15 vacancies and 15 requisitions in flight currently.
  • 01:22:53
    detailed assignments, interim positions, such as my own changing position titles make this all a very complicated equation.
  • 01:23:03
    Traffic control is a large division with very physically demanding jobs.
  • 01:23:08
    People often promote within the department and across the enterprise.
  • 01:23:12
    Operations, we have many vacancies filled by detail, including myself and our interim director of operations and engagement, among others.
  • 01:23:23
    There are 15 open requisitions, 8 in traffic control, one background is currently in progress, interviewing for 7 code complaint specialists scheduled for actually starting today.
  • 01:23:34
    We have 7 vacancies within operations, one is the department head, the second is the director of operations and engagement.
  • 01:23:45
    which is just now starting its recruitment.
  • 01:23:49
    We have an interview for a data analyst supervisor that was last week.
  • 01:23:54
    We have another position that posted and closed October 9th and then three recent vacancies that we're finalizing the posting for for our customer service representatives.
  • 01:24:12
    Over the next series of slides we will shift focus to each department and new budget dollars recommended for 2024.
  • 01:24:19
    First up, Minneapolis Animal Care and Control.
  • 01:24:24
    Our mission is to partner with the community to ensure the health and safety of pets and people by promoting and supporting responsible and humane care of animals through education, community outreach,
  • 01:24:38
    animal sheltering and responsible enforcement of local and state law pertaining to care, control, and protection of animals.
  • 01:24:46
    The short version is to promote and support responsible and humane care of animals to ensure the health and safety of pets and people.
  • 01:24:54
    Our goals, quality care for all animals housed at the Minneapolis Animal Shelter, support the health and wellbeing of the community as it relates to animals, protect the community by ensuring the care, control, and protection of animals,
  • 01:25:09
    Max staff are stretched to meet evolving community demand.
  • 01:25:13
    Shelter and medical services have expanded beyond sheltering animals to rehabbing animals, both physically and emotionally so they can be successfully rehomed.
  • 01:25:24
    So some some of our stats small staff cover both field animal and veterinary care.
  • 01:25:31
    Intakes are increasing.
  • 01:25:32
    Year-to-date MAC animal intakes are up 18% from 2022 and 80% over 2020 and 2021.
  • 01:25:41
    Animals are outside and fed twice a day.
  • 01:25:44
    Volunteers provide relief from the shelter environment and prepare animals for successful rehoming through walks, playtime, social groups, so animals are physically and emotionally healthy when adopted into the community.
  • 01:25:59
    Community-Centric Programming.
  • 01:26:01
    MACC provides community-centric programming.
  • 01:26:05
    Our recent Clear the Shelter events have rehomed scores of animals and provides relief for our hard-working shelter staff.
  • 01:26:13
    We also staff the Pet Resource Center in Minneapolis once a month.
  • 01:26:17
    As staffing allows, we provide low-cost vaccination clinics as well.
  • 01:26:22
    Volunteer programming, and particularly our robust foster program, increase Max's ability to rehab and care for increasing animal populations.
  • 01:26:31
    Our foster program has grown each year.
  • 01:26:34
    In 2023, our foster program grew and housed 18% of cats and dog intakes, creating space for more animals in the shelter.
  • 01:26:43
    Veterinary staff performed most medical procedures in-house, preparing animals for adoption and reducing time in this shelter.
  • 01:26:52
    What we do well, humane animal care, complex field and investigative work, build community connections.
  • 01:27:00
    And some of the challenges, you've heard me say this already, small staff for 24-7 coverage across the field, medical and shelter work.
  • 01:27:09
    Overtime for staff leads to burnout and turnover.
  • 01:27:14
    And we're not staffed for our current level of intakes just because of the nature that we've seen of evictions increasing,
  • 01:27:22
    The Mayor recommended funding for increased shelter staff in response to increasing animal intakes.
  • 01:27:39
    The Department initiated new requests
  • 01:27:41
    is for shelter staffing and supplies to match increased animal intakes at MAC.
  • 01:27:46
    MAC had 2,700 live intakes in 2022 and 4,400 total intakes.
  • 01:27:53
    This proposal provides MAC with minimum staffing levels to care for the increasing animal population so that animals receive basic quality care, they're fed, they're outside two times a day, they have enrichment and training activities, and receive veterinary care.
  • 01:28:10
    MAC is a low barrier shelter for adoptees.
  • 01:28:13
    MAC allows non-judgmental pet surrender.
  • 01:28:17
    MAC's intake are 200% over national recommendations based on funded shelter staff.
  • 01:28:25
    They average $100,000 in OT but has a $20,000 overtime budget.
  • 01:28:31
    OT for animal care is increasing and unsustainable.
  • 01:28:35
    Animals receive less enrichment due to short staffing.
  • 01:28:38
    Our volunteer programming has expanded to provide basic enrichment through, though it is our animal care technicians who are the backbone of max animal care.
  • 01:28:49
    They provide behind the scenes animal care services for those not housed in the public area like dangerous dogs.
  • 01:28:56
    Proper staffing for shelter animals means animal control officers remain in the field addressing animal related health and safety issues rather than caring for shelter animals.
  • 01:29:08
    2023 is projected to exceed 2022 intake levels.
  • 01:29:13
    Animal care is critical to ensuring animal health adoption and transfer.
  • 01:29:19
    Just to share a story that illustrates this, in October of 2022, one of our animal control officers responded to a resident in South Minneapolis to investigate an animal welfare complaint called in by a concerned resident.
  • 01:29:36
    After speaking with the pet owner, the officer, a 25-year animal control professional, took custody of a young male pit bull terrier that was in extreme state of emaciation.
  • 01:29:48
    The officer stated the dog was in such bad condition and had grave concern he would not survive through the night.
  • 01:29:57
    Ragnar, as the animal care team affectionately called him, was transported to the Minneapolis Animal Shelter where veterinary staff immediately took charge of him.
  • 01:30:07
    He was placed on supportive care and a very strict re-feeding plan.
  • 01:30:12
    Although we all want to quickly feed these animals everything we can, re-feeding plans are necessary.
  • 01:30:19
    Animals in this state of emaciation that are given food too quickly can die because their body does not have the energy needed to digest the food.
  • 01:30:29
    Animal care staff were tasked with feeding Ragnar every two hours, one tablespoon at a time.
  • 01:30:36
    Slowly, Ragnar began to gain weight and his condition stabilized.
  • 01:30:41
    In November, Ragnar was sent to live with a MAC foster parent for further recovery in a home.
  • 01:30:48
    This time in the foster home allowed Ragnar to gain weight, confidence, and truly see what love and patience, as well as good food, was all about.
  • 01:30:58
    Finally in December, MAC veterinarians determined Ragnar's condition was stable and he was fit for adoption.
  • 01:31:05
    Ragnar was then adopted by a wonderful family and is living his best life, really just getting all the snuggles he possibly can.
  • 01:31:13
    As for Ragnar's previous owners,
  • 01:31:15
    They were charged with cruelty by MAC's criminal investigations team.
  • 01:31:21
    Risks within this area.
  • 01:31:24
    Employee safety.
  • 01:31:26
    Equity impacts.
  • 01:31:27
    MAC provides a low cost, low barrier entry into pet ownership.
  • 01:31:31
    Street zip codes make up about 20% of the population, however 30% of adoptions from MAC
  • 01:31:37
    go into homes within these strip zip codes.
  • 01:31:43
    Double the number of intakes from strip zip codes, 40% as proportion of the population.
  • 01:31:49
    MAC offers many supportive services at low or no cost that directly impact families within the street zip codes.
  • 01:31:56
    In 2022, MAC veterinary staff vaccinated 664 pets at public events where Minneapolis residents could receive low-cost vaccinations and microchips for their animals.
  • 01:32:10
    One-third of these residents were from street zip codes.
  • 01:32:14
    When fully staffed, MAC does monthly community outreach at the North Minneapolis Pet Resource Center, where they provide low-cost vaccines and microchips.
  • 01:32:29
    Code Compliance and Traffic Control The mission is to support community safety and effective traffic flow through clear, usable streets.
  • 01:32:41
    The goals of this division are for streets that are clear and usable.
  • 01:32:47
    Streets are a clear and usable environment for all city residents and visitors.
  • 01:32:52
    Safe and expeditious traffic flow in the city's busiest and most critical areas.
  • 01:32:58
    Some stats in recent years, time equally split between both construction versus rush hour and special events activities.
  • 01:33:08
    More than 5,500 hours were spent on special events in 2022 170,000 traffic citations were also issued along the year We expanded the overnight staff operations during 2022 As the graph on the right shows 2023 projections show a 13% reduction in overnight crimes in the first precinct with our team
  • 01:33:38
    and City Council.
  • 01:33:54
    What we do well.
  • 01:33:59
    We work to get to yes by staffing as many events as we possibly can.
  • 01:34:03
    We change schedules to cover weekends when many events happen but multiple events over a series of days or on the same day present a challenge.
  • 01:34:15
    We assist with traffic flow during rush hour.
  • 01:34:17
    We clear illegal parking to ensure smooth traffic flow during rush hour, during snow emergencies and after.
  • 01:34:24
    challenges.
  • 01:34:25
    It's kind of a repeating message, stressed workforce and increasing overtime in order to meet the demands that we have.
  • 01:34:35
    We continue to have escalated interactions within the public.
  • 01:34:38
    Our agents have seen dogs attack partners.
  • 01:34:42
    They have been verbally threatened and followed in their vehicles after writing citations.
  • 01:34:47
    They've had their city vehicle tires slashed and have witnessed violent acts.
  • 01:34:58
    A story that comes from our traffic control.
  • 01:35:01
    Upon answering a 911 complaint for an abandoned vehicle, when the agent arrived at the complaint, there was a white pickup with no rear license plate and it was blocking the alley.
  • 01:35:12
    The agent got out of the vehicle to look for the front plate or VIN number when a woman emerged from a nearby residence yelling for the agent to stop and to get away from the vehicle.
  • 01:35:24
    She said she was helping a pregnant friend and would move the truck when she was ready.
  • 01:35:28
    The agent informed the vehicle owner that she was blocking the alley and assured her that she would not be ticketing the vehicle if she would just move her vehicle.
  • 01:35:40
    She did not comply and then continued by shouting expletives at the agent and other profanity as she warned her that she was not playing this
  • 01:35:55
    vehicle owners started recording the agent with her phone and made a point of saying she was also recording the name and badge number.
  • 01:36:03
    She shoved her phone in the agent's face and was uncomfortably close to the agent.
  • 01:36:08
    The agent asked her to please move away and she would not.
  • 01:36:13
    The agent looked for different ways to get back into the vehicle and get away from her, but every time she moved, the other person also moved to further obstruct their path back to the vehicle.
  • 01:36:24
    The agent finally called over the radio for assistance from another agent.
  • 01:36:28
    The woman then punched the agent and scratched her hand, breaking the skin and leaving the agent.
  • 01:36:34
    She also grabbed the notebook out of the agent's hand and ran into her vehicle and drove away at a high rate of speed.
  • 01:36:45
    This is just one among many instances that our agents face daily, nightly.
  • 01:36:58
    Inspection Services Inspections ensures safe homes for residents and supports well-run businesses through education, enforcement, and partnership.
  • 01:37:09
    Inspections reorganized in 2021 to merge housing inspections, the Strategic Inspections Group, and fire inspections to align services, training, and to provide for a better, more consistent customer experience.
  • 01:37:23
    Additionally, we build capacity for alternative enforcement, guiding distressed renters and homeowners through complex resolutions to code violations, and house the city's encampment outreach and response team.
  • 01:37:37
    These additions demonstrate our commitment to our mission, partnership with communities.
  • 01:37:43
    Goals are for a dignified, safe and supportive housing for renters, well-maintained and thriving owner-occupied properties, safe and well-maintained businesses, welcoming livable and sustainable neighborhoods, and special events that are safe for all involved.
  • 01:38:02
    In 2022, inspections conducted nearly 43,000 inspections.
  • 01:38:08
    There were 1,900 fire watch hours at special events, including concerts, 80% of pre-pandemic levels.
  • 01:38:16
    We responded to more than 8,000 311 calls.
  • 01:38:20
    What we do well, we ensure safe, habitable rental housing and commercial buildings.
  • 01:38:26
    We use an education-forward approach to gain compliance with non-compliant behavior and properties.
  • 01:38:38
    We increase livability by siting and, when necessary, correcting nuisance issues ourselves.
  • 01:38:44
    A comprehensive inspections program includes programming to help renters who lose housing due to the interaction of property owners.
  • 01:38:53
    We manage special events and pyrotechnics and hazardous materials and our hazardous material responses.
  • 01:39:02
    We provide fire watch at many major events and venues and community events around the city.
  • 01:39:10
    We respond to community utilizing 311 service requests as a mechanism to report issues that happen all around the city.
  • 01:39:19
    We work cross-departmentally and externally with our partners in the Police Department, within the Health Department, Community Planning and Economic Development, Hennepin County, Metro Transit, and Minnesota Department of Transportation, to name a few.
  • 01:39:37
    Challenges?
  • 01:39:39
    Complex conditions take time to resolve.
  • 01:39:43
    We also see an increase in major events in the city, four major concerts over the course of just the span of a few weeks.
  • 01:39:50
    Also, just like it does with traffic control, it places a heavy burden on our fire inspectors to be able to respond and perform.
  • 01:40:01
    To illustrate some of those complex conditions that we encounter with housing, I have a story of a home that had been in the vacant building registry program for a number of years with the owner living in Richfield and its strategic inspections group inspector monitoring that vacant property.
  • 01:40:23
    The area inspector was notified by the strategic inspections inspector
  • 01:40:28
    that the house was now occupied and that the case we, and that the orders were transferring over to the area inspector for follow up.
  • 01:40:37
    That area inspector made a visit to the property and met with the occupant who claimed to be the new owner along with her husband.
  • 01:40:47
    The inspector told her that there were outstanding violations on the house and wanted it to be addressed and she said that they would follow up.
  • 01:40:56
    A few days later, that area inspector was contacted by a USAA agent who said that these occupants had applied for homeowner's insurance for the house, but he couldn't find any record of them actually owning the property.
  • 01:41:12
    A check of public records indicated that these individuals had found a home listed as vacant, moved in without the owner's knowledge, and subsequently applied for a driver's license at that address.
  • 01:41:25
    which then allowed them to transfer the utilities into their name claiming that the legitimate owner had sold them the property.
  • 01:41:34
    These individuals subsequently cut off all contact with inspections and actually tried to list the home for sale through a licensed realtor.
  • 01:41:44
    The area inspector kept an eye on the exterior of the house and noticed the for sale sign in the front yard and then called the listing agent who subsequently canceled the sale.
  • 01:41:55
    Eventually the legitimate property owner did service and was able to evict these illegal occupants.
  • 01:42:02
    This was not a quick fix.
  • 01:42:04
    It took more than a year with steady active engagement with both the property owner and from the property owner in the county and multiple agencies involved to remove the individuals from this home.
  • 01:42:20
    Quick pause for water.
  • 01:42:27
    Operations and Engagement.
  • 01:42:30
    Our mission here is to deliver innovative solutions by leveraging adaptive tools, accurate analysis and strategic coordination to provide effective and thoughtful public service to our city, its businesses and residents.
  • 01:42:46
    Goals for city employees are equipped with the resources they need to work effectively and efficiently.
  • 01:42:51
    Our customers easily navigate systems and move in an effective manner.
  • 01:42:56
    Residents have equitable and transparent access to information and resources from the city.
  • 01:43:02
    Proactively engage with our most vulnerable communities.
  • 01:43:06
    Department staff use a diverse set of elevated enforcement tools that prioritize rental protections to engage property owners and ensure renters have safe, habitable, and dignified living conditions.
  • 01:43:19
    The Department staff actively create, promote, and thrive in an inclusive and equitable work environment.
  • 01:43:28
    Staff have processed more than $7 million in revenue every year since 2020, seeing no downturn even through the pandemic.
  • 01:43:38
    We maintain 33 public-facing dashboards with 250,000 hits and counting year-to-date in 2023.
  • 01:43:46
    Coordinate encampment response with Hennepin County provides the county with encampment data so they can effectively manage their outreach and engagement efforts.
  • 01:43:55
    provided 16 learning and development opportunities for staff within the past year.
  • 01:44:01
    What we do well, we provide public dashboards and use data to guide internal strategy.
  • 01:44:06
    We bill and process revenue.
  • 01:44:10
    We interface with customers in person at the service center and online.
  • 01:44:15
    We provide internal and external communications, direct and manage the department's diversity, equity, and inclusion education.
  • 01:44:24
    In 2023, both the alternative enforcement and housing liaison teams continued to work on rental protection cases that could have resulted in displacement.
  • 01:44:34
    Throughout the year, 25 families received renter's relocation assistance and were able to transition into stable housing.
  • 01:44:43
    In addition to renter's relocation assistance, the rental property housing liaison team has attended 10 community events and engaged on five cultural radio shows to increase awareness on renter's rights.
  • 01:45:03
    Rental protection tools that were implemented three years ago have been embedded into the work we do every day.
  • 01:45:09
    Staff can more confidently and efficiently guide residents through each step and set expectations on what's to come, creating trust and lessening the fear of the unknown.
  • 01:45:21
    In the past, we had to adjust quickly and react to situations.
  • 01:45:25
    We're now able to proactively approach these situations and present residents with options to take control over the impacts to their families.
  • 01:45:36
    Some of the challenges
  • 01:45:39
    It's a large volume of work.
  • 01:45:40
    With increased awareness comes an increased need to deliver on those services, increasing more complex data requests that require more dedicated staff, more dedicated effort by staff to research and respond to these myriad requests.
  • 01:46:00
    And staffing levels continue to be a recurring theme in our divisions.
  • 01:46:13
    So moving forward with new budget requests, unsheltered homelessness response.
  • 01:46:20
    This is coordinated outreach and multi-departmental encampment response offering referrals to services, holding property owners accountable, and keeping neighborhoods safe.
  • 01:46:31
    Encampments present complicated issues around affordable housing, land management, public health, safety.
  • 01:46:38
    Coordinator of Response is comprised by multiple different departments and agencies including ourselves, regulatory services, multiple divisions within regulatory services rather, the Health Department, Minneapolis Police Department,
  • 01:46:56
    public works through solid waste and recycling and our partners in community planning and economic development to name a few.
  • 01:47:03
    This has been effective in making referrals and slowing site growth and with moving forward with clearing and closure of encampments.
  • 01:47:13
    The homeless response team also works with external partners including Hennepin County, Metro Transit and Minnesota Department of Transportation as well as railroads to address emerging needs.
  • 01:47:26
    Since June of 2022, the City has tracked over 560 encampments with an estimated 1,491 residents and made 2,541 site visits.
  • 01:47:39
    Regulatory services staff specifically for this purpose means we can dedicate time and energy on a coordinated response to these complicated situations all year round.
  • 01:47:52
    The proposal assumes the same approach to outreach and clearing encampments, a human-centered, referral-based approach that clears encampments quickly and humanely.
  • 01:48:02
    In the last year, the Homeless Response Team has spearheaded information sharing and unified response among city departments and partners with Hennepin County to provide services.
  • 01:48:15
    We've engaged unsheltered individuals and connected them with resources.
  • 01:48:22
    The Homeless Response Team has also developed a public facing dashboard that shows location, size, and number of engagements and encampments along the year.
  • 01:48:35
    Our goal is to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.
  • 01:48:42
    The funding request here is for three outreach coordinators, staff and one manager, plus one time funding for site cleanup and funding to secure vacant buildings near encampments.
  • 01:48:55
    So one additional note, these are not staff additions.
  • 01:49:02
    The Homeless Response Team is currently funded through a grant through the American Rescue Plan Act.
  • 01:49:10
    And we currently have one manager and two outreach workers.
  • 01:49:15
    and what this funding request proposes is to shift the funding from grant funded over to general funded so that we can maintain and continue to deliver these services.
  • 01:49:27
    And then there is a net out of one FTE for an additional outreach worker so that we can expand that team from two outreach caseworkers to three.
  • 01:49:42
    Our second request is for renters relocation assistance.
  • 01:49:47
    This is to replenish the renters relocation assistance fund to provide financial assistance for renters who are displaced from their homes due to life safety code violations.
  • 01:49:57
    Renters relocation assistance funds provide financial capacity to move and pay required deposits and other charges.
  • 01:50:05
    In a phrase, renters relocation assistance provides peace of mind for those who need it during that critical time of need.
  • 01:50:15
    recognizing the needs of unexpectedly displaced renters.
  • 01:50:20
    Ranchers First policy allows renters relocation assistance when property owners cannot or will not make improvements.
  • 01:50:28
    The Ranchers Relocation Assistance Fund, excuse me, the Ranchers Relocation Assistance Ordinance provides financial assistance to renters when a rental license has been revoked, denied, canceled,
  • 01:50:44
    or when requirements of the 60-day advance notice of sale and post-sale renter protection period is violated, 30% of eligible cases are not resolved.
  • 01:50:57
    property owners responsible for relocation assistance to renters equal to three months rent in cases where the property owner does not comply.
  • 01:51:05
    That's where the city steps in with the renters relocation assistance funds and use that funds to pay that three months of rent to impact your residence and then we assess the property.
  • 01:51:21
    Renters in affordable housing often do not have resources to deal with the unanticipated, unexpected, emergent need to suddenly move.
  • 01:51:33
    They may be dealing with multiple factors, such as having young children, having limited mobility, or lack of access to transportation that all pose barriers to their ability on top of the sudden displacement.
  • 01:51:50
    This financial assistance paired with hands-on support in securing new housing can be the positive influence that displaced renters need to settle into their new homes.
  • 01:52:02
    First funded in 2021, we have since funded and helped 41 families with an average of $2,700 per family distributed.
  • 01:52:12
    in each one of these instances.
  • 01:52:15
    In cases where renters relocation assistance was available for renters facing displacement, 52% of them were within street area zip codes.
  • 01:52:27
    We ran out of funds in early 2023 following a major water break in North Minneapolis where the city issued funds for 23 displaced families.
  • 01:52:38
    Even after recovering a portion of these funds from the property owner,
  • 01:52:41
    The Renter's Relocation Assistance Fund is underfunded and will be challenged to continue helping families especially as we approach cold weather seasons and low heat, no seat season.
  • 01:52:57
    If funded at $150,000, we could support approximately 55 renters.
  • 01:53:06
    This is a newer program and we're continuing to figure out what the ongoing needs will be as we gain more experience.
  • 01:53:13
    Funds may not meet the full need and cost recovery process is long and does take time.
  • 01:53:20
    If the costs do get assessed to a property, we may not see or recoup those funds for upwards of three years from the time that
  • 01:53:31
    an issue emerges to the time that we assess the property until we've recovered those costs.
  • 01:53:44
    Our third new budget request is for a portfolio approach to high occupancy dwelling units.
  • 01:53:51
    We endeavor to develop a multifaceted approach to inspections, property management and code compliance and engage and educate property owners for more effective management of large portfolios of properties under the same ownership.
  • 01:54:07
    Incorporating the High Occupancy Dwelling Units incentivizes and engages property managers and owners.
  • 01:54:14
    We will provide as part of this proposal an on-demand rental property owners and managers workshop that incorporates the high occupancy dwelling components and fire codes
  • 01:54:27
    into the the programming.
  • 01:54:30
    This is a voluntary program with less than 40% of new rental license holders attending each year and it currently as it's devised right now is that it's for single-family duplex and triplexes and is silent for those with high occupancy dwelling units.
  • 01:54:50
    That's why we wanted to expand into that area.
  • 01:54:54
    The program provides a discount
  • 01:54:56
    on the rental license for the property owners and managers who do participate in the program and complete the course.
  • 01:55:04
    This accounts to approximately $30,000 with 100% engagement.
  • 01:55:12
    This proposal would also include a recognition program and a consideration of a portfolio master license.
  • 01:55:20
    Portfolios are
  • 01:55:25
    properties that all share, large groups of properties that all share the same ownership group.
  • 01:55:35
    This approach is currently used with single-family dwellings and has been successful.
  • 01:55:40
    We want to extend it to high occupancy dwelling units.
  • 01:55:43
    The alternative enforcement team is a safeguard for residents in rental buildings that experience ongoing livability issues.
  • 01:55:50
    This shifts the power dynamic to empower our renters.
  • 01:55:54
    Starting in 2021, the Alternative Enforcement Team conducted inspections of the front yard residential portfolio.
  • 01:56:03
    FYR is investor-owned and one of the largest portfolios and property owners in North Minneapolis.
  • 01:56:10
    These inspections were completed ahead of the regular inspection cycle.
  • 01:56:14
    Also, the Alternative Enforcement Team negotiated and is in the process of implementing rental licensing conditions for FYR for the portfolio, which provides an outlay of the additional standards that this property management company, property ownership, needs to meet to continue to operate as a rental license.
  • 01:56:40
    operate with their rental license in Minneapolis.
  • 01:56:43
    The alternative enforcement team has begun inspections of the assertive management's portfolio of properties as well in 2023.
  • 01:56:56
    Excuse me.
  • 01:56:58
    This request includes the addition of 1.0 FTE for a fire inspector who will be charged with inspecting the high occupancy dwelling units and 1 FTE for a program coordinator.
  • 01:57:11
    Together they will design a portfolio license program and associated owner and manager workshops, communicate with owners, property managers and residents, and identify data transfer form workloads for portfolio based properties.
  • 01:57:29
    All right.
  • 01:57:31
    Now, lastly, administrative FTE changes.
  • 01:57:38
    We had an FTE incorrectly counted in CBDG budget rather than ARPA funding in 2023.
  • 01:57:46
    So we see the shift from 189.9 FTE in 2023 to 188.9 in 2024.
  • 01:57:56
    So seeing that this was made in error, the shift was made and corrected.
  • 01:58:06
    We endeavor to correct it for 2024.
  • 01:58:11
    This concludes my presentation and I am happy to stand for any comments or questions you may have.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:58:17
    Thank you so much for the presentation and I just want to discuss a time check here with Council members.
  • 01:58:26
    We have to have another half an hour and we have another presentation too.
  • 01:58:30
    So just want that to be where first up we have customer Johnson.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:58:33
    Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you to the Director.
  • 01:58:35
    I really appreciate the presentation.
  • 01:58:36
    You know, it just shows how much regulatory services is tasked with that really affects safety in our city and really these critical functions.
  • 01:58:44
    And I particularly, so Council Member Goodman and I are like the animal people up here.
  • 01:58:49
    We've worked over the years with Minneapolis Animal Care and Control on a number of things.
  • 01:58:54
    And so it's particularly glad to see the highlights of the challenges over at Animal Care and Control.
  • 01:59:01
    I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge our Animal Care and Control Director, Carolyn Herfield, who has been just one of our top leaders in this city over my time in office and the vision that she's brought forward has really made such a difference over there.
  • 01:59:21
    Just thank you so much for your leadership and your vision, Director.
  • 01:59:24
    I was glad at the stories you shared, too.
  • 01:59:30
    I've seen those as well in my ward, for instance, one where Animal Care and Control was dealing with a situation with raccoons that somebody was keeping in their yard and feeding and it was affecting the neighbors and causing safety issues within the immediate neighborhood.
  • 01:59:46
    Animal Care and Control really stepped up to be that safety net for this individual who was also hoarding and had mental health issues and really brought together a dozen different jurisdictions, worked closely with the family, ultimately got this person the help that they needed.
  • 02:00:02
    that so often times, Animal Care and Control, we talk about the stories of the animals, but it's also people as well, and I think that's important to highlight.
  • 02:00:11
    Which brings me to the challenges and the concerns here, right?
  • 02:00:15
    You mentioned from the presentation, staff injuries are up, severe bites are up, overtime is tripled, burnouts up.
  • 02:00:23
    and the live release rate of animals is down and the response times are down as well.
  • 02:00:29
    One of the things you mentioned is that intakes are 200% over the national recommendations based off of our staffing levels.
  • 02:00:40
    What do we need to do to get ultimately back in that safe zone of our status as a no-kill shelter?
  • 02:00:48
    What do we need to do to turn around these response times?
  • 02:00:52
    How many open positions are there right now?
  • 02:00:55
    over at Animal Care and Control.
  • 02:00:58
    How many of those are Animal Care and Control officers?
  • 02:01:02
    And ultimately, where do we need to go?
  • 02:01:03
    Because it doesn't seem to me that two is enough.
  • 02:01:06
    I mean, it's something, but it also seems like we need more.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 02:01:13
    Chair Koski, Council Member Johnson, thank you very much for the comments and also for the question.
  • 02:01:20
    right two is not enough based off of the current level of need what we're looking at doing right now we're evaluating how do we perform work where are there opportunities to leverage others within the department or within the enterprise so that we could potentially shift work so that we can create more opportunities without adding staffing shifting
  • 02:01:44
    the roles or responsibilities of staff and the need is great.
  • 02:01:50
    We've seen with increased evictions it's displacing families and we consider pets as part of families as well and it's heartbreaking for those families to have to separate from one another and make that hard decision of do we stay together and risk not having a place to stay or do we
  • 02:02:13
    Surrender our animals and Live to fight another day So we're trying to trying to take as holistic of an approach as possible While just recognizing that there is so much need also looking at our services what things do we need to scale up or scale down or do differently and
  • 02:02:32
    so that we can right size and make sure that we have the resources in the right place at the right time to get control of our overtime, reduce the overall stress level for our staff, and deliver vital services to the communities.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:02:51
    Thank you, Director.
  • 02:02:51
    You know, so much of that seems rooted in, and this isn't a criticism of you, this is something I see
  • 02:02:56
    Often times in government, not just at the city but other levels, is really driven by a scarcity mindset.
  • 02:03:03
    We have limited resources, of course, so I appreciate trying to make work with what resources are available, but if this council wants to add additional staff beyond the two,
  • 02:03:16
    I need some guidance from you and from the team on what that looks like to really get there, to get to continuing to maintain that no-kill shelter, to alleviate the response times issues, the injury issues.
  • 02:03:36
    Do you have that number?
  • 02:03:39
    If this council wants to do that, what is needed?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 02:03:46
    Thank you for your question.
  • 02:03:49
    I'll ask Director Herfield if she might be able to come up.
  • 02:03:53
    I believe the answer might be that we'll have to come back with what that answer is on what it would take to maintain.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:04:01
    We could actually come back with a very accurate answer.
  • 02:04:06
    The reality is that we work a tremendous amount of overtime to accomplish what the city is asking us to accomplish.
  • 02:04:13
    And in order to alleviate that would take a significant increase in our FDEs.
  • 02:04:19
    But we can get back to you with that number.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:04:21
    Thank you.
  • 02:04:21
    I appreciate that.
  • 02:04:22
    I think that'd be really helpful for the council.
  • 02:04:24
    I mean, at the end of the day, we have a decision to make on this.
  • 02:04:27
    And there's a lot of areas within the enterprise to understand short staff.
  • 02:04:30
    working really hard with not enough resources and also this is one where the lives of animals are frankly in the balance and I think it's an important one that we have full transparency as a council in order to make an informed decision here.
  • 02:04:49
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 02:04:51
    Thank you.
  • 02:04:51
    Council Member Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 02:04:53
    Thank you Chair Akoski.
  • 02:04:54
    I recognize there's two council members after me so I know probably
  • 02:04:58
    The biggest piece of my questions around this work has been around homelessness response.
  • 02:05:11
    I was very concerned to see we chose that as an achievement for this particular division and knowing that I hear from my residents very frequently.
  • 02:05:22
    that they're not happy and how we're doing their whack-a-mole approach around encampments.
  • 02:05:28
    So I definitely would like to see follow-up and maybe a memo could be shared with this body around what metrics of success we're using.
  • 02:05:37
    If it's simply just site closures, I'm on the website that you referred that our homeless response team
  • 02:05:43
    is supposed to be keeping up to date.
  • 02:05:46
    It doesn't offer the number of individuals in the encampments.
  • 02:05:49
    I see housing reforms are 44.
  • 02:05:52
    What is that of that total individuals living in the encampments?
  • 02:05:56
    What's the time span?
  • 02:05:57
    Is this like within recent weeks?
  • 02:05:59
    So it would be good to have more data around how we're actually thinking this is successful.
  • 02:06:06
    The follow-up question that I would like to get a response to is around staffing.
  • 02:06:11
    You mentioned we have the one manager and two outreach.
  • 02:06:14
    It would be good to know if all those positions are filled.
  • 02:06:18
    I just know a couple weeks ago when I was invited by a community to be at the wall of Forgotten Natives encampments,
  • 02:06:25
    there was, again, the eviction notifications that had the city of Minneapolis outreach worker information, but that worker was not with the city.
  • 02:06:33
    I think they had left six months prior.
  • 02:06:36
    And this was just a couple of weeks ago.
  • 02:06:38
    So if we're also sending out notifications to encampments that have inaccurate information or not updated staffing, that's also concerning.
  • 02:06:47
    And it seems like you were nodding your head that we do have full occupancy of those two outreach roles or no?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 02:06:55
    Madam Chair, Council Member Wonsley, yes that's correct.
  • 02:06:58
    We have a manager who's detailed into the role presently who's been in that capacity for a little more than one year and we have two outreach workers currently who have been in those roles for as long as the homeless response team has been in existence, so longer than the one year.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 02:07:18
    So even more concerning that their information wasn't accurately presented on an eviction notice just from a couple weeks ago.
  • 02:07:25
    But yeah, I definitely look forward to getting follow up on that.
  • 02:07:29
    And I'll follow up on some additional questions around advocacy of traffic enforcement, and also the safety component around our traffic enforcement team.
  • 02:07:38
    So thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:07:40
    Thank you, Councilmember Goodman.
  • 02:07:42
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 02:07:43
    I want to go back to the animal control issue with all due respect to all of the important issues.
  • 02:07:48
    I'm not trying to pit one against the other, for lack of a better word as well, as we now adopt pit bull and other breeds that might have a stigma.
  • 02:07:59
    Two people is not enough.
  • 02:08:01
    In fact, the fact that we said that, oh, we're putting in these extra hours at night, but the extra hours were really on a Saturday wasn't a net extra hour.
  • 02:08:09
    It was just extra time during a different time.
  • 02:08:12
    And I think it's really unfair to put Carolyn and her team on the spot for trying to defend why they don't have enough money.
  • 02:08:19
    I also think it's unfair to grill Mr. Velasquez who hasn't even been through, he's been through the appointment public hearing but hasn't been appointed yet to expect him to know the answers is really difficult to and I don't think anyone's putting him on the spot.
  • 02:08:35
    Ultimately we lose money because we clear shelters and don't collect any adoption fees.
  • 02:08:40
    We then have to go begging for money from nonprofits.
  • 02:08:44
    We're about to accept a $75,000 grant in the next cycle for animal control in an effort to help with their foster care program, which is really incredible.
  • 02:08:54
    And we rely on hundreds of volunteers.
  • 02:08:57
    to come into the shelter on a daily basis to walk dogs, clean cages, and assist.
  • 02:09:03
    So I do think that this council or the next one is going to have to figure out whether or not we think it's important to have no-kill status.
  • 02:09:11
    I would argue it is.
  • 02:09:12
    I would say actually we probably would lose a lot of volunteers who would not help if they felt that that was our primary goal and so this issue hasn't gotten as much attention probably as other important issues understandably but ultimately I do think we need to resource this better and that probably includes at least two more people
  • 02:09:34
    in this budget, but I don't expect to put Mr. Velazquez on the spot about how that could happen, given where we're at.
  • 02:09:42
    I'll note, I fostered a dog this year from animal care when the freeze was coming.
  • 02:09:50
    My dog was at a training, as most of you know the story, and I adopted, I had Athena staying at my house for a week, and it wasn't the relationship I had with the dog,
  • 02:10:00
    It was the incredible relationship I developed with the staff who were guiding me through this process, from the person who greeted me when I first came in to the people who taught me what this dog needed in terms of care, to having to give the dog back where I was sobbing in the lobby, extremely upset, did not want to give the dog back without knowing that the dog was adopted.
  • 02:10:24
    And then I found out the dog was adopted and left the shelter the next day in the back seat of a car with a person who wanted that exact elderly dog.
  • 02:10:34
    This is a business that's about people.
  • 02:10:38
    it is and I will work with Councilmember Johnson and others who have a level of interest and I bet there are a good number to try to figure out what we should do if it's not resolved in this budget then it needs to be resolved in the next but ultimately I do not want us to be critical of the volunteers by not listening to their calls for help
  • 02:11:01
    If they have and they've been really patient to to be honest.
  • 02:11:04
    I'm on a Facebook page with a number of them.
  • 02:11:06
    There are Hundreds, I mean we're talking like 600 plus volunteers and they are very active and passionate about this And so I I'm committed to working with others on this.
  • 02:11:16
    I want to thank you.
  • 02:11:17
    Mr Velasquez I realize this is not top of mind but ultimately there's an incredible team down there and these issues with animals are extremely emotional for people and
  • 02:11:27
    including the people that work there.
  • 02:11:28
    It is super hard for them to watch the inability to have to lose that no kill status.
  • 02:11:34
    Everyone knows what that means.
  • 02:11:37
    It's not as important as people, but this is a people business also.
  • 02:11:41
    And I think we owe it to our community to try to figure out if we can right size this again.
  • 02:11:46
    Thanks.
• • Emily Koski
  • 02:11:48
    Thank you.
  • 02:11:49
    Last person in queue is Council Member Rainville.
• • Michael Rainville
  • 02:11:52
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 02:11:53
    I realize that we have a 1230 stop here, so I'll be very brief.
  • 02:11:58
    Could you describe a little bit more of the efforts being taken for safety for your traffic control agents?
  • 02:12:03
    I know you've started the body cam program and I'm very concerned about their safety.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 02:12:11
    Yes, Chair Akoski, Council Member Rainville, thank you for the question.
  • 02:12:17
    Yes, in 2023 we started a pilot for both traffic control as well as animal control for agents who are in the field to wear body-worn cameras.
  • 02:12:27
    We're working on still developing all of the different details
  • 02:12:32
    on data requests, data management, data storage, those different elements.
  • 02:12:38
    But that's one of the components that we're looking at for improving safety.
  • 02:12:45
    We are participating and standing up a critical incident stress management reduction team across rank services.
  • 02:12:55
    We'll have 22 individuals who are going to be participating in that and it's a peer-led
  • 02:12:59
    is a safety cohort, if you will, that responds when there are events that happen in the field and that individual, that agent, that code compliance specialist requires some additional support that's not from a supervisor or from a public safety officer.
  • 02:13:20
    is more of a peer support.
  • 02:13:23
    We're looking at where we place individuals within those intersections and how we staff, how we train and continue to build on escalation or de-escalation
  • 02:13:38
    the escalation training making sure that that information that knowledge cascades to all of the agents as they come on board and as they elevate through from a co-compliant specialist to a lead to a supervisor.
• • Michael Rainville
  • 02:13:53
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 02:13:56
    All right.
  • 02:13:56
    Thank you so much for the presentation and thorough information.
  • 02:14:01
    I just want to give a reminder, yes, we typically do end at 1230.
  • 02:14:06
    I would like to ask colleagues, if they're willing to stay a little longer, the new director
  • 02:14:12
    for our Arts and Cultural Affairs Department has waited patiently here.
  • 02:14:16
    It would be very difficult for us to squeeze him into another day, likely.
  • 02:14:20
    So we can extend this a little longer.
  • 02:14:23
    And I have faith in you, Director Johnson, that you can speed talk and get through this.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:14:30
    Good morning Chair Koski and Council.
  • 02:14:34
    I will try to surmise as quickly as possible on behalf of the entire arts and cultural ecosystem this presentation.
  • 02:14:42
    Joining me today is also Mary Altman who is our Public Arts Supervisor of the City of Minneapolis and I am here to provide the presentation for the mayor's 2024 recommended budget for arts and cultural affairs.
  • 02:14:53
    You can see that we have a very robust mission and goals, but what I guess I will tease out mostly is the primary goals is that all of our work centers cultural equity, equality, and inclusion, and that we promote the city as a center for arts and culture and to celebrate the unique cultural richness and excellence within our arts ecosystem, and that we
  • 02:15:13
    develop and implement arts and cultural programs and initiatives to encourage greater participation in and increase public access to arts and cultural in Minneapolis.
  • 02:15:24
    And then this last bullet which is support growth and support systems for the following art sectors.
  • 02:15:29
    which is music, dance, theater, film, media, design, fashion, food, craft, visual arts, architecture, festivals, venues, public art, presenters, producers, cultural exchange, social justice, creative entrepreneurs and technology.
  • 02:15:41
    And I only speak to those because when I refer to the arts and cultural ecosystem, that's what I'm referring to.
  • 02:15:48
    We are a new department, a department in transition, so very quickly, this department, on behalf of you, was established by ordinance in 2021 with the distinct intention of having a positive impact on racial equity.
  • 02:16:03
    We're in this transition period with the formation of this department, and part of that is the hiring of the new director.
  • 02:16:08
    Thank you.
  • 02:16:10
    We have retired the Office of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy, and with that we now have two distinct program areas.
  • 02:16:19
    Those are public programs and grants, and also public art and maintenance.
  • 02:16:24
    And we're actively engaging across all art sectors, wards, neighborhoods, and convenings and issues as we think about what the future is of this department.
  • 02:16:31
    As you can see, we have a small but mighty team with the director.
  • 02:16:40
    The one outstanding position is the Executive Manager of Art.
  • 02:16:47
    All of this is happening in real time, so I'm pleased to announce that we actually don't have any vacancies.
  • 02:16:52
    We're about to announce our new Executive Manager of Arts.
  • 02:16:55
    in the upcoming weeks, and I'm very excited about that.
  • 02:16:58
    So we're looking as part of our budgetary request to add an additional position in 2024.
  • 02:17:03
    We have a couple of priority objectives that feed into our budgetary request.
  • 02:17:09
    So we're intentionally supporting the work of George Floyd Square in our community healing initiatives, and I will showcase those as we work through the budgetary proposals.
  • 02:17:19
    We are working to strengthen the impact of the current Arts and Cultural Affairs Department by aligning with the Minneapolis 2040 plan, and that's mostly in alignment with our cultural districts, which I'll talk about.
  • 02:17:29
    And then we'll also support arts leadership and the Minneapolis arts economy through our department's new strategic planning.
  • 02:17:35
    We're now poised to sort of develop a very robust and impactful strategic plan and framework.
  • 02:17:45
    We've had a lot of achievements, we do have risks, but I wanted to quickly speak to the lessons that I'm learning in the field because that will impact a lot of the work that we're doing.
  • 02:17:53
    One is that even with the work that we are doing, we still are not able to meet the demand for what is needed for post-COVID arts and cultural ecosystem.
  • 02:18:02
    Our sectors are still in recovery mode.
  • 02:18:06
    What's not in recovery mode is sort of the corporate entertainment complex that is sort of live entertainment touring of big festivals and concerts.
  • 02:18:13
    But that doesn't really speak to what our arts and cultural ecosystem is on the ground.
  • 02:18:17
    So we are still in recovery mode out of COVID in that respect.
  • 02:18:22
    What we've learned during COVID is that our arts and cultural sectors do not have a safety net.
  • 02:18:28
    And so one of the things I'm actively thinking about is how do we sustain or develop sustainable and resilient arts and cultural ecosystem.
  • 02:18:36
    We are very much what I hear on the ground in an affordable space crisis, that artists don't have the ability to have space to create work, to have live-work space, as well as that there's a demand for technicians to have affordable places to live.
  • 02:18:54
    So this is something that we need to think about, that where once we had a lot of affordable space, we no longer have that.
  • 02:19:02
    During COVID, also that philanthropy has shifted.
  • 02:19:04
    We used to be known for our incredible philanthropy through corporations and foundations and major gifts, but that has all shifted away from the arts.
  • 02:19:12
    So we're at a new tipping point in understanding how to have real impact in our community.
  • 02:19:17
    We do know that the investment in the arts and cultural fairs is key to the transformation of downtown, uptown, and all of our neighborhoods, cultural districts, and that the city is really looking for us to have arts leadership to support our cultural infrastructure and they're looking for our leadership on a local, national, international level.
  • 02:19:38
    We have delivered a lot of our public programs in FY22 and 23 and you can see from our creative response fund we were able to invest in 24 city-wide projects in the last two years and generally speaking 90% of those artists were BIPOC and 60% of the attendees were BIPOC
  • 02:19:58
    We also had funding for our post-COVID recovery projects.
  • 02:20:03
    Those are in the forms of our business response funds.
  • 02:20:06
    And those were in the shape of our creative apprenticeship program, our capacity building program, and our artist driven marketing program.
  • 02:20:14
    And again, that was about 90% of the
  • 02:20:18
    the artists that were involved in those programs were BIPOC and over 60% were of the people who attended those programs were BIPOC.
  • 02:20:26
    Additionally, some of the exciting things that we are have been able to deliver just in the last couple of months is that we're a finalist for the Bloomberg Public Art Challenge and we'll learn about that in the next couple of months as well as we're working on additional grants proposals that are in development.
  • 02:20:41
    We've also been able to launch our inaugural Minnesota Poet Laureate program in collaboration with the Loft Literary Center.
  • 02:20:48
    We've cultivated new funding opportunities and developed partnerships, alliances, and community support and trust in our community.
  • 02:20:55
    And we have a lot of ongoing public art and maintenance programs.
  • 02:20:59
    And that is a significant amount of work, but we will be focusing on that program as part of our capital budget committee that will be coming up.
  • 02:21:10
    Through the program updates, this is just an encapsulation of everything I've just discussed, but I would just direct your attention to the 2024 plan.
  • 02:21:18
    This is what we had approved as a budget, and the mayor is recommending a $2,481,661 for the 2024 budget.
  • 02:21:31
    So these are the programs that we are looking at for our budgetary proposals.
  • 02:21:35
    The new program manager, this is $129,000.
  • 02:21:37
    This is one FTE.
  • 02:21:39
    This will support our public programs and grants.
  • 02:21:42
    This is a really important position for us to sort of grow and establish our department and to deliver cultural services.
  • 02:21:50
    The only risk that this is that we wouldn't have the staffing to deliver services.
  • 02:21:55
    And then as a newly formed department that is shifting our work, that sort of details out a risk for us.
  • 02:22:04
    But this also then ensures us that we'll have our primary focus on the BIPOC communities in which we're dedicated to serve.
  • 02:22:12
    The next program that we're advocating for is our Vibrant Downtown Storefronts and Cultural Districts.
  • 02:22:18
    This is a two-part proposal.
  • 02:22:20
    It's an $820,000 request.
  • 02:22:22
    $250,000 of that goes to Vibrant Storefronts and $570,000 goes to seven cultural districts.
  • 02:22:28
    This will be shared across several cultural districts.
  • 02:22:31
    There are zero FTEs attributed to this request.
  • 02:22:36
    And just very quickly, the focus on Vibrant Store Funds is to do a re-examination of the Harmon Place area.
  • 02:22:42
    We're basically imagining taking over everywhere from Loring Park to downtown and filling up any empty space with artists and culture.
  • 02:22:51
    And then with the seven cultural districts, this funding is to do a really active engagement in all seven districts and by adding a new arts and culture overlay on top of those districts.
  • 02:23:00
    This is funding to help support existing festivals and cultural spaces so there won't be displaced to help pilot new creative ideas and activations across those districts.
  • 02:23:10
    and then also to identify a stakeholder in those districts to help us meet on a quarterly basis with all the arts and cultural providers of that district and really feed into neighborhood cohesion for those regions.
  • 02:23:23
    This is seen as a real investment that will distribute equitably across the city.
  • 02:23:28
    To me it's about working both downtown and also throughout the neighborhoods.
  • 02:23:33
    And this really centers REIB in all of the work that we do.
  • 02:23:39
    The final proposal is a $228,000, $450 one-time ask for George Perry Floyd Square.
  • 02:23:48
    This is a process that will be managed by our public art division.
  • 02:23:55
    And this is for us to develop a plan and a cost estimate that is to address
  • 02:24:02
    the how to archive, maintain, and store all of the offerings and public art that is being left at George Floyd Square.
  • 02:24:13
    And it respects the rights of artists and for the removing of the work as needed for the construction in 2025 and the transfer of ownership.
  • 02:24:22
    The majority of this budget will be done through contractual services and
  • 02:24:27
    Not only does this really center BIPOC artists, specifically black artists, but it also is our hope that it will address the capacity of increasing the number of black conservators that will be attached to this project.
  • 02:24:44
    We have one administrative transfer that is from CPET to Arts and Cultural Affairs.
  • 02:24:50
    It's for $75,000.
  • 02:24:51
    It's to maintain our 90 public works or public art projects across the city.
  • 02:24:59
    And I just give you this last page.
  • 02:25:01
    These are the artists that you have funded over the last two years and it's nice to see.
  • 02:25:07
    In many ways, I sort of think of artists as our frontline workers who are here to help, you know, address the issues that we see in our city but as well as provide the creative imagination and the spirit of our city.
  • 02:25:20
    And in many ways in my mind, you know, this doesn't scratch the surface So so if you would imagine what it feels like if we would scratch the surface and I think that this the budgetary proposals that we offer sort of get us on that path
  • 02:25:34
    I think that's the shortest presentation I've ever given.
  • 02:25:36
    And so, if anyone has any questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 02:25:39
    Thank you, Director Johnson.
  • 02:25:41
    You did an excellent job.
  • 02:25:42
    I think you speak fast anyways.
  • 02:25:46
    So I felt that we got a lot of information as well.
  • 02:25:50
    We have a couple of questions here.
  • 02:25:51
    Council Member Chavez.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:25:53
    Thank you Chair Koski.
  • 02:25:54
    Thank you so much Director for being here.
  • 02:25:56
    My question is on the vibrant downtown storefronts and cultural districts.
  • 02:26:02
    There seems there's one of those in CPED as well.
  • 02:26:04
    I'm trying to figure out is it the same thing?
  • 02:26:06
    Is it different?
  • 02:26:07
    And just need some help understanding that.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:26:09
    That's a shared project that we're working on collaboratively.
  • 02:26:17
    I think the work that CPET is doing is really understanding how to transform corporate office buildings into
  • 02:26:25
    residential as well as really understand a whole roster of other issues that are about transforming that downtown area.
  • 02:26:32
    And my part of that is really taking what I see as an opportunity to creatively reimagine a specific area.
  • 02:26:40
    We don't have enough money to do the whole downtown but to sort of start piloting
  • 02:26:44
    what it feels like to invite artists and art workers back into downtown and create a new culture cluster for the city and invite them to start being creative and imagine what it means to work downtown and then help us actually reimagine what all of downtown can be.
  • 02:26:59
    So there's about 25 empty storefronts in that area and we're going to try to match and insert as many creative artists as we can to build basically a new centering community for the whole city.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:27:13
    Cool.
  • 02:27:13
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 02:27:15
    All right, I am not seeing any further questions from colleagues.
  • 02:27:19
    Thank you so much for this presentation and well done for your first time presenting to us.
  • 02:27:26
    Thank you.
  • 02:27:26
    It's really helpful to get the vision and I know you have so much creativity and energy and it's exciting to see and I know that we could all feel that today.
  • 02:27:34
    So thank you.
  • 02:27:36
    Okay.
  • 02:27:37
    Seeing no further discussion at this point, I'll direct the Clerk to file those presentations.
  • 02:27:41
    Our next Budget Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 10th at 10 a.m. That day we are set to hear from the Public Works and Civil Rights Departments.
  • 02:27:51
    With that, we conclude all business to come before the Committee day.
  • 02:27:53
    Without objection, we stand adjourned.