Budget Committee November 30, 2023   11/30/2023

And I'm sorry I rush in you.

Thank you.

Present.

There are 10 members present.

Welcome.

The Economic Research Institute compiles one of the most robust salary, cost of living, and compensation market analyses that are available.

They're having technical difficulties today and that's why we do not have the presentation up on the monitors and so we only have this today to do.

Until that technical issue is fixed, we won't have the feedback monitors.

Thank you.

Representatives of our Human Resources Department are here and together we're happy to respond to any questions the committee might have.

Not seeing any, I will ask the Clerk to call the roll.

Ellison?

Aye.

That motion carries.

I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Goodman?

Aye.

Chaudhuri?

Aye.

Palmesano?

Aye.

Cherkoski?

Aye.

There are 12 ayes.

Not seeing any discussion to the amendment before us, and I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

Our next amendment is from Councilmember Payne.

Councilmember Payne, would you please introduce your amendment.

So I'm very excited about this budget amendment and I hope I can get everyone's support.

Councilmember Rainville?

Thank you.

Councilmember Payne.

So we're going to be doing some capacity building there as well.

Thank you, Councilmember Chuktay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ellison.

It's for Councilmember Osmond who's also having technical difficulties.

Great.

and others for bringing this forward and I would definitely be happy to see this move forward.

Next we have Council Member Wonsley.

I absolutely look forward to submitting it and also just wanted to ask the co-authors if I could also be added as a co-author as well.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Council Member Chavez.

Good programs that we're going to actually be able to deliver to our residents I'm excited to work with the Office of Community Safety to make sure these programs are successful And I'm super excited for the Lake Street Corridor one I think the Lake Street Council, the Lake Street Green Partnership have been talking about this program for years And now we have an opportunity to have good community partners to actually make these programs successful for the year to come So I'm very excited about this amendment and happy that we're going to be voting on it

And again, I feel positive about this, and I'm not here to throw cold water on it, but I do just want to invite some real talk as to how we could stand such a thing up.

Commissioner, welcome.

So if there are any other questions, I'll stand for those.

And so I ask the clerk to call the roll.

So Madam Chair, just to be 100% clear, so are we intending this to be one vote on the final item or are we intending to vote once to amend and then a second to approve as amended?

As amended.

So two votes or one?

I believe we can do one vote.

Chowdhury?

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

Our next motion is from Councilmember Payne, and I will ask Councilor Klain to please introduce your amendment.

I'm hoping that you see this alignment and that commitment to public safety by building capacity for our Office of Neighborhood Safety and helping to make sure that our unanimously supported pilot has got the right capacity and infrastructure to be successful.

Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Vice President Powell.

But I bet you have these answers because I'm sure you were thorough about this.

and we asked them to come back to us with kind of like a rank priority of what the most urgent needs were in response to some of those requirements and what were some of the lower priority positions and this is sourcing from this lowest priority FTE request.

We have the amendment offered by Councilmember Payne before us and I will ask the clerk to call the

Vita?

Aye.

Goodman?

Aye.

Choudhury?

Aye.

Palmisano?

Aye.

Cherkoski?

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

Council Member Chavez, will you please introduce your amendment?

And now we are here today to make sure that we can get this done.

I see City Attorney is in queue.

The police station will be at 2633 Minnehaha and this other location will not be a police station.

It is not the third precinct.

actual new third precinct station or how do we reconcile that because I know there are not infinite city resources is a concern that I just want to voice.

So I don't think that necessarily answers your question but

Thank you Madam Chair.

And if so, are those partners also contributing funds to this effort?

This is similar to that project, yes, to what we used to have at the Midtown Global Market and it's a continuous movement to re-establish such a location in this area.

So the question is, are the partners contributing resources to this effort?

They have emailed I think all of us and it includes a variety of different stakeholders who want to make sure this gets done and when this does happen I'm pretty sure that our partners are going to also be helping us with funding and stuff.

So that's a concern.

Maybe not.

They have very unique challenges in this location and it seems like if we're going to be breaking up this 19 billion and putting it in all sorts of different places, this would be a logical place to start this process.

Alright, next we have the City Attorney.

That is not what this is.

Councilmember Vita.

I'm just wondering, is there a competition for resources with this versus the permanent?

So it is not in competition with that.

Okay, so you all have identified some staff outside of the staff we're using to work on the Third Precinct, the rebuild, the resources we want to put into that outside of

But those conversations are happening.

President Jenkins.

And the challenge I have is that consistently the partners were not able to come up with the resources.

Yes, Councilman Jarvis.

Thank you.

Oh, Council Member Osman.

Thank you.

All right, Councilmember Payne.

I think Councilmember Chavez is committed and I'm really excited about this opportunity.

I will ask the Clerk to call the roll.

Lita.

Aye.

Jenkins.

It's number seven and I will ask Councilmember Chavez to speak or introduce your amendment.

We want to make sure that we are being as accessible to all of the places of worship we have here in the city of Minneapolis and make sure that we can address this issue head-on.

I do see we have Councilmember Rainville in queue.

Just to be clear, this funding would not be limited to houses of worship, so just make that clear for the record.

Thank you.

I just had a quick question about quick question.

I thought I was in queue.

I'm sorry.

He was helping her out or what's happening there.

So I'm definitely in queue.

I thought, my understanding was that the FBI were the only ones with authority over hate crimes, so just asking for clarity on this.

That, if you don't mind, Chair Cauce.

if our city attorney or would like to speak to that.

you know state law and federal law so this is really this is not to usurp the FBI's responsibility this is really to from a public safety perspective to provide some city services you know ubiquitously houses of worship not houses of worship that are have been targeted by hate crimes to figure out if you know we can support from a public safety perspective crime prevention which I think does not interfere with FBI

And, you know, would love to ask the co-authors if I could also be added on to this amendment too.

Councilmember Choctaw.

And yeah, so just wanted to add that context too.

I hope that helps.

Council Member Ellison.

For Osman.

Council Member Osman.

to combat hate crime in our city.

And with that, I hope that all members of this body will be joining us in supporting this really great amendment and a really timely amendment that is going to make our city a safer and kinder place to live in.

President Jenkins.

I'm just not quite sure what this fund is intended to do.

similar efforts on this.

Are there any other authors who would like to answer that question?

When you are an entity that is concerned or could be the target of a hate crime, you are supported and are able to make adjustments accordingly.

quote attacked, they could then apply for funds, or is it a grant opportunity?

So as a preventative method, the way we want to set it up is they would be able to access these resources to prevent the bad thing from happening in the first place instead of reacting to the bad thing happening.

That is correct.

All right, I see our City Attorney is jumping in here to... Yeah.

you know how can we actually you know fulfill the purposes of this funding in a way that's lawful and and satisfies the purposes so that that discretion is going to be be there and we will obviously you know the City Attorney's Office will work very closely if this passes with the department to make sure that it's implemented in a lawful way.

Very helpful.

I appreciate you bringing this forward.

Councilmember Rainville.

Thank you for bringing us forward.

Thank you Councilmember Rainville and appreciate all the comments from colleagues here so much that I believe this was moved by Councilmember Johns and it obviously has been seconded and so I am not seeing any further questions from or discussion from colleagues and so I will ask the Clerk to call the roll.

That motion carries.

Councilmember Wonsley will you please introduce your amendment?

or answer any questions that my colleagues might have.

I see we have Councilmember Goodman in queue.

I will ask City Attorney to please respond.

I mean, I didn't request more than I thought I needed, so obviously it's going to negatively impact our ability to do all of the above.

Chair Cossie can also add to that as well.

Sure, yes please.

So I wanted to be cognizant of this is also a clear priority.

Next we have Council Member Osman.

Thank you, Councilmember Payne.

So I just want to put this into full context about what this amendment does and what the need is.

Thank you, Councilmember Payne, City Attorney.

And we actually do not have a lot of vacancies.

Thank you, Council Member Tuktay.

that there are separate resources that are a part of the settlement agreement money as well and I think this is just a need that we really need to fill and this is a choice that is difficult and one I think we need to make.

Thank you Council Member, Council Member Chavez.

Thank you.

Council Member Chaudry.

My understanding is that this is for the litigation attorney FTE, or from the litigation attorney FTE.

It would have to come from the client services positions that I asked for.

But we have teams for both of those sides of it.

Specifically this I'm trying to fund.

We are going to see more new arrivals happen in the next few years as that's what we've experienced in the last two years.

Thank you, Councilmember Tuktay.

That's not really what that space is as someone who participates in it.

So Councilmember Goodman.

Thank you.

Council President Jenkins.

Is that office playing a role in helping immigrants to access city and community services?

Director Moe, welcome.

Some of the things that have been at risk is the more comprehensive welcoming strategy of the city and the ability to work more effectively with some of our partners.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Alright, we have the amendment offered by Council members Wonsley, Chugtai, Osman, and Chavez before us, and I'll ask the Clerk to call the roll.

Vitol?

Aye.

Goodman?

No.

I took type I Choudry I Palmisano.

Hi.

Chair Koski I there are 11 eyes, one name and one abstention.

Thank you.

That's it.

So I ask Councilmember Vita to please introduce your amendment.

So right now it would just be, it will be funded for three years out of the state's public safety dollars.

Councilmember, I see we have Councilmember Payne, thank you.

I see that Councilmember Ellison is in queue to kind of speak to that, but I definitely appreciate you being amenable to changing that source up.

Thank you Councilmember Payne, Councilmember Ellison.

It does look like the clerks have a priority motion.

Apologies there.

Madam Chair, just in case there's any confusion, the substitute motions that came from Councilmember Ellison number 9 and 38 got mixed up, so some of you may have number 9 labeled as 38 and 38 labeled as number 9, so just wanted to clarify that because I saw some confused faces.

I think there's some highlights.

The clerks have written on the amended version 38, but it's really the amendment number 9.

Yes.

And yeah, obviously we, we want to make sure that we are, um, you know, for being amenable to this change.

Thank you, President Dinkins.

All right, thank you.

So thank you for your work on this.

Thank you, Councilmember Choctaw.

Thank you Council President

Thank you Madam Chair, I was just curious, I don't want to belabor this, but I was wondering if the Chief wanted to say a few words about how we might use this position, I'm supportive of this position, but what are some of the things that we could look forward to with it in place, and maybe that's going back to things that had been done in the past, or maybe that's new things that you have to implement your vision, sir.

I think I want to kind of flip that over where it's really a lot more, I don't want to call it lobbying, but really keeping us connected to the other levels of government that we work with on a regular basis.

Thank you.

I have not seen any further discussion from colleagues, and so I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

Jenkins?

Aye.

Palmisano?

Aye.

There are 13 ayes.

I will call on Council Member Tuktai.

wanted to share that and ground our discussion here today hopefully in the work we are trying to do and the ways in which this amendment really seeks to holistically understand how we intervene in and care for our residents who are experiencing horrific acts of violence.

Thank you, Councilmember Goodman.

Are you worried about what I'm going to say?

I know we're going to be inspired, I believe, and we will always learn something.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I can't not be, but I do wonder why we haven't been able to use some other kinds of sources for this because this is taking away from some of the real basic needs of our city as well.

Council member pain.

And I think that this is a really good source for this very important work.

Thank you, Council Member, Council President Jenkins.

That's all.

Councilmember Vita.

I guess I would like for Kira to come and explain to us if these positions were taken out of the department, what that looks like.

I know you did do an extensive memo as well and gave us a thorough so feel free to give information that you feel will be most relevant to her question.

Innovation Projects.

Thank you.

Councilmember Choctaw.

Thank you.

Do we have a seven of us?

It says we're meeting ten to four, so wouldn't that be enough time to?

We will be back to discuss item number 10 and 11.

So thank you very much.