Budget Committee July 29, 2024   7/29/2024

Good afternoon.

I'm Aisha Chiktai and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.

I'm going to call to order our regular meeting for Monday, July 29, 2024.

Before we begin, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all council members, city staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

present Wonsley present Rainville present Vitor present Ellison absent Osman present Cashman present

I'll also remind my colleagues that we're using speaker management today, so please make sure you sign in to be recognized to speak.

We have five discussion items on our agenda today.

Item number one is a presentation of the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee 2024 Annual Report.

I understand we are waiting for one of the members of the committee to join us so we can begin.

So I will move ahead to item number two while we wait.

And I'll recognize that Council Member Ellison has joined us in this committee meeting.

Item number two is the passage of ordinance related to the appointed position of Deputy Commissioner of Public Health Initiatives and Operations in the Health Department.

Good afternoon, Committee Chair Chugtai and members of the committee.

I'm Brenda Miller, the classification and compensation manager for the city.

I'm bringing forward two items today.

The first one is the Deputy Commissioner of Public Health Initiatives and Operations, which assists the Commissioner of Health in providing senior leadership, guidance, and strategic planning in all aspects of public health.

The Deputy Commissioner has been evaluated at 703 points, grade 15.

The 2024 schedule ranges from $154,000 to $182,000 and is effective June 27th of 2024.

The incremental cost is covered in the 2024 and 2025 budget by department cost savings from unfilled positions.

This position meets the criteria of section 2010-10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances because it reports to the Commissioner of Health.

It's a member of the Public Health Management Team.

It leads the development and implementation of city policies, goals and strategic planning for the Public Health Department.

It requires leadership, vision, team building, and strategy implementation.

It establishes policies, goals, and strategies that are consistent with the goals and priorities established by the Mayor, City Council, and the Public Health Commissioner.

Thank you for that presentation, Ms. Miller.

Any discussion or questions from the committee?

Thank you Madam Chair.

I was hoping before we took a roll call on the agenda that we could move item 5 up.

Let's dispose of this item first and take action on it and then we'll return back to that.

We wanted to begin with the presentation from the Capital Along Range Improvement Committee since we have community members joining us for that.

Any other discussion from committee members?

Seeing none, I will move approval of this item.

This item has been properly moved and seconded.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

The ayes have it and that motion carries.

Next we will move to item number, do we have?

Next we will move to item number five as requested by council member Rainville.

I apologize for reordering the agenda, clerks and committee members.

So that item is acceptance of a bid for the Minneapolis Convention Center meeting room remodel project.

As this item has been discussed extensively by the body, I don't believe an additional presentation from staff is necessary, though we have the director of the Minneapolis Convention Center, Jeff Johnson, in the audience and is willing to answer any additional questions members may have.

With that, do members have any questions for staff or any discussion before I move approval of the item?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a brief thank you to Director Johnson.

You've worked really hard on this project over years and it's so important to keep that convention center competitive.

The jobs creation not only there but those great union paid jobs in the hotels.

And of course we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the tax revenue as well.

So thank you for all your work and dedication.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you Director Johnson for, you know, briefing all of the council members and getting a group together to discuss the importance of this project and the convention center is in Ward 7.

I know that the Loring Park community especially greatly benefits from all the visitors here and I'll note that, you know, last week was a record-breaking hotel revenue week for Minneapolis and this is really positive for

this convention center renovation project will help us stay competitive and attract more events like the US Olympic trials that took place here and that's really exciting to all of us so I'm very happy to move approval of this item today

I know Budget Chair said she would move it as well but I just wanted to offer that and also just to note that in the future as we see more convention center budget items come through I'm happy to be a point person for committee members who have questions and to continue working with you and your team to get as much information into our LIMS files and in front of council members as possible to improve

Thank you Councilmember.

Wonderful.

We'll continue with discussion.

Thank you, Chair.

I also want to thank Councilmember Cashman for her leadership on this issue.

I was ready to not support this item and I believe that this item was going to be voted down if it wasn't for Councilmember Cashman's leadership in bringing us to a meeting with the Convention Center and talking about how important this project is for Ward 7 and in downtown.

So I just want to let the public know that Councilmember Cashman lifted a big finger on this project

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Tracti.

I wanted to echo Councilmember Chavez.

This was a very challenging discussion that really needed some of that technical expertise and collaboration that Councilmember Cashman brought to the conversation.

I also want to thank Director Johnson.

Wonderful.

With that, on the motion to approve this item, all those in favor please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

The ayes have it and that motion carries.

We'll now move to item number

We'll move back to item number one as it is published on our agenda, which is a

Report, a presentation of the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee 2024 Annual Report.

I will invite the chairs of the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee to begin that presentation, and it'll just take a minute as Budget Director DiCenza works to get that presentation up.

My apologies for being late.

I went over to City Hall and I'm very persistent so I tried several elevator banks before I finally talked to somebody and figured out I was in the wrong building so apologies.

Good afternoon.

I'm John Bernstein and I'm the Chair of the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee.

I'm joined by Erica Mauter, who is the Vice Chair.

I'm going to give a brief presentation highlighting the CLIC Report, which was published a few weeks ago.

Hopefully you've all had a chance to review that.

When I'm finished, Eric and I would be happy to take questions.

So, let me start with a primer on CLIC.

We're 33 members when we're fully staffed.

Each of the council members has two appointees, and the mayor has seven.

So this gives the committee geographical diversification across the city.

There's sort of an unwritten rule that it's okay to advocate for the ward a member represents, but all members should also be thinking about and acting upon what is best for the city overall.

We're a citizen advisory committee, so our recommendations are non-binding.

CLIC considers and prioritizes capital budget requests, better known as CBRs, and those are submitted by a variety of city departments.

CLIC does not originate or propose capital projects.

Having said that, there are times when we get public input from the public and we suggest that the city consider a project that was not among those that we saw.

So this year we reviewed 133 projects and ranked them.

And those projects totaled 935 million dollars in various forms of city funding.

We're recommending about 743 million and that's over the current six year window which is from 2025 to 2030.

This year we're recommending a very large increase to the net debt bond budget, which is a meaningful change from anything we've done in the past.

The reason for this is the committee believes that the city is having difficulty maintaining its current infrastructure at acceptable levels.

We believe this is the case for all of the city's infrastructure, but we're going to use the condition of city streets to illustrate the issue.

So this chart shows the average pavement condition index, better known as PCI, going back 30 years for the city.

As you can see, in the early 1990s, the average PCI was in the low 80s.

By the 2010s, that had dropped to the low 70s, and the city tried to address it with the Streets and Parks infrastructure ordinance that was passed back in 2016.

Now, eight years into the funding from that ordinance, PCI stands in the low 60s.

So again, this is just an example to illustrate an issue that we think is going on more broadly with infrastructure in the city.

But as a result of this, we asked the finance department to provide information about the maximum amount of net debt bond money that could be raised each year without touching the property tax levy.

That's out of our purview as click, so we tried to stay away from that.

So let me run through some numbers for you.

So for reference, these are the net debt bond recommendations that Click made a year ago.

And 2030 is blank, of course, because that was not part of the six-year window a year ago.

These are the maximum levels that the finance department came back to us with.

And this line shows you that difference.

So if you look at the total, you can see we're looking at pretty close to a 50 percent increase at the maximum.

So these are our recommendations for 2024.

This is the difference between what we are recommending and what the maximum levels are.

And you can see there's some years where we're slightly under the maximum and there's some years where we're over the maximum.

The reason for that is because from a planning and budgeting perspective, particularly with these large capital projects, it's

has always been the case and I think it's easier if the net debt bond levels over the six-year window are either flat or slightly increasing.

So that's what we were trying to achieve.

So to help with that, you'll note in the total line that we're about 21 million under the total.

and that's because these maximum levels, there's a lot of different reasons at any given year why the level is where it's at and so what we're recommending may or may not work from that perspective but to try to help give some flexibility to the finance department, we tried to come under by a decent amount of money so that they would be able to work with this.

One final issue that I want to mention to the City Council that is a little separate from what I just went over is an issue we're having with the park board with respect to the CLIC process.

As you all well know, there's a set amount of money that the park board gets as a result of the park and streets capital infrastructure ordinance that was passed back in 2016.

and magically the park board submits to us projects that exactly equal that amount of money that they're going to receive.

So in effect they circumvent the process and don't give us a chance to actually make recommendations about what projects we think are good or bad.

We've been asking them now for several years to change that process and give us something like 125% or 130% of what their funding levels are so we can actually make some recommendations around that.

continues to be an issue so I just wanted to highlight it here to the extent that you're able to encourage a different methodology from them that would be good and I would say you know I don't want to sound too adversarial about this there's other ways where the park board is really leading the city on the way it's doing parts of this process the area that I would highlight is equity they have a very very clear

Thank you for that presentation, Chair Bernstein and Vice Chair Mater.

Any questions or discussion from the committee?

Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for the presentation.

I'm wondering if you could come back to this pavement condition index.

I've heard lots of different things.

If you look at it longer term, I think some people would attribute some of the drop to the change in LGA that occurred back in the early 2000s, local government funding from the state.

People have

suggested things like climate change and more freezes and thaws in the winter.

I'm not disputing that but I would say this is a 30 year trend so I don't know that that explains what's happening more recently.

Thank you.

Thank you Vice President Chuktai.

Thank you so much CLIC members or board members for being here.

I had a question actually in regards to the 2023 report of recommendations that you made and seeing if there was any of those recommendations taken into account for 2024 specifically about

our precinct stations with the recommendation back in 2023 saying you know at that time it seemed to be a lack of a strategic plan as it you know accounted for our direction when it came to not only public safety but how that also factors into our physical assets like precincts.

Since then, we have now transitioned, at least starting with the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center, which you all recommended too, the exploration of colocation of our services like BCR with other law-informant components

I just want to highlight that that posture towards the MPD budget is something that the committee spent a lot of time over several years coming to consensus on and the conversation we found ourselves in this year is Like the reality was the capital budget requests.

We're still lacking quite a bit of detail And so we still we were hopeful we were expecting to see actually more specific direction from MPD given the consent decrees etc and

we got a vision

but not like a concrete plan.

And we didn't have an accounting of how the plans for any precinct building were speaking to or addressing the concerns raised in the consent degrees.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

I'm grateful to see you both.

And I appreciate the information.

And I'm just going through the report.

Apologize that I did not read it ahead of time.

I just want to note for the public and we will make sure that they have this you know the information that we got today is a pretty narrowed down version of all the cumulative work that you guys have put into this and so I guess I and maybe it's a miscommunication between us and you and this is the first time we've had you guys come to present but I would have loved to have had even more detailed information I mean I think the the expertise I mean obviously there are seven

individuals that are appointed by the mayor and then each of us have individuals that we've selected to be here and I know that you guys can represent the entire click on those recommendations so if there are other highlights I mean I'm reading through this quickly here but and I know you probably don't have them up on slides but I would love to just give you the floor here if there are other highlights that you would like to talk about you know I

So Sure.

Yeah.

Thank you for that And we'll consider that for next year's presentation maybe a little more about who's on the committee and what kind of expertise everyone is bringing

Truth be told, when the finance department came back and said, you actually have a lot more money to spend, it really very much dramatically changed the nature of the conversations that we had as a committee.

Ordinarily, to John's point about

the park board projects and we get exactly the budgeted amount then there's no ranking for us really to do they're all just gonna happen we find ourselves in a place where we actually could could allocate funds to almost everything and so that changed the conversation towards hmm we can see some of these projects

that we have.

Those are the two highlights I would hit.

I would say the third thing I would raise is we've seen steady improvement, but we continue to ask departments to bring to us knowing that projects are designed to not just maintain the infrastructure we have, but move us towards city policy and goals that exist in our transportation action plan, our climate goals, etc, etc.

being able to tell us very specific, asking the CBR, but we don't always get the actual concrete information about how these projects are advancing us towards meeting those policy goals, either on an individual basis or on a collective basis.

So one thing we've talked about a number of times is ADA ramps.

Is there somewhere where someone has a cross-cutting inventory of our progress on updating all the ADA ramps?

We know that ADA ramps are addressed as much as possible in ongoing projects, but whose job is it to have accounts across all projects across the whole city of how we're doing on that?

Same thing, the cumulative effects of sidewalk and bike projects, the cumulative effects of street reconstruction, et cetera.

Much of what we asked for, we raised this in our conversation with the mayor as well, is helping us

Yeah, I would just add that we really try to stay out of policies since that's not our purview, so we're very focused on what Erica just said.

The policies set by you guys in whatever the long-range plan is and how the projects that are presented to us do or do not meet those policies.

And sometimes the information that we get is not always as

robust as we'd like it to be to deal with that Council Member Wonsley's question about police precincts that's probably a great example and you know to be fair this is a difficult process right you're trying to plan a 50 million dollar building six years out it starts as a dream and a vision so one of the things we actually suggested is instead of coming to us and asking us to approve 50 million dollars to build this building that is a vision you don't even know where you're going to build it

ask us for $250,000 to do a study and come back to us with some information that's a little more concrete or something like that.

Yeah, I guess that's, you know, we're trying to keep this big picture for you guys.

There's lots of minute details.

I would reinforce what Erica said about

If you choose to adopt this recommendation that we're suggesting, which is roughly a 50 percent increase to the net debt bond budget, it's really important that incremental increase not get used for new infrastructure.

Of course new infrastructure has to be built in certain cases, but that incremental increase is intended to help maintain the existing infrastructure.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Next I'll recognize Councilmember Koski.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So I did want to ask a little bit about the equity considerations that you used since you also bring up the park boards process and from my review of the report, there were, you reviewed and ranked 133 projects this year.

recommending projects which total $743 million in city funds over a six-year window from 2025 to 2030.

So yeah, this is a very, you know, large, extensive, long-term investment.

Sure, so

The capital infrastructure budget, the vast majority of it is public works.

So that is streets, bridges, sewer, both sanitary and storm sewer.

It is other modes of travel, so it's bike lanes, it's sidewalks, it's safe routes to school.

It is park capital, so that's buildings, that's parkways, how we fund and maintain parkways is sort of a fraught issue as well.

and it includes MPD, fire, their capital needs, etc.

and I might be forgetting off the top of my head what some of the rest of them are, but it's buildings and roads and bridges in big pipes under the ground.

The CLIC ranking system, it has

kind of three chunks to it.

So one of them is just is how a given project meets or supports city goals.

So is it a critical infrastructure?

Like if someone's gonna die, is someone going to die if this project doesn't happen?

All the way through, this is very nice to have, et cetera.

There is a section that is just the planning, so projects get more points for being in the plan longer.

So if you told us,

you know this year that's six years from now you want to do a building then you're going to get more points in the process for that so it waits

planning ahead versus trying to get stuff done at the last minute.

And then the third part is a handful of subjective things that each CLIC member...

So each CLIC member does rank all these projects, right?

So this subjective section is based on there is an equity line in particular, there is how does it contribute to like culture neighborhoods.

So, I mean, we do rely, to a degree, on what

is presented to us in the CBR and in the presentations that we receive about the equity implications of a project.

Most departments use similar measures to make those determinations.

A lot of projects don't come with that information, and so that is really just where the wisdom and lived experience of committee members comes in.

It's very much to our benefit to have people who live all around the city, who have firsthand experience.

with not only the impact a project is going to have in their neighborhood but sort of the story of how this project has or has not come to fruition and what the implications of that are as well.

And so, you know, there's a handful of kind of fraught projects that have been dragged out for quite some time without advancement and there's a lot of both committee member sort of experience with that as well as community

it's kind of stories we hear about that but it is it is in some committee members have professional experience doing this work as well so it is that sort of sum total everybody's collective brain and experience that contributes to how we understand the actual impacts of the projects.

I would just add that the scoring metrics that we use are at the back of the click report as an appendix under the capital guidelines.

Wonderful, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon.

Yes, I think there's actually two separate projects related to alley repair Those are as I understated I think there's one that's like one-off projects and there's one that's a program that just allocates a certain amount of money every year for Public Works to use on immersion or ongoing alley projects.

It's sort of akin to street

at asphalt repaving to concrete reconstruction, etc.

They aren't particularly large dollar, I mean this is capital so it's relative, they aren't particularly large dollar projects, probably in the several hundred thousand dollars a year range that those projects are recommended for funding.

What we've heard anecdotally is that

There are a handful of corners of the city where alleys are not paved and to do so is less straightforward than one would think.

For example, it abuts a railroad or it's very particular to that specific kind of

how the actual street how the actual alley is situated relative to everything around it and sometimes residents don't actually want the alley paved it's also partially paid by assessment and so if folks are not excited to be assessed to have their alley paved when it's working just fine the way it is then

Yeah, I would just add to that, part of it is sort of a big conceptual problem with what we do, right?

I mean, you're comparing all of the 133 different projects, so you've got a fire, a new fire department that needs to be built, or excuse me, a new fire station that needs to be built, and a bridge that needs to be built, and an alley that needs to be repaved.

You know, on a relative basis, when you're looking at importance, the alley needing to be repaved always falls down to the bottom, right?

It's just the nature of how this kind of works.

repaving an alley is a little bit like redoing your roof.

Nobody's excited to spend money to redo a roof.

You're not all excited and go out and admire the roof when it's done.

It sort of falls into that same category.

Wonderful, thank you.

I put myself in queue.

I wanted to first thank the both of you for coming in to present this information to us.

I have gotten to know the two Ward 10 appointees on CLIC, Katie Jones and Will Woodworth really well and have gained some visibility into just the amount of work it is to be a member of the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee.

as you work every year to understand the projects and the requests that are coming before you and then rank them and build consensus around that and then make those recommendations to the mayor and then eventually to the council in the form of the recommended budget.

I think a goal in bringing you here to present before us today is the interest from this body to have a deeper relationship and connection to click.

In your presentation today, you talked about $743 million worth of projects in this upcoming six-year window that you looked at.

And in the context of the city's overall operating budget, that's pretty significant, right?

That's like 40%.

just for comparison.

So we want to develop a better understanding of the thought process that goes into the projects you consider, the ones that end up making their way to the top of the list, why, why not, and just be in

be in alignment with you on how you're making those recommendations.

Thank you.

This presentation to the Budget Committee is something that used to happen years ago.

I've been on click for longer than I'll admit here.

Maybe Council Member Palmisano remembers that.

I think she'd probably be the only one here that would go back far enough to remember that.

So we're trying to re-establish that and we're glad that

you have the same interest.

I would offer, I just shared that over the years that I've been on CLIC I've always offered to my appointing authority to do a meeting with them and go over my view of the report and I would encourage all of you if you have that interest to reach out to your appointees and ask that of them and I would also offer that if any of you are interested in an individual meeting I'm certainly willing to do that or field more questions

Awesome.

Thank you.

Alright.

We will now move to discussion item number three as published on the agenda, which is the passage of ordinance related to the appointed position of Director of Police Conduct Review in the Civil Rights Department.

I'm here to present the second of the two appointed positions.

This one is the Director of Police Conduct Review, which reports to the Civil Rights Director.

It provides independent oversight and accountability and fair handling of public complaints, as well as allegations of misconduct or wrongdoing by law enforcement officers.

The Director of Police Conduct Review was previously approved in 2013 at 545 points, grade 12.

It's been reevaluated at 643 points, grade 14.

The 2024 salary schedule ranges from about $140,000 up to $166,000.

In 2024, the annualized cost of base salary benefits and fringe is about $200,000.

The 2024 incremental cost is in the 2024 budget as well as 2025 budget through cost savings in the department and changes are effective August 1st of 2024.

This position meets the criteria of Section 2010-10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances.

It reports to the Director of Civil Rights.

It's a member of the Civil Rights Executive Management Team.

It participates in the development and implementation of city policy goals and strategic planning for the Civil Rights Department.

And lastly, it establishes policies, goals, and strategies that are consistent with the goals and priorities established by the Mayor, City Council, and the Civil Rights Director.

We're asking that you find the Director of Police Conduct Review meets the appointed criteria as defined in section 2010-10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances and forwarded on to Council for final approval.

Thank you for that presentation, Ms. Miller.

Is there any discussion or any questions from the committee?

I am not seeing any.

With that, I will move approval of this item.

This item has been properly moved and seconded.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

The ayes have it and that motion carries.

Next we will move to discussion item number four, which is the passage of resolution amending the 2024 general appropriation resolution to designate funds for 2024 violence prevention strategies.

This resolution is from Councilmember Wansley and Councilmember Chavez.

Thank you Council Vice President.

So you know colleagues I know many of us were alerted either by our constituents or Chief O'Hara himself just this weekend about you know the uptick in violence that we saw and many of us are also aware that

We saw similar trends earlier this month with upticks and violence that resulted in the loss of life for several residents across the city and what is most disheartening about this is just two months ago myself and a number of colleagues on the Public Health and Safety Committee expressed concerns about the city's seeming subpar summer safety plans upon receiving a presentation from OCS

where we learned that MPD summer safety operations would not be slated to start until actually today, July 29th.

And we also learned that our violence prevention partners had not been engaged about our summer strategies for a number of weeks as well or months.

And we really, in response to those concerns, felt that it was timely to bring what you're being asked to consider.

and just a little bit more context on why we're bringing this item forward.

Earlier this year, Councilmember Chavez and I asked Commissioner Barnett to come to the Public Health and Safety Committee to present information related to the city's 2024 summer plan.

I think we widely know that there are unique public safety challenges that often arise during the summer and as leadership of the PHS committee, Chair Chavez and I wanted to ensure that

the administration was being proactive about investing in comprehensive strategies and violence prevention, intervention and restorative services for this summer and to let the public know and assure them that we have things in place.

Commissioner Barnett and other departments under OCS presented at the May 15th

and during that presentation, Commissioner Barnett shared a list of programming under the heading 2024 Summer Safety Strategies.

Following the May 15 presentation, Councilmember Chavez and I was invited to attend two listening sessions that some of our violence prevention partners hosted and at those sessions, we learned that there were some important things that were missing from that OCS presentation, specifically information that our violence prevention

And again, most importantly these groups had crucial insights on how we could

And with that, these groups have on-the-ground perspectives that

should be used to inform the creation of any violence prevention plan.

After attending those two listening sessions, CM Chavez and I invited some of the groups to our June 5th public health and safety meeting to speak and share their perspectives on, again, how the city could enhance safety for our communities over the summer.

And if you have not watched that presentation, I know we sent an email out about it.

I strongly encourage you to.

and since that presentation or since early June, I know my office alongside Councilmember Chavez have had several meetings where we've attempted to work with Commissioner Barnett as well as other city staff like the City Attorney's Office to address the concerns that were identified by our violence prevention partners and one solution that we identified was to devote a modest amount of funding to support safety initiatives that will help support violence prevention efforts for neighborhoods across the city for the remainder of the summer.

and to that end, this resolution is earmarking uncommitted funds within the Neighborhood Safety Department's budget to further address violent prevention strategies.

This appropriation does not ensure any specific group gets access to funding nor does it specify how many groups will

have access to it.

We are bringing this appropriation forward because it's important for the public and for the administration to know that this body takes this work seriously.

We're constantly hearing those concerns from our constituents every single day.

being in my ward around Dinkytown and some of the upticks we've seen there.

I've heard from my colleagues about their experiences that they're seeing in their communities as well and a frustration of not seeing the resources be devoted that's necessary to really address those concerns.

so we want to show at least the public and our partners that you know through this appropriation that we are aware of you know the deficiencies and shortcomings with the way in which we approach this summer and we still have a month and a half left we want to be able to support partners that are doing that on the groundwork to make our community safe and this is a reflection of that.

Thank you, Councilmember Wonsley.

Thank you, Chair Choctaw, yes.

I'm glad to bring this 2024 Summer Safety Violence Prevention Strategy 20 forward with Councilmember Wonsi to help get violence prevention programming this summer to enhance the public safety needs in our city, especially in areas that are historically harmed by violence.

This is also in alignment with the multiple conversations I've had with my residents, in particular with Lillian's family, a resident in my ward who was shot and killed while she was with her baby in her car.

I've been meeting with our family and the Latino community who has been asking me to push for more safety funding this summer to help prevent this from happening ever again and it's clear that our communities are in dire need of increased community safety efforts and violence prevention and I hope that this funding can make sure that the Office of Community Safety takes this seriously.

At a time when we are hearing about capacity issues, needs, and priorities, I believe that addressing community safety and violence prevention must be a priority, and that it is a critical need.

Thank you Councilmember Chavez for adding those additional comments.

There are several colleagues in CUE I put myself in as well because I wanted to just ask a couple of quick clarifying questions of you Councilmember Wonsley if you'll take them that I think others may have too and can provide some clarity as we continue with discussion.

I really appreciate you bringing this item forward and sharing additional context with the committee.

I'm not a member of the Public Health and Safety Committee so I know some of the origins of this item come from discussion items and public comment periods that have been held in Public Health and Safety.

No, so if you see in the RCA and also on the resolution itself, it doesn't specify any specific organizations that will receive that.

That's within the administration's authority.

We can't direct what groups get what.

Wonderful, thank you.

And I know you know we have a robust process around contracting resources that have to go through a public process and so I just wanted to make sure that that was really clear to all of us here today.

Wonderful, thank you.

Thank you Madam Chair, you did ask some similar questions as me.

Thank you Councilmember Wonsley for this proposal.

I think all of us can be in agreement that violence prevention strategies are a crucial piece of our unarmed public safety services and I understand that violence interrupters were being dispatched to specific areas to help prevent even more issues even just this past weekend.

and to point out being responsive is quite different than some of what Councilmember Wansley used in her explanation of this which is being preventive.

That said, I'm pleased to see an opportunity for agile response here.

It was strange to me that it's a very specific dollar amount five hundred and thirty three thousand four hundred and seventy three dollars Councilmember Wonsley just indicated to chair chug chug chug chug type part of me that these were not budgeted specifically meaning that they're unobligated or are these funds that are simply unspent I'm curious about if

Yes, and correct me, I feel like I might be hearing two separate things.

So how we landed on the amount, as I mentioned, is we did, you know, the listing sessions, and based off of that, we felt close to half a million would be

pretty sufficient in supporting the work that was identified in terms of those meetings that we had.

In terms of the funding source though, when we connected with budget in May, we were alerted that NSD had about $5 million of uncommitted dollars.

Okay, so uncommitted to me means Unobligated same correct type of thing and you indicated that there was a sense of what this will be for that it was roughly half a million dollars of something for a specific program or Can you tell me what?

Right, but can you be any more specific?

Did anything come from these listening sessions which I was not able to attend that might more specifically say what that would be for?

Is it to do violence prevention through community partners?

There are some community partners present today.

I want to acknowledge you in the crowd.

Yeah, so what was shared with us in that June 5th PHS meeting, which I encourage, again, everyone to watch, what we heard was, again, this can go to supporting the expansion of work done with young people who are either predisposed at being, you know, involved in violence or victims of violence themselves.

This could also support, you know, additions of community patrols, which we're constantly hearing

Thank you.

I was curious, just in general, and I see we have Commissioner Barnett here, is there something specifically that we will not be doing because by appropriating this money to the specific cause or use, is there something that our Neighborhood Safety Department then would not be able

to achieve that they were planning to otherwise use this money for.

Councilmember Palmisano, you know, I think you just touched on it.

It was answered earlier, but I just want to reiterate like this is not money being taken from a different use

currently assigned within Neighborhood Safety into this specific use.

Right, and early in my time on council I suggested an appropriation within a department within their budget and was resoundly told that department budgets are fragile and I needed to let them use it for their own operations.

I hope that's not the case here, but we adopted the 2024 budget back in December and I'm curious are there any Legal concerns with this appropriation is this allowable as a council action is what I'm curious Maybe this is a question for the city attorney city attorney Nelson.

Sure

Thank you, Council Member Palmesano, Vice President Chugtai.

The council has the authority to amend the general appropriation resolution.

That move or that earmark of money is done at the department level overall.

they don't have the authority as has been stated to go below that level and dictate specific groups or contracts that will receive the money or contracts that should be increased.

The practical effect is that this money will be tied up

Thank you, Chair Chuktai.

I did watch the June 5th committee meeting because I had heard, kind of in the community, that there was going to be some presentations by groups around how they could expand their work for the summer.

I would just say, in my observation of that June 5th committee meeting, it really felt like community members came in to present to the committee and they were being pit against the department as a whole.

It felt very combative to me.

It did not feel like

you know people were prepared and ready for you know coming before the committee and presenting in a light-hearted kind of there's some additional money in this department kind of way.

Now because I felt that I reached out to several groups

to meet with them and talk through what their specific needs were for this funding.

And I had some really good meetings.

I met with Westbury.

I met with Urban Conservation, which is for Rome.

I met with Restoration Inc.

I had a really great meeting with Restoration Inc.

I met with CEO, Change Equals Opportunity, I think is the acronym.

Jamil Jackson had great conversations and I'm supportive.

I understand now like what people, what the specifics are for people, what they're going to be doing in the community, on the ground, whether that's in partnership or collaboration with other people.

I had a great meeting with Ferrome and Wes about GVI and the impact and they shared lots of good data with me on

So per appropriation guidelines, as the City Attorney just highlighted, Council can't direct the money towards any specific group.

What we can do is do an appropriation or earmark and yes, encourage as we've been doing for the past two months now in our conversations with the administration to support partners who would like to show up and do violence prevention work for this summer.

so they'll have to reapply for this money again.

Council Member Vitale, that's a really excellent question.

For groups, once this money is appropriated, let's say this item is approved today, it's approved on Thursday, signed by the mayor, once the money is appropriated,

The Office of Community Safety and the Neighborhood Safety Department have several options in front of them.

If they want to increase a contract for an organization the city has an existing contract with, there's a process that exists for that that includes amending their existing contract, if it's above a certain dollar value that comes before the council for final approval, the administration may want to

I feel like this has given a sense of false

to the people who came to the

giving them that.

This process is really saying, here is this $533,000 and we hope that you get selected somehow in this process.

This does not guarantee that the folks who have shown up, whether it's in North Minneapolis or South Minneapolis and did the work and said, I could use this to help with that.

I mean, I'm going to give specifics because GVI and YGVI

is what I talk the most about in this.

Do they come back?

We have to figure out a way to give them some specifics because we don't want these groups to go without the funding they need to make the work happen.

This process ain't it.

This process is like

here you go somebody but not really the people who have come here and said I need X, Y, and Z. I mean I just I don't I say I feel like I say false hope too much like I feel like I'm like my great grandfather or somebody at this point would use in that language but it does it feels like we've said to people show up present tell us what you need okay we're gonna vote on it because

Again, I'm supportive of this but we hope that the administration figures out a way to help you meet that need.

Councilmember, this is going as far as we can within our authority, right?

We have the authority to appropriate money, we have the authority to set policy direction, but that's as far as we can go.

The next step from here would be working with the Office of Community Safety to actually get that money into the community just the way that you're describing.

I think it is a shared goal that that happens, and to that end, I think

I just want to be clear.

What I'm questioning is

get out

Unless you all know something, I don't know.

But what I know is these processes can take a long time.

There can be a whole new program developed behind this.

This can take forever.

It's just challenging because I did.

Thank you for your comments and questions.

Thank you Madam Chair and I apologize if my voice sounds different.

I had a long flight.

My ears are popped.

So I got a few things to say.

What is the summer safety plan?

I don't think there's any summer safety plan.

I'm really disappointed, very, very disappointed.

Neighborhood Safety Department, the administration.

About a month ago, I met the commissioner, Mayor Jacob.

Sat down with them, I told them a specific issue in my ward.

I said something bad can happen here.

It was under Franklin and Hiawatha, under the bridge.

Six people were shot a few weeks ago.

No plan, no nothing.

What do we need to do

for your departments to keep our residents safe.

Councilmember Wonsley and other councilmembers are doing everything they can to give you the tools to keep our community safe.

Here on my phone, I have an Inspector Gomez, every day there's an email, incident report, incident report, incident report.

There is no safety plan.

The administration and the neighborhood safety departments are failing our residents.

I'm here to help as a council member.

And the power I have is to approve the budget and give you the tools to keep our community safe.

That specific issue in my work, that same location that 50, 80 people are standing and hanging out.

Life drugs, all kinds of things that are happening on Franklin.

We don't have the crime prevention team over there.

We don't have the, you know, the wonderful guys over here with the orange shirts or yellow shirts.

There's no plan in that of Franklin and Chicago.

The county is failing, the MnDOT is failing, the City of Minneapolis is failing.

The CEO was there, that meeting that I had with you, Commissioner and the Mayor, I ask you specifically, this is the place that needs attention.

Six people were shot.

and now something bad can happen over and over again.

So we can talk about this summer safety plan.

There is no summer safety plan.

I can't direct the police chief to say, hey, do something here.

I can't direct your department to tell you the only tool I have as a council member to keep my residents safe is the budget, through the budget.

So what tools can I give you?

to keep our community safe for this summer.

The crime prevention team, the Touch Outreach, Metro Youth and all the others have proven they have worked.

I've been here four years.

During the civil unrest, everything that was there, this topic of crime prevention or alternative policing was very popular.

This was something that we worked on, Lake Street and see the Riverside, finally crime prevention teams.

We can see the data, we can see the report that they have worked.

Couple months ago we were arguing they're not getting paid.

So somebody's failing.

They're not getting paid.

The small things that are working for our neighborhood.

So I'm frustrated.

and I'm calling out for the Department of Public Safety and the Mayor's Administration to keep our community safe.

We here as a Councilmember, especially me speaking myself, I'm here to help you, to work with you, but I'm crying for help.

I really need help for my residents' sewer neighborhood, for my residents of Ventura Village, to keep them safe.

It's not safe.

People live there.

I live there.

We raise families.

We want to make sure we are doing what we're supposed to do.

And as a council members, we have allocated enough money for your departments for the safety plan.

The safety is not changing.

It's getting worse.

So I do support this plan and I hope your departments gets the

you know the tools that we can provide you to put the RFP to make sure that we are rewarding and hiring this wonderful guys that with their lives and to talk to the resident to build that relationship with them last week I believe they had a couple weeks ago they had a

crime prevention event where young people are coming and playing basketball.

That's what we need.

We need community to work with the community.

So we shouldn't be arguing on the diocese of the fact that they haven't got paid or is the autofeed getting to them and it's not an excuse that you don't have the capacity.

It's not.

It's people's lives are on the line.

Thank you Madam Chair.

And thank you for the additional context to my colleagues.

We had our budget agenda setting committee meeting last week and we had several questions around this and so this has been helpful to understand the perspective of council members and hearing what I'm hearing is a pretty big disconnect and hence why this action is taking place today.

I do think it would be helpful, I know Councilmember Palmisano sort of asked this, but we didn't see, I didn't see the commissioner come up.

And I think it would be helpful to have your perspective, Commissioner, about this motion that's before us.

You know, in that agenda setting meeting we were told that there was

you know funding that you guys could continue to allocate already and so I think it would be helpful to hear your perspective understanding where we are at right now with funding and then also to really understand the impact of this on neighborhood safety department if we're to reallocate I understand it's very clear to me that we're earmarking the funding so it's all coming within the same pot but I want to know are we what are we

Vice President Chuck Todd, President Payne, other Council Members Council Member Koski first Council Member Palmisano I didn't know if you were inviting me up or was just asking about staff so in the future if any of you want me to talk just invite me up say come up I'm not too sure if you were just having a discussion or you wanted my opinion so getting straight to the point here

This resolution, will it mark money to neighborhood safety?

We would determine how it would be spent.

How much

Inflexibility or flexibility we have because if this resolution is approved depends on how much money as We've on through this budgets through this year Is still an obligated.

I don't have that number right now, but If this money is earmarked if we don't have a

funds to do other things, we wouldn't be able to touch this money.

So if another organization has an emergency, if we have unobligated funds that we can give to them, fantastic.

If we don't, that money sits there and we wouldn't be able to help that other organization.

So all I'm saying about this is you're earmarking this money specifically for a purpose, which is

Okay, so maybe can you help me understand?

All I'm saying is I heard that Council Member Wonsley, and I don't, I can't dispute it, I would assume that it's true, she said in May there was five million dollars that was unobligated.

I'm taking that as being true.

All I'm saying is I did not look at that number.

If there's five million dollars that's not obligated, and you're talking about a half a million dollars here,

and then I would ask, I do see our CFO and our budget director are here and if they could help maybe phone a friend.

That is fine.

Help us understand, you know, I just want to be clear here.

I want to support our, I want to support these organizations.

I want to make sure that we are getting the funds.

I think Council Member Vita said it in a way that I don't want to

over promise and under deliver here.

And by earmarking this funding, I want to make sure that you're going to be able to, the community is going to reap the benefits of this shift and change in our allocation.

If we have the money and we have this discretionary pot of money in the Neighborhood Safety Department that can be used, by all means we've been hearing the need over and over, but

Sure, Chair Tung Chai, members of the Budget Committee.

Just to be clear about the conversation that I had back in May, what I provided was budget to actuals, which is a little bit different than what's obligated versus not obligated, right?

So I was looking at, here's the overall budget for neighborhood safety and what they've spent.

Okay, so we don't have an exact number here is what you're saying either.

So, okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Vice President Chug Thai.

I just wanted to make some comments in support of this resolution.

A need for a summer safety plan as many have uplifted is not new.

I think since 2020 and the height of pandemic, it's been multiple summers where every year it feels like, okay, it's about to be May, things are about to warm up, what are we going to do and the planning for it should have started in

November of the previous year, even sooner, even the previous summer.

And my experience, both as a council member and as someone who has worked for this city, is that we're always scrambling by the time the weather gets hot.

and we should have been planning ahead.

And so this conversation is not a new one and the need is really, really there and now we're nearly at the end of summer hoping that we can help support these organizations do what they need to do.

And I think it's really great that we bring this forward as a way for us to make a commitment again to next summer so we aren't scrambling again.

the need is present in the community across our city especially for the council members who have high amounts of law violations people who are really struggling and need the preventative and responsive work that these groups are providing and this weekend alone I'm sure we all got texts and calls and emails about instances I had a friend who was visiting from outside of the city wasn't visiting me but they had a stray bullet hit their car

and that is not something that was new to this city that we have heard of and we have to look at this problem squarely and say okay what can we do and so I hear the voices up here that are saying okay this isn't guaranteeing that money goes to one organization or not

But this is the lever that we have and I pray that the administration hears us and sees that this is a resounding Priority for this body not just in this year, but years prior The drum on this has been beating for a really really long time and I would say a thanks to

our leadership in the Public Health and Safety Committee for having the presentation with community groups because it's an amazing offering to our administration to go back and review and hear the plans and hear the ideas and really use that to develop something creative as they enter into an RFP process and I really I hope this money doesn't just sit in a pot unobligated I hope that it's used for something creative and

I hope the administration sees that there are partners in this council for consultation, for thinking, that this is like a unique opportunity for us to find a bridge to collaborate rather than sit in different silos and try to use different levers to get something done that has been clearly a need for so many in our city and people are ready to do the work for.

I'm glad that it's before us and it's also a good point for us to bring this conversation forward as something that's not new and a continual need and I hope summer of 2025 does not look like this one.

I hope

People are ready to hit the ground running on May 1st and have their plans ready to go and people are hired up and we see a greater presence.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Vice President.

So I'm going to work with the clerks to upload an email exchange that I actually had with, actually my team had with Jane who just spoke in regards to the unobligated fund conversation.

So when we reached out to budgets at that time, we were told the account code that we're referencing specifically for NSD had about $19.1 million.

This is on May 6 of 2024.

and that point the department has spent or had obligated $5.3 million of that amount so far.

This was in May.

So that means as of now what we do know there's about a little over $13 million that has not been spent and we're talking about proposing $500,000 earmarking that of potentially $13.8 million that has not been obligated or committed to anything as of now.

We know, yes, NSD has the ability to increase contracts or increase spending, but we're literally talking about pennies in regards to what is being uncommitted when we're looking at $13.8 and $500,000 of that.

Thank you.

I just wanted to clarify a couple things.

There has been a summer safety plan.

A lot of the groups reached out to me and showed me in my face their summer safety plan before this came up.

I really feel like we're putting some misinformation out and saying that there has been no summer safety plan.

All of these groups, whether they get additional monies or not, have been funded through the end of their grant period, which included summer.

You don't get to not work in the summer and then pick back up in the fall.

We all know summer is the best.

I've been looking for it, but folks sent me an actual summer safety plan model that they were using.

I think it was out of New Jersey or New York City or something like that, an actual, literal

plan with events, with patrols, with language, with its own font.

It was a very extensive plan that more than five groups have shown me and shared with me and have worked with Commissioner Barnett

and the City Council.

I'm going

dollars for sure those teams and then some of the other teams who get smaller pots of money but there was a plan there was never a time where summer was not included there definitely have been conversations

between Commissioner Barnett and my office early on.

I asked him, what is the plan?

Can you show me the plan in writing?

I don't want to talk through the plan.

And with Director Nelson Brown, who showed me the plans that people have submitted to her for their work that they were going to start doing way back in

I want to say like April.

I mean, it's been going on.

We really were excited that we were getting ahead of summer and not waiting until the end of the year.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

There was definitely a summer action plan.

Wonderful.

Seeing no further discussion,

I will ask the clerks to call the roll.

Oh, we need a motion first.

I will move this item.

Can I get a second?

Second.

Council Member Payne.

Aye.

Wonsley.

Aye.

Rainville is absent.

Sorry.

Vitor.