Budget Committee September 24, 2024   9/24/2024

Discussion

• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:00:27
    Good morning.
  • 00:00:27
    My name is Aisha Chugtai and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:30
    I'm going to call to order our adjourned committee meeting for Tuesday, September 24, 2024.
  • 00:00:36
    Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all council members, staff presenters, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.
  • 00:00:47
    These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community.
  • 00:00:54
    Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.
  • 00:01:03
    We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.
  • 00:01:07
    At this time, I'll ask the Clerk to call the roll so we can verify the presence of a quorum.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:01:12
    Council Member Payne?
  • 00:01:13
    Present.
  • 00:01:14
    Wonsley is absent.
  • 00:01:17
    Rainville?
  • 00:01:17
    Present.
  • 00:01:18
    Vito?
  • 00:01:19
    Present.
  • 00:01:20
    Ellison is absent.
  • 00:01:22
    Osman is absent.
  • 00:01:23
    Cashman?
• • Michael Cashman
  • 00:01:24
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:01:25
    Jenkins is absent.
  • 00:01:27
    Chavez?
  • 00:01:28
    Present.
  • 00:01:29
    Chaudhry is absent.
  • 00:01:31
    Palmisano?
  • 00:01:31
    Present.
  • 00:01:32
    Vice Chair Kofsky?
  • 00:01:34
    Present.
  • 00:01:34
    Chair Chuktai?
  • 00:01:35
    Present.
  • 00:01:35
    There are eight members present.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:01:36
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
  • 00:01:38
    I'll also remind colleagues that we are using speaker management today, so please make sure you sign in.
  • 00:01:44
    Today we have three presentations related to the mayor's 2025 recommended budget.
  • 00:01:50
    One from the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department, the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department, and the Intergovernmental Relations Department.
  • 00:01:58
    We will begin with Neighborhood and Community Relations, and so I'll invite Director Karen Moe to begin that presentation.
  • 00:02:05
    Welcome, Director.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:02:06
    Welcome, or thank you.
  • 00:02:09
    Good morning, I'm Karen Moe, I serve as Director of Neighborhood and Community Relations and I'm here today to present on the mayor's recommended budget for 2025 for the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department.
  • 00:02:22
    We oftentimes refer to our department as either Neighborhood and Community Relations or for short NCR and for today's presentation you'll hear me use those two terms interchangeably.
  • 00:02:34
    The first slide shows an overview of the structure of our department.
  • 00:02:38
    You'll see first that our department reports directly to the Deputy City Operations Officer of Communications and Community Engagement.
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    Along with myself, we have 20 other positions in the department that work to get our work done.
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    The priority objectives for our department is that all residents are engaged equitably about issues that impact them on a local level, that the city addresses and removes barriers to civic participation and meaningful engagement in city programs, services, policy development, and activities, and that we support a city-wide network of strong, vibrant, and functional place-based engagement organizations.
  • 00:03:17
    I want to pause here and just acknowledge a couple of things that we've been doing to make sure that our department functions effectively with the resources that we have.
  • 00:03:25
    We're excited that we're working with the Performance and Management Improvement Department on aligning our metrics with the outcomes Minneapolis framework.
  • 00:03:33
    When I was in council earlier this year presenting on the blueprint for equitable engagement, I referenced the dashboard for equitable engagement that was developed in 2015 when we passed the blueprint.
  • 00:03:44
    The dashboard includes a whole handful of metrics that the city uses, that our department uses to track the impact of our work.
  • 00:03:52
    That dashboard is a little bit outdated and so we've been working on updating the dashboard itself and that will include working with the outcomes Minneapolis framework to identify what metrics we'll be using to track our work today and also moving forward.
  • 00:04:06
    I anticipate that in the new year coming in 2026 or 2025 we will have an updated dashboard that will include all of our new metrics and that will be aligned with the outcomes Minneapolis framework.
  • 00:04:19
    We've also done some work internally restructuring our department.
  • 00:04:23
    Since I came in as a director we've been looking at how we can best serve the needs of both our residents but also our city departments and with that we have looked at the resources that we currently have and we identified some opportunities for being more effective.
  • 00:04:36
    First we re-scoped a vacant position.
  • 00:04:39
    I'll talk a little bit more about this further in the report in the presentation.
  • 00:04:44
    We also realigned reporting structures.
  • 00:04:47
    We wanted to make sure that we had adequate supervision and support for the staff in our department and in addition to that to make sure that we were effective in responding to the needs of our city departments.
  • 00:04:57
    So with that we identified the opportunity to create a new team within our department.
  • 00:05:02
    and we're also looking at centralizing systems, again I'll talk about this in the next slide, but as a way to make sure that we're effectively using all of the public's dollars in our department as well as meeting the needs of our residents.
  • 00:05:16
    As I mentioned, we have been looking at restructuring our department and looking at what is the most effective way to have our staff do their job.
  • 00:05:26
    We were able to expand with the support of the mayor and yourselves, the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs.
  • 00:05:32
    Again, we often refer to this as OIRA.
  • 00:05:35
    You'll see that throughout the presentation.
  • 00:05:37
    In addition to that, we were able to add in a contract administrator with this new restructuring and this is something I'm particularly excited about.
  • 00:05:46
    One is it will create more efficiencies within our department, but it will also create more consistency both internally as well as how we work with community members in terms of the funds that we spend as a department.
  • 00:05:59
    We also have been looking to expand the role of NCR in supporting enterprise-wide engagement projects and this is something I think as a result of the restructuring we've been able to leverage our department and the expertise more throughout engagement activities.
  • 00:06:15
    One of the things that we've done in addition is to add in a monthly community engagement meeting
  • 00:06:20
    We had these in the past I think around 2019 and in recent years we just didn't have staff resources to revisit these but we this year have started monthly community engagement meetings where all city departments are invited to come together to one share and learn with each other but two more importantly I think to figure out ways that we can better coordinate internally so that when we show up in community we're doing it without asking our residents to do more work.
  • 00:06:46
    Another thing that we are excited about is what I would say is kind of the full return of the Community Connections Conference.
  • 00:06:54
    In 2020 we had the highest participation rate for our Community Connections Conference but after that we had to postpone or delay some of the activities as you remember because of COVID.
  • 00:07:04
    In 2022 we did host an in-person community connections conference but that was really still coming out of the COVID period and the attendance was relatively low but in 2023 we saw numbers in terms of participants that really referenced back to 2020 and in 2024 again we had I think the highest participation rate in the history of the conference and so we're really excited about moving forward to the community connections full-blown
  • 00:07:29
    When we think about risks for our department, two things I'd just like to note.
  • 00:07:33
    The first is enterprise staffing changes.
  • 00:07:35
    I think in the last four years we certainly have had quite a bit of turnover throughout all of our departments and I've referenced this in the past during this presentation.
  • 00:07:45
    I think there's opportunities for the city as we welcome new people in, new ideas, fresh energy but we also understand that with that comes the loss of institutional knowledge and relationships and for the work that we do those relationships matter and so just tracking that is something as a risk for our department it just means that we invest more time building relationships across the city enterprise make sure that people understand all new staff understand the resources that our department offers
  • 00:08:13
    The other thing is national events and I wasn't quite sure what phrase to use here I would say national trends, national events but I think this is one that impacts many of our community members and so as a department that's tasked with building trust back into government things that are happening nationally, internationally or even here statewide do have an impact on our ability to build trust back into government with our residents whether we're talking about events internationally that people are leaving due to safety or people are coming
  • 00:08:43
    for Economic Opportunity, we see a change in who is residing in our community.
  • 00:08:50
    When we look at some of the language that's being used to describe our community members, that's very harmful.
  • 00:08:55
    That has an impact on how we build relationships and trust with our residents.
  • 00:09:00
    Additionally, we've seen some folks that have been acting out of fear or anger, and that also causes a level of instability or insecurity with our residents that can challenge our ability to build trust back in.
  • 00:09:12
    In addition, I'm sure some of you saw the Star Tribune article this past week, but some of the challenges our nonprofit organizations are facing.
  • 00:09:20
    I think in the past we've fielded some questions from council members concerned around our neighborhood organizations and their capacity and as we referenced then we know that this was something that was happening not just with our neighborhood organizations but really across the board with all of our non-profits whether it's a change in funding structure or donations a decline in volunteer hours or just a turnover these are things that we're tracking in terms of risks that may be posed to our community partners
  • 00:09:48
    This slide includes two charts that show the program and staffing for our department.
  • 00:09:55
    What you'll notice is that we're staying relatively consistent from 2024 into 2025.
  • 00:10:03
    both with our funding as well as with our staffing structure.
  • 00:10:07
    I will note that we have a current vacancy and that vacancy is the one I referenced earlier.
  • 00:10:13
    When we restructured our department we looked at the resources that we had and that included a vacancy.
  • 00:10:18
    We went through the term as re-scoping.
  • 00:10:22
    Basically what that means is we looked at the position description and updated it to meet our current needs as well as our current structure.
  • 00:10:29
    We've gone through that process and all of the relevant entities have signed off.
  • 00:10:33
    We've posted and we're at the point of hiring for that position.
  • 00:10:36
    I anticipate by the end of this year moving into next year we'll be fully staffed.
  • 00:10:43
    So with little program and funding changes I want to go into just providing some updates about our current work from the past year and into 2024.
  • 00:10:53
    As I reference, our department is split up into four teams, you saw on the first chart, and we do that through three main bodies of work.
  • 00:11:01
    I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking on each of these bodies.
  • 00:11:05
    The first is the Coordinated Engagement Services, and this really is kind of the catch-all for our department.
  • 00:11:10
    This represents much of the work that we do outside of two other kind of program-specific areas.
  • 00:11:16
    The goals of this program area is that city departments are equipped to meaningfully engage with residents and underrepresented communities, that strong relationships that increase trust between the community and the city are fostered, and that the city has comprehensive enterprise engagement policies.
  • 00:11:34
    As I referenced earlier, you can go to the dashboard to see some of the metrics that we include here as well as a whole handful of other metrics, but I'm just going to highlight a couple for today's presentation.
  • 00:11:44
    First, we offer learning labs.
  • 00:11:46
    I'm sure many of you are familiar with these.
  • 00:11:48
    If you haven't yet and want to, we're offering them right now and you're more than welcome to join.
  • 00:11:53
    These are a series of learning labs that we offer twice a year that are open to all city staff and to residents.
  • 00:11:58
    And this is really about a way to increase all of our staff's capacity around how to engage our residents more meaningfully.
  • 00:12:06
    In 2023, 73 people attended at least one of the learning labs and of that 30 were city staff.
  • 00:12:12
    We are currently looking at our learning lab program and making sure that we can improve, but I think as we welcome a lot of new staff to the city, this is going to be an important tool for us to make sure that staff understand how to develop engagement plans that are accessible to all of our residents.
  • 00:12:27
    I also referenced the Community Connections Conference in our attendance and you'll see in 2023 we had 942 people attended.
  • 00:12:34
    We do a quite extensive review after the event to make sure that this is an accurate number of the people that were actually there at the conference the day of.
  • 00:12:42
    And in 2024 we saw 1,267 people.
  • 00:12:48
    So we're very excited about those numbers and I'll remind everyone that the 2025 conference is coming up on February 8th so please make sure you mark that on your calendar now.
  • 00:12:57
    Some of the accomplishments, we were able to add a community specialist for people with disabilities last year, and this is one, a little bit overdue in terms of a commitment that we made to our community, but two, something that's very exciting for us.
  • 00:13:11
    In the past, this was a position that was split between multiple responsibilities.
  • 00:13:16
    really allowing the person in that position to focus mostly on the compliance component and what we were excited to do with this new position is actually center the people with disabilities and really think about how we're engaging them more holistically while also making sure that we're following through with the compliance of the American with Disabilities Act.
  • 00:13:35
    Guthrie Beyer joined us a little bit over a year ago.
  • 00:13:37
    If you've not yet seen him or had the chance to meet with him, I really welcome you to do so.
  • 00:13:42
    You might have seen he was on the news.
  • 00:13:44
    He's in the newspaper really trying to build our relationships with our community people with disabilities.
  • 00:13:49
    He's also been working on updating the city's American with Disabilities Act action plan, which we hope will be coming forward to you next year.
  • 00:13:56
    We've been doing extensive engagement internally around that.
  • 00:13:58
    In addition, he's been working with IT to add in regular meetings regarding digital accessibility This is an area that we do need to continue to improve and monitor and make sure that all city staff understand that all of our residents can access information through the digital format
  • 00:14:17
    In 2023, we also were able to expand our cultural media programs to include the Minneapolis AIR program on Native roots, which obviously has directed our Native American community.
  • 00:14:32
    We've also continued to support city-wide projects.
  • 00:14:36
    If you didn't know, we've been involved with a whole handful of projects, whether it's the new Nicolette or Nicolette Mall, Community Safety, 3000 Minnehaha, as well as a whole handful of other projects.
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    And then lastly, the Community Connections Conference I referenced already.
  • 00:14:56
    The next program area I'd like to talk about is access and outreach support.
  • 00:14:59
    The goals of this program is that city programs, services, and activities are accessible to all residents.
  • 00:15:05
    That all residents can access information and resources, and that immigrant and refugee residents have equal access to participate in our democracy and city life.
  • 00:15:16
    Some of the metrics that we track include the language access, how much money that we as a city spend on ensuring information is accessible in languages that are necessary.
  • 00:15:26
    In 2023, the city spent $475,883.
  • 00:15:29
    If you look through the previous trend, what you'll see is this was about a 50% increase since 2022.
  • 00:15:39
    And while there is a continued trend to increase the amount of money that we spend on assuring information is accessible in different languages, I will note that 2023 is a little bit of an outlier year.
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    We think that most of that was driven by the city's work or response to the settlement agreement.
  • 00:15:57
    We will continue to track this one to understand the impact moving forward, but because we're only halfway through 2024 it's difficult for us to make any predictions confidently, but we believe that this is really just in response to the settlement agreement.
  • 00:16:16
    In addition to that the city as I mentioned earlier manages the compliance inquiries or complaints regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act and in 2023 we received 74 compliance inquiries or complaints that were handled by our department and of those 52 were
  • 00:16:36
    52 of those were resolved.
  • 00:16:41
    Some of those, just to give an understanding, are resolved by city departments, including ourselves, but as well some are resolved by private businesses and other government agencies.
  • 00:16:51
    Our role in that is really just to receive the inquiry or the complaint, identify who's responsible party, and then make sure that there's some sort of follow-up to that.
  • 00:17:01
    I do want to pause here for a little bit and highlight one specific accomplishment that I think is timely to do, which is the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs.
  • 00:17:14
    We do have some data on our dashboard that tracks the number of residents that are served by the Immigration Legal Services contracts that we have with community partners.
  • 00:17:24
    but the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs was established in 2018 and it was that year that we welcomed Director Michelle Rivera to the city to lead the city's work on this and I'm sure many of you have had questions, certainly we've fielded a number of questions both internally and externally around what is the role of a municipal level Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs, what really can we do?
  • 00:17:46
    and that was a task that Michelle had to take on was really define what is our role, where can we add value, and where can we make sure that all of our residents really are welcome to the city.
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    And that was a lot of work.
  • 00:17:58
    I think Michelle, Director Rivera did lay out some very clear goals in terms of increasing access to citizenship and legal standing for our residents, making sure that people felt welcomed when they joined.
  • 00:18:10
    But since 2018, it's been a very complicated period for both cities responding to our immigrant refugee population as well as some of the things that have been happening nationally.
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    So I do want to highlight some of the areas where I feel like our office really has made some significant impact.
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    First is touch points with community.
  • 00:18:35
    As a one-person office, Michelle had to start building relationships and identifying what was ways to reach all of our residents.
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    She started by partnering with the City of St. Paul and making sure that as we were moving out into community we were working collaboratively with them and they initiated a whole handful of activities including citizenship fairs which we started hosting in 2022-2023 and those have now become standard practice.
  • 00:19:02
    They're hosted bi-monthly.
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    We share that with the City of St. Paul and that's become a significant place as the word has gotten out for more people to come to to access resources.
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    It's moved a little bit beyond just accessing citizenship.
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    It's for any resident that has questions around obtaining legal status, work authorization, and in some cases other basic needs that they have.
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    will be moving forward with hosting those on a bi-monthly basis.
  • 00:19:28
    I would welcome any of you to attend, but the attendance varies, but it is a significant place to the point where now we have other community partners and government entities showing up in those places.
  • 00:19:39
    One of the examples I'll highlight is when people were looking for information about how to access a driver's license.
  • 00:19:45
    they could come to a citizenship fair and speak with someone from the Department of Public Safety or access more information about that particular need.
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    So this is a place really that is becoming a one-stop shop potentially for our residents when they have questions.
  • 00:20:01
    The Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs has also established a regular presence at the Career Force on Lake Street and again this is another one where we're bringing in more community partners as we see more residents coming to that location.
  • 00:20:11
    as the word gets out.
  • 00:20:14
    Michelle started there with two days a week and she'll continue that as we move forward.
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    These are all, I think we're moving beyond just access to citizenship, although that's still a goal of ours.
  • 00:20:26
    We understand that provides the most economic and
  • 00:20:29
    I also want to highlight
  • 00:20:49
    Director Rivera started something called Welcoming Twin Cities Monthly and I want to note here that some of these activities are really what I would say are seeds being planted and you really do have to test out different strategies as we're beginning this work.
  • 00:21:04
    Michelle started this Welcoming Twin Cities meeting and it really was in response to
  • 00:21:09
    I think welcoming our first round of folks from Afghanistan when they were unexpectedly arriving and we didn't have resources or a structure in place and so Michelle and her counterpart in St. Paul started this welcoming Twin Cities meeting.
  • 00:21:24
    and then we welcomed folks from the Ukraine and then we started seeing more people coming from our southern border.
  • 00:21:30
    This meeting became significant enough that the State Department of the State Resettlement Agency is taking over this meeting.
  • 00:21:40
    and that's a positive thing that it's become such a part of the infrastructure that the state now is taking it over to assure that our residents regardless of what city they live in in the state of Minnesota they have some level of access to information that's being shared from this coordinated approach
  • 00:21:57
    We also are excited that we welcome Zaina Meyer as the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs Community Specialist this year.
  • 00:22:04
    We've now moved in our sixth year from a one-person office.
  • 00:22:07
    We doubled the size, thank you.
  • 00:22:10
    We appreciate that.
  • 00:22:11
    Zaina brings a lot of expertise and experience to this work.
  • 00:22:14
    We're really excited for what she's going to offer us.
  • 00:22:16
    I do want to note, because I think for some of
  • 00:22:18
    for some of us it is important to know that we've also expanded our language capacity within the Office of immigrant refugee affairs and that wasn't the driving factor but that certainly is an added value from Zainab joining us lastly in the last year we also have been able to add a language access coordinator if you remember this was split up with the community specialist for people with disabilities and it was really because of
  • 00:22:43
    the increase in responses requests from around the city.
  • 00:22:46
    Padau Yang joined our city last year.
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    If you have not yet met her, I would welcome you to reach out to her.
  • 00:22:54
    She brings a lot of experience and a lot of enthusiasm about making sure that our language access isn't just about translating materials but that the whole strategies are designed to reach all of our residents.
  • 00:23:07
    She is currently working, I think some of you heard the council presentation earlier, on revisiting our language access action plan.
  • 00:23:14
    We're again hoping that will come through to you, but she's been surveying city staff.
  • 00:23:18
    I think she's probably talked to every single city staff person.
  • 00:23:21
    She's got so much energy trying to figure out how we can best serve them.
  • 00:23:24
    In addition to the language access plan, she started quarterly meetings with staff around the city who frequently need to use these services to make sure that they have the resources and the knowledge how to do so effectively.
  • 00:23:37
    Lastly, the third program area is neighborhood and engagement support.
  • 00:23:43
    The goals of this program is that all residents are engaged equitably regarding issues that impact them on the local level and that we have a city-wide network of place-based engagement organizations, our neighborhood organizations.
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    In terms of metrics, we are sharing a couple today.
  • 00:24:00
    Some reflect the things that we as city staff are doing to support our neighborhood organizations and some of them are the added value that our neighborhood organizations offer all of us as city residents.
  • 00:24:10
    So first, I'm going to highlight the financial reviews.
  • 00:24:14
    This is something that we've done traditionally which is working to provide financial reviews or audits of our neighborhood organizations.
  • 00:24:22
    This really instills a sense of confidence in how our neighborhood organizations are using their money.
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    In 2023, we conducted 132 financial reviews.
  • 00:24:34
    Again, if you go to our dashboard, you can see the historical data and what you'll see is this reflects a jump in the number of financial reviews.
  • 00:24:42
    We added in a new type of review in 2023 and this was something I would say which is just a soft touch a quick check-in with neighborhood organizations throughout the year as they submit an invoice just checking on making sure the documentation is there.
  • 00:24:59
    This is a standard practice I think for many funders to use which is really just designed as a way to identify do our neighborhood organizations have what they need in order to comply with all the rules regarding
  • 00:25:10
    how to spend public dollars.
  • 00:25:15
    I would anticipate that we're going to continue offering this type of service and that you'll see these numbers stay relatively consistent throughout as we move forward.
  • 00:25:25
    We also, as city staff, provided 188 board trainings and this is something that we do really in response to requests from neighborhood organizations and we tailor those trainings based off of what our neighborhood organizations need.
  • 00:25:38
    Our boards of directors of these organizations are constantly changing but they also are constantly learning and have new inquiries and so we can really design these to meet the specific needs of each of the organizations.
  • 00:25:52
    Neighborhood organizations reported in 2023 that they organized roughly 81,748 hours of volunteers and that's quite a significant add to our communities.
  • 00:26:05
    We use a metric every year to determine the financial value of that.
  • 00:26:09
    This number is down a little bit from previous years.
  • 00:26:14
    I think it's up from last year but if you look back historically it is kind of on a trend down.
  • 00:26:19
    Again, I think this is something that's happening nationally.
  • 00:26:23
    So we'll continue to track this one.
  • 00:26:25
    But in addition to that, I just want to say volunteer hours could include anything from serving on the board, to organizing an event, to being part of a pick-up, a neighborhood pick-up.
  • 00:26:36
    But that's quite an impressive number of volunteer hours.
  • 00:26:39
    In addition to that, they report over 21,000 households were reached through door-to-door, which is basically door-knocking, and then over 79,000 households reached by flyer.
  • 00:26:48
    Again, these numbers look like they're trending down a little bit and I think that's just something that we'll continue to track as organizations and make sure that they have the support they need from us.
  • 00:26:59
    Some of the accomplishments though I think I do really want to highlight and I think some of you might be familiar with these but first I want to say that I think coming into 2025 that we will have a neighborhood organization functioning for every resident in the city of Minneapolis.
  • 00:27:15
    and they will be able to access the funding allocated to them from our body.
  • 00:27:21
    And that actually hasn't happened in quite a while.
  • 00:27:24
    I think I'll go through a couple of specific examples here, but this really is unique and it's something that we're very excited for.
  • 00:27:33
    First Columbia Park Neighborhood Organization had a little bit of a pause there.
  • 00:27:41
    And so over the past two years,
  • 00:27:43
    They spent some resources in trying to kind of organize neighbors and restart their organization.
  • 00:27:49
    We were able to keep the organization intact until they really had the opportunity to organize neighbors and get a fully functioning board.
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    And we anticipate going into 2025 that they'll be accessing all of their funding.
  • 00:28:03
    Marcy Holmes has done some organizing and Council Member Wonsley at CU nodding.
  • 00:28:09
    This is one that's exciting for us.
  • 00:28:10
    The university neighborhood, the residents of the university will be able to access their funding and this is something that has not happened for quite a while.
  • 00:28:19
    The neighborhood organization that serves Marcy Homes worked with the residents of University.
  • 00:28:25
    I believe there's a vote that's coming up, but yep, we are hopeful that that vote will pass and that there will be a new organization that is reflecting or representing both Marcy Home and University Residence.
  • 00:28:39
    And this is really something to celebrate.
  • 00:28:40
    I really want to applaud the residents and the people involved in the neighborhood organizations for all the work that they've done.
  • 00:28:49
    to make sure that all of our residents are included.
  • 00:28:54
    And then lastly, we had a merger of Beltrami and Northeast Park neighborhoods now called the Lower Northeast Neighborhood.
  • 00:29:00
    Again, two organizations that came together and decided that maybe they would be better suited if they merged.
  • 00:29:08
    And I want to note on all of these, but specifically Marcy Homes and Beltrami Northeast Park and some of the other conversations going on,
  • 00:29:18
    Merging organizations are coming together in theory seems simple but in reality it's actually quite challenging.
  • 00:29:26
    There's a lot of work that comes into it.
  • 00:29:28
    There's a lot of asking people to think about their identity and then sharing that identity with residents in another neighborhood.
  • 00:29:35
    We're very excited that out of Neighborhoods 2020, this council here passed a program funding stream called the Collaboration and Shared Resources, which was a short-term funding.
  • 00:29:47
    It was only for three years.
  • 00:29:49
    And that really was designed to provide resources to neighborhood organizations that were interested in exploring ways of creating efficiencies, administrative efficiencies, including up to merging.
  • 00:30:01
    There's financial resources available for them if they need so.
  • 00:30:05
    We were able this year to take some of the funding that we had and keep that program ongoing for any neighborhood organizations that want to continue having those conversations.
  • 00:30:16
    Again, I would say in theory this seems simple, but in reality when you talk about looking at bylaws from two different organizations, looking at financial or legal systems from two different organizations, or even facilitating conversations across neighborhoods,
  • 00:30:30
    Sometimes having a consultant or some extra resources can be helpful and we're seeing that certainly with lower Northeast neighborhood That wraps up my part of the presentation and update I always like to highlight our the fabulous folks in NCR that are conducting the work on a daily basis Farhia Badool is not in this picture she was in an earlier slide many of you know her as the
  • 00:30:53
    Community Specialist for East African Community.
  • 00:30:56
    She was on a one-year leave as a Bush Fellow.
  • 00:30:59
    We've welcomed her back, and so we'll have to sneak her in the photo moving forward, but this is the team over at Neighborhood and Community Relations.
  • 00:31:07
    and with that I'll say thank you and I'll stand for questions.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:31:11
    Thank you for that presentation Director Moe.
  • 00:31:13
    Colleagues do you have any questions or comments related to this presentation?
  • 00:31:20
    I see several members are in queues waiting to be recognized so we'll start with Vice Chair Koski and then go to Councilmember Chavez then Wonsley and then Rainville.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:31:30
    Thank you.
  • 00:31:31
    Vice Chair Koski.
  • 00:31:32
    Thank you Madam Vice President and thank you Director Moe.
  • 00:31:36
    Really appreciate hearing all of the great work that your team is doing and it's fun.
  • 00:31:44
    You gave a lot of in-depth examples and I think that helps us kind of really bring to light what's
  • 00:31:50
    happening where all of you are out there working hard to engage communities.
  • 00:31:54
    So thank you so much for that.
  • 00:31:56
    Just a couple quick kind of very detailed questions here.
  • 00:31:59
    I see that your fringe cost decreased from 24 to 25, almost 3%.
  • 00:32:09
    Just curious what those factors were for that.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:32:15
    I believe those were just changes that reflect selection options from staff changes whether it was new staff or just changes.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:32:26
    Okay, great.
  • 00:32:27
    And then you talked about your vacancies and there was one on the slide then you said we're going down to zero.
  • 00:32:33
    The Biennale personnel report that we had had two actually on there.
  • 00:32:37
    So can you just
  • 00:32:38
    The two that were on the biannual personnel report was the Manager of Community Engagement and then the Community Specialist Project Lead.
  • 00:32:48
    So can you just help me understand where those circled up in comparison to the report you gave us today?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:32:55
    Correct.
  • 00:32:56
    When we complete that report, we knew that earlier in the year and at that point we still did have a vacancy for the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs Community Specialist.
  • 00:33:09
    Since then we have filled that position with Zaina Meyer.
  • 00:33:13
    I'm leaving just the Manager of Community Engagement vacant and that's the position that I was in the process of re-scoping and we are close to filling.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:33:22
    Got it.
  • 00:33:22
    Okay, that makes sense.
  • 00:33:24
    And I noticed that you were able to cut your expenses a titch and every little bit helps.
  • 00:33:30
    So thank you so much.
  • 00:33:32
    So that's all my comments.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:33:35
    Thank you.
  • 00:33:35
    Next I'll recognize Councilmember Chavez.
  • 00:33:37
    Thank you Chair Chuck Ting and thank you Director Mull to you and our incredible NCR staff for all their work and especially very thankful for helping my office with interpretation.
  • 00:33:48
    I know we make last-minute requests all the time, but we have to make sure our office hours and community events are accessible to everyone.
  • 00:33:55
    The reason I bring that up is I want to make sure, can you help us understand if that's going to be still included in the budget this year and what that looks like?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:34:04
    Chair Chuck Dye, Council Member Chavez
  • 00:34:09
    We will continue to provide support services for every city staff regarding interpretation and translation services including the interpretation equipment.
  • 00:34:21
    I know the way that the city structures our language access services is that individual departments are responsible and that would include for council member offices are responsible for covering the costs that are incurred for those services.
  • 00:34:38
    I think when it comes to costs for your office, I believe that there are funds available through the city clerk's office and so that would be a question I would need to direct to the city clerk's office regarding the ongoing nature of those funds.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:34:54
    Thank you if we can I guess the question would be more directed to our city clerk's office to see if the pilot program that we funded last year is still going to exist in next year's budget.
  • 00:35:04
    I believe that was $50,000 so maybe we can check in with the clerk's office about that particular question
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:35:11
    clerks if we can note that for administrative follow-up we had a similar thing yesterday where the answer to the question related to a different department so we'll figure that out and for my colleagues that's important to know because I mean I know my office
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:35:28
    has a lot of interpreters and it's the best way to communicate with some residents.
  • 00:35:32
    My events usually have different interpreters there so folks can communicate freely in the best way that they can and without these services it can be very inaccessible.
  • 00:35:42
    So it's just something that we need to make sure that in the budget that we make sure that it's there.
  • 00:35:46
    and if not, figure out how is the city, at least our council offices can also be accessible.
  • 00:35:50
    Thank you Director Mill.
  • 00:35:51
    The other part I want to talk about is we're starting to see homelessness skyrocket in Minneapolis Public Schools, we're starting to see a variety of new arrivals coming into Minneapolis Public Schools and in the city quite frankly and we're starting to see
  • 00:36:05
    Even folks coming to City Hall asking for services.
  • 00:36:08
    My office has had to navigate a lot of conversations with folks who speak Spanish, Latino immigrants, many who are undocumented, asking us to where immigration custom enforcement is at, where they can get services, how they can get city help.
  • 00:36:24
    And the reason I'm bringing this up is because we're starting to see this in City Hall.
  • 00:36:29
    I go into the community, folks are asking my office for help.
  • 00:36:32
    My office is getting calls from all over the city, not just Ward 9, because they know I'm the only one that speaks Spanish on the council, asking for more help.
  • 00:36:39
    And I'm trying to see, in this budget, what the mayor is proposing as we see an increase in new arrivals in the city of Minneapolis, folks that are literally trying to survive.
  • 00:36:50
    And I'm trying to see if you can help us.
  • 00:36:52
    Did the mayor make a new recommendation for new programming in his proposed budget in NCR?
  • 00:36:58
    to address the crisis we're facing right now and that is going to support new arrivals in the city?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:37:05
    Chair Chuktay, Council Member Chavez, there is no proposed changes within the NCR department and I cannot speak to any proposed changes for other departments regarding a response to issues of housing or access to resources.
  • 00:37:20
    I think that would be a question for another department.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:37:24
    Yeah and my question, the reason I'm talking about homelessness is not just, there is, we have the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and the office does a really good work of supporting our immigrant community members in the city of Minneapolis and my comments about housing was mostly that there is a big need and there is services and help that many of our new arrivals in the city are asking for and one of the things they're asking for is more services in the city, housing, all these other issues like job opportunities
  • 00:37:52
    and my understanding is NCR is a connector to those folks and just knowing that there is a new immigrant population in the city, I really want to hear
  • 00:38:03
    if the mayor made any changes to NCR, to the Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs that would meet the need and the growing need that we're facing in the city of Minneapolis to support our immigrant residents, particularly undocumented nor rivals who are struggling in the city, right?
  • 00:38:19
    So I guess the answer to that question is no, there is no programming.
  • 00:38:24
    That is new this year to address this challenge and I think that's something that we need to be looking at in this year's budget then because as my office continues to field these questions and
  • 00:38:35
    folks are struggling.
  • 00:38:36
    It feels like we need to do more and I think that's something for us to contemplate in this body.
  • 00:38:41
    So that was the reason for my question.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:38:43
    I'm Chair Chuck Tai, Councilmember Chavez.
  • 00:38:45
    I appreciate the question and certainly the concern and it's something I think that you know we've been tracking and trying to keep a handle on and work with our other jurisdictional partners in how we respond to this one.
  • 00:39:00
    I will use the opportunity just for one little plug and I understand your question is more around the budget and I don't unfortunately have the answer for you today.
  • 00:39:09
    It's something I can look, I can follow up on.
  • 00:39:11
    I do want to note for the opportunity with the presentation here for the public that I think one of the challenges we've seen in some other cities and responding is the concept of developing some sort of welcoming center.
  • 00:39:24
    When I hear that people are coming downtown to City Hall, there's always a part of me that
  • 00:39:31
    you know struggles with people traveling all the way to a center where there's really not resources that can help them directly and I think that's something that we certainly as a city with our partners in St. Paul and at the state thought about what a welcoming center looks like and I think just due to the dynamics of having two main cities and actually a state where we are seeing a number of people arriving outside of the cities
  • 00:39:54
    wanted to have a response that was able to be a little bit flexible and so I would say when I highlighted the work that OIRA has done in establishing some community hours at the workforce or the career force on Lake Street that I think that is a place that we are trying to invite people to and would invite all of you but even people watching today to understand if you're encountering folks on the city staff you have we can get you information about how if you don't speak Spanish and we certainly need to
  • 00:40:21
    think about how we expand our language access across our staff.
  • 00:40:25
    But if you're city staff, we have some information for you on accessing interpretation skills versus via the phone.
  • 00:40:33
    But in addition to that, we really are trying to get that Lake Street Career Force Center as a place where people can get wraparound services including access to food.
  • 00:40:41
    I'm connecting with resources around housing or potential employment opportunities as well as legal services that might lead towards some sort of helping folks understand what their path forward is here.
  • 00:40:51
    So just want to make sure people are aware of that.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:40:54
    And then I'll just finish with this, Council Vice President, if I may.
  • 00:40:58
    And the career force is really good.
  • 00:41:00
    When I drive by there, it's always full.
  • 00:41:02
    There's long lines.
  • 00:41:04
    Again, that's part of my point.
  • 00:41:06
    There is a big need when there is folks waiting outside in lines.
  • 00:41:12
    Asking for support there is it shows the desperate need that we need in this city in particularly that part of Lake Street where we're having folks asking for employment opportunities that want to work and provide for themselves and their families and our struggling to do so and That's was my but the reasoning for my questions of
  • 00:41:29
    If there is more program recommendations in the budget to address that growing need, and if not, which I believe the answer was there isn't, then we have to figure out in this body what we're going to do to address those challenges.
  • 00:41:41
    It doesn't take away from the fact that I know that OIRA is working really hard with our community members.
  • 00:41:46
    I've been able to direct a lot of folks to go on Wednesdays, I believe, to the career force, because that's incredible work.
  • 00:41:52
    It means people are showing up, which means our city staff are doing a great job of promoting the incredible work that is happening there.
  • 00:41:58
    but when there is not enough funding and not enough staff positions and not enough resources that we're providing then that can only go so far and folks are stretched thin and the folks are being probably overworked and I guess that was the point I'm trying to make here that there is obviously more support that we can give to NCR and OIRA and other folks to make sure that more services are being spread out across the city.
  • 00:42:25
    Yeah, thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:42:27
    Thank you Councilmember.
  • 00:42:28
    Next I'll recognize Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:42:31
    Thank you Vice President Chuck Ty.
  • 00:42:34
    First, I just want to give kudos to Director Rivera.
  • 00:42:40
    Just betting upon Council Member Chavez points to of I'm glad that we were able to support her department and going from just solo team to people which is still grossly insufficient as well for knowing just how
  • 00:43:00
    much our immigrant and displaced populations have increased and the expansive needs that
  • 00:43:07
    that they're requiring right now and trying to figure out, and she's been doing a great job hence by the round tables and just the engagement she's been curating for council members and all the other government agencies that's also looking and trying their best to respond to this community.
  • 00:43:25
    It's been great to have her leadership pulling that together and I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues and figuring out how we can further support that work with this budget cycle so that
  • 00:43:36
    you all have the resources needed to better support our immigrant and displaced communities by just at least anytime I can I want to give Director Rivera kudos for her work.
  • 00:43:48
    One thing that I did want to follow up on because I had a community meeting last night and this was raised but it's related to the partnership engagement funds.
  • 00:43:57
    and just trying to get a status report on if all those grants that were approved have been basically released.
  • 00:44:08
    I know there was a project in my ward related to a tenant council where some of those residents have highlighted that.
  • 00:44:15
    they have not received their funds.
  • 00:44:19
    So I just wanted to follow up on that and wanted to get a sense if there's a delay or basically a status report on that.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:44:34
    I am going to have to be honest and say I'm not prepared to 100% answer that question right now.
  • 00:44:40
    I know we have been going through the process of approving the contracts.
  • 00:44:44
    The specific one that you are speaking of, I don't have off the top of my head, but I will follow up with all of the council members with a status update on the partnership engagement fund.
  • 00:44:54
    where we are at with both the spend down of the 2023 funds as well as where we are with the contracting finalizing the contract.
  • 00:45:03
    I know that there have been a number of questions on some of the specific projects just making sure that they really do align with the public purpose of the city's funds.
  • 00:45:11
    and so I'll check on that specific one but I will follow up with the entire body with a status update of the entire partnership engagement fund.
  • 00:45:20
    Thank you.
  • 00:45:20
    So if that could be noted for the clerk.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:45:24
    All right, clerk's got it.
  • 00:45:25
    Ken is on it.
  • 00:45:25
    All right.
  • 00:45:26
    I look forward to receiving that information.
  • 00:45:28
    That's the only question I have.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:45:30
    Wonderful, thank you Councilmember Wonsley and if I can just add for the clerks and for you Director Moe, it would be really helpful as you are giving us a status update on the partnership engagement fund and the disbursement of contracts that the council has approved along with entering new contracts for the allocation for 2024 and then the subsequent disbursement.
  • 00:45:53
    If you can just help us understand what are the barriers that you're navigating with getting those resources out into the community.
  • 00:46:00
    I know that in the last couple of years the council, several of the council's committees have received presentations and updates from your department on the partnership engagement fund.
  • 00:46:12
    and I know that those partnerships and the use of those resources in this specific way is really important to residents that we all ultimately serve.
  • 00:46:26
    But it's something that's really important to the department as well.
  • 00:46:30
    Your care and passion for it is clearly seen in every presentation that you give to the committee.
  • 00:46:36
    So just helping us understand what are those barriers because I can see that
  • 00:46:42
    getting those resources out into the community is certainly important to you.
  • 00:46:47
    Thank you.
  • 00:46:48
    Next I'll recognize Councilmember Rainville.
• • Michael Rainville
  • 00:46:52
    Thank you, Chair.
  • 00:46:53
    And thank you, Director.
  • 00:46:55
    I just want to thank you for your honesty and acknowledging that these mergers are very complicated, complex, and difficult.
  • 00:47:05
    But your staff has done a great job and we're moving forward on that.
  • 00:47:08
    So that's, I'm very grateful because it affects many of the neighborhoods in my ward.
  • 00:47:14
    And I'm just hoping and just I'm going to look over your shoulder to Steve.
  • 00:47:19
    Steve, maybe you could give Patrick a call and we could set up a time the three of us can talk about
  • 00:47:23
    of St. Anthony West neighborhood.
  • 00:47:26
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:47:30
    Excellent.
  • 00:47:30
    Thank you.
  • 00:47:31
    And then next I will recognize Councilmember Vitaw.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:47:35
    Thank you.
  • 00:47:36
    Thank you for the presentation.
  • 00:47:38
    It's always really good information to hear.
  • 00:47:42
    Of course I want to shout out your staff.
  • 00:47:44
    You have a really good team that helps out a lot in particular in Ward 4.
  • 00:47:50
    We got complicated issues with those neighborhood organizations and your staff does a fantastic job at navigating through it.
  • 00:47:58
    Thank you so much Steve and Raya for all the hard work you put into
  • 00:48:03
    I think trying to make people happy, I'm not sure what happens sometimes with neighborhood groups.
  • 00:48:11
    But your staff reassures me all the time that it's okay and we're going to work through it.
  • 00:48:17
    So they do a really good job for Ward 4 neighborhood groups, actually a phenomenal job for Ward 4.
  • 00:48:24
    neighborhood groups.
  • 00:48:25
    We have a merger meeting tonight I think scheduled and it's long overdue and I'm looking forward to it.
  • 00:48:32
    I did have a question though about the doors knocked.
  • 00:48:36
    You had a slide where you said you knocked an amount of doors.
  • 00:48:40
    Can you give some examples of what you knocked doors for, like what that means?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:48:44
    Chair Tuktai, Councilmember Vita, actually those were doors knocked by neighborhood organizations.
  • 00:48:52
    So every year as part of the reporting mechanism with the funding for neighborhood organizations, they complete an annual report.
  • 00:48:59
    And that annual report includes a handful of metrics that they report on.
  • 00:49:05
    So the door knocking, the volunteer hours,
  • 00:49:08
    the door knocking and the doors flier to the households flier is actually activities of the neighborhood organizations.
  • 00:49:16
    So that there, while we have a fabulous team, there is no way our team could door knock that many doors.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:49:23
    That's why I needed clarity.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:49:24
    I was like, what?
  • 00:49:25
    that is that we do occasionally support other departments but that those were neighborhood organizations and that could be for a whole handful of things whether it's something coming up from City Council or a community meeting that they're having an annual meeting with board elections so it's really up to them based off of the needs of their community well thank you for that I was gonna give Steve and Ariah capes whoa that's a lot of doors there on top of what they're doing thank you so much and keep up the good work thank you
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:49:52
    Thank you, Councilmember.
  • 00:49:54
    I just had a couple of questions for you.
  • 00:49:58
    I'm not seeing any other colleagues looking to be recognized right now.
  • 00:50:03
    Director Moe, thank you for this presentation, as always.
  • 00:50:06
    And I think
  • 00:50:11
    an observation I have of the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department in the time that I've been on the council, which is pretty brief.
  • 00:50:22
    But I see that you have staff that have been here for a long time and are continuing to stay in the department and continuing to
  • 00:50:35
    to take pride and care for the work that they do.
  • 00:50:39
    And I'm curious if you can just speak to what turnover in your department looks like.
  • 00:50:44
    And I know that we received a presentation in the Administration and Enterprise Oversight Committee around the enterprise-wide patterns for employee retention.
  • 00:50:57
    But just wondering if you can specifically speak to your department, even in high terms or high level.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:51:05
    Thank you, Chair Chuktai.
  • 00:51:09
    We don't have a high level of turnover in our department.
  • 00:51:15
    In the past four years, the folks that have left our department too retired, and so they
  • 00:51:25
    At that age they served their time One left for an employment opportunity I think that was an opportunity that was not offered here within the city And then we had another that was recruited away from us over to Department of Neighborhood Safety Which was a beneficial move for everybody, but we do tend to have people that stay in our department I think Yeah
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:51:53
    That's awesome.
  • 00:51:53
    I just want to compliment you for that community engagement work is really hard no matter where you do it and that you're able to retain your employees over a long period of time is a really big deal.
  • 00:52:05
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:52:07
    Thank you, Church.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:52:08
    I'm not seeing any further questions for you.
  • 00:52:10
    Thank you for your presentation today and with that I will direct the clerks to file that presentation and we'll welcome up our next department.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:52:18
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:52:23
    Our next presentation is from the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department.
  • 00:52:28
    I will invite Director Ben Johnson to begin that presentation.
  • 00:52:33
    Welcome, Director.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:52:39
    Thank you, good morning.
  • 00:52:40
    I'm Ben Johnson, Director of Arts and Cultural Affairs for the City of Minneapolis.
  • 00:52:48
    I'm here to give you an overview of the mayor's budgetary proposals as it pertains to the 2526 Arts and Cultural Affairs Department.
  • 00:52:56
    With me are a couple of staff members I want to quickly recognize.
  • 00:52:59
    We have Addie Gonzalez, Executive Manager for the Arts.
  • 00:53:02
    Mary Altman, the Public Arts Supervisor.
  • 00:53:04
    We also have Mina Mangle-Betticher and Cassie Garner, who are our new program managers.
  • 00:53:09
    And I want to recognize the leadership of the Minneapolis Arts Commission, which is here.
  • 00:53:14
    Lucy Thompson and Lena Aylesworth.
  • 00:53:16
    And I report up to Brett Jelly, the Deputy City Operations Officer for the Department of Development, Health, and Livability.
  • 00:53:24
    And before I begin, I also want to thank and express sincere gratitude to the Enterprise and Council for supporting this past year's budget and I look forward to sharing some of the impacts with this presentation.
  • 00:53:37
    So as you can see, we are a small but mighty team.
  • 00:53:41
    We have six employees and we have no outstanding staff hires.
  • 00:53:44
    And with the formation of the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department in 2023, there are two primary program areas.
  • 00:53:50
    We have public programs and grants, which is overseen by our executive manager and our two recently hired program managers, as well as a public art and arts maintenance division, which is coordinated by our supervisor of public arts and our public arts coordinator.
  • 00:54:08
    So our priority objective is in a very brief mission.
  • 00:54:11
    So the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department exists to advance, support, stimulate, and promote a diverse and active arts cultural environment that recognizes and draws upon the full potential of Minneapolis' artists and arts organizations.
  • 00:54:24
    It reflects and responds to civic concerns and aspirations and enriches the lives of all people who live in, work in, and visit Minneapolis.
  • 00:54:32
    and put in a couple of other ways, we are determined that Minneapolis is uniquely positioned to support a thriving arts and cultural ecosystem.
  • 00:54:42
    We know that within our state's creative economy that the economic impact of our state is 12.6 billion.
  • 00:54:48
    It's the third largest economic indicator behind retail and construction and it is even bigger than agriculture and this statistic does not include sports entertainment.
  • 00:54:58
    and we are actively looking at the conditions of how we support or don't support arts to grow and thrive.
  • 00:55:05
    Within that, we're looking to provide artist opportunities to garner resources, attract artists to reside here and work here, support them in getting access to information and cultural resources and we're connecting their work in Minneapolis to the well-being and quality of life for our residents.
  • 00:55:23
    and we continue in our aspiration of being a creative engine for the artistic achievement and economic development within an arts-based state.
  • 00:55:30
    We do this by focusing on the following objectives.
  • 00:55:33
    By engaging with historically underrepresented artists, our process that we go through is called purposeful inclusion.
  • 00:55:40
    which I'll talk more about a little bit later.
  • 00:55:42
    We develop new commissions through the Percent for Art Ordinance by providing public artists the opportunity to create brand new public artworks for our community.
  • 00:55:50
    We maintain artworks that are safe and repaired.
  • 00:55:53
    We have over 100 public artworks in our collection.
  • 00:55:56
    Comparatively, the Walker Art Center manages 60 public artworks.
  • 00:56:00
    for Compare and Contrast.
  • 00:56:02
    We actively fulfill our 2024 funded programs, so the fulfillment of our vibrant storefronts initiative, our cultural districts funding, and other public programs.
  • 00:56:11
    And we advance opportunities for the arts sectors by looking at our community holistically and individually.
  • 00:56:18
    So through our outcomes framework, through the lens of cultural equity and inclusion, we focus on various art sectors.
  • 00:56:26
    So music, dance, theater, film, visual arts, literary art, craft, design, architecture, culinary arts, festivals, venues, presenters, arts education, and creative entrepreneurs.
  • 00:56:38
    And we also look at artists who are at the intersection of social justice, climate change, and arts as a tool for restoration, healing, and recovering in our planning.
  • 00:56:48
    some management decisions that have been implemented to maximize our existing budget so we still consider ourselves a relatively new department so we are still in measured growth mode and I am proud of our staff who really take this job seriously as we advocate for the transformation of our community
  • 00:57:10
    When our department was formed a year and a half ago, we conducted a scrub of all the other department programs in the enterprise to determine if there was any opportunities for creative businesses, and we also ensured that broad swaths of the community knew about those opportunities.
  • 00:57:25
    We also found a pot of new funding in Hennepin County with a tax on Twins games to support youth-based sports activities, and we converted those into a grants program to support dance, music, and art classes throughout the city.
  • 00:57:37
    We are also the recipient of two prestigious grants from Bloomberg and from the National Endowment for Humanities And we absorbed the cost of the Poet Laureate Program and public events into our existing budget through a partnership with The Loft And then we hired qualified staff to help launch and administrate all programs internally For example, we designed our own internal grants program as opposed to outsourcing which allows us to have more authentic relationships and move more expeditiously within our community
  • 00:58:05
    We center the methodology of purposeful inclusion in all of our programs, which means that not only do we announce our programs to the widest spectrum of our artistic community, but we also actively meet with and encourage historically underrepresented communities to engage with our programs, and you'll see a reflection of that work later in this presentation.
  • 00:58:23
    The arts team has a profound commitment to center Native American Indigenous, Black, African American, Asian Pacific, and Latin, LGBTQ plus A, and Two-Spirit, and women and immigrants in our work.
  • 00:58:38
    Often it is these communities that are already at the forefront of culture and community building present in Minneapolis.
  • 00:58:44
    What is special about our programs is that it represents a direct investment in resident artists within the most culturally diverse parts of the city.
  • 00:58:51
    Historically these areas, like cultural districts, are culturally rich yet resource starved.
  • 00:58:57
    These funds are awakening these neighborhoods and this work is restorative in terms of these programs and becoming the glue to hold and bring the community together.
  • 00:59:07
    Also, most of our funding, staff time and resources are being given to ensure a high percentage of diverse resident artists are engaged and encouraged and we are finding that many artists in Minneapolis are already working at this intersection of bridging communities in a multi-racial way and they are best positioned to successfully address various forms of equity and inequity.
  • 00:59:27
    They are also responding to our ethos that we also want to lean into supporting and amplifying creative achievement, creative ambition, creative intelligence, creative innovation, and creative instinct.
  • 00:59:39
    By allowing Minneapolis artists to dream about their full capacity and to support them holistically, this is how we are helping to achieve equity, empowerment, autonomy, and agency.
  • 00:59:49
    Where artists lead, the community tends to follow.
  • 00:59:54
    So some achievements and risks in the past.
  • 00:59:57
    for about two years.
  • 00:59:59
    What I'm most proud of is that we were able to hire a new extraordinary qualified team and expand the department with our public art staff, so we have six full-time employees.
  • 01:00:08
    Within our public arts program, we installed five public artworks, we assessed 101 works, we treated 45 works, we received 15 permit applications.
  • 01:00:17
    And because I know each public artwork is like a massive effort, I just want to quickly call those out.
  • 01:00:22
    So, Samatar Crossing in Ward 3 and 6, Green Crescent in Ward 6, 8, 9, and 10, John Baker Seed Project in Ward 5, and two asphalt art murals in Ward 6.
  • 01:00:34
    We were the recipient of national grants, which is a real recognition of our work, so the Bloomberg Asphalt Art Grant and the National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, which was offered at the Midwest Arts Conservation Center and then selected Minneapolis as one of five cities, part of a program called Protecting Public Art, which is designed to do a risk assessment of our collections.
  • 01:00:57
    Excuse me.
  • 01:00:58
    Through Hennepin County Grants, which is the new fund, we received $302,957, which we dispersed nine arts organizations focused on youth-based dance, music, and art.
  • 01:01:09
    They only awarded nine, and we advanced 50 applications on behalf of city arts organizations.
  • 01:01:15
    And this was, as I stated, new funding we helped procure for the city.
  • 01:01:19
    We launched our inaugural Poet Laureate program, our beloved inaugural poet, Heidi Erdrich, who will finalize her year in December when she gifts the community her official poem to the city of Minneapolis at the Minneapolis American Indian Center in December.
  • 01:01:35
    We launched our Vibrant Storefronts and Cultural Districts program.
  • 01:01:39
    This will be discussed later in the presentation, but these are two very exciting programs that are garnering a lot of enthusiasm and traction because they're actually fulfilling an important need.
  • 01:01:47
    We found support across the enterprise and the art sectors through partnership and collaboration We responded to the dance community with the sudden closure of the Kohl Center and through them support of three large community generated town halls and one downtown cultural provider meeting plus hundreds of ongoing conversations We conducted our first music census survey first time so we can truly examine our music ecosystem and think about new conditions and policies that will help us advance and grow that sector
  • 01:02:16
    It is also allowing us to compare and contrast with other U.S. music cities and to garner the best thinking about how we might support our artists and audiences more fully and that information will be unpacked over the course of the fall.
  • 01:02:27
    We celebrated the Minneapolis Arts Commission's 50th anniversary and we announced with 300 members of the arts community as part of our new work of convening, bringing the arts community together.
  • 01:02:37
    We applied for the Sundance Film Festival.
  • 01:02:39
    We didn't get advanced, but it really taught us how our city has the capacity to produce major cultural festivals, and this process involved the entirety of Minneapolis and the state.
  • 01:02:49
    And hopefully these learnings can foment a bold new level of arts and cultural festivalization in our city.
  • 01:02:55
    And I think our real work was that we tried to meet and to respond to every artist, creative venue, administrator, funder, stakeholder, and arts organization in the city.
  • 01:03:06
    So as you know, the need for the arts is far greater than we have the capacity to solve.
  • 01:03:12
    The mayor's budget is a reflection of some of the most crucial items that will have the most impact.
  • 01:03:17
    In terms of staff limitations and budget constraints, so as I said, needs of the arts ecosystem far outweighs the capacity of staff and current budget.
  • 01:03:25
    There are new reports and statistics about the precarity of nonprofits in the coming year, and so we are tracking that information.
  • 01:03:31
    Within our public art program, there's always the potential for damage to public art with weather elements, natural events, vehicles, vandalism, and other maintenance concerns, and they all need to be responded to immediately.
  • 01:03:41
    Because of how public art symbolizes and memorializes communities, sometimes ineffective communication and engagement strategies can lead to a lack of community support and trust, thus jeopardizing the success of programs and initiatives, but we try to mitigate that as best we can.
  • 01:03:58
    and structurally as a department we don't have any risks aside from the fact that we are in growth mode but we recognize that there's a lot of work that will be needed to build back and properly support the arts and cultural infrastructure of the city and that just requires us to be really creative about developing new models of support.
  • 01:04:14
    Lessons that we have learned is that one of the greatest strengths is the staff itself and the ability to support cross-departmental collaboration and communication and trust is key both in working together across the enterprise and within the community.
  • 01:04:26
    We have really appreciated the support of CPED and the entire enterprise in terms of the launch of this department.
  • 01:04:31
    We have learned that our city has unlimited potential still to realize its full creative economy and creative capacity as we see a lot of opportunity to support creative businesses and help artists advance their careers and achieve livable wages and quality of life.
  • 01:04:44
    In our work with community we have noted a real disconnect actually between the arts community and the life of the city enterprise and we're taking a proactive effort to really help the community gain access to our resources and we feel there is a lot of opportunity to support artists with the systems that exist and to create new ones.
  • 01:05:01
    We are also tracking one of the major generational issues on the horizon that will affect everyone, which I'm calling the great end of the golden age of philanthropy in our city.
  • 01:05:11
    So we're examining how we can thoughtfully move our city from charity to industry with sustainable business practices and explore new models and economic support systems like the Vibrant Storefronts Initiative.
  • 01:05:21
    We're also noting the dismantling of the conditions and systems for local residence artists in favor of large-scale for-profit commercial entertainment, with an over-reliance of touring work versus creating the opportunities to incubate and amplify locally.
  • 01:05:35
    And still to this day, the arts sector has not fully recovered from the pandemic and civil unrest, and so funding is increasingly more precarious, as we know, and uncertain, little access to capital and the other needs of these arts organizations.
  • 01:05:48
    We know that funding directed towards equity impacts and giving artists access to opportunities, information, and resources is always important.
  • 01:05:55
    The ROI is always recovered by the investment in the arts by using the arts to bring downtowns back to life and giving hope to the idea of renewal.
  • 01:06:08
    We build neighborhood cohesion, help the city heal from ongoing and systemic traumas, and give residents a state of sense of inspiration and pride.
  • 01:06:19
    As stated previously, we are a relatively new department and you can note that the new budget proposals that were approved in 2024 helped to grow the Arts and Culture Department budget
  • 01:06:41
    to see what you see here.
  • 01:06:43
    And the further growth in 25 and 26 are in accordance with the new budget proposals, which we'll discuss in more detail in just a bit.
  • 01:06:50
    This bar chart doesn't include the Kohl's budget, because even though we are proposing to manage those dollars, they technically live within the downtown assets division funds.
  • 01:07:02
    So, program updates, objectives, activities, and new budget proposals.
  • 01:07:06
    So in a nutshell, our job is to support and protect Minneapolis' goal of being a global arts powerhouse and we take seriously our role in ensuring that we are at the forefront of artistic achievement and also within the creative economic engine for our entire state.
  • 01:07:20
    We want our city to support art in a very hyper localized way and also to be a global arts leader and we know that strong art cities are powerful cities and strong art cities are healthy cities.
• • 01:07:30
    Sorry.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:07:33
    The big picture is that we adamantly want to fulfill the public promise that was in the intent of this department that includes advancing the arts ecosystem with an eye towards arts leadership support lasting sustainability and creative capacity building address all forms of underrepresentation enhance the quality of life for our residents and to advance the brand and identity of our city as a creative economic engine for ourselves the state and globally and we do that by
  • 01:07:57
    actively engaging with diverse cross-sector of the arts ecosystem to ensure purposeful inclusion in our policies and design new programs by helping to define conditions, trends, support structures that work for, work against our city's ability to advance, support and amplify the needs of resident artists.
  • 01:08:15
    In terms of the performance metrics, data and progress, first and foremost we want to distribute our limited funding as wisely and as efficiently as possible.
  • 01:08:23
    We actively engage with a diverse sector of the arts ecosystem to share purposeful inclusion and policies and design of our new programs.
  • 01:08:31
    We help gather information and define the conditions, trends and support structures that work for and against our city's abilities to advance, support and amplify
  • 01:08:39
    our centralized role.
  • 01:08:40
    We support artists to create new diverse narratives, use the arts to build our neighborhoods and find community and find new connections and support structures for advancing our city.
  • 01:08:50
    We also presented a supplemental budget this year.
  • 01:08:51
    We pursued national arts centered convenings for our city.
  • 01:08:55
    We launched new initiatives and responded to important national opportunities and we supported the convenings.
  • 01:09:08
    I wanted to give you some early data that has just come in about our programs that we've just launched to help inform the budgetary proposals.
  • 01:09:16
    And so this is the 2024 Cultural Districts Art Fund.
  • 01:09:19
    We have informed the artists who are receiving this award but we have not yet announced this award so this is just data only.
  • 01:09:26
    But we wanted to offer you some of this information.
  • 01:09:29
    So to give you a sense of who is applying, who has been awarded, we want you to see this data for this.
  • 01:09:37
    We have just awarded 65 project grants for ambassadors, festivals, cultural spaces, and arts activations in all seven cultural districts.
  • 01:09:46
    And we had 295 applications, which I think is an extraordinary amount, and we know that a lot more people
  • 01:09:52
    are planning to apply in the future.
  • 01:09:54
    From the awardees, you can see the largest awarded group was African American with 36%, followed by white at 33%, 60% of the artists identified as of color.
  • 01:10:05
    Awardees by gender, so almost half identified as women, and this is not a reflection of sexual orientation, just gender identification, so almost three-quarter women in non-binary have received our cultural district funding.
  • 01:10:21
    For our vibrant storefronts, these have not yet been awarded, but this is about the applicants that have come in through the door.
  • 01:10:29
    Quick background, we had 146 people in arts organizations, RSVP for the open house that we had for the 10 spaces and 5 buildings within the Harmon Place District, which is our area that we're piloting this initiative.
  • 01:10:43
    We received 49 applications for 35 art projects to be placed within these available spaces and they are still rolling in.
  • 01:10:51
    And for the applicants you can see that 75% of the applicants were BIPOC and more than 63% of the applicants are women and non-binary.
  • 01:11:01
    Both of these programs represent brand new initiatives to anchor and support the arts and the applicants you see are part of this philosophy of purposeful inclusion which means we are making every effort to meet, engage and encourage historically underrepresented resident artists to be part of this program.
  • 01:11:19
    Also I wanted you to see some of our public art installations.
  • 01:11:23
    On the left is Samatar Crossing, entitled Common Currents, which was dedicated this past year in the memory of Hussein Samatar, who's one of our important leaders in our community.
  • 01:11:33
    It featured public artists Ifrah Mansour, Aaron Marks, and Randy Walker, and a whole host of poets whose words are written within this piece of public art.
  • 01:11:43
    You also see on the right the South Ballwell Safe Routes to School Asphalt Murals entitled The Dance of Dualities with public artists Constanza Caraballo and Marco Aguero which was funded by Bloomberg.
  • 01:11:57
    And these are two examples of the five but I also make note of another really important massive public project in 2023 that was 20 years in the making.
  • 01:12:05
    That was the John Bigger Seed Project.
  • 01:12:07
    which featured 17 local black artists and which was also a major undertaking with Public Works, Minnesota Department of Transportation, and the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center.
  • 01:12:20
    I'm now going to start with our first of the budgetary proposals.
  • 01:12:23
    This is for a program called Civic Arts Program.
  • 01:12:25
    It's $100,000 ongoing from the General Fund.
  • 01:12:28
    There are no new FTEs required for this.
  • 01:12:31
    The objective of this proposal is to ensure that the city enterprise is more fully engaged with the values of arts and culture and to center our city as an important location for major arts and cultural convenings
  • 01:12:43
    to occur and to provide proper resources to increase the impacts to do the following, which is advance important cultural, state, national, and international gatherings in Minneapolis.
  • 01:12:52
    For example, we're currently working to bring several major arts conferences to Minneapolis, and this helps ensure that we can attract those bids.
  • 01:13:00
    So this group called Minnesota National Independent Venue Association, the Creative States Conference, Grantmakers in the Arts.
  • 01:13:06
    These events become galvanizing events for our city, and it is our desire to provide
  • 01:13:11
    the service and be seen as a national leader in this kind of work.
  • 01:13:15
    Also, this funding allows us to lead and convene statewide art symposia, conversations, gatherings, and think tanks in Minneapolis.
  • 01:13:23
    This is an effort to bridge the urban-rural divide in our state and to be an active participant in supporting these efforts throughout our state and to properly chart our course into the future.
  • 01:13:35
    The most important element that this funding provides is it states that Minneapolis is doing its part to be an arts leader on behalf of our community and its relationship within the entire state.
  • 01:13:46
    This investment will position the city as a key convener of essential discussions, conferences, and events on a local, state, national, and international level.
  • 01:13:53
    By leading these important dialogues, the city maintains a prominent role in public discourse on critical ideas, governance, national developments, and global trends while engaging thought leaders, influencers, funders, and decision makers.
  • 01:14:05
    The expected impacts are all about providing our cultural community access to these events, provides diverse and underrepresented Minneapolis-based artists access to opportunities, information, capacity building and networking, and connect their art and ideas more globally.
  • 01:14:21
    It becomes another bridge to community as we consciously center and advocate for Minneapolis-based Black, African American, American Indian Indigenous, Asian Pacific,
  • 01:14:30
    Latinae, Two Spirit, LGBTQ+, Immigrants, and other marginalized and historically underrepresented communities in Minneapolis.
  • 01:14:39
    It allows us to utilize our arts program to leverage support and more meaningful representation, new narratives, agency, authorship, and liberation through our research and programs.
  • 01:14:51
    And these measures are still in development with PMI and REIB.
  • 01:14:59
    The next recommended budgetary proposal is $1,430,000 for ongoing support of our vibrant storefronts and cultural districts expansion.
  • 01:15:08
    Like in 2023, there are no new FTEs required for this proposal.
  • 01:15:14
    Like in 2023, this is a conjoined budgetary proposal for two related programs, vibrant storefronts and cultural districts.
  • 01:15:23
    After our pilot year in 2024 for Vibrant Storefronts, we proposed to expand the program based on the immediate success of this work and encourage support for 25 and 26.
  • 01:15:32
    The initial idea for Vibrant Storefronts was to address the affordable space crisis for artists in Minneapolis with a lack of vibrancy and empty spaces in downtown.
  • 01:15:40
    Our goal with this proposal is to quickly double the impact in the Harmon Place area and expand our program into the downtown core by identifying arts gateways and return uptown to an arts-centered and vibrant arts destination.
  • 01:15:53
    Our goal is to expand from 10 empty storefronts now and up to 30 potential galvanizing spaces.
  • 01:15:58
    For our cultural district funding, we are requesting to maintain our current 2024 service level by providing $100,000 per district, which translates into about 65-plus contracts per year within the current funding level.
  • 01:16:10
    Based on the success of last winter's Nicollet Mall storefront activation, we are requesting to provide ongoing Nicollet Mall storefront activation funding and utilize this as a platform to showcase our diverse artists, makers, and designers.
  • 01:16:24
    We also want to be able to market these programs more effectively by providing marketing and branding support to promote vibrant storefronts and culture districts.
  • 01:16:32
    And all of this work is an effort to awaken the cultural vitality of our city, support local businesses, and promote social connectivity and well-being.
  • 01:16:41
    The support contributes to the inclusive economic recovery of downtown by investing in arts and culture with a focus on a high concentration of BIPOC creative entrepreneurs, arts organizations, art collectives, and various art sectors.
  • 01:16:54
    It also provides a tangible and visible impact on the vibrancy of downtown Nicollet Avenue uptown and the seven culture districts by catalyzing spaces for economic growth and creative capacity building.
  • 01:17:06
    The work represents the design of a new support structure that galvanizes our community through the forging of new culture clusters in our city, thus harnessing the collective power and ambition of our leading and emerging resident artists, and in turn supports ongoing individual artistic achievement with new business models.
  • 01:17:24
    Put in another way, this program is the active, active invitation to bring our best creatives, arts businesses, and thought leaders back to downtown, and an active, active invitation to help reimagine downtown.
  • 01:17:35
    The creation of these programs support future granting and project initiatives because it will have a broad range of impact on marginalized and disadvantaged groups.
  • 01:17:43
    These programs are specifically designed to uplift and support diverse communities by providing visibility and new narratives to the most important issues impacting BIPOC communities, those impacted by historic racism, lack of access, and no holistic support structure.
  • 01:17:59
    Surfacing the challenges and opportunities and solutions for reducing racial disparities through creative arts practices and healing workshops and events.
  • 01:18:06
    Identifying creatives, residents, families and neighborhoods that support artistic activation as a primary tool for building community cohesion and enhancing quality of life.
  • 01:18:15
    And raising the profile of important cultural traditions and resources that can be celebrated and sustained.
  • 01:18:23
    Responding to community quests to provide more human centered programs, accessibility and restorative holistic care practices.
  • 01:18:30
    The programs, the measures for this program are still in development with PMI and REIB.
  • 01:18:37
    The next recommended budgetary proposal is about the Cole Center's operation and programming.
  • 01:18:42
    It's $1,150,000 of ongoing Cole Center from the Special Revenues Fund.
  • 01:18:47
    There are no new FTEs.
  • 01:18:50
    To be clear, this is not a fund to be given to the new operator, but a funding request specifically driven by the Minneapolis-based dance community, whom are the primary end users of this venue.
  • 01:19:00
    The main objective of this budget proposal is to maintain the important cultural legacy and mission of this historic venue by providing ongoing support and continuation of the mandated government program during the interim period while the venue is shuttered in advance of its opening and future work.
  • 01:19:15
    It is work that will be planned in concert in collaboration with the yet to be determined venue operator as we maintain the city's past 20 years of investment in ensuring that this theater will be successful for the operator and to be successful for the dance and arts community that utilizes the venue and then successful for other vibrancy initiatives focused on the warehouse district along Hennepin Avenue and additional downtown vibrancy efforts.
  • 01:19:36
    When the calls closed, it decimated our dance community, which affected over 100 companies and thousands of dancers, choreographers, technicians, designers, audiences, and funders.
  • 01:19:47
    In response, the dance community self-organized and conducted three town halls and many ongoing community gatherings and convenings, and this funding request is a direct result of the request from the community and its relationship to the venue.
  • 01:20:00
    What quickly became evident is that there is no safety net for the dance community as pertains to this important venue and when it closed all bookings were cancelled.
  • 01:20:08
    Because of the impacts of the sudden closure they have requested that we provide ongoing support in a number of impactful ways that will continue the K-12 dance education funding and for the continuation of the pipeline for dance projects, workforce recovery and inclusion.
  • 01:20:21
    a roster of specific funding interventions that have been requested by the dance community.
  • 01:20:26
    One is to maintain the dance education program and unbeknownst to a lot of people, the Coles was providing all the dance classes for Minneapolis Public Schools, the Parks and Recs Department, buildings, and statewide hybrid learning.
  • 01:20:38
    They want to provide a bridge fund for the dance community during the interim period and beyond to advance hundreds of artists and thousands of audiences to keep their work downtown in association with this venue.
  • 01:20:47
    They want to expand our equity services by providing producer and venue training through a new workforce development plan associated with this venue.
  • 01:20:55
    We have a deficit in our city of having enough well trained producers and venue managers to actually know how to make this work realized in that particular venue.
  • 01:21:04
    also the venue does not feel welcoming to diverse artists and audiences so this is a request to enhance the outside walls and lobby spaces to welcome the true diversity of the community to the Coles and then just to support engagement strategy and support for our RFP and call for operators going into next year
  • 01:21:20
    The dance community has provided a thoughtful response and they have given the city information about how the coals can be maximized in its use and also continue to be a national symbol for the best of artistic achievement in dance, told through an equity and access lens.
  • 01:21:33
    The investment delivers the start of a comprehensive package for the city, directly impacting its cultural ecosystem by supporting the following areas.
  • 01:21:40
    By providing access to creative opportunities to mitigate the losses of our cultural ecosystem,
  • 01:21:45
    provide access to underrepresented youth, families, and cultural communities, provide ongoing professional stewardship, venue management, and important city-owned property, create a myriad of responsive economic support systems for Minneapolis dance creatives, ensure year-round vibrancy efforts in the downtown core, the warehouse district for diverse artists, audiences, funders, and arts and cultural tourism, and provide a platform to showcase and celebrate our artists and creative talent on a world-class stage.
  • 01:22:13
    The expected impacts on racial disparities is that it provides diverse and underrepresented Minneapolis-based artists access to opportunities, information, capacity building, and networking consciously centering Black, American Indian, Indigenous, Asian Pacific, Latina, Two-Spirit, LGBTQ+, women, immigrant, and other marginalized and historically underrepresented communities in Minneapolis
  • 01:22:34
    and utilize the arts program to support agency, authorship and liberation through these programs and fulfill the public promise of the investment of the city 25 years ago when they decided to roll a historic theater down the street to its current location.
  • 01:22:49
    Our last recommended budgetary proposal is about art preservation at George Floyd Square.
  • 01:22:55
    It's $300,000 of one-time general fund in 2026.
  • 01:22:59
    There's no new FTEs.
  • 01:23:02
    And I'm inviting Mary Altman, our public arts supervisor, to help walk through this portion of the presentation.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:23:12
    Good morning, Madam Chair, Council members.
  • 01:23:14
    A couple of key points I wanted to make before I went over this slide.
  • 01:23:20
    One is that the majority of the budget for public art will be presented to you on October 11th as part of the capital budget, and so that isn't in today's presentation.
  • 01:23:31
    Another thing I wanted to mention is that
  • 01:23:35
    I'm part of the core staff team working on city projects at George Floyd Square and that staff team will be presenting to Committee of the Whole, we hope, in the middle of November and briefing you
  • 01:23:49
    on all of the city's efforts there.
  • 01:23:52
    This specific proposal supports the public works plans to reconstruct the streets at 38th and Chicago.
  • 01:24:03
    This is not part of the people's way.
  • 01:24:05
    This is just part of the right of way project.
  • 01:24:09
    And so this is to, in preparation for the right of way project, thoughtfully remove, archive,
  • 01:24:19
    and move artworks that are currently in the right of way.
  • 01:24:26
    And one of our key goals, something we've really heard from the community during our engagement over the last nine months is the need to maintain an active memorial during construction and to phase construction and so this will be
  • 01:24:44
    not so much putting works in storage as moving a number of them around during construction to maintain that active memorial.
  • 01:24:53
    Some of the works that are currently in the right of way will of course be reinstalled in the right of way and we have not yet determined which works are coming back, which works are not coming back.
  • 01:25:08
    That is part of a planning process that we are engaged in right now.
  • 01:25:16
    So this overall budget covers the conservator's fees for moving the work around and overseeing all of the work.
  • 01:25:25
    Artist fees for being engaged in that rigging, transportation, storage and reinstallation.
  • 01:25:31
    And the work supports the overall collective efforts of the city at George Floyd Square to honor the legacy of the murder of George Floyd and the community response and preserving their importance.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:25:49
    Thank you, Mary.
  • 01:25:51
    And a final recap of our recommended budget proposals and the mayor's recommended budget proposals for arts and cultural affairs.
  • 01:25:59
    So, civic arts programming of $100,000 of ongoing funding.
  • 01:26:05
    Vibrant storefronts and cultural districts expansion of $1,430,000.
  • 01:26:11
    One time funding request of $300,000 for the preservation at George Floyd Square and then $1,150,000 of ongoing funding for the Kohl Center from the Special Reserves Fund.
  • 01:26:29
    And that is it.
  • 01:26:30
    Thank you.
  • 01:26:30
    I'll take any questions.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:26:33
    Thank you for that presentation, Director Johnson.
  • 01:26:36
    Colleagues, are there any questions related to this budget presentation?
  • 01:26:39
    I will first recognize Councilmember Vita.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 01:26:43
    Thank you, and thank you for the presentation, Director.
  • 01:26:47
    Couple questions and then some comments.
  • 01:26:49
    The first one is, can you tell me again how many applications you got for the vibrant storefronts and how many folks are going to be awarded?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:27:03
    I'm trying to find that in my presentation, I want to say it was 295.
  • 01:27:06
    Oh, vibrant star five, sorry.
  • 01:27:11
    49 plus, but I'm told we have just received a few more today.
  • 01:27:17
    And then we'll be awarding around six.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 01:27:21
    Okay, and so the budget allocation is to be able to get more space?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:27:30
    Our current budget allocation is $250,000.
  • 01:27:33
    We want to double that to $500,000 and then we've requested $500,000 for moving this program into downtown and then $500,000 into uptown.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 01:27:44
    Okay, so uptown is included.
  • 01:27:46
    Thank you for clarifying that.
  • 01:27:48
    I also want to say thank you so much for the work you're doing to help with the Kohl Center.
  • 01:27:53
    I think it's brilliant how you've worked this into your budget and work with them to figure out a potential way to keep them open and to include folks who hadn't been previously included
  • 01:28:05
    in the work.
  • 01:28:06
    It's a very important part of arts and culture in our city, so I appreciate the process and the way you're going about getting this done.
  • 01:28:17
    Also, I know you said you had two new staffers.
  • 01:28:20
    I don't know their names, but I did want to shout out Mary and Addie for... Hi.
  • 01:28:26
    for all the work that they're doing and the help they're providing.
  • 01:28:31
    I think next week we have a tour set up for us to drive through Ward 4 so I can show you the most beautiful ward in the city.
  • 01:28:39
    It just is what it is.
  • 01:28:43
    The biggest struggle for
  • 01:29:03
    our unique connection to arts and culture and how we differ from other parts of the city.
  • 01:29:09
    Thank you again for the work you're doing in the cultural district that is Lawry.
  • 01:29:14
    There's so much work to be done there.
  • 01:29:16
    We almost have ourselves an empty canvas and so I'm excited about what Lawry Avenue is going to look like 10 years from now with all the ideas and the work that you all are putting into it in just this year and a half.
  • 01:29:30
    I can't believe it's only been a year and a half
  • 01:29:33
    that you
  • 01:29:48
    and the City Council.
  • 01:29:50
    It's really exciting.
  • 01:29:53
    All of the artistic views that we have in Minneapolis and how connected you all are to it.
  • 01:30:01
    I really appreciate the details that you put into every single project.
  • 01:30:07
    How much time you spend taking my random phone calls and replying to my random e-mails about ideas.
  • 01:30:18
    you know what your connection to what's going on around the world too you sent me some really cool initiatives that like one in Detroit how they've take I can't remember what it's called but it was super cool like they've taken over this building and they have these
  • 01:30:34
    Thank you so much for the hard work and thanks for answering my questions I really appreciate it
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:30:50
    Chair Chug Thai, Council Member Vitale, thank you for those comments.
  • 01:30:55
    Just to respond to, you know, looking at the cultural districts as I stated in the presentation that they're culturally rich but resource starved and needed these opportunities to actually bring the community together and the arts is a perfect vehicle for doing that.
  • 01:31:10
    We both want to address issues in community and nurture the community.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:31:14
    Thank you.
  • 01:31:16
    Director for your awareness, we've got five additional members in queue with questions or comments.
  • 01:31:24
    So we'll start with next going to Councilmember Cashman followed by Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:31:30
    Thank you Chair.
  • 01:31:31
    Just a question for you Chair before this is we do have another IGR presentation today.
  • 01:31:36
    Are we going to make it time wise or what's the plan?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:31:39
    We should be able to.
  • 01:31:42
    IGR has a much shorter presentation.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:31:45
    Thank you.
  • 01:31:45
    So thank you Director Johnson.
  • 01:31:47
    Huge support of the Vibrant Storefronts Initiative.
  • 01:31:50
    Very successful so far.
  • 01:31:51
    I'm excited to see who gets awarded and very excited to see expansion into uptown.
  • 01:31:57
    I think this community, the business association, the neighborhood associations are all so eager to collaborate on this with you and potentially even contribute in some way, shape, or form as well.
  • 01:32:08
    So I think it's just a big opportunity for leveraging resources across other agencies, jurisdictions, and stakeholders
  • 01:32:15
    I just want to understand, so the 250 that was dedicated to vibrant storefronts this year, how much goes towards program administration and how much goes towards the actual rent subsidies of those storefronts?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:32:29
    Chair Chugdai, Council Member Cashman, it all goes towards rent subsidy.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:32:33
    Okay, so your program administration budget is something else.
  • 01:32:36
    Okay, so that's 10 spaces.
  • 01:32:39
    Is that correct in this first round?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:32:41
    We have ten spaces and five buildings that we're looking at with landlords that are working in partnership with us.
  • 01:32:48
    We have a number of others in queue, but that's where we're starting in building this sort of culture cluster.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:32:54
    Yeah, the eagerness to participate in the program.
  • 01:32:58
    I have commercial brokers reaching out all the time saying, how can I be part of Vibrant Storefront so the need is there?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:33:05
    It's really hitting a nerve and it's
  • 01:33:08
    It's gathering a lot of traction.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:33:10
    Yeah, and we don't have many other programs like this that fit into this role, and it's felt really city-wide with vacant retail spaces.
  • 01:33:19
    I think artists are the perfect vehicle to galvanize the neighborhood.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:33:23
    Right, and just to clarify a little bit about this is that we're not offering sort of private studios or just a retail space, but they're meant to be galvanizing art spaces, so to build community, be a place for people to go.
  • 01:33:38
    and there's a requirement for them to provide really extensive business plans of how they're going to manage a two-year contract and the public programming which is a really important part of this and so we're really excited about it because the ambition of the people who are responding is just extraordinary.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:33:54
    So in this next budget you would also be looking at two-year rental subsidy contracts?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:34:00
    That's right.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:34:00
    Okay, thanks.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:34:02
    We say that because we want a minimum of that because this is not a pop-up solution.
  • 01:34:07
    It's meant to be an ongoing business model.
  • 01:34:11
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:34:13
    Thank you.
  • 01:34:13
    Next I'll recognize Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:34:16
    Thank you Vice President Chuktai.
  • 01:34:18
    I just had questions related to the new spinning proposal for the art preservation for George Flay Square.
  • 01:34:27
    I see Mary joining.
  • 01:34:29
    Thank you.
  • 01:34:31
    First, can you share when does the Right of Way project, when is that slated to begin?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:34:39
    Madam Chair, Council Member Wonsley, before I answer your question I just wanted to recognize that Janelle Austin is in the audience and she has been an important leader in all of the work at George Floyd Square and is the Executive Director of Rise and Remember.
  • 01:34:55
    Currently the Right of Way Project, I'm not of course the expert on the Right of Way Project and Public Works will be presenting later, but currently the Right of Way Project is scheduled to begin in 2025 or 2026.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:35:10
    And then for this particular spending proposal, is the goal to then have this be contracted out to a group that would support the preservation and management of the art while construction is taking place?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:35:28
    Madam Chair, Councilmember Wonsley, we will probably be contracting with both conservation firms, but we also might be contracting with someone to do
  • 01:35:40
    kind of larger scale moving of larger pieces and that contract could go through the conservator firm or it could go directly to whoever is doing the moving.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:35:52
    and for the art conservation firms are you looking locally just knowing again you mentioned community being a part of it and I know a number of community partners that's been involved in the conversations and planning around George Floyd Square have been actively doing the preservation of artwork created during the uprising
  • 01:36:14
    So do you know if there's going to be a focus on contracting with those local organizations that's been doing this work or is it kind of open?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:36:25
    Madam Chair, Council Member Wonsley, we currently have master contracts, three-year master contracts with three conservation firms to maintain our collection and do other work and two of those firms have worked at the square
  • 01:36:40
    and we're still negotiating a scope for a conservation firm to do the planning and implementation of this work, but it'll likely be one of the firms in our pool.
  • 01:36:53
    And they're all local.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:36:54
    Okay, so there's three and two of which have been involved with the square.
  • 01:36:58
    And I'm assuming, is there going to be some level of
  • 01:37:07
    recommendations or allow recommendations from the community that's been part of these conversations as you're thinking about selecting any of these three master contractors.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:37:20
    Madam Chair, Council Member Wonsley, we are currently engaged in a pretty in-depth community engagement process and the memorials and the preservation planning is part of that process.
  • 01:37:35
    We are also in conversation with a lot of other artists and folks at the square and they've been sharing with us their desire for us to work with a conservation firm that's been at the square.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:37:51
    And the two, or is there a specific one?
  • 01:37:56
    Because you mentioned there's been two.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:37:59
    Yeah, either both.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:38:01
    Okay.
  • 01:38:03
    Okay.
  • 01:38:03
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:38:06
    Thank you.
  • 01:38:06
    Next I'll recognize Council Member Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:38:10
    Thank you Madam Chair, I'll be brief.
  • 01:38:12
    I'm glad to see the continued funding for the Vibrant Storefronts Initiative in downtown cultural districts and now uptown.
  • 01:38:20
    I think it's really important to support the creative use of our empty storefronts and I look forward to a time when we can expand them into other parts of the city as we've talked about all the parts of the city especially the corners of our city.
  • 01:38:37
    Although the most impacted areas you know are definitely these
  • 01:38:43
    Every corner of our city is being impacted by empty storefronts right now so we could use that creative thinking.
  • 01:38:50
    The other piece I just wanted to add is I really support the preservation and reinstallation of the art at George Floyd Square.
  • 01:38:58
    This is our history and storytelling by art is an important way to honor that complicated history.
  • 01:39:06
    So thank you.
  • 01:39:07
    I can tell just even from Mary Altman's responses how involved it is.
  • 01:39:14
    Thanks.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:39:16
    Thank you.
  • 01:39:16
    Next I'll recognize Councilmember Chaudry.
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 01:39:20
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 01:39:21
    Thank you so much for your presentation director and thank you to the whole arts and culture team for all of your great work this last year.
  • 01:39:29
    I just have some comments and then I'll end with a question.
  • 01:39:33
    First of all, I just wanted to say how much I appreciated the work that was done for the South Falwell Safe Routes to School Asphalt Mural.
  • 01:39:44
    That was just absolutely beautiful and it was wonderful to get
  • 01:39:49
    and I hope we can continue to find more grants that support work like this.
  • 01:40:08
    not a shortage of need when it comes to traffic calming in the city of Minneapolis and if we can do it in a beautiful and creative way it makes it all the more better so just thank you for your work on that I also am really excited to see the vibrant downtown storefronts project and check that out and see that expand in our city
  • 01:40:31
    and I just, yeah, I appreciated the comments about the art preservation at George Floyd Square and just working with the leadership that's there.
  • 01:40:43
    Really appreciate Janelle Austin being here.
  • 01:40:45
    Thank you for coming into our chambers and representing and thank you to all the people at George Floyd Square that have been maintaining it and preserving the history and building partnerships and all of those things.
  • 01:40:57
    Really appreciate that funding that's coming and then I went to one of the town halls for the Kohl Center Really director appreciated your leadership in that space and with our dance community and
  • 01:41:15
    I am excited to be sharing that this is a presentation that we got about funding to support the dance community following the closure of the Kohl Center out of my newsletter and also with the members of the dance community that I met in my ward.
  • 01:41:33
    as they engage with the town hall and the conversation there.
  • 01:41:37
    So, I'll also probably reach out just to get a better understanding of like how all of it is working together and what the long-term vision is.
  • 01:41:48
    So really just appreciate appreciate that work and then I am really interested in learning more about the Civic Arts Program.
  • 01:41:57
    I guess the question that I have about it is have we done anything like this before as the city of Minneapolis and I'm seeing you're shaking your head.
  • 01:42:08
    No, this is a new new initiative then I guess the question is
  • 01:42:12
    Is there like a model or an inspiration that you've looked at for doing this type of programming work?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:42:23
    Thank you for that question and as a new department we were looking at what are the things that other leading arts, local arts agencies have and other leading art cities have and this is one of those components which allows us to center Minneapolis as the place where these kind of convenings can happen
  • 01:42:42
    and we just think that our work here in Minneapolis is really important in terms of how we support the artists that live here and allowing a Midwest state to have access to resources that are usually going to coastal states is a really important angle for why we wanted to ensure that we would have the resources to land these conferences.
  • 01:43:00
    These conferences take two to three years to come to fruition.
  • 01:43:05
    We never know when the call for those conferences will happen, but we want to be the resource in the Midwest for this kind of activity and also for us to instigate the kind of important, urgent conversations that our community needs around funding, around capacity, around art forms, around sectors
  • 01:43:25
    to be both locally, but also be that resource for the entire state.
  • 01:43:29
    We want to center all that creative dialogue here in Minneapolis.
  • 01:43:32
    We not only want to center it, but we want to be the leader to help be in support of it.
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 01:43:38
    Thank you.
  • 01:43:39
    And just kind of following up on that, so with the $100,000, with a conference not happening potentially two to three years out, would it just, would the work be, could you explain what the work would be for next year?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:43:58
    Yeah, so for example, we're actively working with the Miniva Conference, which is coming here, it hasn't been announced yet, and that we have a commitment to support that with this fund.
  • 01:44:12
    The funding will be conditional, which means that we'll give the conference funding because we want it to come here, and Miniva is all of the first avenues across the United States coming to Minneapolis.
  • 01:44:22
    So the most important venue bookers,
  • 01:44:27
    will be coming to Minneapolis, and what we want to utilize that funding for is to showcase our venues here, showcase our musical bands and our music industry, as well as have our industry have access to that conference.
  • 01:44:40
    And so it's really meant to support and galvanize our own community to have access to the national community.
  • 01:44:45
    That's the way that we're planning to utilize that.
  • 01:44:47
    But each conference is different.
  • 01:44:49
    So Grantmakers in the Arts, which is coming here again, it's to ensure that our local professionals and our local artists are active participants in those conference.
  • 01:44:57
    And so our funding is always conditional on making sure that our local community is included.
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 01:45:03
    Okay, thank you so much, Director.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:45:05
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:45:06
    Thank you.
  • 01:45:07
    And then finally, we have Councilmember Rainville.
• • Michael Rainville
  • 01:45:12
    Thank you, Chair.
  • 01:45:13
    Director Johnson, what a pleasure to see you.
  • 01:45:15
    Thank you for your very thorough presentation.
  • 01:45:19
    I'm wondering, for the sake of time, if you could just arrange an appointment with Henry.
  • 01:45:24
    I'd like to talk to you about the Northeast Arts District.
  • 01:45:26
    I know this wasn't mentioned at all in your presentation, and we like art in Northeast, too.
  • 01:45:31
    So maybe you can have a cup of coffee with me someday.
  • 01:45:36
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:45:40
    Thank you Councilmember and surprise, we are going to end with Councilmember Chavez.
  • 01:45:46
    Surprise!
• • Jason Chavez
  • 01:45:48
    My cue thing wasn't working so I had to use this button.
  • 01:45:53
    Thank you, Director, for being here.
  • 01:45:54
    Thank you, Chair Choctaw.
  • 01:45:55
    I just have a few things.
  • 01:45:57
    One, I want to thank your staff for the Saalfa Well Safe Routes to School project, the asphalt project.
  • 01:46:03
    Myself and Councilmember Chaudry were actually able to go there while it was happening and it was a really beautiful project and would love to see that more across our city enterprise in our city streets, making sure that we can keep our residents safe.
  • 01:46:16
    The areas where this project was at has been
  • 01:46:18
    It was of concern to many of the residents in both our wards and this project is one, not only beautiful, but it's a good traffic calming project.
  • 01:46:26
    So I want to thank you for that.
  • 01:46:28
    I also want to thank you, your apartment for your work on the Kohl Center.
  • 01:46:32
    I know this is an award seven project, but it impacts the whole city and I had a lot of folks from the dance community, from the performance arts community reach out to my office after its closure that they didn't feel heard from the city.
  • 01:46:44
    I think that initiative and the funding for that is showing our residents that they're being heard and that they matter and really thankful for that and then lastly when it comes to the preservation and the art at George Floyd Square my only comment to that today is that making sure that we're working with folks at George Floyd Square the caretakers of folks from the community and that we're being thoughtful and careful in our approach with that I think folks
  • 01:47:09
    You know, it's a sacred space and I want to make sure that we're being careful as we proceed with any movement in that location.
  • 01:47:16
    So I'm very thankful for you and your staff's work, but also caution us to be thoughtful in our approach there too.
  • 01:47:22
    So, thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:47:25
    Thank you.
  • 01:47:26
    Director Johnson, thank you for your presentation and for taking those questions.
  • 01:47:33
    I will now direct the Clerk to file that report and we'll welcome our next and final presentation.
  • 01:47:43
    colleagues, our final presentation today is from the Intergovernmental Relations Department and for that I will now welcome Director Katie Topinka to begin that presentation.
  • 01:47:55
    Welcome, Director.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:47:58
    Thank you Chair Chuktay and Council Members I'm happy to be wrapping up your presentations today and as promised mine is relatively brief so excited to be here to talk a little bit about our department and the work that we do so I'll start here with just an overview of our department
  • 01:48:21
    this is what our org chart will look like if this budget proposal is approved and I'll get to that there is a proposed transfer of an FTE from health to IGR but currently we do have two senior government relations representatives, a government relations rep
  • 01:48:40
    and then a seasonal legislative aid position.
  • 01:48:45
    That position is vacant right now because we fill it for the legislative session.
  • 01:48:51
    So that is our .35 vacancy that you will see.
  • 01:48:55
    And then as I mentioned, we are proposing
  • 01:49:00
    to transfer a position from the Sustainability Office and Health to IGR.
  • 01:49:06
    This is not a new FTE.
  • 01:49:08
    It's an existing position in the city.
  • 01:49:11
    Right now it is vacant.
  • 01:49:12
    It's in the Sustainability Office.
  • 01:49:15
    The primary role of the position is to track the Public Utilities Commission and work with other stakeholders, particularly other cities and regional partners on energy policy.
  • 01:49:27
    So in conversations with Deputy Commissioner Hanlon and others within the Office of Public Service, we have determined that we recommend that this is a better fit with IGR because a lot of the work is really intergovernmental work and this position already worked a lot with the IGR team, thought it would be a better fit just to be housed within IGR.
  • 01:49:48
    So I am currently working with HR to update the position description because this position would also then fill in some additional needs that IGR has to help support regional government relations and monitor state energy policy.
  • 01:50:05
    So that is one change for IGR that would be different going into next year if this were approved.
  • 01:50:16
    Moving into our priority objectives, the role of our department is to engage with other levels of government and make sure the city's interests are pursued and protected.
  • 01:50:30
    And so our work really boils down to building relationships so that as needs arise or changes are needed, we can work with the folks we have relationships with at other levels of government,
  • 01:50:45
    to help protect the city's interests or pursue new things that we may need.
  • 01:50:51
    And this is, of course, partly building relationships with elected officials at other levels of government, but also really just want to highlight there's a lot of other folks that we work really closely with, including staff in elected officials' offices, partisan and non-partisan research staff at the state, staff at government agencies at the county,
  • 01:51:12
    and then entities like the League of Minnesota Cities and other stakeholder organizations that help represent cities' interests.
  • 01:51:24
    And so I will just touch on some achievements and risks for IGR.
  • 01:51:28
    We have had a number of achievements over the past year, many of which you've already heard about from our end of legislative session summary.
  • 01:51:35
    But just to highlight a couple here, we were able to help
  • 01:51:39
    I also want to note we continue work to secure federal earmarks for the city and we do have two that are currently moving and we're hopeful for
  • 01:52:09
    is receiving some funding from the federal government when they do finally pass the 2025 budget, which is the Minneapolis Fire Station Alerting System and funds for Americans with Disability Acts, pedestrian safety and accessibility upgrades.
  • 01:52:25
    And as I already mentioned, we regularly work to continue strengthening our relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders.
  • 01:52:34
    And I'm just really proud of the work our whole team does to do that.
  • 01:52:40
    We have Deltry Coles, Nderia Filana, Steve Huzer, Lauren Olson, so we have a small but mighty team that works really hard to be strategic and thoughtful about how they approach their work and make sure they're achieving these good things on behalf of the city.
  • 01:52:55
    Some of our risks, I'll just note, and I know you've heard this from other departments as well, but is just staying competitive as an employer of choice.
  • 01:53:06
    As I mentioned, we've got this really strong team and we hope we can hold on to them.
  • 01:53:11
    It takes a lot of time and attention to understand how the city works, to build these relationships, to be able to kind of move these things forward that often take years really to get done.
  • 01:53:23
    and so holding on to the great team that we have is really important for everyone in the city but certainly for our department.
  • 01:53:33
    And then it also just takes a lot of effort to kind of understand how to speak with clarity, speak, be able to communicate the city's goals clearly and so just really appreciate the time our team takes to do that and working with all of you to make sure we're able to advocate successfully for the city.
  • 01:53:55
    So this is our program and staffing summary.
  • 01:53:59
    You'll note the increase from 2024 to 2025 that reflects that transfer of that FTE And so our current vacancy is 0.35 And if that transfer moves forward then there'd be an additional FTE in IGR about
  • 01:54:19
    over 50% actually of our budget is on salary and fringes.
  • 01:54:23
    Our program in IGR, as I will get to on this slide, is really just the work of our department.
  • 01:54:30
    We're not running individual programs as other departments are.
  • 01:54:33
    We are working to implement the city's legislative agendas at the state and federal level to be responsive, to
  • 01:54:44
    all of you to the mayor's office and then also of course to our elected officials at other levels of government and then we also do have some state and federal contracted lobbyists and our department oversees those contracts as well so you know the way we do this is we collaborate with departments across the city to develop the city's policy agendas we are just in the middle of finishing up our policy liaison team process which is where all departments come together with
  • 01:55:12
    ideas for the legislative agenda that we are now vetting and going through.
  • 01:55:17
    We get a lot of requests for information from our state and federal delegations so we spend a lot of time responding to those in a timely way and digging into those requests.
  • 01:55:30
    We develop documents that we use to advocate for city priorities.
  • 01:55:35
    and then we just try to make sure we're keeping the council informed throughout the session and we do that through different meetings and newsletter and then we certainly work with all departments across the enterprise on a regular basis to provide policy guidance or to just help think through policy needs at the city.
  • 01:55:59
    and so we have been working like everyone else with performance management and innovation to come up with some ways to measure our work.
  • 01:56:07
    It can be a challenge for our department because we're not necessarily producing a thing.
  • 01:56:15
    I mean we are of course producing legislative outcomes but we're looking more to measure sort of how quickly we're able to respond to things, how often we're providing updates and information because that's really
  • 01:56:29
    key to making our work a success.
  • 01:56:34
    And then there is one proposed change item in our budget.
  • 01:56:39
    It's $50,000 in one-time funds.
  • 01:56:42
    These would be contractual funds.
  • 01:56:44
    No FTEs associated with this, but this would continue work that we have started this year in 2024 to take advantage of federal funding available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
  • 01:56:56
    And so we there is a cross department team that's regularly meeting those departments are listed here on the slide Meeting with the contractor provider to identify opportunities to one apply for grants but then also and this is where we've been able to have a lot of early success and
  • 01:57:13
    and part of the reason we're asking for another $50,000 is to be able to continue this work through the inflation reduction act there are tax credits that you don't have to compete for if you meet the eligibility and you apply for it you get it and so that's money that comes back to the city for a lot of work we would be doing already like purchasing electric vehicles for our fleet
  • 01:57:34
    or adding EV chargers or you know making buildings more energy efficient and so this is money we've already applied for to the tune of almost $200,000 in federal tax credits that we'll be getting back and there's more opportunities we've identified that we can continue working on into next year and so this $50,000 in one-time funding would just help us have that technical support we need to be able to continue that work.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:58:01
    And this is just a summary of that $50,000 one-time request and With that I'm happy to take questions Thank You director Topinka colleagues, are there any questions related to the IGR presentation I will first recognize councilmember Cashman and
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:58:23
    Thank you Chair Chugtai, thank you Director Topinka.
  • 01:58:25
    I'm just wondering about this health department, you know, FDE transfer.
  • 01:58:29
    I know Stacy Miller was doing that work and I'm just curious if the role description, the job description plans to stay the same, just be working out of the IGR department instead.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:58:42
    Chair Choudhury, Councilmember Cashman, the intention is for the role to be very similar to what the position was previously doing in tracking the PUC and monitoring energy policy and helping our sustainability team with that.
  • 01:59:01
    We are looking at some changes just to
  • 01:59:03
    do some more general support for the IGR team as well.
  • 01:59:07
    It'll be focused on energy primarily, but that would be the only difference.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:59:14
    Okay, thanks.
  • 01:59:14
    And second question, who's the contracted provider that's been supporting with federal tax credits so far?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:59:26
    Chair Chuktay and Councilmember Cashman, it is Stan Tech and then they have subcontracted with Baker Tilly.
  • 01:59:34
    Okay, thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:59:37
    Wonderful, thank you.
  • 01:59:38
    Next I will recognize Councilmember Vita.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 01:59:41
    Thank you.
  • 01:59:42
    I just wanted to quickly thank you and your team for the work you've done to help with the Connecting Camden project.
  • 01:59:49
    We submitted the application yesterday.
  • 01:59:51
    We had an impressive amount of letters of support.
  • 01:59:55
    I think there was close to 40 and your team did a good job at making sure that elected leaders and government agencies were
  • 02:00:04
    were able to submit letters of support for that project.
  • 02:00:08
    So thank you very much.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:00:10
    Thanks, Councilmember.
  • 02:00:12
    Thank you.
  • 02:00:12
    And then next I will recognize Councilmember Rainville.
• • Michael Rainville
  • 02:00:17
    Thank you, Chair.
  • 02:00:18
    Director, thank you so much for the groundwork that you laid for the tax credits.
  • 02:00:23
    That's going to be really important for us to convert these empty buildings downtown into housing.
  • 02:00:28
    And you did a great job.
  • 02:00:29
    I look forward to working with you in the session.
  • 02:00:31
    We're going to get this done.
  • 02:00:33
    Thank you.
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 02:00:35
    Thank you and next I'll recognize Councilmember Chowdhury Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Director Topinka for coming up here and giving your presentation I just wanted to say I appreciate the move from the Health Department and to the Intergovernmental Relations team
  • 02:00:55
    I think it makes sense for it to move into there.
  • 02:00:59
    We had a little bit of a chat explaining what the role has looked like over the last year and before.
  • 02:01:04
    The work around tracking energy needs and how we power our cities and our state is only going to grow.
  • 02:01:12
    this is a smart move and just yeah look forward to seeing what the final description of the role looks like and what the final FTE will look like and just thank you to you and your entire team for your continued work on behalf of our city.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:01:32
    thank you and then last I just had a quick question for you just related to the government relation the the move from the health department into the intergovernmental relations department you know like Stacy Miller used to hold that job and and Stacy might be I believe she's the smartest person I've ever met and one of the one of
  • 02:01:57
    the best things she did here at the city was be a subject matter expert in the Public Utilities Commission and the complex nature of how that regulatory body affects our ability to hold the two energy companies that provide our utilities accountable.
  • 02:02:20
    They have this structural and seismic impact on how we relate to the energy companies and then the host of work that we're trying to do on local climate solutions, the impact that the PUC has.
  • 02:02:42
    and Stacy's subject matter expertise there was invaluable in even how the city relates to the PUC in these complex matters.
  • 02:02:52
    So my hope is, and I'm wondering if you can speak to this just a little bit, that as you're re-scoping that position, that subject matter expertise continues to be something that's really important and valued in this role.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:03:13
    I think we're both really seeing this as work that's still very interconnected.
  • 02:03:27
    We think one of the advantages to having it in IGR is that
  • 02:03:31
    this work does require a lot of collaboration with other cities and regional partners and those are a lot of relationships that exist within the IGR team as well and so just thought there was a good sort of connection there to even enhance some of the work that was was already being done in the past and so yes that is something we've talked a lot about as something that's important to this role.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:03:54
    Awesome, thank you.
  • 02:03:56
    We've reached the end of the questions and discussion items that we have for you.
  • 02:04:00
    Thank you for your presentation, for being so patient with us as our earlier two presentations went a little bit over time.
  • 02:04:07
    With that I will ask the clerk to file this presentation and colleagues we have concluded all the business to come before this committee today and without objection we stand adjourned until this Thursday September 26th at 10 o'clock
  • 02:04:21
    in the morning where we will receive budget presentations from two more departments, the Racial Equity Inclusion and Belonging Department along with the Performance Management and Innovation Department.
  • 02:04:33
    The Performance Management and Innovation Department's presentation is available in LIMS while Racial Equity Inclusion and Belongings isn't quite yet.
  • 02:04:42
    Thank you all.