Budget Committee - September 25, 2024 - The meeting will recess at 11:30 AM if business is not concluded at that time. The meeting will then reconvene at 1:00 PM in Council Chambers.   9/25/2024

Roll Call

• • 00:00:08
    City of St Paul, City Council
  • 00:00:32
    St Paul, City Council
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:01:24
    St Paul, City Council, Budget Committee
  • 00:01:55
    City of St Paul, City Council
• • 00:03:08
    St Paul, City Council, Budget Committee, Budget Committee
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:04:24
    City of St Paul, City Council
  • 00:04:52
    Good morning, everyone.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:05:04
    We're here today for just a light public works marathon.
  • 00:05:08
    So we're going to get our operating budget presentation from our director in just a moment.
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    And then coming back at 1 PM, we're going to continue with the capital plan.
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    So first section, just what it takes to operate all of the services and deliver them.
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    Second is what infrastructure are we planning, building, investing in.
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    And of course, it's all connected.
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    So with that, I turn it over to you, Director Kershaw.
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    Thank you for being here today.
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    Go ahead.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:05:31
    Thanks Council President, thanks Council Members.
  • 00:05:33
    Really excited to be here today to talk about our work.
  • 00:05:36
    I want to begin with a note of gratitude to the staff that's over here who does the work on a day-to-day basis and OFS staff who are here who helped put this together.
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    I get the privilege of talking with you, but they do the work on a day-to-day basis and put this presentation together.
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    I'm also grateful, to be honest, that we had a chance to do a dry run.
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    the leadership team and I think hopefully you'll find this conversation is better organized.
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    Please ask questions as we go.
  • 00:06:05
    I'll spend a little more time in some places than others but assume that you'll stop me with questions and certainly if there are any errors or things that we need to provide afterwards we're ready to do that.
  • 00:06:17
    We'll do three things today.
  • 00:06:19
    Provide a department overview.
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    You have a good sense of this.
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    This is to bring up things that will come up later in the conversation.
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    And I appreciate the fact that this is a public conversation as well.
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    So it's a chance to talk about the scope and scale and importance of our work.
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    we'll dive into the budget presentation because I know that the meat of it is the ability to talk about the specific proposals both in the general fund and the operating fund and then during the time we have today in the special funds we will want to come back on a couple of those I'll just preview that now and then we have a lot of details if you want to talk go into the details of any of this
  • 00:06:59
    I'll pause on this slide because it's really exciting and important and it sets the frame of our work.
  • 00:07:06
    The vision of Public Works is a thriving, prosperous, and connected St. Paul for all.
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    Part of what's really fun about the job is we work in concrete and steel and asphalt and chemicals.
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    All of those materials make things possible.
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    A director in Burnsville uses the line, we make normal possible in Public Works.
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    But we also make great things possible.
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    We allow people to be healthy, to go to work, to use the recreation amenities to get to school.
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    The work we do on a daily basis makes all of these really great things possible.
  • 00:07:42
    Our operations manager, Bev Fairher, uses a cake to talk about the differences when she's working with engineering students between a plan view, an alignment, and a cross section, if I got that right.
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    And maybe that only makes sense to two people in the room.
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    But that cake is a way of demonstrating something in real life that we do.
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    A lot of these things that I talk about you could imagine as the ingredients of a cake.
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    And so we put asphalt and steel and chemicals and concrete into things and cake happens.
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    I'm also going to talk about the values because one of the great things about public works and the work we do is we get to live these values every single day and it's both in the community and with each other in the department so we're either four or four hundred years into a racial equity reckoning in the country
  • 00:08:30
    we get to practice that internally and externally.
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    We're in the middle of a safety crisis.
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    We get to practice that, you know, internally our new safety director, Chris, is here and externally as we think about big opportunities like the Safe Streets for All.
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    Service, that's both service to the community and to each other.
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    Our work is hard, it's stressful, you know, you appreciate this, you're in the middle of it.
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    How we treat each other with care matters.
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    We're in the middle of a climate crisis.
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    How do we prepare for a 10 inch rainfall in St Paul or an ice storm?
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    How do we prepare for, you know, and we have a very specific response when it comes to snow.
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    Again, internally so our work is sustainable and externally and trust and I'll talk a little bit more about the importance of that with the public.
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    You may have seen this.
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    This talks about the scope of our assets.
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    There is just a lot.
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    We touch people in St. Paul, either visibly or invisibly, dozens of times a day, more than any other entity in the city.
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    The next slide is an overview of our operations and services and you have it and you can take a look at it.
  • 00:09:34
    What struck me as I was getting ready to come in today is what's not on here.
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    What's not on here is that we have an HR section internal to the department that's essential to our work and works with the citywide HR.
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    We have a central IT department that works with citywide IT.
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    We have a survey team.
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    We have maps and records.
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    I'm a map geek and it's just incredible all the information that we have there.
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    we have a finance and accounting team that works of citywide office of financial services and what's not up here is every single department in the city every single day in all of our work we depend on all the other departments in the city you know it might be most evident in a snow emergency but our work is dependent upon this enterprise approach and these partners across
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    The City.
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    We'll come back to these.
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    This slide is an update on initiatives.
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    I think all it does is put in one slide things that you know, that we have a lot going on, a lot of change that's happening and a lot of the budget is responding to that change.
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    We'll cover these.
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    In the short term,
  • 00:10:39
    What we're trying to do in a situation of a dramatic increase in federal funding is vacuum up all the funding we can get in terms of grants, in terms of state opportunities.
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    We're thrilled that through the work of Randy Newton and Dave Peterson and Ruben and other partners in the police department, we are receiving a $15.7 million Safe Streets for All grant that we think will be accompanied by a $3.7 million state matching grant for capital improvements to safety.
  • 00:11:08
    Innovations will come back to that.
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    Community engagement is really important in the short term and the long term.
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    People see themselves in our infrastructure.
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    When they look at a sidewalk that's heaved, when they look at a pothole, when they look at a bike lane that they don't, you know, whether they like it or they don't like it's how it's paved, they see themselves in that and they see how the city perceives them.
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    And so our engagement with the community, our trust with the community,
  • 00:11:34
    we've tried to be more visible and for better or worse people are talking about our work whether we're visible on social media or not and so our strategy is to lean into that and to engage the community and build that trust
  • 00:11:49
    Service Expectations will come up in the details, but this is both responding to changing expectations, you can think about snow, and making sure that we can meet the minimum requirements.
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    One of our requests is just getting up to the basics on signs and markings, but whether that is arterials and collectors that came through with the common sense program, or new expectations for solid waste, responding to those short term.
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    In the long term, I think about our funding in three ways.
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    Sufficiency, do we have enough funding to do the work?
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    And the common sense is maybe the best example right now for that.
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    Is it sustainable?
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    Can we count on that funding over time?
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    Our sewer utility and the work we'll talk about in garbage and recycling are good examples of that.
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    So that it's not just good for a year, it's good over time.
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    And then a key part of our work, it sounds nerdy, but we'll go into the details, is matching sources and uses.
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    It comes up in our approach this year for street sweeping, but making sure that the limited funds we have are used only on those things, that there's a limited availability, and that the really flexible funds we have, like General Fund, are preserved for things that won't work for anything else.
  • 00:13:05
    we can come back to this but I'll highlight essentially what we play is kind of a Jenga game of sources of funding so when you think if you look at our mission statement it talks about designing and building and on the left side are the major categories of funding for designing and building infrastructure
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    So it's Street Reconstruction Bonds, MSA.
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    You'll see MSA and general fund in both maintenance and operations and design and build.
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    You'll see things down there like assessments you've talked about, common sense.
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    Sewer utility appears in both because those fees come in to pay for capital replacement design and replacement as well as maintenance.
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    In our maintenance, you'll see this in the details of who pays for our FTEs.
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    Most of it is state and general fund.
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    State MSA helps with that.
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    Our maintenance agreements with our partners at MnDOT and Ramsey County are part of that.
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    And then fee-based services we'll talk more about later.
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    And I'm happy to come back to this, but we thought it helped to organize the thinking.
  • 00:14:06
    So moving on to the details of the 2025 proposed budget.
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    We were trying to manage a number of goals here.
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    As you know, costs for providing city services are increasing faster than the funds we have to meet those needs.
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    And so how did we look at achieving citywide essentially general fund goals in a reduction of those spending?
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    How do we meet new service expectations?
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    Snow, solid waste, we'll talk more about those.
  • 00:14:36
    How do we pursue new funding strategies?
  • 00:14:39
    We'll talk about those in the right of way, permitting, parking enforcement, we've got opportunities, common sense.
  • 00:14:45
    And then how do we address existing funding gaps?
  • 00:14:48
    This will show up mostly in pavement markings and signs and materials that we want to make sure we got caught up in this budget to the basic expectations of the public.
  • 00:14:59
    So moving into the specific proposals, the first is a change in funding sources for our street sweeping.
  • 00:15:09
    Previously, if you were here longer than I've been here, street sweeping was paid for by an assessment that was put on all property owners.
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    The court said that that's not allowed.
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    We switched street sweeping over to be paid for mostly by the general fund, a little bit by storm sewers.
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    In two years ago's budget, we increased that to 67.
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    About two-thirds of street sweeping came from storm sewer charges.
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    This year we're proposing to raise that to 95.
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    And the link here is that the whole goal of street sweeping
  • 00:15:41
    you know aside from making it look better to the public is really to keep things out of the storm sewer system and out of the lakes and rivers and so aligning funding for street sweeping to come 95% from that storm sewer charge seems like a good alignment again that's a change in source not a change in amount that we're spending
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:16:01
    and I see a follow-up question from Znaker.
  • 00:16:03
    Go ahead.
  • 00:16:03
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 00:16:04
    Director Tricia, does that result in any increase in costs to constituents and why would we stop at 95% rather than 100%?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:16:13
    The questions are, you know, how does that increase costs and why not go to 100?
  • 00:16:19
    Minneapolis does go up to 100, so we proposed going to 95.
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    It's really a judgment call about the legal opinion we got authorized to spend 100% of that from the storm sewer system.
  • 00:16:32
    What this does, so I mentioned it's not an increase in funding, what this does is spread that funding over all property owners.
  • 00:16:38
    and the City Council.
  • 00:16:58
    Council President, Council Member Nieker, the storm sewer charge would be adjusted upward to account for those changes.
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    I'm sorry I wasn't clear on that.
  • 00:17:14
    Yes.
  • 00:17:15
    Do you know what that amount is like?
  • 00:17:16
    That adjustment, if you add both of those together, what's paying now and what people would pay in the future for the taxable property would be a slight reduction.
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    because we're spreading it out over all properties rather than just taxable.
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    I'm sorry.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:17:33
    Good questions.
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    Other questions on this topic?
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    If not, let's keep moving.
  • 00:17:37
    Thank you, Director.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:17:38
    Snow.
  • 00:17:39
    We could spend the next hour talking about snow when we've been here and talked about it.
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    What we're proposing here is, as you know, we're looking at radically changing our snow operations.
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    We're going to look at all options, but we're going to look specifically at a rotating one-sided winter parking cycle.
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    we want to make sure we have to prepare for success.
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    You know better than any of us what happens when plowing goes wrong and what we're doing in this approach is planning for success.
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    So included in the one time $425,000 would be the things listed below, parking analysis and modeling,
  • 00:18:11
    Signing plan and design, depending on timing, some of that might be the production of signs, but a lot of signs, tens of thousands would have to be changed, literally on every block, and we need engineering work down to the block level.
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    Community engagement and communications, this new plan depends on the public buying in, and we're going to pilot it in specific neighborhoods this winter after the first of the year.
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    We will learn from that how to move forward.
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    We're excited to try it.
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    We also have to plan for electronic ticketing.
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    We can come back to this, but our Ramsey County Court decision means that we can no longer use paper tickets, which is primarily what we use in snow emergencies, after April 1st of 2025.
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    And so in this, in a right-of-way proposal, we'd be getting prepared for that and figuring out what we might do in a gap year.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:19:07
    Sorry, I see a question from VP Kim, go ahead.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:19:21
    Which neighborhoods?
  • 00:19:22
    What we want to do, Council President, Vice President Kim, what we want to do is pick some representative neighborhoods for the types of challenges we're going to face.
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    So one of them might be a street that has alley parking or driveways, you know you can imagine a neighborhood in Highland that has, we're pretty certain has
  • 00:19:42
    We absolutely want to pick a resident, a neighborhood, and these will be done voluntarily with the neighborhoods that might have tighter parking requirements, you know, or may have more narrow streets so that we can test out, you know, in two, three or four places the types of challenges that we'll face if we expand that.
  • 00:20:01
    So we'll make sure that it includes a variety of different types of neighborhoods, you know, by income, by our ability to reach them so that might be
  • 00:20:08
    of the City of St. Paul.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:20:23
    I have a follow-up question for Ms. Jost.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:20:29
    For the designated neighborhoods, is that primarily residential streets and not arterials?
  • 00:20:36
    And about how many city blocks do you think will be part of the pilot program?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:20:42
    Council President, Council Member Jost, what we're imagining, and I'm going to look to Bev, is maybe a four by four block area so that we get a good sense of the impact of the new strategies.
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    I will tell you that most, we're fairly confident that on residential streets, most residential streets, we'll say 95% of them,
  • 00:21:00
    This plan will work and it's mostly a communication challenge.
  • 00:21:05
    What we have to spend a lot of time and maybe a lot of money on is, exactly your point, arterials and collectors.
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    This approach wouldn't work on Grand Avenue.
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    It wouldn't work on commercial or collector arterial street with a lot of residential parking and no off-street options or a lot of commercial activity where you can't afford for them to lose parking on one side.
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    So what we would do, and again be very planful and thoughtful and engage the community, is make sure that it's those corridors, those types of situations that we have the right approach on.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:21:36
    And I see a question from Ms. Johnson.
  • 00:21:40
    Go ahead.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:21:42
    thank you and I was just kind of also reading the the snow operations little shortened blurb so I think this answers the first part of my question meaning that the $425,000 that's allocated is to cover the signage and all of that for that designated area is that correct
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:22:00
    Council President, Council Member Johnson, that would probably be a small part of it next year.
  • 00:22:04
    We will certainly want to pay for when, let's assume we move forward with this new strategy.
  • 00:22:09
    A lot of money, including a lot of money on time, will be spent on sign production and sign installation.
  • 00:22:16
    next year we're thinking that it's more likely that we're going to be spend time spend time and money on piloting the efforts you know make it and those that will take signs we'll probably have to manually put in signs all winter on those streets as well as testing out the situations that councilmember Jost mentioned to make sure on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis what will work and what do we need to succeed and what is your timeline for implementation
  • 00:22:40
    Our timeline for implementation is probably not next fall because that's going to take, that's a really tight timeline.
  • 00:22:48
    It is probably the winner of 26 and 27 rather than 25-26.
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    We can spend more time on this.
  • 00:23:01
    There's going to be a ticketing question in the winter of 25 and 26 that we'll need to be prepared to answer.
  • 00:23:06
    But this gets back, to be blunt, Council members, people lose jobs and election certificates over awful plowing.
  • 00:23:15
    and especially given the challenges we face in density and making sure that we reach people and that this works better than what we're currently doing, we really want to take the time.
  • 00:23:24
    So I think the honest answer would be the fall, I mean the winter of 26-27.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:23:30
    Thanks.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:23:31
    Go ahead, Ms. Naker.
  • 00:23:31
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 00:23:32
    Along similar lines to Ms. Johnson, and this is a question I'll probably ask again, but can we get the $425,000, this follow-up line item, out so we're clear as to what goes to what?
  • 00:23:42
    And then I'm curious as to whether, to Ms. Johnson's question and your response, are you saying that the full implementation wouldn't take place until 26-27, or the pilot wouldn't take place until then?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:23:54
    Council President, Council Member Naker, the full implementation we think is likely not to be ready until 26-27.
  • 00:24:01
    The pilot will happen in the winter of 25 after January.
  • 00:24:06
    We want to pilot it this January, February, March.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:24:10
    Thank you.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:24:11
    And your question about line item.
  • 00:24:12
    When we spoke earlier, there was a set of line items where this was mostly signage.
  • 00:24:17
    I forgot when that was prepared that it was assuming we spent several hundred thousand this year on consulting, and that will now be spent next year.
  • 00:24:25
    So the line items we have for this are not any more specific than what's here.
  • 00:24:29
    I mean, we can estimate what those costs are, but this is the level of specificity we have right now.
  • 00:24:35
    It's essentially a small snow emergency cost.
  • 00:24:40
    to benefit snow emergencies going forward.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:24:44
    In order for me to feel comfortable approving an expense, I just need to understand how it's arrived at, so how you got to $425,000 based on these different bullet points.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:24:56
    Thank you.
  • 00:24:57
    Go ahead, Ms. Kim.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:24:58
    On that note, I think I have a personal interest as do most people in your department kind of like the amount of dollars that are designated to community engagement.
  • 00:25:07
    I know that when we have a snow emergency, we sort of have a parking emergency, but also like making sure that there's an outreach aspect to it because folks may not know or they don't move their cars.
  • 00:25:18
    So it's just to say like if it's a four by four block and you're also invested in sort of
  • 00:25:23
    I'd be very interested in seeing what a scaled community engagement looks like should this implementation go like full on because my time at the city is always, yes we have a snow emergency, we have a parking but also like a communications aspect to that that requires a strong partnership with residents and so to scale a new program that requires a robust communications plan and engagement plan I'd like to
  • 00:25:52
    If you move forward, that is my request in the future to make sure that there is a scaled growth of success for the blocks that you study that have language where English isn't their first language and ensuring that success.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:26:05
    Council President, Council Member Kim, if I could just add something there.
  • 00:26:08
    One of the things that we're hopeful for and we'll have to test out is one of our challenges right now is reaching everybody, you know, we have dozens of languages spoken at home in St. Paul to say, you know, at eight o'clock move your car and then again at eight o'clock and after that if it's been plowed put it here, if it hasn't put it there.
  • 00:26:25
    That's a communication, there's a lot of ideas to communicate in that and a lot of means to do that.
  • 00:26:30
    If this system works like we hope it will, and this is aspirational, you should be able to look out your door and say, where are my neighbors parked?
  • 00:26:38
    And be where they are.
  • 00:26:40
    And in a snow emergency, the message is not move your car at eight and then again at seven and then, you know.
  • 00:26:46
    The message, if we use this, is keep your car where it's supposed to be legally parked.
  • 00:26:51
    of the City of St. Paul.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:27:16
    Good questions to get from vision to reality.
  • 00:27:19
    Thank you for the discussion, and I know we'll keep unpacking this as we appreciate the desire to innovate and want to talk through how it will work with you and get to a better normal.
  • 00:27:28
    So thank you.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:27:29
    Yeah, Council President, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:27:31
    I love talking about snow.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:27:33
    One of the other proposals is to create a new development position and the need here is very real that we have an increase in large developments that have a lot of complicated civil infrastructure, take a lot of time, they involve a lot of departments and a lot of
  • 00:27:50
    about partner agencies.
  • 00:27:52
    And right now, we essentially take resources from other engineering project management to do that.
  • 00:27:58
    That tax base, the efficient coordination of work, the efficient, effective partnerships with the business community, developers of all different types and other departments, especially when we have a lot of work coming up.
  • 00:28:11
    What we're proposing here, I think, is a great new idea.
  • 00:28:13
    And that's an ongoing position with engineering that would work on those coordinated large
  • 00:28:19
    to delivering projects so that that work can be as effective and efficient and successful as possible.
  • 00:28:25
    And we can devote all of our other resources that depend on the engineering fund to delivering projects.
  • 00:28:32
    The bottom one is extremely important and not very exciting, but it's incredibly important and that's to restore over time our funding for signs and markings.
  • 00:28:44
    So this is exactly what it says.
  • 00:28:45
    It's crosswalks, it's long lines on the streets, it's all of the signage and pavement markings that are really important in the current environment we're in and they're important all the time.
  • 00:28:58
    gradual reductions, cost increases, additional infrastructure for a number of reasons.
  • 00:29:03
    We need to get caught up to a basic level of public expectations.
  • 00:29:08
    And so this would provide both one time funding and an increase in ongoing funding.
  • 00:29:12
    And this is something we will keep coming back to over time to make sure that we're meeting expectations in terms of safety and public expectations for mobility.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:29:23
    Director, so for this one, can you help me and us understand the real world reality?
  • 00:29:29
    Is this the faded bike lanes on Minnehaha and the perennial things that are broken?
  • 00:29:36
    Could you just translate to real world safety and what's going on right now?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:29:40
    Council President and Council Members, it's a struggle right now to keep the infrastructure that we've added.
  • 00:29:46
    It's crosswalks.
  • 00:29:46
    It's big block crosswalk markings.
  • 00:29:49
    It's the solid line.
  • 00:29:51
    It's the bicycle markings and the bikeways.
  • 00:29:54
    It's long lines on pavement.
  • 00:29:58
    All of that basic but really, really important work, we need to get up, not just to a minimum, we want to exceed that going forward, but this restores funding to make sure that it's more adequate going forward.
  • 00:30:12
    And I know one of the questions is, how do we get here?
  • 00:30:14
    It's a little bit of all the things that I mentioned.
  • 00:30:16
    We've gotten a bad habit over time of making small cuts that eventually add up to a big loss.
  • 00:30:23
    the cost of materials like everything has gone up dramatically we're adding new infrastructure as we go so all of those are contributing to this and this is you know critical for the public and again getting us to a good basic level and then going forward we want to make that you know even better
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:30:42
    And is there a, I see Ms. Nicker, my follow up then I'll go to you.
  • 00:30:45
    Is there a envisioned plan for where the catch up work would happen right now?
  • 00:30:52
    Do you have a list of just target areas most badly in need of updating that?
  • 00:30:58
    Or is it, basically would you envision targeting areas city wide?
  • 00:31:03
    Do you just want this and then triage?
  • 00:31:04
    How would you start to, if you got these resources allocated, how would you start to address things strategically?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:31:11
    Council President, Council Member, it's a great question and the most simple answer is this would be to maintain what we have right now.
  • 00:31:20
    We absolutely triage that in terms of lines.
  • 00:31:22
    If a line disappears, it's really expensive to restore it.
  • 00:31:26
    We're focused around rec centers and around schools for those.
  • 00:31:30
    So the team is really good at prioritizing.
  • 00:31:32
    It's mostly, though, going to the existing lines that are there or should be there.
  • 00:31:37
    That includes bicycle markings.
  • 00:31:39
    all of those and making sure that they're adequate.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:31:42
    So is it correct to say you envision this being used to catch up citywide, just to get to the baseline we need to be at?
  • 00:31:48
    Correct.
  • 00:31:49
    OK. And of course, it's all important equally.
  • 00:31:52
    Safety is important equally.
  • 00:31:53
    But I just wanted to understand, is this to get some of it?
  • 00:31:56
    Is this to get all of it?
  • 00:31:57
    How does that work?
  • 00:31:58
    Go ahead, Ms. Naker.
  • 00:31:58
    I know you're in line.
  • 00:31:59
    Go ahead.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:31:59
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 00:32:01
    Director Kirsch, I know you mentioned that it's been a long story, but I'm curious.
  • 00:32:04
    Restoring funding implies that we've cut funding over time.
  • 00:32:07
    what our current budget is for signs and markings and traffic operations, how many folks we have working on that, and then what is the amount that's been cut?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:32:18
    What I want to do is get back to you on the details on that, both how it's changed.
  • 00:32:23
    There are gradual reductions over time.
  • 00:32:26
    The thing about infrastructure, and this is a way of saying I want to get back to you with those details, is in order to achieve
  • 00:32:36
    a single year's cut, which may not seem like a lot, we got into a habit of making little cuts over time.
  • 00:32:42
    Well, that works year to year, but over time it doesn't.
  • 00:32:45
    And these pavement markings are essential to safety.
  • 00:32:48
    The public, your residents, your constituents, my neighbors, are very concerned about them.
  • 00:32:54
    And so I can provide that follow up about how it's trending.
  • 00:32:58
    What this will get to, again, next year is a basic level.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:33:02
    Thank you.
  • 00:33:02
    I appreciate the follow up, and then as one more quick
  • 00:33:05
    you're proposing repurposing two vacancies in street maintenance to do this work?
  • 00:33:11
    Street maintenance is also an area that needs work.
  • 00:33:15
    So what happens to street maintenance when we repurpose two staff from there to this?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:33:20
    Council President, Council Member Naker, a couple dynamics are playing out there.
  • 00:33:23
    One is we have to make tough choices with the limited general funds and these signs and markings are critical.
  • 00:33:28
    One of the things though that's been beneficial and we'll talk about it later is we have shifted all funding going into next year for trash recycling and that includes trash in the right-of-way.
  • 00:33:39
    It includes, you know, picking up bulkies that people have left in the right-of-way.
  • 00:33:45
    All of that was done in the right-of-way by street maintenance.
  • 00:33:48
    And it's a significant amount of time.
  • 00:33:50
    Next year that will all be done by the team that we're standing up to organize recycling so that at the margins frees up staff capacity within street maintenance to keep doing what they were doing or to spend more time on maintenance.
  • 00:34:07
    So it's not ideal.
  • 00:34:09
    It's a very clear one year change.
  • 00:34:12
    But we think those two factors will actually
  • 00:34:15
    for next year be an improvement for the public.
  • 00:34:18
    It's just not something we're proposing to sustain.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:34:25
    All right.
  • 00:34:26
    Thanks.
  • 00:34:26
    Let's keep moving.
  • 00:34:27
    Thanks, Director.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:34:29
    and the City Council.
  • 00:34:51
    This is the basic amenities that people see when they come down for the Ordway or Excel.
  • 00:34:58
    So there's 118,000 in here, one-time funding that would be for additional downtown cleanups.
  • 00:35:04
    We did a really successful cleanup this summer before the Yacht Fest.
  • 00:35:08
    Street lighting maintenance, additional funding for that, and additional signage and wayfinding.
  • 00:35:14
    We also want to purchase new garbage cans for downtown, both to address places that are lacking them and places where they look not up to the standards that we would like, or that they have the functionality that we like, or that they may accommodate recycling like we would like.
  • 00:35:32
    So the total downtown investment that we're proposing is $193, $75 from $241, the solid waste fund, and $118 one time from the general fund.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:35:44
    And just as a question on this, can you help us understand just what it's based on?
  • 00:35:50
    Is it like an area of action plan work of where all these resources need to go?
  • 00:35:55
    Is it just more funds that you can ration out as you see things?
  • 00:36:00
    How does it connect to what happens in the real world?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:36:03
    Yeah, so the way let's take garbage cans and I'll walk through all of them.
  • 00:36:07
    What we would go through is work with our downtown partners to say where are the sites that need additional ones because this doesn't take care of every garbage can or recycling container downtown.
  • 00:36:16
    Where are we missing them that we need them and where do we want additional either a new garbage recycling can or a better functional one.
  • 00:36:25
    Over time you'll see that
  • 00:36:27
    One of the benefits of our solid waste team is that we're going to coordinate our work better with parks.
  • 00:36:31
    Parks does some of them.
  • 00:36:33
    Some of the containers in park facilities, we do others.
  • 00:36:36
    But to answer your question, Council President, we would prioritize those areas with our downtown partners.
  • 00:36:42
    It would not be downtown wide.
  • 00:36:44
    It's really just to make incremental improvements in key corridors.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:36:48
    Thank you.
  • 00:36:48
    That is helpful to hear.
  • 00:36:50
    it affirms neighborhood conversations I'm having in my own ward which is not downtown but has similar major development underway where one of the requests we are getting is more trash receptacles just help us absorb the increase in human activity and sometimes often undesirable things that come with that and so this is an active convo.
  • 00:37:08
    in another part of town.
  • 00:37:09
    I saw Ms. Bui.
  • 00:37:10
    Go ahead.
  • 00:37:11
    And then Ms. Johnson.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 00:37:12
    Thank you, Director Kershaw.
  • 00:37:13
    I have a question around the downtown investments.
  • 00:37:16
    Well, two questions.
  • 00:37:17
    The first one, if you could be able to quantify how many additional garbage cans for $75,000.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:37:23
    Were they several hundred apiece?
  • 00:37:28
    Several thousand.
  • 00:37:29
    Several thousand apiece?
  • 00:37:33
    OK.
  • 00:37:35
    So 30?
  • 00:37:36
    20 to 30 new garbage cans.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 00:37:38
    Thank you.
  • 00:37:40
    I see this is coming out of the general fund.
  • 00:37:44
    Is this also part of the downtown alliance investment plan that we voted on that I believe it was certain businesses were paying into this fund.
  • 00:37:55
    I believe that goes into the general fund.
  • 00:37:57
    If you could just explain just how that is in conjunction with this plan as well.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:38:03
    Council President, Council Member Bui, great question because our work is closely aligned with the downtown alliance plan.
  • 00:38:09
    I'm co-chairing one of the committees that's focused on sidewalks and streetlights and that sort of public right of way experience.
  • 00:38:18
    And so this would be coordinated with them to leverage the work that they're doing with the community, leverage the other resources.
  • 00:38:25
    coming forward I imagine there will be more work downtown because we want to address you know walkability and things opportunities that advance their plan and we want to do anyway but this gets it started and it will be closely coordinated with the downtown alliance.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 00:38:42
    My question was more so around just the revenue that was invested or like there's a revenue from the plan that we voted on in terms I know a small amount of revenue
  • 00:38:52
    but I remember there was like a payment plan that businesses were opting into.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:38:56
    Yeah, I think to kind of clarify what I think the question is, the downtown improvement district property owners pay into that so that's what they're contributing.
  • 00:39:04
    The City does contribute also.
  • 00:39:06
    How does this fit into the City's contribution?
  • 00:39:08
    Is it on top of our contribution to the DID?
  • 00:39:11
    How does that work?
  • 00:39:12
    That's what I think we're trying to understand.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:39:16
    Council President and Council Member Bui, I'd want to double check this, but it's on top of those investments.
  • 00:39:20
    It would be in addition to what we're contributing, in addition to the fees that their members are paying, but in terms of the City, it would be in addition to what we're paying.
  • 00:39:29
    Thank you for helping us understand that.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:39:35
    Okay, so that's helpful to kind of start to dive in.
  • 00:39:42
    I'm just wondering, are there certain outcomes or goals that you're aiming to get with this investment?
  • 00:39:48
    Or how will you know that the investments are successful and just kind of worth continuing the efforts on?
  • 00:39:55
    Or what sort of measurements are you looking or outcomes you're looking to get from this?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:39:59
    Council President, Council Member Johnson, a lot of the outcomes are aesthetic in nature.
  • 00:40:04
    So that there's less trash, and again this is true in university, it's true in a number of corridors.
  • 00:40:09
    So there's less trash that's in the right of way and not in a receptacle.
  • 00:40:13
    Part of it is aesthetic in that they're better looking at receptacles than we have now.
  • 00:40:17
    A lot of our street lights downtown are in need of just basic maintenance like painting.
  • 00:40:21
    and things like that, making sure the graffiti is removed.
  • 00:40:25
    Most of these, I can talk with our downtown partners about objectives.
  • 00:40:29
    A lot of these will be aesthetic in nature.
  • 00:40:32
    But certainly in terms of trash it will be very real in the experience.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:40:39
    I have requested a conversation with OFS in general on the downtown investments that are spread across departments because I'm also curious to council member Bui's point about how they tie into the work that the downtown alliance is doing so I want to make sure I understand those better but I'm curious here this is a one-time investment not proposed to be ongoing so I know
  • 00:41:03
    Public Works has a street lights maintenance budget and a signage budget currently.
  • 00:41:08
    Why not just use those dollars to do the street lights and the signage downtown this year, prioritize those, be done, and then not take from the general fund?
  • 00:41:19
    I'm not sure I understand the reason for the one time expense from something where you already have an existing fund.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:41:24
    Council President, Councilman Aker, I'll give my answer to that.
  • 00:41:27
    I mean the funding for street lighting is insufficient for what we have right now citywide.
  • 00:41:33
    We've got a lot of deferred maintenance we have to catch up on.
  • 00:41:35
    The additional resources you provided for copper wire theft are phenomenal and we're putting them to good use, but there's not a lot of extra capacity there to focus on any one area.
  • 00:41:45
    We're really focused on areas that are either experiencing
  • 00:41:47
    So just to clarify, Council President, so those funds have been totally depleted year over year for that work and this is needed in order to add to that.
  • 00:42:14
    Council President, Councilor Maker, I would want to double check that but I believe on lighting and you've seen it in the copper wire request that we've come back to that we've gone over what you'll see later how we balance our total general fund but I believe in the street lighting units we're spending beyond budget because of the theft.
  • 00:42:33
    Thank you.
  • 00:42:33
    I'm getting a nod of approval.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:42:35
    Just a last question on this slide.
  • 00:42:37
    Why are garbage cans so expensive?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:42:40
    like help who where do we go to fix that just I need help with that okay I don't know if you have real answer but that's just it just seems very a lot I would be happy council president now we're gonna come back to talk about garbage and trash and recycling I mean Sarah Haas is eloquent and talking about trash and recycling do you want to answer that question really quickly is that okay council president Sarah
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:43:06
    Welcome to our Solid Waste Queen, Sarah Haas.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:43:20
    Please let us know what's happening.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:43:23
    So like the aggregate ones that we have downtown that are heavy, they're hard to move.
  • 00:43:27
    Those are very expensive.
  • 00:43:29
    The lighter weight ones that we have in other areas of the city, they're easy to move, they're easy to steal.
  • 00:43:33
    They deteriorate, so the maintenance costs, so it's better to invest in a garbage can that's going to last longer.
  • 00:43:38
    I mean, they can go up to $10,000 to $15,000 if we wanted to get, like, European, where they bring the garbage down below the pavement.
  • 00:43:47
    But that's just so they last longer.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:43:49
    So it's because they're, like, basically industrial grade, not stealable, don't deteriorate, and you know.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:43:57
    They're several hundred pounds to move, so they're very difficult to steal.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:44:00
    of the City of St Paul.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 00:44:19
    I first wanted to take a moment to say thank you, Director Kershaw, to you and your staff.
  • 00:44:23
    I really commend all of the work that you all are doing because the work is so visible.
  • 00:44:28
    When we're talking about the quality of our streets and our sidewalks and even things like striping lanes onto our streets, those are things that residents do see and why we hear so much from our constituents about things that are related to public works.
  • 00:44:43
    I just wanted to point out and highlight a few things really from things I've seen come from Public Works over the years during my time on the Council and especially for this year.
  • 00:44:53
    I really see that the changes and also the different ways you're strategizing about how to do work differently and more effectively in Public Works is so tied to systemic change.
  • 00:45:06
    And I really appreciate that because I really believe that the things that you are proposing to us today
  • 00:45:11
    even when I start them, like the sewer utility revenue transfer and also the pilot for snow operations.
  • 00:45:20
    Those are things that I believe will get us to what the council really aspires to attain, which is cost savings and making sure that we operate in a way that is very efficient and also effective as well.
  • 00:45:34
    And those are things that are really aligned with what we are hearing from our residents on what they want.
  • 00:45:38
    I just really want to commend you all for your work and also your willingness to figure out all these tough options and pursuing them and also exploring them with us.
  • 00:45:53
    I really appreciate the feedback that you and your department have been willing to take from constituents.
  • 00:46:00
    As you know, I have residents in my ward who are really passionate about snow plow and
  • 00:46:05
    and just seeing how you've interacted with them over the years has been really great and so I appreciate you all for that.
  • 00:46:12
    Again, I really support the sewer utility revenue transfer and also the one-time money for the pilot as well.
  • 00:46:19
    I don't have any questions, but I just wanted to say that I really want to see our other departments aspire to do what our public works department is doing, which is really digging into those systemic changes and reforms
  • 00:46:35
    to make sure that we are getting to efficiency and cost savings in our city overall.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:46:41
    Thanks, Council President, Council Member.
  • 00:46:43
    I appreciate all of that.
  • 00:46:44
    I think in a lot of ways, I really admire the work that other departments are doing and have done, and this really is a city-wide effort.
  • 00:46:51
    So whether we're catching up or responding to the current, those partnerships matter a lot, and I appreciate what you said.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:47:01
    It was just a garbage can question.
  • 00:47:15
    After Sarah was talking about the garbage cans, I think if it's a material, if it's steel, if it's outside, if it has to be
  • 00:47:29
    I think the reason I asked the question in the first place is like lots of times our residents ask for things and we want to provide that and we're trying to find a cost effective way to do that and there's a
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:47:58
    to do it in the short term that gets expensive and useless fast.
  • 00:48:03
    Or there's a way that it's a worthwhile investment and there's a range of things to do.
  • 00:48:07
    So lots of different minutia in this job, but all important.
  • 00:48:11
    Thank you.
  • 00:48:12
    All right.
  • 00:48:12
    We can keep moving through the presentation here.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:48:15
    Council President, Council Members, I'm going to move on.
  • 00:48:17
    There's a summary page, but I'm going to move on.
  • 00:48:18
    Just in the interest of time, we can come back to our special funds.
  • 00:48:22
    And there are three big categories that we'll talk about here.
  • 00:48:28
    What's different in these funds is that they are not primarily coming from the general fund or at all.
  • 00:48:34
    they are in most cases rate-based or fee-based that you approve so this the goal here is to start a conversation some of them will come back to and they're a great opportunity to better align sources and uses so how do we preserve the sort of sacred limited general fund that we have and maximize other sources to do the work that the public expects
  • 00:48:56
    One of the things that I'm most excited about, and just generally it's both in response to Council Member Yang's comments, some of our best ideas come from the frontline workers and folks that we have who are experiencing it day to day.
  • 00:49:07
    I think some of the good ideas here fall into that category.
  • 00:49:11
    Right-of-way fees are it's a fee-based enterprise and we are there a number of permits that we issue for a variety of types of activities that all boil down to permission to use the right-of-way permission to disturb the right-of-way they're not something that general property owners have to pay or need to pay they're primarily by contractors you know if we look at total dollar amount sometimes some of these are business related
  • 00:49:37
    And what we're proposing here is both an increase in outcomes for the public and in some cases a change in funding.
  • 00:49:44
    We want to use these right-of-way fees to increase our basic support for right-of-way.
  • 00:49:48
    So if you think about practically what does this mean, construction signs that are in the wrong place.
  • 00:49:54
    Not because our teams did anything wrong, but because a contractor in the right-of-way didn't put things back.
  • 00:49:59
    We have inspectors that go and follow up and make those corrections.
  • 00:50:02
    They check to make sure that the pavement restorations were done.
  • 00:50:05
    that those basic activities, especially as we're increasing, work is increasing in the city, are really important.
  • 00:50:14
    Vegetation management, for those of you who have been on the Council since I started four and a half years ago, we've spent a lot of time talking about vegetation management, which is essentially weeds,
  • 00:50:24
    and Flowers and Perennials in the right-of-way.
  • 00:50:27
    And what we've done over time is build infrastructure without building in the maintenance funds for the things that we added.
  • 00:50:34
    So Councilmember Naker is used to the conversation on the Jackson Street Bikeway and you put additional one-time funds in to address that.
  • 00:50:43
    What we're proposing going forward is to try and increase the amount of money for that and to pay for that not out of the general fund, which is what we did, but out of right-of-way fees.
  • 00:50:53
    and so it's more sustainable source it ties the sources and uses and it increases our capacity to address both weeds and flowers and you know those types of plantings in the right-of-way and this is something the public really expects it was not a big deal last year when we had a drought it's a big deal this year and you know you've heard about it from your constituents I imagine
  • 00:51:16
    The third point here, so that's about 200,000, parking management for public works operations.
  • 00:51:23
    Again, you know when you experience how much parking relates to the work of public works, and so it certainly shows up in snow emergencies and snow operations.
  • 00:51:32
    It shows up in that we issue residential parking permits.
  • 00:51:37
    for the public all throughout the city, a huge issue.
  • 00:51:40
    When we do construction activities, we want to make sure that the crews can get in there, do the work, and that there's not a car in the way.
  • 00:51:47
    When we do street sweeping, when we do seal coating on a street, when we do a mill and overlay, a lot of our work relates to parking management.
  • 00:51:58
    And what we're proposing here is a partnership with the police.
  • 00:52:01
    We have to work out the details, but I think it's a great addition, a great change.
  • 00:52:05
    where right-of-way fees, an increase in right-of-way fees, would pay for three parking enforcement officers, PEOs, that would be primarily dedicated to this public works work that I described.
  • 00:52:18
    So that's better management of residential parking permits, better capacity to address snow emergencies and snow operations, better ability to make sure cars are out of the way when we do fall street sweeping or spring street sweeping, special events.
  • 00:52:31
    There are a lot of benefits to that.
  • 00:52:33
    That doesn't mean that those workers will be doing all parking.
  • 00:52:37
    Their work would be focused on public works related parking needs.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:52:42
    Question for me and then for Ms. Jost.
  • 00:52:44
    My question on what we're just looking at here, I can't tell from just how it's framed.
  • 00:52:51
    Is this just funding for extra staff?
  • 00:52:53
    Is it funding for extra hours?
  • 00:52:55
    What are we funding with these dollar amounts?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:52:58
    Council President, Council Members, you're funding both extra staff and extra hours so in the right of way inspection capacities there's some one-time money for vehicles but there's also additional at the margins additional staffing vegetation management is additional additional just so that I understand additional staffing do you mean like adding an FTE do you mean just more hours for oh okay I'm sorry this is this is this is not in two cars this is two cars for existing services that are provided
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:53:25
    So for the row inspection capabilities, that 97 is for two vehicles to help get out there and do the inspections?
  • 00:53:31
    Yeah.
  • 00:53:31
    OK.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:53:32
    Sorry for that.
  • 00:53:32
    I'm glad I was corrected there.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:53:33
    Totally OK. Just trying to make sure I know what we're talking about here.
  • 00:53:36
    And then for row vegetation management, what is the breakout for 200?
  • 00:53:40
    That's primarily staffing.
  • 00:53:41
    OK.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:53:47
    So the staffing that we have would use contractors to help maintain that work.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:53:53
    So we contract out just even more folks that can get the right of way, the boulevard and the plantings and all these things that people notice about experiencing our community.
  • 00:54:05
    Is that correct?
  • 00:54:06
    I don't know, I'm looking to Bev, but I can't quite see you.
  • 00:54:08
    Okay.
  • 00:54:09
    Would you like to come up and expound on that?
  • 00:54:11
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:54:17
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 00:54:18
    My name is Bev Ferrer.
  • 00:54:19
    I'm the operations manager.
  • 00:54:21
    Hi.
  • 00:54:22
    The $200,000 would be for contract work, field work.
  • 00:54:25
    We have a couple of different ways that we want to accomplish that.
  • 00:54:29
    The pilot that we did in the past year, two years, has been using the excellent folks in parks and using their contracts.
  • 00:54:38
    to do work in the very specific areas that we've been working on with the $100,000 we got.
  • 00:54:44
    With the $200,000, we have staff that will identify working with parks.
  • 00:54:50
    Again, if they're able and willing to do the work, they're a great buy and they have great expertise.
  • 00:54:55
    But we would also like to establish our own contracts because we have trees that we have to remove in our right of way that forestry can't do, shouldn't do.
  • 00:55:03
    We also have a great desire to get some DBE contracts here in the city to do that vegetation management work.
  • 00:55:10
    So that's an exciting opportunity that we wish to build.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:55:14
    Thank you, and as a follow up on this, do you have areas of the city that you anticipate wanting to prioritize?
  • 00:55:23
    What would the priority look like?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:55:26
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 00:55:28
    Excellent question.
  • 00:55:29
    We have some areas that we get more complaints, so we have been trying to address those in a phased approach across the city.
  • 00:55:36
    And I can list some of those if you like, but the upshot is we do not have a good database of where all our vegetated areas are.
  • 00:55:44
    that the public would have rational expectations for us to take care of.
  • 00:55:49
    So one of the efforts of our staff is to start building that database and to reach out to the council members and district councils and to find out where people have great concerns, great interests so we can build that database so that we can have some very managed approaches to things.
  • 00:56:09
    And where there are safety or sightline issues, those would rise to the higher priority.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:56:17
    So I'm hearing you say that we have like a lived or understood sense based on just where complaints come in and the types of work that people are asking us to do.
  • 00:56:25
    This would help us address that, but there's work to be done to build out a more coherent system.
  • 00:56:30
    Do you find that summary appropriate?
  • 00:56:31
    Okay.
  • 00:56:32
    Okay, thanks for helping me understand.
  • 00:56:34
    And then the last one, parking management for public works operations, 288,300.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:56:46
    and City Council.
  • 00:57:07
    in effect the rental and operating costs working with the PD to have three vehicles so those folks are out all day every day doing work.
  • 00:57:21
    The goal is to have these three folks that can work overnight shifts as well as daytime, afternoon, evening shifts so that we can address the complexity of timing of operations that we have so that we're making sure that we're doing parking enforcement during those times when it's meaningful to people.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:57:39
    so these would be non-police parking enforcement officers and associated travel and they would coordinate with the police but they'd be within your department?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:57:47
    They would be, Council President, they would be police employees, St Paul PD employees that would be assigned to our operations because we must have
  • 00:57:56
    the St Paul PD structure of having the ability to electronically ticket.
  • 00:58:01
    We can never get that, so we need to get that through the police.
  • 00:58:05
    As parking enforcement officers, they have a very limited ability to ticket, so it would be solely parking, as best I understand.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:58:14
    of the City of St. Paul.
  • 00:58:30
    and then Bui.
  • 00:58:31
    I'll make the line right now.
  • 00:58:32
    Thanks.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:58:34
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 00:58:35
    I have a follow-up question.
  • 00:58:37
    Sort of answering my question with this last part about parking management, I was going to ask about the parking enforcement officers.
  • 00:58:45
    It sounds like they're police officers because only police officers have the ability to do the electronic ticketing, but they're being paid for through the public works budget and not through the police budget.
  • 00:58:57
    Is that correct?
  • 00:58:59
    or could you talk about that?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:59:03
    Council President, Council Member, it would be a transfer of funding from the fees, the revenue that the right-of-way division brings in, a transfer of funding to the police for them to employ the officers and then those officers would be assigned to the operations of public works.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:59:22
    Okay.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:59:22
    All right, next in line I have Johnson.
  • 00:59:25
    And then along that line, I'm just trying to connect the dots.
  • 00:59:29
    I think the, was this a transfer from the Parks Department in funding?
  • 00:59:33
    Okay, so then question for you then.
  • 00:59:36
    Yeah, and what is the reason?
  • 00:59:38
    Why is that coming out of the PD budget and not the Police Department's budget?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 00:59:46
    I don't want to speak for the Police Department broadly, but there's competition on general fund fees, and that's what they use to pay the parking.
  • 00:59:55
    We think these right-of-way fees are a more sustainable source of funding for that same activity that will increase their capacity to address our needs for parking.
  • 01:00:08
    And so it's, right now I believe, again I don't want to speak for the police department, that it's a general fund that pays for those.
  • 01:00:15
    This is to use the dedicated right-of-way fees and increase in those fees so that their work is aligned with work that happens because of public works in the right-of-way.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:00:26
    okay and as a follow-up to that because I know that when we had the police presentation I mean we are talking about several million coming out of the general fund for that department but beyond that they mentioned a lot of things regarding like overtime expenses and just kind of like what they're seeing from police officers both sworn and not sworn
  • 01:00:44
    and so I'm just kind of wondering like if you have three shifts and your goal is to also have like overnight shifts and like longer hours and just as things come up and when I'm thinking ahead to like potential parking violations and the need for parking enforcement in certain different times do they also are they also going to be kind of like the only three parking enforcement officers that you have
  • 01:01:09
    Committee.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:01:17
    Council President, Council Member Johnson.
  • 01:01:19
    We'll work with the police department on the details of that.
  • 01:01:21
    The expectation is not for a lot of overtime.
  • 01:01:24
    It's really that their work would be concentrated first on the needs we've talked about.
  • 01:01:29
    Extra time, extra capacity could go into things at the end of the day that weren't needed that are more parking enforcement related generally.
  • 01:01:37
    But there's a huge public frustration if you think about residential parking permit enforcement.
  • 01:01:46
    of the City of St Paul, City Council of the City of St Paul.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:02:12
    I see in line Ms. Kim, Ms.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:02:22
    you mentioned there are trees in the right-of-way that forestry can't do and so in my head I'm sort of realizing there's like a tree maintenance budget in Parks and Public Works and there's a tree maintenance budget in forestry right I'm just sort of wondering what what does that look like what kinds of trees do you do that forestry can't I'm asking
  • 01:02:42
    and the big picture-wise because we have like EAB and also like Como and the north end was like decimated with trees when the storm came through so I'm just in my mind kind of wondering about that more from a customer service perspective like how it's fielded and where it's sent like maybe we're not sending a request to the right person but then also additionally like how much of that budget
  • 01:03:04
    How much of your budget does that take?
  • 01:03:08
    Because in my mind, that's like one city service that we're doing through two different departments.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:03:14
    Thank you, Council President, Council Member, for that good question.
  • 01:03:17
    It is a tiny bit complex and I don't want to speak for parks, but I'll give you the overview of what we experience and what we've had discussions with parks and the Forestry Unit within parks.
  • 01:03:28
    So if you think of all the trees across the city,
  • 01:03:31
    You have trees that are in parks that are in more populated areas, accessed areas.
  • 01:03:36
    You have trees in boulevards, you have trees in medians, and probably a couple of other places.
  • 01:03:43
    And those are the trees that are my understanding that the forestry unit focuses on because those in and of themselves are more than enough for them to be focusing on with their expertise and their smarts and their planning of what is going to go and be planted.
  • 01:03:58
    Within parks, there are areas where forestry doesn't do a whole lot unless there's a critical need because it's left more untamed.
  • 01:04:08
    Even in Como, which is my personal childhood favorite, there's just a lot of spaces where the trees are not managed actively.
  • 01:04:18
    And the challenge we have in the Public Works Department is that we have many, many trees.
  • 01:04:24
    outside of boulevards and medians that are not things that the forestry unit would tackle.
  • 01:04:30
    They don't have the capacity to do that.
  • 01:04:32
    They have certainly the expertise, but they just don't have the capacity.
  • 01:04:36
    So the way we would intend initially is to do better with the kinds of complaint based issues we have.
  • 01:04:45
    We would not be going out and starting to manage.
  • 01:04:48
    all the trees that forestry doesn't manage within the public rights of way.
  • 01:04:53
    But for example, we recently had a tree that fell on top of a community garden shed and we paid to have that removed because it was our tree.
  • 01:05:02
    And there's other trees in other areas that are problematic that are a public works responsibility and so we would do an incremental contract to do that.
  • 01:05:11
    We would not be standing up a forestry unit within public works.
  • 01:05:16
    We don't need that and it is beyond our financial capability with the 200,000 that we're hoping for but we would have some darn good competitive contracts hopefully with some DBE folks who could come in and as we ask for them to do it they would remove trees or trim them or whatever we need to have done.
  • 01:05:35
    Does that help?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:05:38
    Yep, and I see this as building on a
  • 01:05:42
    and the City Council.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:05:51
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 01:05:52
    Thank you, Director Kershaw.
  • 01:05:54
    I just had a question, particularly around just the details for the right-of-way budget proposal.
  • 01:06:01
    I know you already spoke on the three officers for the Public Works Parking Management, but can you break down how many FTEs are there part-time positions and also the makeup of contractors?
  • 01:06:16
    Is this going to be one big contract?
  • 01:06:19
    We're just going to contract with one company or just like several vendors.
  • 01:06:23
    Particularly for, I'm seeking a breakdown between the row inspection capabilities and the vegetation management.
  • 01:06:31
    You already spoke to the parking management.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:06:33
    Thank you, Council President, Council Member Bowie.
  • 01:06:36
    The right of way inspection capabilities, the fee there is for two vehicles and the ongoing monthly expenses.
  • 01:06:43
    that are for those two vehicles.
  • 01:06:46
    So that is vehicles only, two vehicles for inspectors at this time to get them out in the field.
  • 01:06:54
    In the right of way vegetation management, the $200,000 there, that is not for staff at all.
  • 01:07:00
    That is for contracts solely and
  • 01:07:03
    I would prefer to have several competitive bidding contracts out there, ideally with DBE folks in the city to address incremental things.
  • 01:07:15
    So I could see one contract for tree removal, one contract for slope stability issues, several contracts for kind of perennial plantings, a contract for
  • 01:07:26
    and the
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:07:41
    Committee.
  • 01:08:00
    My concern, though, is three parking enforcement officers talking about a 24-hour shift.
  • 01:08:28
    Well, or having overnight shifts, that's probably one person per shift.
  • 01:08:33
    That's my assumption.
  • 01:08:35
    Eight hour shifts.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:08:37
    My math is right?
  • 01:08:39
    Council President, Council Member Naker, we don't intend to have all three people in three different shifts throughout a 24-hour day.
  • 01:08:47
    We would be very specific in planning ahead to those times, for example, when we're going to be doing work in the sanitation ban areas that are overnight, where we would then assign someone, plan ahead and assign someone to have that shift to go through and ticket if necessary during that night shift.
  • 01:09:04
    My goal is that every day we have planned ahead and we have three people on staff and we send them out to do personal preference, start with residential parking permits because we need to make sure that folks are complying with those expectations and they're not.
  • 01:09:22
    So really getting a cadence of credibility and consistency in how that's done so that people pay attention to the residential parking permits.
  • 01:09:31
    and then make sure they're covering the permitted needs, the meters that are hooded, the other no parking that people pay for and get for various types of construction, utility work, whatever, and send them around to those permitted areas.
  • 01:09:45
    That's another great reasons why they'd be in the right of way unit is they'd have that interaction with what permits are out there and what we need to check and make sure get resolved right away.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:09:55
    So that's good to hear.
  • 01:09:57
    So we would have potentially three people working at any one time.
  • 01:10:00
    I am curious, I know we heard from the St Paul police that they are having trouble hiring for the budget that they have.
  • 01:10:09
    often at this table we allocate funding for a new program or a new idea that hasn't been fully fleshed out and then find out that we couldn't hire those folks until August and we've got eight months of funding that we didn't need.
  • 01:10:22
    I'm curious if the conversations have been had with St. Paul police about their success specifically hiring PEOs and whether we're confident that we will have three of these folks starting in January for this funding.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:10:32
    Council President, Council Member Naker, we had a conversation yesterday.
  • 01:10:35
    Jeremy Ellison is new in his leadership role in traffic enforcement, which is a great opportunity.
  • 01:10:40
    We're actually talking also with parks and Saint Paul PD.
  • 01:10:43
    So our anticipation is that we would be ready to go, because part of this is a transfer of responsibilities, not new people.
  • 01:10:50
    I think they have 12 allocated PEOs right now, and I want to say they're at a strength of 10 or 11, so that for them that's
  • 01:10:58
    great historically to be at that level and so this would be part of those but we've had the initial conversation just today we're scheduling additional conversations to work out the details with them so that this would be ready to go in the new year so sorry just to clarify it's not new people pardon me it's not new people it's a transfer of responsibilities for existing pios
  • 01:11:20
    Well, what we would do is it's not necessarily, this would be three people dedicated, three PEOs from whatever allotment they have, dedicated to the work of public works.
  • 01:11:31
    Whether that allows the police department to add more PEOs to their complement because three are paid for from us.
  • 01:11:37
    I mean, that would be both their decision and your decision and we would work on that.
  • 01:11:41
    These would be folks that are dedicated.
  • 01:11:43
    They might be new.
  • 01:11:44
    The path here may be a little different than the path for existing PEOs.
  • 01:11:50
    We would work out those details with the police department because they're police department employees.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:11:54
    Okay, just in closing, that is important.
  • 01:11:57
    to know because if we're taking away three parking enforcement officers from doing that work and allocating them to public works because of your funding, that's different than adding three folks of capacity to parking enforcement which already doesn't have enough.
  • 01:12:11
    So understanding that better from them as to whether their plan would be to hire to backfill would be really important.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:12:17
    Council President, Councilman Aker, I say that only because they're not here and I don't want to speak on their behalf.
  • 01:12:22
    If the police chief were here, he would say this is a really creative solution, but we haven't talked about the answer to your question.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:12:31
    All right, so it sounds like more to flesh out there, but thank you for the discussion and the questions.
  • 01:12:35
    Go ahead, Ms. Johnson, and then I also want to flag for members, it's been a robust discussion.
  • 01:12:41
    We have some content to get through yet, so I'd like to get us moving in a minute here.
  • 01:12:44
    Go ahead, Ms. Johnson.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:12:45
    Yeah, just a quick clarity.
  • 01:12:47
    The St. Paul Police Department, they are coming back, right?
  • 01:12:50
    That's a follow-up.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:12:51
    They're one of the entities we're asking.
  • 01:12:52
    We are gathering a list of topics for which departments to come back and determining that, but have had expressed interest from members to bring back St. Paul Police.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:13:00
    okay during that presentation I just just for the record and also to have Jay note for our records I'd really love to hear a follow-up from that around the parking enforcement officers I think it'll be a part of the discussion I have a few questions from the St. Paul Police Department's perspective that I don't want to ask Director Kershaw to speak on their behalf today because I don't think that's a fair question but I just want to be able to have that discussion so even if a
  • 01:13:25
    of the City Council.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:13:44
    all right noted thank you for that and glad that we'll get another chance to dig into those details thank you Public Works for representing your part of it and let's keep moving because we have we have several more we have about 20 minutes and I want to make sure we can go through other important fees and program changes that are part of what you want to present today
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:14:03
    Thanks council president and I promise we'll wrap up because part of what's forthcoming we need to come back to you on anyway so we'll introduce the topic you know I know that nobody has ever had anything to say about garbage so we will want to come back for that what we're proposing with the right-of-way and this is an important part of the conversation we have not raised our right-of-way fees since 2015 the slide that's available on the screen and for the public.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:14:27
    Can you just back up and when you say right-of-way fees can you just in everyday person terms explain what that is
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:14:32
    Yeah, it's what people pay for the types of things, transportation fee overnight, sidewalk cafe permit, valley parking zone permit, excavation fees, the list that we handed out, the slide gives some examples of common
  • 01:14:48
    fees.
  • 01:14:49
    And so they are primarily construction-related or temporary business-related, like with the Sidewalk Cafe.
  • 01:14:56
    There are some that are temporary, like a Boulevard Planter, that are small amounts.
  • 01:15:02
    These fees, does that answer your question, Council President?
  • 01:15:05
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:15:05
    What people pay for use of the right-of-way for various purposes outlined here.
  • 01:15:09
    Correct.
  • 01:15:09
    Thank you.
  • 01:15:09
    Just continue.
  • 01:15:10
    I just needed that jargon straight down.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:15:11
    The primary payers here are businesses and contractors.
  • 01:15:14
    Not exclusively, but primary.
  • 01:15:16
    Those fees have not gone up since 2015.
  • 01:15:19
    Inflation's gone up over 30%.
  • 01:15:21
    What we're doing here is proposing that we increase fees less than inflation would have us.
  • 01:15:27
    These fees, by the way, are set by you.
  • 01:15:29
    So we're introducing them now and we'll want to come back.
  • 01:15:32
    But it will also provide the extra services that we've talked about in terms of the vehicles, vegetation management, and primarily in dollar amounts, the parking enforcement capacity.
  • 01:15:41
    So it's a recognition that we haven't raised them and inflation has been a thing.
  • 01:15:46
    and with that increase, which we don't minimize, we think are a lot of improvements in service to meet the public's expectations.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:15:55
    Thank you, Director.
  • 01:15:56
    I see Ms. Naker with a question.
  • 01:15:57
    Go ahead.
  • 01:15:57
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 01:15:58
    I know we're trying to move, so I promise I'm going to keep it short after this.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:16:01
    We can extend to you.
  • 01:16:02
    I just wanted to start to get us moving at a faster pace.
  • 01:16:05
    So go ahead.
  • 01:16:06
    I respect that 100%.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:16:08
    Like I said, I think that this is where we should be recouping our costs.
  • 01:16:12
    I'm curious.
  • 01:16:13
    We've talked about this with a number of departments now, how we raise taxes on our residents.
  • 01:16:18
    But when it comes to these contractors, these construction companies,
  • 01:16:23
    I'm curious
  • 01:16:46
    it seems like nothing for the kind of businesses that are doing that and so I'm curious how does this compare to say Minneapolis or other suburban cities?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:16:55
    Council President, Council Member Naker we can come back with that I know when we looked at the hooded meter fees for events when we looked at Minneapolis our proposal there lines up with what Minneapolis charges we could though come back and list how our neighboring cities charge for these types of
  • 01:17:14
    of the City of St. Paul.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:17:34
    Just on this, Director, so I know that this is like a fee schedule that we're beginning a conversation today.
  • 01:17:41
    It would come back to us in the future for council action, but then how does it fit into the overall budget?
  • 01:17:46
    Can you just explain what we're doing here in the top line?
  • 01:17:49
    What's the impact of if we pass this?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:17:53
    Council President, I'm jumping ahead and I'll come back, so sorry for the... What's proposed here in right of way of these is an additional amount of $652,000.
  • 01:18:01
    That's what's proposed.
  • 01:18:04
    That's approximately, we want to confirm the details, a 27% increase in those charges.
  • 01:18:10
    Other than the special event fees, we're more or less approving across the board increase of 27% to those fees.
  • 01:18:17
    Again, they're proposed here, so that's the impact.
  • 01:18:22
    and that we will come back to you for a detailed conversation because what you have is a list of all those fees and charges.
  • 01:18:29
    The public is seeing a slide with some examples.
  • 01:18:33
    Does that answer your question?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:18:35
    Yes, I was trying to understand if we do this what does that matter for how we're
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:18:39
    I think for those of you who have been here longer than me, to be able to have a conversation about garbage that is exciting is a great thing.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:18:58
    Was it never exciting to you?
  • 01:18:59
    You were not once excited all this time.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:19:04
    I don't love garbage as much as Sarah Haas, but it's a critical service.
  • 01:19:07
    It's one of those things we talk about that people care about it for the right reasons.
  • 01:19:11
    And so I don't mean to minimize the garbage wars.
  • 01:19:14
    The bottom line here, and we're going to come back and talk to you about this.
  • 01:19:17
    These are proposed rates that council has set.
  • 01:19:20
    These are not final.
  • 01:19:23
    The action here is yours.
  • 01:19:25
    What I want to highlight, and we can jump to how the fees are structured and what they are, is that what the city is proposing is overall an increase in service quality to the public.
  • 01:19:37
    So 10% of the service would be provided by city employees.
  • 01:19:41
    That's a big part of the budget.
  • 01:19:42
    We're standing up those services.
  • 01:19:45
    We're focused, as we've told you before, on the areas that are hardest to reach.
  • 01:19:50
    Alleys, topography, narrow
  • 01:19:52
    City Council, City Council, City Council, City Council, streets, often low income, and we've identified those routes.
  • 01:19:58
    These are 18 new union jobs.
  • 01:20:00
    The bulky item collection, and you know this, you experience it when people contact you about bulkies, would go from two to three items to 12 items at the same cost.
  • 01:20:09
    It's easier for residents.
  • 01:20:10
    We have this phenomenal partnership with Second Chance on mattresses.
  • 01:20:15
    The bulkies would not have to
  • 01:20:20
    If you ask us about KPIs, we're looking at an increase in bulky collection and an increase in waste diversion.
  • 01:20:29
    This allows for opting out of cart sharing over time with provisions.
  • 01:20:34
    Again, a key point for the public.
  • 01:20:36
    Customer service calls would be centralized.
  • 01:20:38
    Our team does a phenomenal job.
  • 01:20:40
    Some of them are here taking the calls.
  • 01:20:43
    The fact that we are getting these calls means we know firsthand where problems are occurring or where things are going well.
  • 01:20:49
    We've got a fantastic team there.
  • 01:20:51
    Billing would be issued quarterly.
  • 01:20:53
    We would organize four regional meetings in the city, cleanups in partnership with FCC.
  • 01:21:01
    And like we mentioned earlier, the solid waste team is taking over collection in the right of ways.
  • 01:21:05
    These are all improvements that the public has asked for.
  • 01:21:09
    The fee is structured, and we want to come back because if I go over them quickly it's not to minimize their importance.
  • 01:21:15
    The fees are structured as a fee that's based in the property taxes and a fee that is paid for collection when it comes to garbage.
  • 01:21:23
    So the annual service fee for recycling, it includes collection costs, residents are not billed separately for this service.
  • 01:21:30
    So our current partnership with Eureka for single family one to four units,
  • 01:21:36
    and FCC for five plus is included in that.
  • 01:21:40
    Those are these fees and if you look at both the garbage, garbage does not include collection, it includes collection disposal or separately.
  • 01:21:51
    There's an increase in costs initially to invest and build up this capacity.
  • 01:21:56
    If you look at the cost changes over time, they're phenomenal.
  • 01:22:01
    For those of you who have been on the Council longer, we've gone through times when recycling costs have doubled
  • 01:22:05
    and the City Council, you know, year to year.
  • 01:22:07
    This is an increase, you know, we don't minimize it for some of the fees and you'll see these rolled up into one in the next slide, but then a reduction over time in recycling and minimizing costs for garbage.
  • 01:22:20
    What we are proposing, and again, these are emphasis on proposed, it's their conditional on your approval.
  • 01:22:27
    These are the collection costs, so if you think about garbage, how will your residents experience that?
  • 01:22:32
    Fees, you know, part of its annual service, part of its collection.
  • 01:22:36
    This slide is a bottom line.
  • 01:22:37
    What does that cost them per year based on what we're proposing?
  • 01:22:41
    For low-waste households every other week, there would be a reduction of 6.7% year over year.
  • 01:22:49
    For the other households, I don't want to minimize the increase, but compared to the service outcomes, it's reasonable.
  • 01:22:55
    Compared to inflation, it's reasonable.
  • 01:22:58
    And then over time, it would benefit from some of the annual service fee costs.
  • 01:23:03
    This is what we will want to come back to you on.
  • 01:23:06
    The public's been curious to know what's being proposed here.
  • 01:23:09
    There's a lot of really important information in the details here.
  • 01:23:13
    There are adjustments that can be made.
  • 01:23:15
    But we wanted to reward low-waste households.
  • 01:23:20
    So that's where you see a reduction and smooth the increase for other households in line with the benefits that they'll be receiving in the collection and services.
  • 01:23:33
    I'm going to jump to sewers and then we can come back to this, Council President, on what we want to do with sewers.
  • 01:23:37
    Normally you talk about sewer rates at this time.
  • 01:23:40
    We got our rate study back from Baker Tilly just last Thursday and there's a lot of important dynamics on the slide that I have up that we need to take a look at.
  • 01:23:50
    of the City of St. Paul, City Council, Budget Committee of the City of St. Paul.
  • 01:24:13
    Like I mentioned, back to Councilmember Naker, your question or Council President, the stormwater fees will go up marginally to account for the $950,000 in street sweeping.
  • 01:24:26
    And then what we've really got to do is layer on a review based on our bond rating and our cash position.
  • 01:24:33
    What does our debt profile look like going forward?
  • 01:24:36
    and how do the local option sales tax projects, the common sense projects you'll talk about this afternoon impact as they do more work in the streets, how does that, does that, how do we smooth the impact that that has on our sewer funds.
  • 01:24:48
    So this is a slide to say we're going to come back to you.
  • 01:24:54
    Council President, we can come back to any part of these.
  • 01:24:57
    This completes.
  • 01:24:59
    There are summary slides that talk about how funds have changed over time.
  • 01:25:02
    Happy to go through those.
  • 01:25:05
    But I imagine in the time you have, FTE information.
  • 01:25:08
    We're really happy, by the way, with our hiring.
  • 01:25:11
    We've gone through positions through challenges where we were desperate to hire people for our street service workers.
  • 01:25:17
    Now, in a couple of instances, we've had more than 100 people apply for those positions, which is phenomenal.
  • 01:25:22
    We're hiring folks from St Paul.
  • 01:25:25
    I'm happy to come back to any of these, but want to be respectful of your time and the questions that come out of all of this.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:25:34
    I see a question from Ms. Naker.
  • 01:25:35
    Go ahead.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:25:36
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 01:25:37
    One small question and one bigger picture question.
  • 01:25:40
    Small question is just why is there such a significant drop off in recycling rates in 2029?
  • 01:25:45
    And the bigger picture question, I appreciate your point about inflation in terms of garbage rates, but inflation is not 8% or 10%, so this is going up significantly.
  • 01:25:59
    I want to be able to answer constituents' questions about what was the value of doing this new negotiation, being able to contract with one provider, being able to bring services in-house.
  • 01:26:11
    I had been saying to folks that I thought this would get us better rates and better service.
  • 01:26:15
    And I'm not sure, looking at this, if that's accurate.
  • 01:26:19
    But maybe you can correct me.
  • 01:26:20
    So what has happened as a result of moving to this new system of collection?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:26:26
    Yeah, Council President, Council Member Naker, I'll provide an outline of that, but for exactly the reasons you said, it's worth spending more time on it because you will get lots of really good questions from your constituents on this.
  • 01:26:37
    If we look only at the contract, for example with FCC, it's very favorable in terms of costs over time.
  • 01:26:44
    there are other parts that are added into that so fuel prices have gone up substantially the Ramsey the fee that Ramsey County charges us has gone up substantially I mentioned labor costs have gone up you know more than inflation for these drivers and you know that's a great thing when we look at what's layered into that we think that the collection the contract we have for collection is both
  • 01:27:09
    So we would have expected the same rate increase or greater if we had stayed under any contract?
  • 01:27:39
    Council President, I'll let Sarah Haas, who's our manager for solid waste and recycling, talk about the details there.
  • 01:27:45
    I think the short answer is this is better than by every measure than what we would have had.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:27:51
    Council President, Council Member Nieker, when we come before you with the rate discussion, I think there will be a lot more detail that will answer those specific questions.
  • 01:28:01
    If we're just looking at the collection costs, the increases are not
  • 01:28:05
    as significant as that slide.
  • 01:28:07
    That slide includes that annual service fee as well, which I think was a 29.9% or around 30% increase.
  • 01:28:15
    Yeah, 29.9% increase.
  • 01:28:17
    So that's factored into that total amount that's on the final slide.
  • 01:28:23
    But when we look at just the collection costs, they are a smaller percentage.
  • 01:28:27
    They were the best that we were proposed and do include a number of factors.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:28:33
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:28:33
    And then to answer your question about 2029, I was wondering if anyone would notice that.
  • 01:28:37
    It is not an error.
  • 01:28:39
    It is based on legislation that was passed this last session that is a consumer producer responsibility bill that is anticipated to cover the cost of recycling statewide and expand recycling services.
  • 01:28:55
    The details of that are still being worked out.
  • 01:28:57
    for Recycling Collection from producers in 2029 and by 2031 it should increase to 90%.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 01:29:12
    and the City Council.
  • 01:29:30
    I am interested in seeing basically the percentage change in annual costs for organized trash be spread out more equitably.
  • 01:29:41
    And I say that because I have tension that I want to share with you.
  • 01:29:45
    So I think it's very aspirational for us to have households be all zero waste.
  • 01:29:53
    I mean, obviously, I think that's what we would all want.
  • 01:29:56
    But I just think that it's also really tough for us to get there, too.
  • 01:30:00
    The unintended consequence of rates like this is that families who are larger households, which many of them are immigrant and refugee communities, also families of color, they end up paying more for trash.
  • 01:30:14
    And it's really hard for me to imagine a household of 12 people, 10 people, which is very typical in my ward.
  • 01:30:22
    to be able to operate on just the small bin, even weekly.
  • 01:30:28
    And so I just want to name that for me, this conversation about equity.
  • 01:30:33
    It's even missing from the larger movement around environmental justice and climate justice too, which is why it's really important for folks of color and folks who are working class, immigrants and refugees to be at the front lines and be centered in that work.
  • 01:30:47
    And this is a realization that I'm having more
  • 01:30:51
    with folks as I'm talking to them, not only about organized trash, but hearing from them about the struggles they're going through, even with our system as it is right now, and other conversations around climate and environmental justice too.
  • 01:31:06
    And so I am concerned just with the unintended consequences that this would have, especially for those larger households.
  • 01:31:14
    And so I wanted to express that to everybody here.
  • 01:31:17
    I mean, for households that are operating off of a weekly, or even every other week, small bin, I am curious to how many people they have in their household.
  • 01:31:28
    Those are probably folks who are maybe one to three people in the household.
  • 01:31:34
    And so these are just some of the things that are in mind for me as I'm taking a look at this.
  • 01:31:41
    When is the council going to be voting on this, by the way?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:31:47
    Council President, Council Member Yang, I don't know that there's a date set on voting.
  • 01:31:52
    We plan to bring it back in two weeks on the solid waste.
  • 01:31:59
    Okay, so we'll come back in about a month to talk about that and we could certainly talk to you about it in the meantime.
  • 01:32:04
    Part of what's changing that I want to honor, we share your concerns is the bottom line.
  • 01:32:10
    What's playing out in the background here is a really important shift from organized collection to waste diversion and recycling.
  • 01:32:17
    And so part of what we're building into the system is the ability to divert waste, which will benefit everybody.
  • 01:32:24
    That includes organics that the county will stand up.
  • 01:32:27
    We'll be providing opportunities in the future for other recycling opportunities and that moving away from organized collection to reduction has to include an answer to the equity questions you've asked.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:32:46
    Just toward that point too, I mean a feature in the new proposal that it looks like is creating flexibility and is getting phased in is opting out and cart sharing.
  • 01:32:59
    Do you think that that could help larger households that have more unique needs be able to find a cost effective solution for them?
  • 01:33:09
    What would that look like?
  • 01:33:11
    And I'm just asking because I've heard this be a top thing.
  • 01:33:15
    asked by lots of households in my ward and over the years with getting from what we used to have to now.
  • 01:33:20
    So I do see things that actually are better for working families, like not having the customer service go to a random call center in Chicago.
  • 01:33:29
    A city worker's now picking up that phone.
  • 01:33:31
    More ability to, with less effort, get rid of bulkies.
  • 01:33:36
    But what other improvements do you think do build on that, even if it's not where we all would want it to be?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:33:45
    If you go, Council President, and Sarah Haas can correct me, I think the slide that's up right now highlights those in terms of the outcomes.
  • 01:33:57
    And I appreciate Councilmember Johnson for emphasizing this.
  • 01:34:01
    is that part of what we're addressing is the fact that a lot of lower income households have not received the service that other households have because it was harder, it was physically harder to serve them.
  • 01:34:12
    They lived in a route that was tough or the vehicles didn't work or there was a lot of snow.
  • 01:34:16
    This really showed up in parts of wards five, six, and seven in the past few years.
  • 01:34:22
    And so part of what we're doing here is kind of lifting the expectations and the ability for us to serve everybody in St. Paul.
  • 01:34:30
    So that's not a full answer to your question, but I believe this slide begins to outline the benefits over time.
  • 01:34:36
    It includes cart sharing, which is an award for families of any size.
  • 01:34:42
    There'll be provisions on that, and it's phased in.
  • 01:34:44
    These community cleanups are an opportunity for people to dispose.
  • 01:34:50
    And the bulkies are opportunities
  • 01:34:51
    that we think the experience benefits for residents are going to be much better in this plan.
  • 01:34:59
    I didn't say that very well.
  • 01:35:00
    And I think it'll be important to talk about your questions in detail when we come back.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:35:04
    Yeah, and I just appreciate the lens that Councilman Yang is asking us to bring.
  • 01:35:08
    And I do see improvements in what's being proposed that otherwise would not be possible or weren't possible under the contract we've had.
  • 01:35:16
    and as I understand it, going through negotiations, there was overall a range of options that were less value and probably costlier for what our residents are getting in return.
  • 01:35:28
    It's a huge deal that we're moving to a portion of these being municipally collected.
  • 01:35:32
    I feel excited by the direction we're going in and I think we should keep bringing this lens to the conversation and lifting up where it's happening.
  • 01:35:39
    really just trying to unpack what I'm understanding here with respect to what folks are bringing up.
  • 01:35:44
    So thank you for your leadership and partnership in that.
  • 01:35:47
    So we have about ten minutes before pre-council.
  • 01:35:52
    Are there other parts of your presentation you want to specifically take time to unpack, or do you want to keep doing Q&A?
  • 01:35:58
    Are you fine with just continued Q&A?
  • 01:36:01
    We can just do that.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:36:01
    Council President, happy to do Q&A.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:36:03
    Okay, so I see Ms. Johnson, go ahead.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:36:05
    Yeah, I was just going to ask you to go through the ARPA slide.
  • 01:36:09
    a little bit and I know that we kind of briefed over quite a few things towards the end here but I am one of the council members that kind of asked for this part of the art project to be kind of brought into perspective and as I wasn't a part of some of the initial conversations I know some of them have been obligated but this is a department that actually has a significant amount of upper left and I'm just kind of wondering if you can go through that slide versus breeze through.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:36:35
    Council President Johnson, happy to and I'll call on Shannon Forney and others to correct me.
  • 01:36:41
    One of the things that I can't believe I didn't mention is at the bottom of this slide, the snowplow route optimization vehicle, we're calling it VROS vehicle route optimization system.
  • 01:36:49
    This will happen next year irregardless or no matter what happens on plowing is that we have an RFP out right now
  • 01:36:57
    and we'll have a half dozen vendors, we hope, propose on that to automate our snowplow route system.
  • 01:37:05
    Right now, they're on paper clipboards.
  • 01:37:08
    It's inefficient, it's slow.
  • 01:37:10
    Snowplow routing is really, really complicated.
  • 01:37:13
    It's not the same as saying, how do I get to
  • 01:37:16
    a business that you're dealing in extra dimensions and turn lanes and all that.
  • 01:37:21
    So the money that's left and substantial amount of money, $900,000, will be to purchase and implement that and that will be services, it will be programming, it will be equipment, that there will be a tablet in each vehicle.
  • 01:37:34
    And it's going to be, and again I should have mentioned this earlier, Bev and I will take all your time on this, it allows us to have a new driver
  • 01:37:43
    who's never driven a route show up and be told exactly where to go it allows the drivers like for example we have folks come in from forestry if they have to leave to go deal with you know a crisis in forestry somebody could go exactly to where they were pick up that you're not guessing
  • 01:37:59
    the information on what's been accomplished is automated and how it comes back to us it'll be efficient in terms of fuel in terms of just the time we spend on that and so that we're really really excited about and that's a big chunk of that money
  • 01:38:15
    Enterprise Asset Management System, all of the things that I mentioned in one of the first blue slides, streetlights, signals, all of our physical assets, most of them will be part of this asset management system.
  • 01:38:31
    It's very expensive, it's very complicated, it's very important, and we're working across departments.
  • 01:38:37
    Water, I think, is in the lead on it.
  • 01:38:40
    We're a big part of that.
  • 01:38:42
    To implement a new Oracle system,
  • 01:38:44
    it's a
  • 01:39:03
    important part of the backbone of our services.
  • 01:39:07
    That's the second biggest chunk or maybe I guess the biggest chunk.
  • 01:39:11
    There was money allocated for safety improvements and a striper and a painter, we have just put in an order on a new striper and a striper is one of those pieces of equipment that's highly customized, super important to do the long line painting efficiently.
  • 01:39:28
    and there's a long wait time on.
  • 01:39:30
    So a big chunk of that I think would actually show up now as reserved.
  • 01:39:36
    $350,000 for a striper and 18 months, Joe?
  • 01:39:45
    It's important.
  • 01:39:47
    So that is that part of that.
  • 01:39:49
    I hope that answered your questions, Council Member.
  • 01:39:52
    We're watching that very closely and all of these are really important.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:39:57
    Okay, and then did you have a timeline on the painting and the striping?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:40:02
    The striper has been, we've got the, it's going to be 18 months about until we have it.
  • 01:40:07
    Just because we've got specifications all worked out, it's highly customized.
  • 01:40:11
    We've put in the purchase order on that so it's reserved.
  • 01:40:13
    The money is, you know, the order is in and now we're waiting for it to arrive.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:40:20
    okay and then I guess just from a lens for all for my awareness too with the new kind of angles for reporting and will you be just bringing these forward as they come like bringing updates on when like an RFP is selected or like when for the snowplow routes and just kind of keeping people up to date on like the striper just wondering what kind of updates we would get
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:40:46
    I think the update to Council President Johnson will come in two forms.
  • 01:40:50
    We provide regular updates on ARPA spending through the Office of Financial Services.
  • 01:40:56
    So that's a requirement and we quarterly do that update in terms of all this funding that was reserved and spent citywide.
  • 01:41:05
    As enterprise asset management will be slow and not very announceable, but really important, you will hear from us when we get the new striper and we get this vehicle route optimization system because I don't know if we have to bring it back for Council approval, but we're going to be really excited to get it in place and maybe do some early testing of it in the winter.
  • 01:41:25
    It depends on timeline.
  • 01:41:26
    So you will get regular automatic updates through the process that's in place.
  • 01:41:34
    and then primarily on the striper and the snowplow route optimization, we're happy to come back and talk about it or show off the striper when it arrives.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:41:45
    We've got about five minutes left, and I have Ms. Buie and Ms. Jost.
  • 01:41:48
    So let's wrap up with those two, knowing that we'll have you back at 1 PM, and we'll keep talking.
  • 01:41:54
    All right, go ahead, Ms. Buie.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:41:55
    Oh, well, so we're coming back for public works at 1 PM?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:41:59
    At 1 PM, we'll get the capital budget plan, but also Sean will be here, and we can ask him questions.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:42:08
    And that will be led, Council President, Council Member Buie, by Nick Peterson, our city engineer, who will go through that.
  • 01:42:13
    But we'll all be back for that.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:42:15
    I just want to say I appreciate just the overview.
  • 01:42:20
    My favorite part of public works is actually solid waste.
  • 01:42:23
    So I really enjoy that.
  • 01:42:25
    I just want to say thank you, Sarah, for being there at our illegal dumping community conversation.
  • 01:42:31
    It was really robust.
  • 01:42:32
    I actually learned a lot about our trash pickup.
  • 01:42:35
    I learned about our cool service with the adopt a trash bin service where community have the opportunities to
  • 01:42:44
    to help remove trash.
  • 01:42:47
    Also, I have a question around the four regional cleanups.
  • 01:42:51
    It says it's in partnership with the garbage haulers.
  • 01:42:54
    Is this also, can you share just how this would be a partnership and how you perceive to work with council members and district councils?
  • 01:43:04
    The last community cleanup that we had was amazing, had a lot of great feedback.
  • 01:43:10
    People were excited to see city staff on university.
  • 01:43:13
    I just think this is the area where we can really get as many hands on deck, but I just wanted to hear from you, particularly around what the plan is for next year.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:43:24
    We are still developing what this is going to look like for next year because we'll be launching it January 1, but the solid waste recycling
  • 01:43:39
    Division has a separate agreement with district councils that provides funding to support the activities related to our work outside of the other city agreements.
  • 01:43:48
    And one of the things we're in conversations with them about is having a requirement for the funding be that they organize at least a cleanup, right?
  • 01:43:56
    And then we'll continue to provide the materials and the collection of those items afterwards.
  • 01:44:02
    and then with FCC and the larger, we haven't identified how we're going to choose the regions.
  • 01:44:08
    I've had some ideas, you know, do we rotate it so we kind of do quarter around the city and everybody gets a cleanup.
  • 01:44:15
    But what will happen during those cleanups is we'll organize litter cleanup at the same time in that area.
  • 01:44:21
    The bagged material will be set aside.
  • 01:44:24
    FCC is just going to come through with staff
  • 01:44:26
    and City Trucks, too, because we'll have them by then.
  • 01:44:29
    They'll be coming through.
  • 01:44:30
    Anything that's illegally dumped, we'll just go in the packer or in the recycling, if it can be, and we'll collect those bagged trash.
  • 01:44:37
    Residents will be able to put items out during that time as well on the boulevard, and we'll pick it up.
  • 01:44:42
    So it's really like a clean sweep, is what I call it.
  • 01:44:45
    We just come through and get everything that we can, and then do another quarter in another area.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:44:50
    I guess my question for Director Kershaw, is there a dollar sign connected to these four regional cleanups?
  • 01:44:58
    Also, if you are able to answer as well, would that include additional staff?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:45:04
    The regional cleanups are included in the collection costs at residents that we've already shared with you.
  • 01:45:09
    There's no additional fee.
  • 01:45:11
    They'll also be available at our Citywide drop-off at no additional fee to collect solid waste at those events, which we don't currently do.
  • 01:45:19
    So you can just really clean out your garage.
  • 01:45:21
    The staff that we've already proposed will cover those services as well.
  • 01:45:25
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:45:27
    So thank you for that.
  • 01:45:28
    We've got one minute left for Ms. Jost to take us home, and then we've got to get to pre-council.
  • 01:45:32
    Thank you.
  • 01:45:32
    Go ahead, Ms. Jost.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:45:33
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 01:45:34
    Director Kirch, I have a question about the enterprise asset management system, which I'm very excited about.
  • 01:45:40
    I just want to also emphasize how critical this system is for maintaining and repairing our infrastructure efficiently and effectively for years to come.
  • 01:45:51
    My question is, my understanding is we've got two FTEs that are
  • 01:45:56
    being hired with the art money as part of that and looking forward to I guess maybe not next year but years after that when we have used all of that money do you see that we would need more FTEs or like how do you anticipate we fund the asset management system?
  • 01:46:18
    Second question is with the remaining 1.3 million dollars like how and when is that going to be spent?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:46:25
    Council President and Council Member Jost, I'll do my best to answer those questions.
  • 01:46:29
    I believe, as to your last question, the money will be spent down for everything but Eames, enterprise asset management, probably by the, certainly by the end of next calendar year, just because the vehicle route optimization system is a big part of that.
  • 01:46:42
    We hope to have the striper truck in place.
  • 01:46:46
    So those two will spend down most of that.
  • 01:46:48
    I believe with the enterprise asset management, the two FTEs are a change in funding source, so it's moving it from
  • 01:46:55
    to see how that system can overlap
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:47:19
    We are going to
  • 01:47:47
    Recess for now.
  • 01:47:48
    We're coming back at 1 to hear the capital plan.
  • 01:47:53
    So we heard a lot about operating plan and what it takes to deliver these services, maintain what we have for residents, and fix and improve and modernize all of that.
  • 01:48:01
    So thank you for this initial convo.
  • 01:48:03
    Much more to come.
  • 01:48:05
    The Budget Committee is in recess until 1.
  • 01:48:07
    Thank you.
• • 01:49:56
    St Paul, City Council
  • 01:50:19
    City of St Paul, City Council
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:51:11
    St Paul, City Council,
  • 01:51:41
    City of St Paul, City Council
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:52:25
    And we've got other council members on the way.
  • 01:52:27
    All right, I'm reconvening the Budget Committee from recess.
  • 01:52:31
    We started this morning with the Public Works 2025 operating plan budget proposal.
  • 01:52:37
    We're going to continue on now with Nick Peterson, who's going to walk us through the Public Works five-year capital plan.
  • 01:52:43
    This is going to look ahead to the outlook for our infrastructure plan, especially with
  • 01:52:49
    of the city of St. Paul.
  • 01:52:50
    We have a lot of new investments that are going to make a lot of this possible.
  • 01:52:53
    Here to give us more of that in detail is Mr. Nick Peterson.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:52:56
    Thank you and welcome.
  • 01:53:09
    take some time to go through funding sources the significant most typical funding sources for public works construction projects and we don't do that whole lot and just thought that would be really helpful as we walk through this then do a quick overview on the very draft preliminary if I could say that several different ways several different terms but very draft five-year plan still has a lot of iterations to go through
  • 01:53:32
    and certainly seeking as many comments and great insight as much great insight as we can possibly possibly receive so and then of course common sense and a little look at the projects that would be just around the corner so from a 2024 standpoint the significant projects that get started this year Minnesota Street the second phase of that project downtown well underway a lot of good work happening there
  • 01:53:59
    of the City of West St Paul.
  • 01:54:15
    of the City of St Paul.
  • 01:54:16
    I'm super excited about that, super excited that that's going to get started.
  • 01:54:19
    We've had some early utility work and some removals take place, and there will be more work that takes place before the end of the year.
  • 01:54:26
    Burn Suburban, which is a sidewalk infill project, which is a term for putting a new sidewalk where there isn't sidewalk today over on the east side.
  • 01:54:36
    And then, of course, the Kellogg Third Street Bridge, Kellogg Third Street Bridge, a big project that shouldn't be a stranger to anybody here.
  • 01:54:42
    that project's starting.
  • 01:54:44
    It's a three-year project and we'll anticipate some continued work here for some time.
  • 01:54:53
    Then on the mill and overlay front, Concordia Avenue is a project that just started last week, so there are some removal activities occurring along the corridor.
  • 01:55:01
    Going to work on putting back the concrete improvements that are there, so pet ramps and that sort of thing.
  • 01:55:09
    And then the bituminous work is expected to follow.
  • 01:55:12
    and then the Residential Mill and Overlay Program.
  • 01:55:14
    We're into our second year of the Residential Mill and Overlay Program and really rounding out the second phase of Creighton Baird in the western part of the city and then 4th Howard, the first phase of that on the eastern side of the city.
  • 01:55:27
    So I'm excited to get those going.
  • 01:55:32
    And then if we transition into some of the more significant capital funding sources, I want to go through this in order that they appear in the five-year plan.
  • 01:55:42
    So at the very top we have St. Paul Streets is what it's called, but the funding source is predominantly street reconstruction bonds.
  • 01:55:50
    they're issued annually for street improvements and there's a host of strings attached to them but really what this funding source pays for on a typical year is there's four million dollars for residential mill overlay for that new program that was created and then about twelve and a half million dollars in any given year generally being prioritized towards the residential reconstructions because the residential streets there are limitations to what funding sources can be used for that
  • 01:56:20
    Street reconstruction bonds annually, nominally $16.5 million
  • 01:56:27
    then moving on into municipal state aid generally called MSA, municipal state aid.
  • 01:56:34
    This is largely the state gas tax and the state gas tax currently at 28 and a half cents it will be 31.8 per gallon effective next year it gets pegged to inflation which is really exciting that the state aid
  • 01:56:54
    It's formula funding so half of that dollar amount comes from our population another half comes from what's defined as needs so the cost to build and maintain our MSA system over 25 years
  • 01:57:18
    It sounds like it covers all the costs to construct and maintain that entire system.
  • 01:57:23
    It doesn't.
  • 01:57:24
    It's really meant to be a way to compare all the municipalities, apples to apples, to one another to determine how that money flushes out.
  • 01:57:34
    And then of course it has some strings attached as well.
  • 01:57:36
    It has to be used on state aid routes and it has to follow state aid standards.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:57:40
    So if you were going to start to pie chart this out, like how we fund our capital projects, can you just help us understand along the way roughly what amount is street reconstruction bonds, roughly what amount is MSA and now common sense and then general fund.
  • 01:57:55
    And if that's something we get offline, I also would like to see that.
  • 01:57:58
    I just think it's helpful to understand which sources are we most reliant on, how does our general fund fit into that.
  • 01:58:03
    That would be very useful as a high level fact.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:58:06
    Sure, Council President.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:58:07
    And I also see, sorry Mr. Peterson, I see Ms. Jost has a question, go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:58:12
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 01:58:13
    Mr. Peterson, could you talk about the municipal state aid says for use on MSA routes with MSA standards.
  • 01:58:20
    Could you like give an example of like what makes a route an MSA route and I'm sure there's a lot of standards but if there's anything you could share about what that means that would be helpful.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:58:31
    Sure, Council President, Council Member.
  • 01:58:33
    Great question.
  • 01:58:33
    I could talk about that for a really long time because actually the creation of the state aid system, whether it's for a city or a county is actually something pretty fascinating.
  • 01:58:43
    But there is a state aid system that any municipality over population 5,000 can be eligible for state aid and there needs to be a system that is identified.
  • 01:58:54
    It has to be an official system of record.
  • 01:58:56
    It's on record with folks at MnDOT state aid and there's a host of connectivity requirements for how space to part different roads are and how much traffic they're going to carry.
  • 01:59:11
    So the objective really here at a high level is that the state aid system is going to be higher volume roads and they're going to connect to other high volume roads generally speaking.
  • 01:59:22
    and so there's a system that's identified and then there's a whole host of statutory design requirements that are in Minnesota Chapter 8820 that lays out the state aid rules.
  • 01:59:34
    Thank you.
  • 01:59:40
    So the Council President's request, street reconstruction bonds is a significant funding source.
  • 01:59:46
    So in any given year I would estimate that's nominally 25% of construction, just at a real high level here.
  • 01:59:56
    And then from a state aid standpoint, municipal state aid is not as significant, so maybe that's nominally an eighth
  • 02:00:05
    of what we get now in kind of taking common sense into account.
  • 02:00:09
    The numbers are different.
  • 02:00:11
    I used to estimate that when we didn't have common sense.
  • 02:00:16
    then moving on in the common sense this is the local option sales tax that was fairly recently passed by the legislature it's three quarters of the new 1% sales tax and you know this is going to generate on the order of 30 million dollars a year and so you know any given year can change but that would put this funding source in the area of you know 50% 25 to 50% in a given year this is a big funding source for us.
  • 02:00:46
    and then general fund.
  • 02:00:48
    General fund is super important.
  • 02:00:51
    A lot of the projects or the funding sources rather that I just went through, those have strings attached and they have to be used on certain routes.
  • 02:01:02
    Common sense, there's a commitment to use it on routes that were identified when we went before council and the legislature as well.
  • 02:01:10
    So there's identified corridors that are there.
  • 02:01:14
    The street reconstruction bonds are for replacing things that are in place, generally speaking.
  • 02:01:19
    And then state aid, as I noted, has some state aid requirements.
  • 02:01:23
    When we do work on parts of the system that aren't eligible for some of those types of funds, so like the residential system, we can't use state aid on our residential network.
  • 02:01:34
    We can't use state aid to replace sidewalks on our residential network.
  • 02:01:38
    we can't use it for any LE improvements.
  • 02:01:41
    There are a lot of limitations there for those other funding sources and general fund is super important.
  • 02:01:48
    We've been wildly successful as I look at Ruben our transportation planning manager we've been wildly successful getting federal grants and with federal grants there's a requirement that we have to bring local share to that so usually federal grants are going to pay for 80% of a project usually just 80%
  • 02:02:07
    So we have to pick up another 20% and then we have to pick up the project development costs that go with that.
  • 02:02:13
    The engineering or the administration, the inspection, the community engagement, those have to be picked up somewhere else.
  • 02:02:20
    So the general fund and sources that are like that, that can be used on these off-system type things are super important.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:02:31
    Thank you.
  • 02:02:32
    I think I saw a question from Ms. Naker.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:02:33
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 02:02:34
    This is actually just sort of reinforcing your question, which I really appreciate and agree with.
  • 02:02:38
    It's important, Mr. Peterson, for us to know the dollar amounts associated with each of these types of funds.
  • 02:02:43
    You mentioned 30 million for common sense, but dollar amounts for street reconstruction bonds, MSA.
  • 02:02:48
    And I know you're about to talk about capital improvement bonds.
  • 02:02:52
    So in addition to the dollar amounts for each of those, I'd love to know when was
  • 02:02:56
    the last time that we increased our amounts for street reconstruction bonds and capital improvement bonds because I believe those have been fairly consistent year over year.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:03:06
    Council President, Council Member, later on in the presentation there's the chart that would detail out the dollar amounts that are anticipated for each year for each of those funding sources at a high level and then maybe to respond to the
  • 02:03:21
    The question about the street reconstruction bond adjustment there was a change I don't recall whether it was two or three years ago I feel like it was two years ago to go from twelve and a half million to the sixteen and a half million To include that residential mill overlay program So that was straight reconstruction bonds, but capital improvement bonds.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:03:43
    Do you know how what that has been in for how long?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:03:46
    Council President and Council Member, I don't have the information on the historical background for the CIB program.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 02:03:56
    Maybe we can get that as follow-up.
  • 02:04:00
    Oh, Ms. Mitchell, go ahead.
  • 02:04:01
    Council President, Council Members, it has been 11 million for a long time, as long as I can remember.
  • 02:04:08
    So there hasn't been a recent increase in CIB.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:04:17
    So then...
  • 02:04:18
    Moving into CIB, this for Public Works is generally program funding, funding that is used or accessed in really two predominant ways, so there are some maintenance type activities, but really the neighborhood can propose projects competitive, there's a competitive process, and then Public Works would propose projects and they're competitive, but it is a relatively small funding amount or funding source for Public Works compared to the rest.
  • 02:04:50
    and then of course assessments.
  • 02:04:52
    Assessments are used in reconstruction and known overlay projects and really used in two ways either to fund a project directly or to pay down the debt and provide debt service on the bonding that is done for projects.
  • 02:05:09
    and of course their external sources both Ramsey County and MnDOT operate in a similar fashion.
  • 02:05:14
    We work collaboratively on projects that may cost participate in one another's projects and each of the county and the state could issue competitive solicitations as well.
  • 02:05:26
    Then from a federal funding standpoint you know again competitive solicitations these are for generally really big projects very specific programs
  • 02:05:35
    and again we've been very successful in recent years and then of course congressional earmarks very targeted to things like the Kellogg and Third Bridge that is those out here.
  • 02:05:48
    of the
  • 02:06:12
    General Fund, because this is needed to pay for that local cost share and engineering on these federal solicitations that otherwise we'd be really challenged to be able to pick up otherwise.
  • 02:06:26
    And then, of course, legislative appropriations, which sort of speak for themselves.
  • 02:06:30
    They can come in the flavor of bonds or a general fund and have very specific identified uses.
  • 02:06:38
    then moving into the five-year plan so again very draft very iterative you know welcome your insights of course and and and you know want to make improvements wherever we can and going through the same process with our partners whether that's the county, the state, Metro Transit and so on to try and you know bolster things and make improvements where we can.
  • 02:06:58
    The five-year plan here broken into those buckets kind of starting from the top St. Paul streets would be the street reconstruction bonds the municipal state aid and common sense
  • 02:07:07
    and so on as we work through this.
  • 02:07:13
    And then the CIB and our cooperative projects, federal funding, and then sewer improvements toward the bottom.
  • 02:07:23
    So anticipating there's a lot of interest and common sense, move into common sense.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:07:29
    Yeah, before we do that, I just wanted to, it's hard to read this and so I wanted to ask if Territorial Road is on the five-year plan.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:07:39
    is territorial road on the five-year plan.
  • 02:07:42
    So territorial road has been anticipated for improvements.
  • 02:07:52
    And it's a common sense.
  • 02:07:56
    I don't recall the exact year, but it's a common sense.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:07:59
    That's the road my constituents ask about the most for improvements and is like a de facto truck route and goes by a Disabled housing accessible high-rise and so wheelchair users are using that road small businesses truck traffic all of that And so I just wanted to know if it's in where I'm going to be asked again.
  • 02:08:22
    Where is it in the process?
  • 02:08:23
    How do we get it improved?
  • 02:08:24
    What is possible?
  • 02:08:25
    So that's why I'm asking
  • 02:08:27
    We can keep moving through it.
  • 02:08:28
    I know you have common sense ahead, too.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:08:31
    So for common sense, there's a whole lot of work that's been done over the last year, reviewing initial cost estimates that city staff initially provided, considering inflation, then trying to anticipate the sales tax program.
  • 02:08:47
    And the sales tax program, both how will the city grow and maybe capture more
  • 02:08:55
    of the City of St. Paul, City of St. Paul.
  • 02:09:25
    in the initial sales tax program.
  • 02:09:29
    And that's what voters voted on.
  • 02:09:33
    These corridors are going to be really small to some that are a number of miles long.
  • 02:09:39
    And typical project delivery practice for us would be, we've got to have projects that are a manageable length, manageable size.
  • 02:09:45
    So we try to keep them at about a mile in length.
  • 02:09:49
    So they had to be broken down into
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:09:53
    I see a question from Ms. Yang.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 02:09:55
    Thanks, I just have a quick question.
  • 02:09:56
    I was wondering if the 24 program corridors, if like the number on it is an indication of like where it is on a priority level at all or if it's just purely counting the streets.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:10:07
    Council President, Council Member, it's just an identification number, so not an indication of priority.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 02:10:12
    Okay, thanks.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:10:17
    So the corridors
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:10:20
    I'm just kind of wondering from the when we're looking at these lists and also then the next the next page can you just share a little bit about when we're looking at common sense and if individuals are wanting to know just how you've themes these how these were selected and then also how they're prioritized on the on the time frame for the next five years what would you kind of share
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:10:50
    Sure.
  • 02:10:52
    Council President, Council Member, the common sense corridors were identified with a number of themes applied and those themes include trying to make connections to the river and regional
  • 02:11:12
    transit way corridors, industrial freight connections, pedestrian safety, and off street bicycle network connections.
  • 02:11:21
    So those were some really high level things, but there's also a need to disperse these things across the city and make sure even if some areas were more in asset condition need, we still needed to make sure that we were trying to move projects around.
  • 02:11:39
    of the city of St. Paul.
  • 02:11:59
    So we have 51 projects then, those 24 corridors broken into 51 project areas.
  • 02:12:06
    And because some of these corridors are really long, they're going to be broken into several projects over the 20 years.
  • 02:12:16
    And here we have a really good layout for the three step approach that was employed here.
  • 02:12:22
    So to start a really big program,
  • 02:12:25
    It takes a lot to stand this program up, and so there are some project locations that were already identified.
  • 02:12:35
    You know, conventionally it should take two, three years to develop a project before construction, especially for a more significant project.
  • 02:12:42
    And so we had to start somewhere.
  • 02:12:44
    and tried to kind of phase projects in, so not have a whole lot of projects, full capacity in the beginning, but start with one project, go to two projects and then work our way up to two and three on a pretty routine basis throughout the life of the plan.
  • 02:13:01
    So what that means is that under step one, we had to create some initial commitments to get something started just because of how long it takes to get things going.
  • 02:13:12
    and then we've got other assumptions that had to be made here for these first couple of years because we have federal funds on some of these corridors that we weren't sure whether we were going to get, but that just kind of solidified that there's already a timeline for that and we need to work towards making that happen.
  • 02:13:30
    So we maximize on the federal money.
  • 02:13:34
    So then the second step, there's a quantitative analysis that's done to try and score these in a multi-faceted approach.
  • 02:13:43
    So looking at asset condition, both the typical condition, like what does it look and feel like, how does it operate, but also then the safety elements, and then equity considerations and use and mold.
  • 02:13:59
    And then of course there's already some of these corridors that have had a lot of work done.
  • 02:14:03
    Summit Avenue had a regional trail study and we want to be cognizant of the work that has gone into that and consider creating a project to move forward there sooner rather than later.
  • 02:14:15
    And then finally, there's an iterative aspect to this.
  • 02:14:18
    So we have to work with a lot of agency partners.
  • 02:14:20
    As we look through the list of the project areas on the right, county, city, MnDOT, Metro Transit, we all have to work together.
  • 02:14:30
    and there's an iteration here as we put together our five-year plan.
  • 02:14:33
    They put together their capital plans.
  • 02:14:36
    There's a lot of back and forth that has to occur.
  • 02:14:39
    So our projects need to be adjusted to work well with those projects and the expectations that all the projects produce.
  • 02:14:49
    Grand Avenue is a classic example here where there's a fairly recent potential opportunity to implement arterial BRT which
  • 02:15:01
    is a wonderful opportunity that we don't want to lose.
  • 02:15:04
    It can help us do so much more with the corridor when things like that come up.
  • 02:15:08
    And I just point out that one bullet, but there's so many opportunities like that that come up.
  • 02:15:13
    We want to synergize around.
  • 02:15:14
    So again, projects already in the CIP have largely taken up the initial part of the five-year plan.
  • 02:15:21
    Grant, Jackson, University, Pelham, Pearl.
  • 02:15:24
    Again, Arlington was a federally funded project that we had.
  • 02:15:27
    The quantitative criteria
  • 02:15:30
    to try and rank these in a numerical fashion based on the criteria there.
  • 02:15:39
    And then there are adjustments that have to occur as we work towards the third step here.
  • 02:15:44
    These are iterations and adjustments that are needed to make sure that all the projects work synergistically.
  • 02:15:51
    and then also to make sure there isn't too much disruption occurring.
  • 02:15:56
    While I think we probably hear that folks want to have as much work occur as possible,
  • 02:16:01
    It can also be really disruptive and in a number of ways so trying to do this in a Careful fashion to make sure they're you know we're maximizing the amount of work that can be done, but also making sure that You know parts of the city are not overly impacted all at one time in one place, so Stepping into this and sort of five-year buckets the the first five-year bucket being this year through 2028
  • 02:16:29
    and these are generally the corridors that I mentioned.
  • 02:16:32
    They're shown in yellow on the screen.
  • 02:16:36
    Excited to continue these.
  • 02:16:39
    They're all really getting going right now.
  • 02:16:42
    By the time all is said and done, there's roughly $100 million in investment that occurs here in the first five years.
  • 02:16:51
    Jackson University currently being designed.
  • 02:16:54
    Grand Avenue that is in construction.
  • 02:16:58
    I see a question from Ms. Naker.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:17:06
    Go ahead.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:17:06
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 02:17:08
    Mr. Peterson, for these timeframes, these four-year timeframes, are all of the projects moving forward in parallel during that time, or are they further sequenced even within those four years?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:17:20
    Council President, Council Member, excellent question.
  • 02:17:22
    They need to be sequenced, phased, and separated
  • 02:17:27
    so those types of disruptions that I that I noted don't happen.
  • 02:17:31
    So certainly you know this isn't even the final here I mean certainly the the five-year buckets themselves could change but also within each five-year bucket there's certainly a lot of consideration for you know geographic overlap you know does it start on the west end go to the east end that that kind of thing
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:17:54
    So do we know yet within the 2024 to 28 timeframe when each of those projects is going to be happening?
  • 02:18:00
    So if someone wanted to know when is Grand Avenue happening?
  • 02:18:03
    I know in our minds 2024 to 2028 is a relatively small period of time, but for most folks it's a pretty big window.
  • 02:18:10
    So do we know that yet?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:18:12
    Council President, Council Member, I wouldn't say definitively that we know, but we do have these programmed for individual start years, the development money available in a certain year and then the project construction.
  • 02:18:24
    I wouldn't say that there's a definitive decision on when these happen yet.
  • 02:18:30
    There's still quite a bit of iteration to do.
  • 02:18:33
    But certainly we can follow up with more detail about some of the anticipated timelines, but they are still pretty draft.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:18:42
    So a question from Ms. Johnson.
  • 02:18:44
    Go ahead, Ms. Johnson.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:18:45
    Thank you Council President and thank you for presenting this.
  • 02:18:49
    I know that we've had some continued conversations just about some of the Eastside projects.
  • 02:18:54
    I guess my question for you, I do notice that like East 7th is Stillwater and Roof along with a few others are part of like the 2034 through 2038.
  • 02:19:04
    I'm wondering if you took into account some of the state projects and their timelines and especially as it relates to East 7th, I'm just kind of wondering how you timed that knowing that the construction from the state for East 7th is actually predicted quite earlier than where we would do it here so I'm just kind of wondering what was the overlap between
  • 02:19:27
    and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about like state projects, state construction, county projects, county construction and what has that communication been like and if there's room, if you see room for potential improvement later on.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:19:39
    Council President, Council Member, state projects certainly were considered and are continuing to be considered just like the Metro Transit and county projects.
  • 02:19:50
    Those, no different for East
  • 02:19:57
    there's a lot of transit change in the news recently as well as one example but has been considered, will continue to be considered and
  • 02:20:10
    I think one of the biggest influencers on the timing and phasing tends to be the Metro Transit projects and the state projects.
  • 02:20:17
    State projects are going to be higher volume roads that can carry bigger impacts to areas.
  • 02:20:25
    It has been considered and we've identified should a project nudge a little earlier to leave some buffer or move back.
  • 02:20:34
    And again we can talk through some of the details of what's anticipated there maybe.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:20:41
    Okay, thanks.
  • 02:20:44
    Actually, I'll let you move through your presentation and then we'll have some time for any thoughts.
  • 02:20:47
    So, I'll let you keep going.
  • 02:20:49
    Sorry.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:20:51
    So, in this, the second five-year bin, this is the projects that are not in the, you know, haven't been in the five-year plan for a while.
  • 02:21:00
    These are relatively fresh starts and when we talk about that overlap and creating synergies and also trying to minimize disruption, COMO, Summit, GRAND, COMO has a funding aspect because it's a county road, generally speaking.
  • 02:21:19
    Summit and GRAND are parallel, they're very close to one another and that phasing and sequencing is super important.
  • 02:21:27
    for that area.
  • 02:21:29
    Then, of course, there's the intersection with Hamlin.
  • 02:21:31
    So all these need to be contemplated.
  • 02:21:34
    We may learn of other improvements that are coming that the gas company or somebody could determine that they need to add something else.
  • 02:21:43
    But the interaction that we did thus far covers the significant utilities and that type of thing.
  • 02:21:50
    But certainly, in this next five-year bucket here,
  • 02:21:55
    with Summit Grand Marshall.
  • 02:21:57
    It's super important to make sure that they're not overlapping.
  • 02:22:01
    And Cesar Chavez, of course, there's also some in-dot work there and some other projects in the near vicinity that we want to be mindful of.
  • 02:22:09
    So some of these things will need to be adjusted over time.
  • 02:22:20
    For the next five-year bucket here, where we get a substantial
  • 02:22:25
    And then the final bucket.
  • 02:22:56
    here anticipated.
  • 02:22:57
    Shepherd Road is a really big investment.
  • 02:23:00
    Shepherd Road also has a 7th Street parallel to it.
  • 02:23:04
    And this is a significant consideration here to make sure that we're not overlapping with anything that MnDOT wants to do.
  • 02:23:12
    MnDOT has indicated some work being necessary in 35 and also some work on 7th Street.
  • 02:23:18
    So really probably one of the biggest
  • 02:23:23
    I think the biggest corridors that we need to be mindful of that kind of overlap.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:23:31
    So Mr. Peterson I have a question from Ms. Naker.
  • 02:23:34
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 02:23:35
    So just two questions, one to clarify.
  • 02:23:37
    So on the five-year streets plan where it says common sense program, and by the way I do think it would be worth more discussion of this.
  • 02:23:46
    I know it's really really small but this is the
  • 02:23:49
    The Common Sense Program for the next five years should align with the streets that you said that are programmed for the next five years, right?
  • 02:24:08
    For example, I'm not seeing Grand on the Common Sense Program through 29, and I'm just wondering if that's
  • 02:24:18
    if it hasn't been updated yet or if it's not supposed to match what you just said.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:24:23
    So, Council President, Council Member, because these corridors will occur in that bucket the way that they're presented, it may not be in 29, but it might be in one of those following years.
  • 02:24:38
    Grand Avenue is anticipated to, roughly right now, it would be anticipated to start in the 2031 range.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:24:48
    but I don't see Grand Snelling to Fairview.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:24:50
    So Grand Snelling to Fairview was in last year's five-year plan with an anticipation to start this year.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:25:00
    Okay so it's not listed in 2025 to 2029 because it was listed in 2024.
  • 02:25:04
    Correct.
  • 02:25:04
    Okay and then I think I know the answer to this but for comments on programs
  • 02:25:12
    Council President, Council Member, the answer is yes.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:25:20
    Residents will continue to be assessed.
  • 02:25:28
    It's an important funding source for the program, actually.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:25:30
    Yeah, and I say that in part because I know we've had a lot of assessments lately.
  • 02:25:34
    Folks have come in concerned about what they've been being asked to pay, and I think there's been some question as to whether or not if you happen to live on a common sense street,
  • 02:25:42
    your cost is fully covered for you by the sales tax and the answer is no everyone is still going to pay the same amount so I think it's just important to reiterate that and I also think it points to the need for us to be as intentional and figure out as quickly as possible when each street is going to be programmed because I think it takes a while for people to hear about the fact that they're going to have an assessment due and the farther in advance they can get that information the less of a surprise it is and the more they can plan for what sometimes are pretty hefty
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:26:08
    So then I just wanted to sort of wrap up with the concrete portion of the five-year plan here, or the part of the plan that would be more concrete.
  • 02:26:37
    If this is approved, it will be coming back in December.
  • 02:26:40
    I need to make sure I clarify that.
  • 02:26:42
    Somewhere before the end of the year, typically in December, the Council will approve the fire and fire plan.
  • 02:26:49
    But these are the projects that will continue in the next year.
  • 02:26:51
    Minnesota is a bit of a two-year project.
  • 02:26:55
    Grand Avenue being the same.
  • 02:26:59
    Kellogg will continue.
  • 02:27:00
    There's another two years of construction for the Kellogg Bridge.
  • 02:27:04
    A new project here is Pleasant Avenue.
  • 02:27:07
    this is over by the arena so Victoria to St. Clair and Wheelock Grotto is a significant residential reconstruction project that is just east of Como Lake so big project good to get back into that some safety improvements here and crossroads and Como and Central High Schools Robert Street is a significant
  • 02:27:33
    project that'll start as early as absolutely as early as possible next year downtown here and require the entire construction season there's a lot of work already happening but the the most substantial aspect of Roberts Street will start next year and then University of Jackson are anticipated to start next year as well those are of course coming some projects a lot of know and overlay work next year George Street, Shepherd and then the two
  • 02:28:02
    residential areas that we're excited to continue on because this is a great opportunity to make those things great.
  • 02:28:08
    At this point I'd look at my director to see if there's anything that I should have covered but didn't cover.
  • 02:28:14
    And happy to stand for more questions.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:28:21
    All right.
  • 02:28:22
    We're at 1.40 just as a time check because we do have the HRA at 2.
  • 02:28:25
    And it would be, I think, a little nice to give people a break between a lot of presentations because we're here in our HRA budget presentation.
  • 02:28:31
    Are there questions or comments for public works at this time?
  • 02:28:36
    So I see Ms. Naker, and I'll put myself in line after that.
  • 02:28:38
    Go ahead, Ms. Naker.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:28:39
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 02:28:40
    This is probably for follow-up, Mr. Peterson, but in the five-year plan, it has funds set aside every year for sidewalks,
  • 02:28:47
    for pedestrian and traffic safety, for lights, stairway repair, bike facilities, all of the things that we often hear about from our constituents and often what's most frustrating I think to many of us is not having enough money to do the things that are needed to be done.
  • 02:29:03
    So could we get the detail on how the dollars for 2024 for those different categories were spent and how much of those funds was spent as a follow-up?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:29:15
    Council President, Council Member, we can follow up on that.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:29:17
    Thank you.
  • 02:29:18
    And then the last question I have is just, Director Kershaw said something during his presentation that I thought was very wise and that I agree with, which is that we really want to treat the general fund
  • 02:29:27
    as a sacred source that we don't tap unless we absolutely need to.
  • 02:29:31
    I'm curious, though, we have a lot of general fund, as you mentioned, that's funding capital projects when we have capital improvement bonds that we can issue, when we have sales tax that's restricted to capital that we can use.
  • 02:29:42
    So looking, for example, at the 1.5 million for sidewalks that comes out of general fund, why do we make the decision to use general fund for some of those expenses rather than bonding at a higher rate, for example, or using some of our sales tax dollars for that?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:29:57
    Council President, Council Member, the sales tax funds that we have, sales tax funds, general fund.
  • 02:30:06
    I saw an S, I saw sidewalks, which is S, which is like sales tax.
  • 02:30:10
    The sidewalk program at $1.485 million every year of general fund, you know, I'd be happy to talk to OFS about that.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:30:24
    of the City of St. Paul.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 02:30:54
    that we would be required to pay the debt service on it.
  • 02:30:56
    And that's where we would look to the general fund, the property tax levy in particular, to cover that debt service.
  • 02:31:01
    So with every discussion of increasing that, we'd also need to be talking about increasing the levy.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:31:09
    And Council President, if I could, that also means that an assessment would be required to help pay that down conceivably as one of those methodologies.
  • 02:31:20
    And generally speaking, when we replace sidewalk,
  • 02:31:24
    I also know that my director is standing next to me.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:31:34
    I would just add that sidewalks are enormously important for mobility and what we're doing right now I think will be a leverage point and that's we're doing an ADA transition plan that's being led through transportation planning and Reuben is working on that.
  • 02:31:48
    I think that will help set the basis for coming back, not in the next couple months but next year.
  • 02:31:55
    to talk about how we might think about additional funding
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:32:17
    All right.
  • 02:32:18
    I want to also appreciate the principle of preserving the general fund for making use of all other sources first.
  • 02:32:26
    That is the funding source that our residents pay into and that we need to make sure we're maintaining thoughtfully.
  • 02:32:33
    My point that I wanted to add or offer is that if there is any way as we're embarking upon the sales tax to look for opportunities to move projects up, so Territorial Road is the one that
  • 02:32:46
    I'll come back to and I just want to take a point, a moment to, as council member for my constituents, ask that this road is actually relatively shorter.
  • 02:32:57
    It is in pretty bad repair and also in the process for programming where I see it says pavement condition, roadway safety, equity and neighborhood need, multi-modal potential.
  • 02:33:08
    I don't know how it ranks compared to the others, but I actually just see an outsize equity and neighborhood need.
  • 02:33:13
    I would like
  • 02:33:34
    I think that it doesn't feel good to say the lead that we buried is that the sales tax means it will happen in 2034.
  • 02:33:46
    That doesn't feel like a good answer back to the people I represent.
  • 02:33:50
    So I'd love to chat more about what that could look like and appreciate the comprehensive vision laid out and that this is a draft in the five-year plan that we're talking through.
  • 02:34:00
    I think I had one other person
  • 02:34:03
    was it Ms. Johnson?
  • 02:34:05
    Yeah, go ahead Ms. Johnson.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:34:07
    I was just going to say I do appreciate being able to kind of get the five-year plan and just like being able to observe all the things that we are playing out in advance and I think we've talked a little bit about communication and overall from the Department of Public Works today and multiple ways in which that we plan on communicating to the public.
  • 02:34:24
    I think one of the things that the city has been able to do well was when there is construction or certain things that are coming to community
  • 02:34:31
    it has been communicating
  • 02:34:49
    Committee.
  • 02:34:49
    I want to continue to offer my partnership and as a city council member to ensure that as we're going into the communities as well.
  • 02:34:56
    So it's like just uncertain projects that we proactively think about ways to continue to communicate with folks so they know what to
  • 02:35:06
    I think it's very spontaneous as we are planning a five-year plan.
  • 02:35:08
    It's something that's out there.
  • 02:35:09
    But we just know that it's different when you think about like, oh, when I see some of these dates and I think about it being so long away that we will maybe forget.
  • 02:35:18
    And then it's like, oh, 2026 is here.
  • 02:35:20
    And now I'm looking outside and I'm seeing a city contractor and now I'm calling my council member.
  • 02:35:25
    And so it's just like there's a way, I think, to also proactively communicate here.
  • 02:35:29
    And so I look forward to just being a partner in that and hearing for ways that we can continue to better engage
  • 02:35:35
    to each ward, but primarily, too, especially as some of the Eastside projects come up.
  • 02:35:40
    And that goes, I guess, for the wide plethora of work that is coming to the Safe Streets for All program, the capital improvements, the common sense, just all of the different things.
  • 02:35:55
    I think the more that we can proactively communicate, the better.
  • 02:35:57
    And so look forward to those with you all.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:36:01
    All right, any final thoughts or questions?
  • 02:36:03
    Otherwise, I'm going to give us some time back before HRA.
  • 02:36:05
    We really, go ahead Ms. Wooley.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:36:07
    Sorry, my apologies.
  • 02:36:08
    I know, I just wanted to also share as we were talking about just the
  • 02:36:14
    the kind of the disconnect that the public is feeling in terms of there's the hooray of we pass a self tax, now our streets are going to be fixed.
  • 02:36:24
    And that plan is actually longer.
  • 02:36:25
    I definitely want to continue the conversation with you and Director Kershaw, particularly around the assessments.
  • 02:36:32
    because a lot of people are, one, they aren't notified soon enough, and two, it's not really clear around.
  • 02:36:41
    Committee.
  • 02:36:52
    is matching that, what does that cover?
  • 02:36:55
    Just because Council President had shared, that's the questions that people are living with.
  • 02:37:02
    And especially as we're talking about projecting our budget for next year, we want to make sure that people know that with a project also comes the expense of assessment ahead of time.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:37:19
    And as always, our offices play a key role in partnering with you to make sure the community understands the changes coming, how they're working, how we're funding it.
  • 02:37:27
    All of that is a partnership that needs to happen together.
  • 02:37:29
    So thank you for your partnership.
  • 02:37:31
    Thank you for this chance to understand where we're headed today.
  • 02:37:33
    I'm going to adjourn now so that we can get some time and then we'll be back at two for HRE.
  • 02:37:38
    If there's nothing else, budget committee's adjourned.
  • 02:37:41
    Thank you.