City Council - Regular Meeting

We're going to uh gabble in here in about a minute. As soon as uh council member Carter sits down, we'll have a quorum and we'll be able to start at a quarter two. Uh I just wanted to give everybody the rundown. So once we do get started, we can get through it all. We've got six people who are who have uh pre-registered and I just wanted to make sure everybody was here and then uh in our half hour if we get all six people everybody gets five minutes and we'll be able to uh to go on our way here. Uh Hale Lima Adam is Hale Lima here. He's not here. He's not here. Sarah Shepard. Oh, I I'm just I'm just looking for a show of hands first of all. I just want doing roll call first of all. Sarah uh David Freeman. Yes. Perfect. Uh, Matthew Howard. Matthew

El Baldorama. Did I say that correctly? Look at that. And then Paul Coat. Yes. There's Paul in the back. So, do we know is Hale Lima going to be here? Do Do folks know or do we just know she's not here yet? Don't believe so. Okay. Um, so why don't we uh you ready to go? I will call our city council listening session to order. Uh Sarah, if you wanted to make your way up here, if what you could do uh as you're speaking, if uh you could sign in after you're done and you can take the clipboard and kind of move to the side so the next speaker can come up. Uh identify yourself, please get really close to the microphone so we can all hear you. And uh we'll give you we get five minutes and I'm going to have to cut you off at five so everybody gets a chance to speak. Okay. Great.

Good evening.

Good evening. Uh my name is Sarah Shepard. I am a Bloomington resident on the east side for about 10 uh for about 10 years. Uh just want to share with you a story um that I encountered uh regarding Bloomington shelter in place uh policies and practices. On Thursday, February 12th at 7:15 a.m. I was driving my 14-month-old daughter to daycare. On our way, I found on 86th Street and Blazedell Avenue, as well as Wentworth Avenue, 10 to 12, who I thought were ICE agents approaching houses. I went around the block to park my car and observe to ensure my neighbors were being treated fairly. Because I had my daughter with me, I called a couple of other neighbors to come out because I did not want my daughter caught up in any unknown dangerous situations that ICE agents have been known to create. Because my car was parked a little bit away from the curb, a Bloomington police officer approached me and informed me that this was not an ICE scene, but but a scene uh where they were supporting Ramsay County Sheriff's Office. I thanked him, drove away, knowing that my other neighbors were on their way to continue legally observing the scene. Once I got my daughter to daycare, my neighbors had informed me that there was an active emergency and shelter place in this area. Um, none of us had received any notifications via our phones. Um, and like we always receive for Amber Alerts in their shelter in place situations. Additionally, the police Bloomington police officer on the scene never informed me that an active shelter in place notice was in effect, which also put the safety of my myself and my daughter, as well as the neighbors who I had hauled out of their h homes. I am bringing this to you today to ensure that Bloomington has an effective way to

inform residents of a public safety issue when a shelter in place notice is in effect. I have since learned that Bloomington does not use the typical wireless emergency alert system that most other cities use. Instead, the city of Bloomington has implemented Everbridge, a system that you need to sign up for. Being here for 10 years, I have never um been alerted. I I read the Bloomington briefing every single edition. I've never seen that this is Bloomington's practice. Additionally, I have had since had conversations with other neighbors who actually did sign up for the system and they never received any notifications. This tells me that our current emergency notification system is not working. In addition to to that notification system not working, that Bloomington police officer should have informed me about the shelter in place status. This is another example of how that mindset of Bloomington police is to not protect Bloomington residents and the community. This mindset is only to support other law enforcement agencies. In that moment, Ramsey County Sheriff's Office and as we've heard um at other listening sessions, ICE amongst all other law enforcement agencies. As my call to action, I would like to have Bloomington City Council adopt a notification system for emergency shelter in place incidents that does not require an opt-in registration process. the infrastructure already exists through the wireless emergency alert system. Additionally, I call for additional mindset shift training for Bloomington police officers to remind them and help them understand whom they are here to protect. People who live, work, and play in Bloomington. Thank you.

Thank you. I honestly don't know. I I don't know of other cities that actually use do use that wireless system. That might be the case. I just honestly don't know that when when I worked on campus at the University of Minnesota, we literally forced people to opt into the emergency notification, we we made them give us their their cell phone numbers because I don't think there is a reasonable and usable way to get to people without people opting in. So, and I I don't know that you can supersede and jump into the Amber Alert. I honestly don't know and it would be something we can look into and take a look at, but I don't know. I think like Amber alerts or severe weather or that kind of thing. I think there are another level, another layer and I don't know that you can do that on the local level. We will look into that, but I appreciate you you're bringing that forward.

I appreciate you looking into it. Thank you. Yes, council. Any questions? Council member Carter. Um, so I mean I think like you know every one Wednesday a month I get an alert the Bloomington community alert system is that not emergency alert system. I don't know if but is that I think that's the point. Yeah. Yeah. And and I know if you go to the the city of Bloomington main page it's down at the bottom it says emergency alerts notifications. It's sign in is there but signing up for that but maybe I did at some point. Yeah, but people have to sign up for that. Y it's not Amber Alerts. You can you have to opt out of that. You have to opt out of Yep.

But again, I don't know that that's available at the local level to be able to opt in or out of you know to use the Amber Alert for something like a shelter in place. We will look into that. Sarah, I appreciate your you're bringing that forward. Thank you. I appreciate you looking uh David Freeman. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome.

Hi. Uh my name is David Freeman. I am a resident of the east side. Um and honestly, I'm not really sure like uh of an actual specific ask that I am here for you all today. Right. I'm just kind of here to sort of speak in solidarity of everybody who is frustrated with the uh ongoing occupation that we see in our city. Um I would say that there's a few things that I I would like to just kind of bring to this group just a couple of stories that I've seen and these are nowhere near as um uh personal as Sarah's but more from a business perspective. So, uh, one, you know, just most recent example for me was walking over to my local McDonald's on Lindale and 95th and the entire place had to be shut down. The front doors were all locked during business hours uh because the manager was there working by himself. Every single employee that he had had to be called out because they were afraid to come in and work that day. So on a scale of 1 to 10, right, of being of impact, a two for me, right? It's no big deal. But I do know that the employees there, they're afraid. And so I want to just kind of speak in solidarity of them and hopefully kind of implore the city council to consider again making a a really big statement, right, that says that we condemn this action in our city. Um

secondly, I just as far as things like a solution of any kind, right? Again, this is small potatoes here, but um I know that we have some grants that are available to businesses in our city and I would like this council consider, you know, maybe doing some temporary increases to those grants. A lot of our local businesses are suffering right now and could use a leg up. Um, and if there's ever going to be some increases to um the donations to like beep, for example, I would ask that those are voted in favor. And Councilman Ruth is your my uh representative, and I would ask that you specifically consider that. Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, David. I'll I'll just respond to it in a couple of ways. First of all, uh we have a resolution on the agenda tonight. It was a late addition to the uh the agenda, but it's a resolution basically in u in in support of what we've heard over the last few weeks here in terms of what people are asking for, what people are asking about and the support that they would like to see to the community. Uh it's it's not an ordinance. It is in fact a resolution. Uh it it carries the the weight of the body of of this body speaking as one uh talking about the these issues. So you'll be able to hear that conversation this evening. Uh and in terms of the support, um our small business support, so just a week and a half ago or so, the Port Authority allocated reallocated $400,000 for small business assistance. Uh grants up to $10,000 for businesses of no more than 50 employees. Basically, not as a long-term solution, a bridge to get them through to the other side because we understand there are a lot of businesses that are absolutely struggling and trying to get to the other side, trying to find a return to normaly. So, we are doing that. Back in the fall, actually during the government shutdown, we allocated $250,000 in food assistance that VEP helped us distribute and and is doing a very nice job. And again, we've got uh uh Carrie Thompson, the executive director and CEO of VEP speaking tonight at the council meeting. So, we'll be able to learn more about what VEP is doing and how they do it. And uh we also allocated $350,000 of our LAA funds. That's uh the state funding that comes for for uh housing in in all the communities. We allocated $350,000 of that for rental assistance for folks who are impacted by this. So we we are I think making a statement in a lot of different ways. Literally, we are putting our money where our mouths are basically not just not just saying or or hoping or or proclaiming. we are actually putting money toward this problem trying to help the people who

are directly impacted in in this situation. And I I you know is it again as I said is it is it a billion dollars? No, it's not. It's it's a million dollars which is a lot of money for a city this size and it's what we're able to do at this time. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. Matthew Good evening and welcome.

Thank you. My name is Matthew Howlet. I've been here a couple times. Um, let's get into it because I had to cut this in half. So, so the first thing to recognize about ICE is that it is now more accurate to view it as a legalized human trafficking ring than on an industrial scale than an arm of law and order. Last year, Mississippi declared that they want slavery back through legislation. Proposed bill 1484 would make being illegal a felony with a life sentence and no possibility of parole completely circumventing the very idea of deportation. It offers bounties turn neighbors against each other in addition to destroying their own communities through mass paranoia. This is an exploitation of law by bending deportations into slavery exception of the 13th amendment. Article one section two of the Minnesota Constitution copies this exact same loophole. We have additional vulnerabilities to corruption by allowing private companies to fund our police for their own interest, as was the case over Line Three. Surprisingly, the conservative US Supreme Court seems to have at least partially turned against the DHS last Wednesday by allowing a 2014 Colorado class action lawsuit to continue challenging private prison operator Geog Group's own ultimatum towards its detainees. work for free or spend 72 hours in solitary confinement. With billions of tax dollars behind them, both Geog Group and the Core Civic are emboldened to seek expansions anyway. With ICE as their henchmen, the DHS is the realators, and Steven Miller as their architect. These corporations are holding neighbors hostage indefinitely because they are incentivized. Building a class action lawsuit to sue Miller personally throws a wrench into their schemes. Tying Miller personally to pay for MNHF 2094, proposing reparations for descendants of child slavery in Minnesota would send cataclysmic waves of panic to DC for what is coming for them in November. ICE has lost track of hundreds of thousands

of people, including 32,000 children since 2019. This is by design. Detainees are moved all over the country in a gigantic shell game. It is fraud in an utterly staggering scale. If you can't find someone, the law cannot retrieve them. ICE broke the arm of my co-worker's family's member by trying to force them to sign their for their own deportation. Failing to break their will, ICE did what all traffickers do. They stole their papers, creating the illegal status they wanted to exploit until a federal judge ordered their release back to their until very recently deeply conservative family. And in in another mocking own the libs moment, the blue butterfly of an anti-trafficking nonprofit is the symbol of an allgirl teenage unit with unusual levels of isolations at the Dilly concentration camp. DHS knows what it's doing. Agents have recently confessed to sexual assault elsewhere. Epstein had very well-known connections to blue butterflies. He had a close ties with at least six DHS uh border agents and his network even operated out of duth while advocate advocates like myself passed the safe harbor and no wrong door laws that gave Chief Hodgeges the ability to prosecute two ICE employees and the disgraced author of the Minnesota Trump derangement syndrome bill Justin Iicorn nearly 15 years later this network of anti-slavery and anti-exloit exploitation is vast in Minnesota but it needs your involvement and support therefore I ask the city to assist residents to safeguard copies of vital documents. We must create a missing person's database with their stories to help tell our shared experience of trauma, document the loss to their community, and adopt an official duty to retrieve our neighbors anywhere they are trafficked. In 2020, MNHF 3008 attempted to strike out the slavery exception in Minnesota. This bill must be revived and supported to help build your case against DHS as an institution of slavery and maximize their accountability. Contact your representatives. I invite all of you to join me at the Dakota

Encampment near Fort Snelling to start a conversation to give native people their most sacred land back. Losing literal land over an immaterial culture war is just as damaging to this tick- tock fascist regime as arresting an ICE officer. Mayor, we may not agree about what the mall is building, but I appreciate you're building a network of cities. I urge you to take it further and would recommend reaching out to Mayor Mom Donnie of New York. Trump has bent the knee to Mam Donnie and release an icy teeny simply because he envys adoration. Ronald Reagan dreamed of a nation who was a shiny shining city upon a hill adored by the world. Ironic that he and Trump both lament that they will never capture the light of the Northstar State now internationally beloved for standing up to fascism and winning. That is power to negotiate with allies at the level Zilinski had at 2023. Coordinate with anti-trafficking networks and parod diplomacy through the activis activation of more than 700 US sister cities that have connections to over 2,000 globally. With them, we have friends everywhere can educate our neighbors of where they can safely go in lands they may not even speak the language. Empower them to retrieve copies of their documentation and be the light that guides them back home. witch. Thank you. Elise,

good evening. Welcome.

Thank you. I I'm not sure how I can follow that actually. I am very um glad for hearing all of that this evening. I want to say thank you to everyone here for offering these listening sessions. Um my name is Elise Baldorama. I use she, her, her pronouns. I live in Bloomington. I've lived here for over 30 years and I am a lifelong resident of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Um I am extremely concerned about how uh we are being divided during these times by greed and hate. Some people in power are playing on people's fears to denigrate our democracy and take power and to abuse our resources for their own personal and corporate gains. I am here not only uh for myself tonight but for for community members who cannot safely stand at this microphone including elders, caregivers and individuals whose health, language barriers or fear prevent them from speaking publicly. So, I have a neighbor that has provided her um comments um to me to share with along with my comments tonight. So, they're merged here together. So, when we pledge allegiance to the republic, I think we do this before the city council meetings. Um we affirm a system built on due process, equal protection, and human dignity. Dignity. Those principles must guide how power is exercised, especially during enforcement. As we've heard many times during the listening sessions um uh of the abuses going on, I also want to point out that many im immigrants invest extraordinary amounts of time, money, and emotional endurance into their lawful status. The application fees for permanent residency for work authorization and naturalization often total thousands of dollars, and those costs continue to rise. Families save for years, pay filing fees, attorney fees, biometric

fees, and renewal fees, all while navigating a process that can take years or even decades, which I see is the fault um of a lot of our situation right now that things are taking way too long for the legal immigration process. So, I am honored to have individuals and families who choose Bloomington as their place that they want to build their lives. Um, they contribute economically, culturally, and socially. They are not outsiders. They are our neighbors, workers, caregivers, and our future citizens. Yet, many are struggling. Um, so these these outcomes raise some serious concerns about fairness. And while enforcement relies on perceived race or culture rather than individualized evidence, our due process is compromised. Um, and I've heard several others here talk about the concerns over trust in government. So I'm asking you to look into some resources that will um help to support our democracy now and going into the future. So this is a book that uh is available in a PDF form on a on an app online. Um it's called our common purpose and it was published a few years ago just before COVID hit by the Academy of Arts and Sciences. And this um is really um something that we can look to to support our democracy into the future. I also want to encourage people to forge ahead and focus on the quality of life and economic stability such as the social determinance of health that I know have been uh present in some of Bloomington's strategic planning and decision-making. I also recommend that you use materials from the othering and belonging institutes. They provide tools to create ways for people who don't always agree to still move together forward. We all need to educate ourselves to keep a hold of our democracy and our rights. And again, I appreciate all you've been

doing over the last six years at least for community engagement, for increasing the ways that you listen to residents, for pro providing forums like this. And I think the othering and belonging institute can provide some guidance on how we might um do some other um engagement in our city to bring people together. So these questions as other has others have raised, they still remain. How is our city ensuring that immigration enforcement is not based on racial or cultural profiling? What safeguards protect our residents from wrongful detention or humiliation? How is due process upheld for individuals actively complying with immigration requirements? And if we are truly committed to liberty and justice for all, then dignity and due process cannot depend on our citizenship status, our race, our appearance, or other um ways that we identify. Thank you.

Thank you, Elise. Thanks for your comments, Paul. Hello, good evening and welcome back.

Thank you. My name is Paul Code. I'm 18 of uh Bloomington and I'm not going to come today with a speech because I did that a couple times already. Um but I am going to come with questions and so I hope that there can be a little bit of a dialogue with my five minutes. Um um and I I do want to preface by saying that the statement that was released um by the city council unanimously on January 16th um is is is very much appreciated and you mentioned that there's another resolution tonight and that was added late. So thank you for doing that. Um, I think it's very important that when statements are made, they're always revisited because those are value statements that we always revisit. You know, our mission and vision of an organization, we always go back to that to make sure that we're using that as our north star and that we're guided by it. So, I would encourage you to continue to do that. Go back to what you have said as a council and make sure that everything that's happening is in line with that. I want to just really quick before I ask a couple questions, just read the very first paragraph from that January 16th statement which says, "Recent federal immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota, including the fatal shooting of 37year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis, have caused deep grief and concern throughout our region. The city council acknowledges that these enforcement tactics are targeting people for reasons unrelated to legitimate public safety concerns and are wreaking real havoc on our friends, neighbors, businesses, and co-workers. So, I think it's just important to revisit that and the recognition that this council has already come to that conclusion. Um and therefore everything that we're doing um as a city is going to have to clean up

that mess for a long long time. So um the questions that I wanted to present to you and I I probably makes the most sense for me to just read them off and then you can answer what you have time to because I know you got to get downstairs pretty soon. Um question one uh is regarding tenant protections. Um, my question is, will the council move forward with community requests to extend pre-eviction notice times in light of the fact that um, we've got a lot of people who are are way behind on their rent. Um, Paul, let me just jump in really quick here. That is it's touched on in the resolution tonight and it it basically sends staff on the path to get that done. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, my uh, next question was regarding the quantifying of local impact. And my question is, does the city have a plan to publicize a specific Bloomingtononly economic and human cost report similar to those released by Minneapolis to better advocate for state level aid to our community and to give a fuller picture of the real impacts of Operation Metro Surge on Bloomington residents? Um, my next question is, uh, what is the status of the city's research into zoning regulations or other measures? I don't really know how all that works, but to prevent future federal detention centers within city limits. Um, and then, um, I was also curious about whether or not, um, the Bloomington City Council is working at all with Bloomington public schools because we have over 600 Bloomington students reportedly have switched to remote learning out of fear. Um, and what collaborative steps are being taken between BPS and the council to facil facilitate their safe return to a physical classroom. Um, and then finally, um, I would love more information about the initiatives and actions taking place within the Cities for Safe and Stable Communities Coalition. Um, because I feel like I don't have enough um, information about what that work is that's being done because I'd love more information about that.

Council, anybody want to answer the questions? I mean, I I can take a few shots at them. In terms of the economic impact, we we have we're gathering bits and pieces right now through the Bloomington Travel and Tourism. We have a we're a growing idea of what this has meant to the to the hotels, bars, restaurants in the city of Bloomington. We we have we're not a complete picture yet, but a growing picture. Our Port Authority staff has been out, I think, uh, they've talked to three dozen or so, probably more now, businesses across the city to to just get their anecdotal information and to try and form some ideas and strategies based on some of that information. But yes, they're all lo they're all at 50% of of revenue basically because of either lack of workers, lack of customers, or temporary shutdowns. I mean, that that's pretty obvious. Uh, I agree that we these these numbers would be vitally important to get state aid if I thought for a moment there was state aid coming.

I don't believe for a moment that there's going to be any state money coming towards cities to help uh solve any of these problems. Uh and that's that's after and I'll kind of segue one of the things that the uh cities for safe and communities I can't even remember the name of the organization safe and stable communities. Uh we met last we we basically what we've been doing is trying to open the dialogue and meet with folks and and trade ideas and suggestions back and forth between cities and try and speak with a unified front. We met last week with the governor's staff. couldn't meet with the governor but with the governor's staff and they basically told us as much that the the opportunities the likelihood of state dollars is is very slim and I I think that's just the the political reality right now uh that's the financial reality in the state right now and uh so they basically looked back at us and said so what are you going to be able to do and obviously we in Bloomington are are able to do some things the vast majority of cities aren't able not able to do that kind of uh the work that we we're able to do here in Bloomington. Uh so we've got there's a lot of challenges. I think you I mean somebody said earlier this is this is going to take a long time to heal from and it absolutely is.

Yeah. Absolutely is. Um I didn't write down the questions. What is uh the detention centers? Yes. The uh uh our legal staff has taken a look at it. uh they're they're kicking back and forth what the uh the legalities of it are and and how even if we changed if whether or not uh on the federal level I'm going to see what the note that Melissa wrote for me. Little list of things that uh yes uh though he

it is in the resolution uh again tonight. Uh and and but then it's always the question of whether or not from a federal standpoint they do it anyway. I mean that's a real possibility. Uh, I think the greater possibility, and to Matthew's point, if you want something to watch, watch that empty prison out in Apple, Minnesota, which was privately owned and shut down. And I think there's a real likelihood that it's going to reopen at some point

and not for, you know, not not for general population prisoners. And so, there's just a lot going on and a lot uh a lot of questions that you have that we all have. I don't know how many answers everybody has, but uh we've got a lot of questions. our our cities are working together to try and speak with a unified voice to uh to be able to uh look for best practices and figure things out, but also to to advocate strongly for what we need and and how we might solve some of these issues.

And it's it's a tough one because right now it's it's the vast majority of metro cities are the vast majority of the cities are metro cities. some of the regional centers in greater Minnesota uh despite the call to other cities in greater Minnesota, not a lot of folks are are jumping in to help and and be part of this. So, it's u it's a challenge. There's a excuse me, there's a lot going on and and as you said, there are more questions than than answers right now. And I think with uh with the fact that you know it's it's so easy to destroy something and so hard to create something that um just the recognition that we've been we've been hurt as a community u greatly and so in a very short period of time relatively and that it is going to take that much longer so much longer to build everything back up or help people. But here's what I want. I want my immigrant neighbors to feel safe and to not be terrorized. I want my Muslim neighbors to feel safe and to be embraced by this community. I want my um LGBTQ neighbors, which I feel the city does a very very good job of um of doing over the last several years, but a lot of people are scared and they're going to be scared for a long time because of the harm that has been caused

um here. and we got to keep keep at it. And and I think just about everybody in this room would agree with what your your fears are as well. So, thank you. Thank you. Uh folks, we are at time. We're at 6:15. We got to get downstairs for our 6:30 meeting. I apologize. I caught a cold. I I made the mistake of saying last Monday it's almost March and I haven't told it.

My own fault. Uh I appreciate you being here again tonight. I appreciate your your input. appreciate the the the respectful and thoughtful way that we're doing this. And uh as I said, we've got this resolution on the on the agenda tonight. Uh you'll be interested to hear stick around and listen to Carrie Thompson from from VEP. They do outstanding work and to to learn more about what they're doing and how they actually do it, I think, is very valuable. and then to to share that with the rest of the community because I think

all of this assistance that we're able to provide right now, I think there's this overlying uh concern about all the fraud issues in Minnesota that this could be part of it. This might be part of it. We are being so careful. We are talking belts and suspenders with the distribution of this money and the use of this money. And one of the ways that we do that is through VEP because they are a an organization without blemish. They're a wonderful organization. Uh so stick around and learn more about that as well. So, but again, thank you all for being here this evening. Council, with that, I'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. So, motion by Carter, second by Reebos. All in favor, please signify by saying I. Opposed. Motion carries. We are adjourned. Thank you all for being here tonight. Thanks.