City Council - Regular Meeting

🎵 🎵 Thank you. Thank you.

Call the meeting of the St. Paul City Council to order. Roll call, please.

Johnson.

Here.

Jost.

Here.

Kim. Here. Yang. Here. Bui. Here. Coleman. Here. Council President Nacre. Here. Seven present, none absent.

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our St. Paul City Council meeting. We appreciate you joining us today, and we invite everyone to join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, Consent agenda items 5 through 23 are before you for your consideration. I know we are taking item 21 separately. Is there anything else to come off of consent? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang for the balance of the consent agenda. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The consent agenda is adopted as amended. Item 21, resolution 26-1404, approving the use of grant funds through the Ward 1 Neighborhood Star year-round program for the United Church of God in Christ.

Ms. Bui. Yes, Council President. It is with good spirits to just uplift and just celebrate. I know usually for the year-round funds, there are not a lot of conversations around it. But I just wanted to uplift this church in my ward, which actually was my childhood church, which makes this really special. They're celebrating their 25th year anniversary. And they just moved into the ward in St. Paul. where they purchased a church that was vacant for some years. And in this church, they are also agreeing to maintain and expand the Frogtown Recovery Cafe, which is a grassroots recovery peer-led organization that provides support, wraparound supports to people in the neighborhood, as well as a basketball gym that I'm super excited to get renovated. So it might be a place for some tournaments. But again, this weekend, I welcome and I'll give more details during the good news, but welcome people to come celebrate the 25th year anniversary celebration. Superintendent Celeste Webb and his wife also are opening up their doors and they also will be sending an invitation for the council if interested to do a tour of of the renovations and get opportunity to share some of the programs that they're offering in the neighborhood. So I just wanted to highlight them.

Thank you so much for highlighting that and lifting that up. I'll take that as a motion for approval. Is there a discussion of the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. I'm going to move to suspend the rules to consider resolution 26-1479 for neighborhood house. All in favor of suspending the rules, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The rules are suspended. Resolution 26-1479, approving of the use agreement between the Department of Parks and Recreation and Neighborhood House for the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center and approval of the termination of the prior lease agreement governing the property.

Thank you so much to my colleagues for being willing to suspend the rules to take up this item. This was a very last-minute addition to the agenda. Neighborhood House, which is in my ward, has been trying to reconcile this lease agreement with the state. And we got the breakthrough just before the agenda was published. And being able to approve this today as opposed to a week from now really matters in terms of the timing for this agreement for our neighborhood house. So I wanted to be able to bring this forward today. And this will allow them to get through this funding snag that they've been dealing with and continue to provide great services for our neighbors. So with that, I would move approval. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Seven in favor, none opposed. Resolution is adopted. Item 24, Resolution 26-1421, calling upon the City of St. Paul and Ramsey County to end their contracts with flock safety.

So I'm bringing forward this item. I want to thank my co-sponsor, Councilmember Jost. This is a resolution that calls upon the City of St. Paul and Ramsey County to end our contracts with flock safety. I'm bringing this forward after we've had a lot of deliberation and conversation about this issue. a policy committee meeting a couple months ago in which we discussed the use of FLOC and other automatic license plate readers. I've been reviewing how other cities have been approaching this issue. And then most importantly, hearing from our community members loud and clear who are seriously concerned and I think have legitimate concerns about the use of this technology, especially in the wake of what we saw in terms of federal overreach during Operation Metro Surge. I want to be really clear that this is not about public safety technology or using technology in the furtherance of public safety. It is about a specific third party company and its access to our data. I also want to acknowledge that our police department has worked incredibly hard to build trust with our community, and this is about maintaining that trust. But this resolution is about the dozens of other departments with whom we are sharing and have been sharing our residents' data, many of whom do not follow the same standards as our police department, and some of whom knowingly violated our trust and shared our residents' data with the federal government. We have seen directly what happens when government overreaches and abuses its power, and I believe we need to do everything we can to protect our residents, and preserve and rebuild that trust. So that is the spirit in which I'm bringing forward this resolution today. One of the things it calls upon is for a report back from the administration within 60 days of this resolution so we can monitor that progress. I'll move approval, and I'll look to my colleagues for discussion. Council Member Jost.

Thank you, Council President Naker, and thanks for bringing this forward. I agree. I don't think that this technology meets the standards of the values that we have for our city or how we operate public safety. I think it's our understanding our St. Paul employees have used this technology responsibly, but the public trust in these tools has eroded, and I'm very concerned about it. I support this because I think we should end this contract until we have other stronger safeguards, our accountability measures are in place, or we can consider alternative forms of technology. As you mentioned, our public safety depends on that trust and the continued use of this particular third party undermines that. It makes me think of former Chief Todd Axtell's bank of trust theory, which said that every positive interaction, every solved case, and active service is a deposit that helps our officers be able to do their jobs more effectively. But when that trust is lost, we know that public safety suffers. And I really care about a St. Paul that is safe. I want SPPD to be an institution that people in our city can trust. And whether intentional or not, this Third-party FLOC technology is working against those goals, and that's why I support this resolution. Thank you, Ms. Jost.

Other discussion of the motion? Vice President. Thank you, Council President. I will be supporting the resolution and just wanted to highlight that I'm The majority of communication we've received, my office, we've received from Ward 6 residents and also folks overall who just wanted to let council members know about where they're at on flat cameras has been to call for any of the use of flat cameras. And so I wanted to really echo everything that you both shared. Also, I really appreciate the opportunity to connect with Senior Commander Kurt Hallstrom. He might have a different title now. It's always... A lot to remember. And so I appreciate the opportunity to connect with him and just really hear from our police department overall the ways in which safety guardrails have been set up to really address and make sure that a lot of the concerns folks have shared about block cameras overall, that that isn't being perpetuated here in our city. And I'm sure there are many ways in which these sort of devices have been very helpful for folks. I'm doing public safety work because one of the things that I took away from the conversation is, especially in cases around kidnappings and carjackings, this is helpful in helping resolve those sort of cases. For me, it really does come down to trust, though. And I know that during my time here on the council, even prior to whether it's body cameras or even conversations around drones, there has been a process definitely led by our police department within the council here, even though they didn't need our approval for certain things. They have had public hearings here in the chambers before where folks can come and testify and then share about maybe their opposition or support or what does the middle ground even look like. And so to me, that's very, very important. And we've definitely seen, again, those sort of processes be played out. I would definitely encourage for that to happen again because this isn't something that the council, to my knowledge, voted on. And so a lot of the times that's just how it is. We aren't the body that oversees our departments in that way. And so, again, I'm very supportive of this and just very, very grateful to a lot of the folks in our community who have been very outspoken about their values and their expectations of our government here when it comes to safety. And to me, I'm very invested in that because I believe that they do know best what safety looks like for them and for our communities here. Thank you, Vice President.

I see Ms. Kim and then Ms. Coleman.

Awesome. I am going to be supporting this resolution. I do think that an ordinance is the next best step. FLOC is one piece of the mass surveillance pie in many ways, and there are other worse actors out there. So having more of a one size fits all resolution or ordinance that just bans any kind of surveillance that is related to this type of data. and sort of the vast capacity and market share that these types of companies have I think is going to be the next best step. So I'm supportive of the resolution and I'm looking forward to supporting something that addresses an underlying issue around the rapidly expanding AI-powered mass surveillance that we have going on in this country. And thank you for bringing this forward, Council President.

Thank you, Ms. Kim. Ms. Coleman.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you for bringing this forward. I share a lot of the sentiments that have already been shared by my colleagues, and I will certainly be supporting this resolution today. I think that sometimes a council action like this can be seen as ending a conversation or the final step in a process. really seems to me that there is deep commitment on this council and in this body, based on the conversations that I've had, to make sure that that is not the case here, recognizing that, yes, as others have said, this is one technology, one tool, one corporation that has rightfully come under a significant amount of scrutiny in recent months. But it is just one. And I think that there is so much that we can be doing as a city to think about how do we address a constantly changing technological landscape when it comes to policing. There's so much that we can be doing to think about how do we engage the community when we are making decisions about new technology investments. As others have mentioned, I think that one thing that has been really hard to see is just how broken trust has been and how people feel learned about this technology, learned that the city had it, had so many questions and not feel reassured by the answers that they received. And I want to make sure that as we move forward as a city, we are thinking about how do we build that trust into the process of decision making around policing in our community. So again, I look forward to supporting this today, but really want to say publicly what we have all been saying privately, which is that There's a lot of work to do, and I think a lot of processes to be developed as we think about how do we address the much broader issue of privacy, civil rights, technology, and policing and community safety moving forward as a city. Thank you, Ms. Coleman. I saw Ms. Bowie.

And then Ms. Johnson.

Thank you, Council President. I also want to share that I'm in support of this resolution, and thank you for bringing this up swiftly. I appreciate just even using what's been kind of like a reoccurring theme in discussion today from the Public Safety Committee to even now around what's the city's and the council's levers. And I think this lever... We're pulling in terms of calling on the mayor and Ramsey County to take action. It seems really appropriate and timely. I appreciate the concern around public trust and the erosion of it. I think one of the levers that we have as a city, representatives of the city, is deciding who we want to be in business with. And if a business or a company or third party practice the same values as us, if they don't, then we should take action. So I do support ending this contract. I also support stronger guardrails. um not only just specifically to flock but guard rails around surveillance contracts guard rails and oversight in which you know the council can have authority approving certain decisions not only just with police but just in other ways that we have surveillance tools and ensuring that we have really strong scopes that get to keeping us safer and not also breaching more trust, particularly around our neighbors. I also want to just follow up just what I have conveyed directly to you, and I know we didn't get a chance to really talk about this during public safety, but I do want to just uplift how the mayor's office have been responsive, the tools and transparencies, the FAQs. This is definitely something that I have not seen the administration shy away from, but I do think all the transparency in the world still isn't going to give people the protections and the trust and the privacy that they deserve. So I do think this is a good action for us to take. Like everyone had mentioned before, I think this is not the step or the only step. I look forward to supporting ordinances moving forward. I also look forward to having a broader conversation around our contract review and approval authority, just so we can be able to catch this on the front end and not have to be reactive in the back end. Thank you, Ms. Bowie. I agree. Ms. Johnson.

Well, I just echo the same sentiments. I won't be long. I just simply wanted to make sure that my constituents, just because I know that there's been several emails that have come through. And not often do I have a ton of folks writing in about, a particular topic area necessarily, unless it's something that my ward is really passionate about. I did receive many conversations and emails and calls and also just district council buy-in from their response to it. And I think overwhelmingly clear folks have been very serious about wanting to understand what is being watched, who's watching, and what access to data do people have. And I just want to be clear around the The action here today doesn't immediately stop that. And for folks that are just trying to wrap their heads around it, we did have a public safety meeting in June that we've been able to share both the presentations for it and for folks that are kind of tuning in on it. I just really think it's important for folks to know what we have here in the city of St. Paul, two cameras. and Ramsey County Sheriff's Office having 11. Just the overall conversations that need to continue to happen, they happen here at the council meeting. They also have to happen there as well. And while the council does not approve the contract or end the contract, they also need to happen with and hopefully in partnership with SBPD and the mayor's office as well. So I will be supporting this. I do think that there will be a lot of conversations to follow from this. And I think that this is what, as to Council Member Bowie's words, this is the lever that Council can pull. But it's a much, much larger conversation. And I welcome that. And I'm looking forward to being in communication with SPPD following this action as well around just their work and their protocols and things they've already done but also will continue to do because I know that this doesn't end the contract today. So supportive of it. I'm glad that the conversation is happening. I think it'll give the council and council leadership especially the ability and autonomy to go with the will of the council to have those conversations where needed.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. And thank you to everyone. I'm grateful for your support, grateful for your eloquence. And I will say, I want to echo this theme that I'm hearing of this is a step. It is not all of the steps. I think one of the things that we actually learned during our fight back against Operation Metro Surge was that we couldn't wait for the perfect to do the good. And just because we couldn't do everything didn't mean we didn't do anything. And we pulled every single lever at our disposal. So in this case, this is a lever that we can pull today. And then we will be having future conversation and seeking other levers in the future. And I know we will also be having further conversation even yet today. After this meeting, we have a special public hearing scheduled to discuss ALPR technology, surveillance technology in general. And so folks are here for that. That's happening as soon as this meeting is done. So I hope people will join us for that. So with that, I will move approval. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 25, ordinance 26-38, administrative ordinance establishing a qualifications and examining committee for the position of fire chief pursuant to the provisions of section 9.01a of the administrative code and section 12.12.1 of the St. Paul City Charter.

So for those who are joining us for the first time or are not one of our billions of YouTube subscribers, I upped it to billions today, I feel like. I feel like we're growing. We're on YouTube for anyone who wants to watch us there. Whenever we consider an ordinance, city law, we have three readings of that ordinance at the least. The first reading is a staff report where we learn what's in the ordinance. The second reading is a public hearing where we hear testimony from the public about what's being proposed. And the third reading is when we take a final vote. or we call that final adoption. Sometimes we'll take more than three weeks if something's complicated and it needs more time for amendments. But every ordinance has at least three readings. And we take them in reverse order on our agenda. So what you see here for final adoption means that it's had at least two other readings beforehand. And sometimes you'll see pretty hefty items on that list. And we may not discuss them a lot, but that's because we've already had a lot of discussion in the previous weeks. So with that, this item is before us for final adoption. Before I turn things over to Vice President Yang, I want to say a huge thank you to her. for her leadership on something that could have and was at times very complicated, could have been and was at times very complicated. And you hit it out of the park, as you always do. So thank you for leading on it.

Thank you, Council President. I zipped through my comments last week. And so I did want to take a moment to recognize Assistant Mayor Erica Schumacher. The partnership from the mayor's office has been really great on this. I appreciate her being very responsive. just making sure that we moved along in this process from beginning to end and look forward to all of the work ahead in this. I will reiterate my thoughts that the slate, it has a stellar representation of St. Paul residents, community leaders, and professionals in emergency services, and I have full confidence in their leadership, experience, and ability. I'm very grateful for every individual's willingness to fulfill the important duties of the work ahead. A bit about the slate again. The committee, they will come together, review application materials for the fire chief position, and then send their top five recommendations to the mayor for an interview. And I hope that eventually the council here will be able to do a final approval of the appointment before the end of the year. So thank you to all of the council members here. especially council members Kim and Johnson for being a part of the pod and leading this work with me and everybody who has been part of the process from beginning to end as well. So that's also our council staff and many of the community partners who we've reached out to.

Thanks, Vice President. Take that as a motion for approval. Is there any discussion? Ms. Kim.

Yeah, I just want to extend the gratitude to Vice President Yang for pulling the team together, but also kind of weighing and balancing all the different experiences that were coming to the table. And I think that the slate is a great combination that effectively connects the expectations of our community members when it comes to interacting with our fire department. with the operational realities of our fire service. So I just really appreciate and commend the combination of expertise, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the innovative and strong leadership candidates that they'll bring forward to this committee for the mayor to consider for the fire chief. So thank you.

And us to confirm.

And us to confirm, yeah. Ms. Johnson.

I would just say that it was really great to be a part of the process. Also, I'm very supportive of the slate that was put together. A couple things that I personally think are really important for folks that are looking at who is slated, yes, we have experience and we have actual professional expertise. And we also have community voices. And not only do we have community voices, but we have community voices who are St. Paul residents. And I think that that's really important. I genuinely share with my colleagues just how There are so few opportunities to select and publicly be able to lead in a committee search of any kind, really. But when you're looking at the chief of police and the fire chief and some of these positions within the city to actually be able to weigh in, I can't say more than enough of how important I think it is to have folks who live here be able to choose their next chief of the fire department. I think that's going to be really important and a fun experience for people who haven't had a chance to be a part of it. I know it was for me when I served on the police chief examining committee, what feels like a long time ago. For now, our chief, Axel Henry, and just being a part of that process, learning what I learned, But I learned at that experience, but also being entrusted with such a big responsibility as someone who was not a retired officer, did not serve 20 years on the force, but cared a lot about my community and who was representing me at the department. So I look forward to folks being able to have that experience, especially for the community voices. And I'm very excited about the fact that we have a panel of folks, even in the experience and even in the expertise, that live right here in St. Paul. So I'm looking forward to what they find and what they recommend. Thanks Ms. Johnson.

Other discussion of the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The ordinance is adopted. Item 26, resolution public.

I'm sorry.

It was? Oh, as amended. The ordinance is adopted as amended. Item 26, resolution public hearing 26-175, modifying residential permit parking area 23 boundaries to include Princeton Avenue between Woodlawn Avenue and Mount Curve Boulevard and the east side of Mount Curve Boulevard between Princeton Avenue and Fairmount Avenue.

This brings us to the public hearing section of our agenda. So a couple of housekeeping notes for these items. And in this case, we're actually going to, it looks like, I believe, have a staff reporter first. But for most of these items, we won't have a staff report. When your item is called and you are here to testify on that item, you will come up. You'll stand between those two microphones. You'll have two minutes, which do go by quickly. There's a clock right in front of you to help you. And I'm here to help you as well. Please start with your name and where you're coming from, and then give us your testimony. And then when you're done, please sign in on either of the two sign-in sheets on either side of the microphones. We do need everyone to speak on the topic that is the topic of the public hearing, so please make sure that your comments relate to the topic of the public hearing. And with that, I am going to welcome up Mr. Randy Newton to give us a brief staff report before we have this public hearing.

Thank you, Council President. Yes, I do have a brief staff report, presentation staff report on the residential permit parking in Area 23. For starters, I just want to give a little bit of a brief background of the permit parking program. I'm not sure if everyone's super familiar with it, but we do have permit parking in St. Paul. It's defined in City Code Chapter 164. It's for residential uses and really for near intense other non-residential uses putting pressure on that parking supply. So we see a lot around our college campuses, our Grand Casino Arena, some of the other areas are commercial areas that put a lot of pressure on those non-residential areas. It's a repressor-based program and commercial businesses are not eligible for permits. Also, the process is very laid out in city code. It's a resident request process. There is a minimum size for our permit parking areas, eight block faces. When we get a request, we would do a parking assessment. Ultimately, this is a petition process through the neighborhood, so we have to require 75% of signatures within the neighborhood for our permit parking to move forward. There is coordination with the district council, and there ultimately is a public hearing, which we're here today for. This one we're talking about is Area 23. All these areas have a little bit of history. This was originally established as Area 5, which was broken up into a lot of other areas in 1998. There was a small modification in 2001, which is sort of highlighted by that circle. And then the restrictions in this area are an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday restriction. In terms of the work we did here, the map of the upper right-hand corner, I'll show a bigger version of this, but it's really adding three blocks, three block faces to the area, which would be a total of 18 block faces. The request is to expand the area to include Princeton between Woodlawn and Mount Curve, and then the east side of Mount Curve between Princeton and Fairmount. The basis for this request is just continuing resident concern with student and event parking in the neighborhood. We did receive a petition of over 85% of the boroughs and occupants. We did complete parking, so Parking Council will go through those quickly. And then we also presented to the Mack-Groveland Community Council. This is just a blow-up of the actual area. You can see the areas in blue are the expansion. The areas in green are the existing areas covered by permit parking. In real brief, I'm not going to show you all the data collection we did here, but this is just sort of a sample of what we did. This is a count that was done on a Tuesday, a Tuesday morning. What this is showing is that Goodrich Park, Goodrich, which is the north side of Goodrich, does not have any permit parking on it and is consistently parked throughout the school day or during the day. Typical school days and then also during events and then that you can see this parking sort of does trickle down into the non permit areas You know most of this area is the permit parking most air and green is the permit parking except for those areas hatched and blue Which are not but you start to see this sort of trickle into that area In the daytime hours, this is just another time period in which we counted and you can see those counts again that there We see a little bit of parking. We see good rich fully parked in the areas on person and Mount Curve, you see some additional parking occurring there. We also did some counting in the evenings, so it's our typical count in the evening. Again, you can see on this day, I'm not sure if this is typical or not, the Goodrich parking is still pretty well parked up and we see some parking on Mount Curve. And then with an event, we see kind of more consistent parking. So just very brief findings with our parking studies is that we see regular parking demand during school hours and arena events in this neighborhood. The first park option is really Goodrich, then secondary, Mount Curve, and then Princeton. There is parking demand that goes beyond Goodrich. It does exist, but, you know, beyond Goodrich, it does exist, but it does not really be consistent or extensive. So again, seeing it consistent in Goodrich, but not necessarily trickling down to the neighborhood on a consistent basis. And it does look, in this case, that the existing permit parking restriction is effective in managing the parking in the area. As I said, we did take this to Mack Grove Land Community Council. This was presented to them in March of this year. The Transportation Committee voted in denial of this permit parking area, and you can see the votes there. A couple months later, the board did take this topic up and voted not to support the Transportation Committee's recommendation on a closed vote. So that's my presentation. I can take any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Newton. Are there questions for staff? I'm not seeing any. Thank you so much. Don't go too far. Thank you. All right. So with that, this is a public hearing on item 26. If you're here for this public hearing, please come on up. And I forgot to say, but you don't need to adjust the two microphones. They will pick you up just fine. So you can just leave them where they are and you can stand straight up and they'll catch you. Welcome.

Thank you, council members. My name is Ginny Hausam. I live at 2229 Fairmount Avenue. And I am the representative of the neighborhood in question here on the Mack Groveland Community Council. I just wanted to point out. basically what the city has just presented, that the only evidence that was presented at all about this petition at the Transportation Committee of the Mack Groveland Community Council and at the board meeting was the count of the neighbors. That requires 75% of the face blocks. They had 85% voting in favor of granting, of creating permit parking on those three blocks. And the other thing was the city's analysis and study, and they came out and looked at the neighborhood on a couple of occasions. There was no evidence presented against it. I would have to say that the Transportation Committee, we had a very contentious discussion. meeting, and there was quite a bit of prejudice and innuendo, in my opinion, presented against it of people saying that people were depriving people in other parts of the city from getting near the river and things like that. And essentially the problem created here was created by the creation of the arena at St. Thomas. Because not only are there students, but there are a lot of people attending events now in the arena. So there's more demand for parking. And it's hitting that block, those three blocks, pretty hard. And just walking around the neighborhood, which I do daily. And I happen to live right where Mount Curve dead ends at Fairmount. And I can just sit in my living room and see that there are always cars parked there, always. So I'm speaking in support of the city's recommendation, and I hope you will grant permit parking for those three blocks, because I really think they need it. And there's no reason for them not to be entitled to it.

Thank you so much. Make sure to sign in. Is there anyone else here to speak on this issue? If so, welcome up.

Good afternoon, and thank you for hearing me. My name is Murray Thurston. I live at 200 Mount Curve, which is outside this area, and I support it. I support it knowing that it's going to push cars right in front of my house. And I'll be back in front of you asking for an extension of this. There were two cars, North Dakota plates, in front of my house virtually every day for last school year. One of those plates was expired for six months, no ticketing. There's a problem going on there. And it'll continue to be a problem to work for until the city addresses the attractive nuisance that is St. Thomas. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Make sure to sign in. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Coleman to close the public hearing. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. Public hearing is closed.

Ms. Coleman. Thank you, Council President. Thank you to Mr. Newton and the Public Works team who have been working on this for many months, and that included many public presentations and conversations with the Macro Community Council and their Transportation Committee and our office and a whole host of research and engagement that went into this. And of course, thank you to the residents who have been both here today to testify on this matter, but also who have engaged in the process at any of the various points, or otherwise reached out to our office with their opinions. I think that, so I want to start by saying that I agree that there are a number of underlying issues here. What I don't agree with is that permit parking alone is the solution to the problems that we see around lack of parking enforcement, lack of adequate street sweeping or plowing, sort of the general quality of life issues that can come from living next to a university like the University of St. Thomas. I was able to watch both the McGrove Community Council Transportation Committee meeting and the vote of the whole board. I think that it was contentious. It was more contentious than I maybe expected of a Transportation Committee meeting. But I think that there was a lot of really good discussion and dialogue about if this is the right solution and what some of the concerns that are raised here. And I think that it's really important that as we attempt to solve an underlying problem, we don't double down on a proposed solution that either won't address the issue or that risks exacerbating other issues. um some of the feedback that was provided in those committee meetings board meetings and that we've otherwise heard are about the lack of enforcement as folks know the price of a permit in the city is very low which in some ways has upsides but means that it doesn't adequately fund the enforcement that we need to give meaning to our permit parking areas We heard concerns raised about folks who walk through parking areas and see the number of cars that are parked there that actually don't have parking permits, which I think just creates a false expectation that we actually can't enforce when we have a parking enforcement system that isn't working. Folks talked a lot about the lack of consistent need and that there are periods where there is intense parking usage in this three block area, but not consistently. And some of the concerns that had been present around the opening of the arena that haven't manifested in the way that people anticipated. So that is something that came up. Folks talked a lot about the need to go to the root cause of the issue, part of which is working with St. Thomas on mode shifting for their students, but also on establishing more parking areas for students on campus, rather than just sort of chasing the problem around block by block. And I agree with the resident who spoke who said that if we push this problem out a block or two blocks or three blocks, we're going to be back here in another month or in another year with people requesting for an extended area, which limits our public right of way for essentially private use. And some of the other concerns that were raised have already been addressed here, options for folks who are visiting the area, who want to enjoy community assets like the river, et cetera, equity concerns, et cetera, et cetera. I think the biggest thing for me is something that was raised in the Transportation Committee meeting, which is that we need to have a really good reason to take public right-of-way and turn it into private storage. To me, it's a very, very high bar to expand a permit parking area. In this case, I don't think that bar is met, and so I won't be supporting the recommendation today, and I'll be motioning to deny the staff recommendation. That said, I think the most important thing that I want to emphasize here is that I think that there is so much that we can do better in our city around parking. It's something that our office is really deeply committed to because we hear it all the time. We hear it around St. Thomas. We hear it around the State Fair. We hear it around Allianz. We don't get parking right in our city, and that's not anybody's fault. It's a very, very difficult thing to get right, but we are deeply committed to doing the work to rethink how we do parking, how we make our streets safer, how we expand access to our communities for everybody while maintaining the really high quality of life that people expect, even in areas that have some of these unique pressures. So that's something that we're working on. We actually have a number of conversations in the works right now. Look forward to discussing and exploring those more in the near future. But that is where I'm at on this motion today.

Thank you. Ms. Coleman, is there, so the motion is to, didn't the motion inform the government?

I guess it's either do a motion to deny the.

Move to not modify. Or it's better to move. Motion to not adopt the findings. Motion to, we'll take that as a motion to not adopt the findings, the staff findings. So and to not modify the permit parking area. Is there a discussion of the motion?

Ms. Just. Thanks, Council President. I'll just add, Council Member Coleman and I share the McAllister-Groveland neighborhood, and I support your decision. I agree that I don't think that it solves the problem, and I do just have general concerns about parking permits in areas, generally speaking, with the notion that you can pay for a permit and now you, as Council Member Coleman said, have privatized the public right-of-way, that it doesn't feel equitable, especially if there are areas across the city where folks might be more challenged to be able to pay for a parking permit. And I don't believe that... I have concerns about residents feeling or Thinking that they're entitled to the street in front of their house I also just add that I I run in this that neighborhood a lot weekly and I've seen signs that Residents must have made they're not city signs that say resident parking only and so I just am very concerned about about that in our in our city and I Agree with councilmember Coleman that we should look towards on another type of solution So I'll be supporting her motion

Thanks, Ms. Jost. Other discussion? I will just say I will be supporting the motion. I appreciate your thoughtful reasoning on this, Ms. Coleman. I think another aspect that you touched on that I want to reiterate is that we struggle with parking enforcement as it is with both the meters that we have and the permit parking areas that we have. And one of the things that I've heard from my constituents in areas where there is permit parking is that there is not enforcement. And so then residents are actually paying for a service that they are not receiving. And I would feel uncomfortable, frankly, expanding permit parking when we are not able to service the permit parking we have because I think that creates a false expectation and actually is not fair to residents to take money and then not be able to deliver. So I think we, to your point, need a more full evaluation of the permit parking program that we have and also our ability to actually enforce it because without enforcement, especially in areas of high demand, which is exactly the areas that want it, It just is no more than words on paper and money that we're taking from people without them seeing the corresponding services. So with that, the motion is to not... It's going to be better.

The motion is to deny the application to expand.

The motion is to deny the application to expand the permit parking area. All in favor say aye.

Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution fails.

The motion passes. The motion passes.

The application... Fails. OK. Item 27, resolution public hearing 26-190, authorizing the Department of Parks and Recreation to accept grant funding in the amount of $70,469.50 from Green Cities Accord to support St. Paul's tree planting program.

This is a public hearing with no staff report. Is there anyone here to speak on this item? Seeing none, I will move to close the public hearing and approve. I just want to note that this is the Green Cities Accord is a program that's really nifty. It allows organizations to do carbon offsets and essentially purchase trees that are then planted in the city of St. Paul. And so this is upwards of $70,000 coming to the city to plant trees, which we know we desperately need, coming from those private companies' offsets, which is good news for St. Paul. And the climate. So I'll move to close the public hearing and approve. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 28, resolution public hearing 26-191, approving the final plot at 500 Broadway Street. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item?

Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Bui to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 29, resolution public hearing 26-195, amending the financing and spending plan in the Department of Parks and Recreation in the amount of $3,922 to reflect a donation from the St. Paul Parks Conservancy for the Dr. Justice O'Hage Memorial Restoration Project.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Johnson to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed.

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 30, resolution public hearing 26-196, approving the request of Energy Park Utility Company to amend rates.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Coleman to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 31, resolution public hearing 26-199, authorizing the Department of Parks and Recreation to accept parks and trails legacy funds, amend the Department of Parks and Recreation financing and spending plan in the amount of $2,002,907,008 and enter into grant agreements which include an indemnification clause.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? $2 million for our Parks and Rec Department from the Legacy Fund. Good news. I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 32, resolution public hearing 26-205, approving the application of University of St. Thomas for a sound level variance in order to present amplified sound for the Crete and Durham Hall football events on the Fridays of September 18, October 2, 2026 at 2015 Summit Avenue O'Shaughnessy Stadium.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Coleman to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. Resolution is adopted. Item 33, resolution public hearing 26-206, approving the application of Stone Saloon SBC DBA Waldman Brewery for a sound level variance in order to present amplified sound for the Waldman Oktoberfest event on September 18, 1920, 25, 26, 27, 2026 at 455 Smith Avenue North Waldman Brewery.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? It's also a good way to learn about all the great events coming up in our community if you listen to the sound level variances. Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Kim to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. Resolution is adopted. Item 34, resolution public hearing 26-207, approving the application of Church of Lumen Christi for a sound level variance in order to present amplified sound for the block party event on Saturday, September 12, 2026 at 1668 Montreal Avenue, Urban Academy Charter School, Baseball Fields.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Joost to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed.

Seven in favor, none opposed. Resolution is adopted. Item 35, resolution public hearing 26-212, authorizing the police department to accept the 2025 State Homeland Security Program grant from the State of Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Homeland Security, and Emergency Management, authorizing the execution of the grant agreement and amending the 2026 grant budget and adding activity budget.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Coleman to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item 36, RLHSAO 26-50, making finding on the appeal of Gary Grimes to a nuisance abatement ordered for 314 Wyoming Street East in Council File RLHSAO 26-46.

Welcome, Ms. Mormond. Council President, this was laid over last week for one week in order to give the owner an opportunity to work with his tenant and get the vehicle someplace else. And that has happened. The nuisance is abated. So I would recommend the council find it abated and that no further action is required.

Great. Wonderful to hear. I will move that we have found it abated and that no further action is required. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

Seven in favor, none opposed. The resolution is adopted. Legislative hearing consent agenda items 37 through 46 are before you for your consideration.

Ms. Mormont, is there anything to be taken for separate consideration?

I'm aware of one person here to testify for item number 40 regarding 272 Richmond Street.

Item 40, RLH VBR 26-15, appeal of Paul Mulcahy to a vacant building registration renewal notice at 272 Richmond Street.

Ms. Moorman. Council President, this is a- Yes, I'm sorry. We will have a quick staff report, and then we'll open up the public hearing. So just wait one moment.

Council President, Mr. Mulcahy came into possession of this property exclusively when his sister passed and is now trying to rehabilitate it. We had, going into the registered vacant building program, excuse me, I have, if legislature will cooperate, I have the- That would be in February of 2025. The vacant building registration fees, as you know, go for one year, and so they would have been billed in February of 25, and that would have covered him through February of 26. What you have today is the February 26 through February of 27 bill. You will obviously know that we're six months through that year, and that's not normally the way things are done. The vacant building program is way behind in getting these bills out the door. And so that's what's happening here is it's a very late issue on the bill. What I am recommending that the council do is to go ahead and deny the appeal. This is just the appeal about whether it should be billed and continue to be in the vacant building registration program. If the bill remains unpaid, it will go to a proposed assessment at which point it's appealable again and i talked to mr mulcahy about appealing it at that juncture so we have a better idea if it's coming close to completion and if there's any action the council would want to take based on that the resolution in front of you also sets it up that even if you do deny the appeal on the registration requirement that mr mulcahy will be able to continue to pull permits and work on the property thank you ms mormon

And the advantage of waiting to, so essentially this is an appeal of a registration, vacant building registration renewal notice. You're saying the better course is to appeal after the actual bill has been sent?

Yeah, it's going to be a strange year that we're starting out here with vacant building registration bills and assessments because they're so far behind. And in this case, I don't think a tool we often use is a 90-day waiver. Well, the 90-day waiver would always be from February through March, April, May. And that's so long gone that it just makes sense for me at this point to say, you know, deny the appeal, keep it in the vacant building registration program, and talk money down the line. You know, so talk to Mr. Mulcahy about not paying the bill right now, and by delaying it, you can even make it payable over five years. You know, there's other things that can be brought to bear at that point. Mr. Mulcahy, I think, would like to see the fee be waived in its entirety or to be released from the vacant building program or other things. This house was condemned and had many and strange problems with it. So I would say there's no question in my mind that it needs to have the full code compliance completed. Okay.

Thank you, Ms. Mormont. Any further questions for staff before we hold the public hearing? Doesn't look like it. All right. This is the public hearing. So if you're here to testify on this item, welcome up. And the two minutes do go by especially fast with these items, so please make sure to focus on your ask to the council.

Okay, my name is Paul Mulcahy, and I was just requesting if the vacant fee can be waived, and if not, if it can be reduced. And I just got the notice in July that the fee was going to be assessed in February, and I thought I wasn't hearing anything in February because I've done so much to improve the property. I've gotten... garage door yard is cleaned up, the trees removed, brand new roof, windows cleaning. I've just been working really hard on bringing the property into shape. My sister was my partner, but she died last year and she left me with like over $100,000 in damage. She had mental issues. So it's just been really crushing for me financially to deal with all this and cover all this in a I just have to get through it. And that's what I'm doing, fixing and replacing everything. And basically, we're the opposite. And she just kind of forced me off the property. So I couldn't take care of it. And that's why I got to this point. And I take very good care of my environment. We're total opposites. And now that she passed, that's what I'm doing. I'm really taking good care of everything. In fact, the building permit's been approved today for me to move forward on getting everything checked off and getting the certificate. And I just need to iron out a few more details there. And February's my goal for having the certificate. And I just have to... it's taken me a while because i i've been trying to line up a plumber and i've gone through like seven plumbers and they come in they see how bad the house looks and and so i just had to you know really clean the place up good so that i can get somebody and now i finally got somebody and uh and the place is looking way better so so that that's pretty much all i have to say here for so i'm hoping that we can wave the fear reduce it or

Thank you very much. Thanks. Make sure to sign in, and I'm going to close the public hearing, and then we'll talk about the situation.

Okay, thank you.

All right, is there anyone else here to testify on this item? Move to close the public hearing. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. Public hearing is closed.

Ms. Moorman, can you remind me when work is completed prior to the end of the year of the vacant building registration fee? I know we have some prorating ability. And then in this case, the notice was sent out late. So maybe that even changes our prorating ability. Can you lay out what happens if work is completed earlier than next February?

The council does have discretion over this fee. What I think the council will need to sort out in the coming months is how it treats these bills which have been issued very late and how that would affect any proration that you use. in the assessment process. So I would say between now and the assessment, we will be working on exactly that, because it is open. We haven't been in this place before.

And waiting to pay the fee does not incur any additional charges? There's no need for Mr. Mulcahy to pay that right now? Correct. All right. Thanks, Ms. Moorman. I am going to move, Mr. Mulcahy, first of all, Thank you for coming down. I am sorry about the delay in your notice. It sounds like this is an issue that we are going to be dealing with with a lot of different properties. And so in some ways, you are the bellwether. And I'm glad that you're raising this issue now so we can start to consider how we will deal with it. I am going to not wave to deny the appeal today at Ms. Moorman's recommendation, but encourage you to follow her advice in waiting on paying the fee, do the work on the house that you are doing. Do not let this stop you. Make as much progress as you possibly can. Get this done. Get the code compliance inspection complete. And then once that's done and once the actual assessment comes, we will have a conversation back here via appeal about how to handle exactly what you've just talked about. But in the meantime, this fee is in place encourage property owners to do exactly what you're doing, not let properties sit vacant because they can become serious nuisances in the neighborhood, and to kind of provide that extra nudge to you and other property owners to get the work done. So knowing that the time stamp is February 27, if you can get it done even earlier than that, we can consider prorating the cost or other things. So that would be my request. And I would just say my office is happy to help if you're finding that you're having difficulty getting permits, getting responses, that's a place in which the council office can help. So after you sign in, I'll grab your contact info there so we have it. So with that, that'll be my motion. Is there any discussion of the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The appeal is denied.

Ms. Moorman, is there anything else to come before us for separate consideration? I'm not aware of anyone else here to testify. All right. Given that, we were going to hold a, this is awkward, but we're going to hold a public hearing on all of our legislative hearing items. So if you're here on item 37 through 46, this is your public hearing. And we will, as soon as we complete this agenda, we will be holding our special meeting with its own public hearing on surveillance. But this is on these items. So is there anyone here to testify on any of these items? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang to approve the legislative hearing items with the amendations and recommendations of the legislative hearing officer. All in favor, say aye. And to close the public hearings. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. All opposed. Seven in favor, none opposed. The legislative hearing consent agenda is adopted as amended.

Thank you, Ms. Moorman. That brings us to the end of our agenda. And before we close and begin our next agenda, I'd like to look to my colleagues, if they can stay, to see if there's any good news or news from the wards. Vice President.

Thank you, Council President. This is a few weeks out, but I wanted to share that the Eastside Freedom Library is having their annual Labor Solidarity Picnic. It's on Saturday, September 12, 1 PM to 4 PM at the library. And there will be live music from the Twin Cities Labor Chorus, and Emmett Doyle picnic food and soft drinks will be provided. Sounds like fun.

Thank you. Ms. Johnson.

Thank you, Council President. We are working on, here in Ward 7's office, putting together a Let's Talk discussion series regarding Dayton's Bluffs Library, and so wanting to share that with my constituents. It'll be on Thursday, September 24th at 6 p.m. at Metro State in the Ecolab room, which if you're not familiar where that is, it's literally on the third floor of the Dayton's Bluffs Library.

Thanks. Sounds like a good conversation. Ms. Kim.

My good news is actually retrospective. Last week on Thursday, we had the city's first inaugural State of the Youth Address. It was a blowout. We had over 120 participants. It was standing room only. We had speakers that talked about the impacts of Metro Surge, youth jobs, housing, and housing and climate. We had youth that participated through our Youth on Boards program. And when I tell you they owned the room, they owned the room. At this point, I think we should just hand over all of our systems of government to our youth. I think they would do a lot better than we We are at times. And so the biggest feedback that I got from the event was that we need a bigger room. So hang tight. Look out for the invite for next year. We're going to be hosting it in the gym next year. So thank you to all the youth and the folks that turned out to the State of the Youth Address. We had Councilmember Yang, Councilmember Coleman. We had commissioners and legislators and future statewide electeds. attend. So thank you all for, oh yeah, and Council Member Bowie, yes. So thank you all for attending, and thank you to the really wonderful refreshments that my staff ordered from Cookie Cart. So hang tight, and a year from now, we're going to host the second ever State of the Youth Address.

Thanks, Ms. Kim, and kudos. It sounds like an incredible inaugural year. Many to come.

Ms. Bui. So I get some news from the ward, also news outside of my ward. But the first event is this Saturday, August 29th from 5 to 9 p.m. It's the 25th anniversary celebration of United Church of God in Christ. It's going to take place at Wilder Foundation. They were the recipient of the year-round fund, so we just want to support them as they're expanding and expanding some of their community services. And then the other item that has been talked about for a while is the state fair, the grandstand. This Saturday it's going to be Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, so many, I don't like to say old school, but I can't think of, well, my dad gave me permission to say it, but old school artists. I'm super excited to celebrate. It's actually going to be the Minneapolis sound. I actually don't like that. I wish we could call it the Twin Cities sound. But we invite people. We would love for people to come out to the State Fair and just celebrate. Many of the artists are also part of the legacy of some of the artists we celebrated during the Black Music Month. And many of them are also part of promoting our behind the scenes for that event. So yeah, there's that. And then also there is the Selby Jazz Fest that's coming up in a couple of weeks on the 17th. And I'll give more information, or excuse me, the 12th. It's going to be on Selby Avenue. And on Saturday, or excuse me, Sunday, September 13th, is going to be Stokely's having a free master class. I'm talking about his journey from being a St. Paul resident to now a globally acclaimed artist. So people are welcome to come to that as well.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Billy. Any other good news or news? I'll just share that tomorrow is our downtown action series, 4.30 to 6 p.m. at the Union Depot. All who live in, work in, visit, or care about downtown St. Paul are welcome to come and hear about tangible progress in the last 60 days on a variety of different fronts. So I hope you can join us. With that, we are going to adjourn this meeting. We are going to need two minutes, roughly, for our technology department to transition to a new meeting. So we'll take a quick stretch break, very, very quick stretch break. And then we will reconvene for our special meeting public hearing.

With that, we are adjourned.