City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our St. Paul City Council meeting. We appreciate you being here, and we invite everyone to join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

And I know that we are pulling items 33, 34, and 35 for separate consideration. Is there anything else to come off of consent? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang to approve the balance of the consent agenda. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?

And I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Mr. Liho up, to thank him so much for his work defending our neighbors, and to speak a little bit more about Welcoming Week, which could not be more important this year. So thank you, and turn over the mics to you.

Welcome. It's great to see the inner city collaboration going on here.

Thank you so much. And again, Mr. Leehoe, really appreciate your leadership, not just on Welcoming Week, but on all of the weeks throughout the year, which are also Welcoming Weeks in the city of St. Paul. I know this council is committed to continuing to invest in your work and in our immigration and naturalization legal support and everything that you do. So thank you. I know I'm probably speaking for my colleagues when I say, please let us know how we can spread the word about Welcoming Week in our platforms and make sure that we are amplifying your signal on this. I will move approval, and

Thanks, Council President. I want to say thank you for bringing forward the resolution here. I also want to commend and say thank you to our wonderful speakers who are leaders in our communities who came and spoke earlier. I want to reaffirm everything in the resolution here, everything that you shared, too. It really is aligned with what I hear from even immigrant and refugee communities about why they choose St. Paul as their home, why they choose Minnesota as their home, too. And being a daughter of refugees myself, a Hmong American woman, I'm really proud that in St. Paul here, even our Hm

Thanks, Vice President. Other discussion? I thought I saw Ms. Pooey. No. All right. With that, all in favor, say aye.

Thank you, Council President. First, I want to just say thank you for all my colleagues. I want to first just clarify to you all that there's two items that's on this agenda that's related, but they're separate actions taken today. The first one, I'm asking for us to restore St. Paul's historic practice of honorary street codenaming. And the following item is to adopt the resolution to actually establish an honorary street for Elder Mahmoud Okadi. Just giving some background around why we're doing this. So in 2017, the former council discontinued codenaming, and they put in their resolution un

Thanks, Ms. Bowie. So maybe what we should do first is move version 2, which is in Legistar. Yes. Is that right? OK. So motion to move version 2. So the motion is for version 2. So is there discussion of the motion?

Thanks, Council President. I am supportive of the motion. I have a question here and we can absolutely get a response like now or afterwards. I'm just wondering with this last text that was added, the be it for the resolve, which thank you Dan from our city attorney's office for your work on this. I would just want to get some clarification about the standard operating procedures. My understanding based on the language here is that what needs to be, I'd say like, you know, a part of the plan for this is, or considered would be eligibility, significance criteria, community support, geographic c

Well, that's a good question. So the standard of operations would be something that we will adopt. So working with the Department of Public Works, I also see this Living and Heritage Preservation, which is in PED, because they do some of that work with the street renaming. I know with the work for the Rondo renaming, we had to work through the Heritage Preservation Commission. So it still would be by way of resolution to actually adopt it, but what we're putting in place, or will be putting in place, is what is those benchmarks, what are those criteria that we want to agree to, that someone wo

And just to further answer the question, Vice President, and Ms. Booty and I spoke about this earlier, and I'm grateful to you for agreeing to lead the work at Policy Committee to figure out what that policy would be going forward, because it is true that we need to figure out those details before we have a new policy in place. This one repeals the previous policy, but we don't have – those questions are not currently answered, and we do need to figure that out. Ms. Johnson. Oh, sorry, Vice President. I just have a follow-up question.

Yeah, I'm wondering, Council Member Bowie, do you have a timeline on when you would like to put together a finalized policy by?

Oh, the policy's already drafted. I mean, I would have loved to adopt a policy today, but I think just with our norms, we want to make sure that it goes through policy committee for us to have discussions on it. I'm totally willing to have internal conversations. If we feel like we're in a good place, we can bring it forth via resolution. But those conversations are kind of happening offline in terms of when we can get that scheduled and where we can get to a consensus with the council.

Thank you. Again, I'm supportive of the motion.

Thanks, Vice President. I saw Ms. Johnson and then Ms. Kim. And I just wanted to clarify. So in the version 2, it makes an exception for the resolution that's to come. And I was just wondering, does that mean that the resolution that is the next item, so item number 35, is explicitly stated in there as an exception. I'm just wondering if you could further elaborate on just what that means. Does that mean that if Resolution 26-1543 is to pass, that it doesn't go through the process of procedures, it doesn't go through that conversation? I'm just wondering.

Yeah, so the exception is related to agenda item 35, which is adopting the honorary street. Just consulting with the family members, they did not feel comfortable having a contingency on their father's name related to this. This was something, you know, that was kind of time sensitive. And we wanted to ensure that if we are repealing this practice, that this is an exception just for Elder Makhmud Okadi. but we are committed to creating a process moving forward. Also, I would just say, for someone who's leading on the designing of that criteria and working with the department on providing those

I guess I was just wondering, I know that the amendments and the versions that were given, like the version two was a recommendation of the city attorney's office. Was that also the recommendation of the city attorney's office?

The recommendation was to put a pause on implementation until a procedure was brought forth. So that was a recommendation. I had took that recommendation because there was concerns from colleagues. And we had made that amendment to ensure that we can have a full consensus of this vote moving forward.

So the exception is the recommendation of the city attorney's office?

No, the version two to ensure that there's a commitment for standards of procedures was the recommendation. The exception was led by my office, but also to ensure that there is no stagnation in terms of, or any discrepancies in terms of the following vote. We want to make sure it's a clean vote and that we have a clear pathway to make sure that we can have an honorary street name sign for Elder McMillan County.

I just had a clarifying question, and more so because I think I attempted to rename a street, and I'm wondering if it's because I wasn't doing it correctly, with a school, actually. But the co-naming isn't changing it is making an honorary name attached to an already existing Englehart. Like in your example for the next resolution, it's attaching an honorary name to Englehart. So it's not changing someone's legal address. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. I think that's what I was doing wrong. I really appreciate this. I don't have any personal concerns. I also believe the honoring... honoring o

Thank you. Thanks, Ms. Kim. Any other discussion of them? Sorry, Ms. Jost.

Thanks, Council President. I think if I understand, we're voting on a version two and then voting on the resolution. I don't know if we're doing that all in one. But I will not be.

Twice. We're voting twice. That's right. Okay.

But I won't be voting in support of the resolution today. And it's not because of Professor Al-Khadi or any virtues of any person that my colleagues wish to honor currently. I think that's very important. But I just don't think that the work of co-naming and assigning this work to our departments or to our policy committee at this time is mission critical to the work of our city. And I know that this was previously discontinued by our council and there were a lot of reasons for that. I understand that there's been confusion around co-naming, there's confusion around kind of just sometimes what

Ms. Bui. Thank you, Council President. And also, I just want to respond to something that Council Member Jost had mentioned. I just want to clarify for the record the mischaracterization that this came in last minute. This is a resolution that has been shared with council members. For some time, we actually first brought forth the resolution that created a process, that created the procedures. And then I was advised that that was too prescriptive and that we needed to just simply restore it. that it is not on the council to create that process. So even this version two was simply because you h

Thank you. So I would, unless there's more discussion about it. I think I'll just...

I'll just add. I appreciate that, Council Member Bui. And I don't dispute that you brought this resolution. I heard about it last week. What I'm saying is that there was a version two that was being circulated yesterday that was different from the version two that was brought forth at 3 PM today. And that is what has been. That is what has been confusing. So I just want to clarify that. I do recognize that your office put effort into this prior to that. That's what I was expressing my general frustration around process about.

Thanks, Ms. Jost. I'm going to jump in line super quickly before the Vice President and Ms. Johnson to say that my understanding is that the version 2 that is being proposed in front of us is a version that was recommended by the city attorney's office.

Okay, thank you. Vice President and then Ms. Johnson.

Thanks, Council President. I just wanted to share a conservative way I would encourage you to follow through with the motion. I did need my support of that for you. And so I don't know where our other colleagues are on it. However, if you were to move forward with another, like I'd say an alternative motion after that, I would also be supportive of it too. So that's where I'm at.

Thanks, Vice President. Ms. Johnson, I think we might need to move to call a vote.

Yeah, I just wanted to be clear that the version two that's entered in is not the version two that the city attorney's office recommended. There is an additional language in the version two that specifically gives an exception to the next resolution, which is resolution 26-15-43. So it is not subject to the procedure that the city attorney's office recommended that we put in place before renaming or operating off of a co-naming. So the recommendation from the city attorney's office was to create the standard of procedures, which is included. They did not give an exception. There is an exceptio

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. I'm going to go to Ms. Bowie for the really last word on this, and then we are going to call for a vote. Ms. Bowie.

Yeah, I appreciate just the lively discussion about it. And I think it's really important to put forth what expectations are. I think it's also equally important and very genuine to ensure that where consent is actually built. and where also the spirit of collaboration can be misinterpreted as causing confusion. It's really important. I was going to bring forth this resolution, the first version, where I already had the support for it. The confusion was there was council members who I thought it was important to have their consents. I brought forth a recommendation that I can be comfortable wi

Thank you to all of my colleagues. I appreciate the robust discussion. To clarify, what is in front of us is a motion for version two, the most up-to-date version of version two. And so we are going to take a roll call vote on version two, and then we will take another roll call vote on the entire thing. We can just do it once. No, we can just do it once. OK. So what's being moved is the updated version of version two. We're going to take one roll call vote on that version. Excuse me.

Like I said, I want to withdraw that, because it seems like that is causing a lot of confusion. I want to withdraw version 2. I want us to vote on version 1.

OK. So the motion is actually for version 1.

OK. We're going to vote on the motion. First, we will see if there's discussion of the motion to withdraw. Well, we never voted on version 2. We never voted to even withdraw.

No, we did not. We never took a vote. We've been having discussion. I want to withdraw version two and vote on version one, please.

OK, so the motion is for version one. OK. OK. The motion is for version one. The motion is for version one. Is there discussion? Ms. Coleman.

OK, so I'm seeing that there is a motion for version one. And then if we vote version 1 down, there can be a motion for version 2. I will say that I do not support version 1. So it might be possible through discussion to ascertain whether or not we should have version 1 or version 2 moved. Is there any further discussion on the motion for version 1, Ms. Johnson?

Yeah, I just want to make sure. I want my community to also know why I'm voting no to version one. The city attorney's office did share with us that they recommend a standard operating procedure for being able to identify and to go through a process. in place for co-naming. That was a large reason why this was a practice that was not continued in 2017. We have to have a process, we have to have a procedure. This resolution literally has a be it resolved clause that shares that there will be a procedure identified. Going to version one removes that entirely. And so I'm not supportive of that.

All right, so any further discussion? Otherwise, we will do a roll call vote on version one. Roll call, please.

Ms. Bowie, I would entertain a motion for version two, if you want to make that motion. Motion is for version two. Roll call vote. Johnson.

OK. All right. Now we'll take a motion on the motion for approval from Ms. Bowie.

Is there? Yes. Motion for approval for the agenda. Do you want me to read it? Are we on the next? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were on the next one. I think we're done with three. Yeah, we just finished that already.

Ms. Bui. Thank you. So this second action, like I mentioned, is our opportunity to actually put a principle into practice by honoring Elder and Professor Maknulo Okadi. For more than six decades, Elder Maknulo Okadi has been an educator, historian, author, mentor, and intellectual force in Minnesota. he helped lay the foundation for African American studies in Minnesota, taught generations of students at Macalester, contributed to development of African American studies, not only at the U of M, but also across the globe. and helped shape generations of black civic and intellectual leadership.

Thank you, Ms. Bowie. We'll take that as a motion for approval. is their discussion of the motion. Ms. Johnson, and then Ms. Kim.

I will say that I think sometimes process overshadows what should be a really big moment. And so for the family and for the community members, for Senator Bobby Joe Champion, and for all the leaders that really made this request to my understanding, well before Black Music Month, and have been in community asking for this recognition for a long time to Professor Imetris Mahmoud Elkadi, the first time I ever heard him speak. There's only a few. There's many black elders in our community, but there are a few that when they speak, the whole room listens, and it captivates the room, shifts the pul

Yeah, I'll just drop a ditto. I just really appreciate the way that you're bringing this forward and honoring Professor Al-Qadi during his life. And I'm looking forward to the ribbon cutting and maybe walking a food box out to get some ice cream. But I just appreciate the way that you honor not just your community, but our community's elders. And I couldn't agree more. I do feel like sometimes we get really caught up in process, and we make things a lot more complicated. for the sake of process. And for me personally, when we're talking about honoring our community's elders and the wisdom that

Any further discussion of the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?

And this is an item that was laid over for further consideration last week. It's being withdrawn because this council does not support an expansion of our drone program until a number of questions and concerns are addressed. And we will not be authorizing this grant application.

For those of you who are just joining us and are not some of our millions of YouTube viewers at home on a regular basis, we have three readings for all of our ordinances. The first reading is a introduction to the ordinance. We have a staff report, so we hear what is being proposed. Our second reading is a public hearing, when we hear from the public about their thoughts on what's being proposed. And then our third reading is when we take a final vote. Sometimes we need a few more weeks to propose and consider amendments, but at least three readings. So anything you see here for first reading,

Thank you, Mr. Williams. And just to be full transparency for my colleagues, Mr. Greenfield did advise that given that this was a statutory requirement for cities and it was relatively straightforward, this did not need to come to policy committee first. And so just to clarify, this applies. This isn't just applicable to our own city storage. This would be any entity that stores salt at a certain quantity, which isn't a lot, but is some besides us.

Thank you. Are there any other questions for staff? Seeing none, thank you so much.

And for this one, we will also have a staff report from Ms. Boyer. Just Ms. Boyer. Mr. Dermody stood up, but he's not coming up for this. Welcome, Ms. Boyer.

Pause for question for Ms. Johnson, please.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Ms. Boyer. I just wanted to get a quick clarity on this particular bill credit. Is that like annually it will be the same households or the same criteria annually in the agreement? Will it be those same households year after year?

We are actually very comfortable with numbers. I bet. I bet. One of the main things we do. One thing I admire about all of you.

Thank you, Ms. Boyer. I actually think that compared to the amount of work and time and sweat and love that has gone into this franchise agreement, that is actually a very short presentation. So thank you to you, to Mr. Sitta, to the entire team that has worked on this. I just want to, we'll have more conversation about this. We'll have a public hearing next week. I want to encourage folks to please let us know your feedback either next week in person, via email, via phone, But I just want to double down on what we are uniquely getting out of this agreement in terms of the equitable charging.

Thanks, Council President. I'll have more to say when we get to adopt these, but I just want to also echo what Council President Aker said, and this has been a process that's been going on for a long time. Chief Resilience Officer Russ Stark was a big part of this, and I often heard our staff say that some of the feedback we were getting is, you know, no other city has a franchise fee agreement as complicated or just as – thorough as this one and i think that that just tells me that you know like council president naker said we have so many values and so many things that we care about this fra

Thank you, Ms. Jost. Other questions or comments for now? Doesn't look like it. Thank you so much, Ms. Boyer. We will, I know, have more discussion about this. Thank you. And this will lay over for a second reading public hearing.

And I think rather than having Ms. Boyer come up and say ditto three times in a row Your staff report applies to this one and the next few items as well.

This brings us to the public hearing section of our agenda. If you are here to testify on an item on our public hearing agenda, when your item is called and when we call for the public hearing, Please come on up. Stand in between the two microphones right there. You don't need to adjust them. You can stand up straight. They'll pick you up just fine. You'll have two minutes to testify. We ask that you start with your name and where you're coming from, and then sign in on either sign and sheet when you're done. So with that, this is a public hearing on item 42. If you're here to speak on this it

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

So a slight exception to the rule for this public hearing, we will actually first have a staff report because it is an appeal of a previous body's decision. So I will welcome up our staff and then the app Pellant will actually have five minutes to testify on this one. Welcome up. And let us know if you need tech help.

Sorry, can you just start with introducing yourself?

Are there questions for staff before we hold the public hearing? Doesn't look like it. Don't go too far. Thank you so much. So as I said, this will be a public hearing. And in this case, we will actually give, since there's an appellant in this case, we'll give the appellant five minutes to testify. So welcome up if you are here to speak on this item. You're welcome to tag team and share your five minutes. But it's five minutes total.

I don't know if your other speaker is going to speak or not.

Great. Thank you both very much. With that, I will take a motion from Ms. Coleman to close the public hearing and we'll discuss. Oh, I'm so sorry. We have more public hearings. Sorry. Thank you so much. Yep, sorry. If there's anyone else here to testify, we'll have two minutes per person now since the appellants are done. Welcome up.

Thank you very much. I do need you to stop your testimony there. You're over the two minutes, but feel free to leave us if you have written comments. I do have that. We can take those in writing. Thank you so much. Make sure to sign in. Welcome up.

Thank you so much. Make sure to sign in. Thank you. Appreciate it. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? And also, feel free if you'd like to leave your written comments as well. I know two minutes go by quickly. All right, with that, I am going to take a motion from Ms. Coleman to close the public hearing. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Thank you for not going far. It was for this exact moment.

Well, Ms. Coleman, do you have a specific question for DSI or something you want them to speak to?

And just to further that note from my long ago planning commission days, the resolution that you put forward as a draft aligns with the staff recommendation, right? So in this case, your recommendation was for approval of the variance. So the draft resolution would have said that. But when the board votes differently, obviously you change the resolution to what they voted for.

That is really helpful, and I appreciate the testimony about that, because I think it's really important to ask and answer that question, that we're not predetermining the outcome before a vote happens. OK, thank you so much. Ms. Coleman.

Thank you, Ms. Coleman. Is there discussion of the motion, which is to grant the appeal? I will just say I'll be supporting the motion. I really appreciate your thoughtful approach to this. I think that it's also, I do agree with the difficulty of having different properties that seem to be inconsistent, but we have to make these decisions one property at a time and apply the standards individually. I also think even if it is the case that this is primarily to alleviate traffic for delivery, trucks and vehicles, I still think it is safer and reduces congestion and pollution to have those deliv

This brings us to the legislative hearing section of our agenda. I would welcome up Ms. Zimney. It's hard not to say Ms. Mormont, but I did it.

All right, so if you are here for any of our legislative hearing items 45 through 50, this is your public hearing. And so we would welcome you up at this time, 45 through 50. Seeing none, I will take a motion from Ms. Jost to close the public hearings and approve the items with the recommendations and amendations of the legislative hearing officer. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed.

That brings us to the end of our agenda and the opportunity to share any news from the wards. Vice President.

Thanks, Council President. I am sharing about St. Paul Parks and Rec's fall event happening in my ward. Can you believe it? Already fall. It's Autumn Glow Night. So it's a family outdoor fall event where there will be light snacks, games, and crafts. It's tomorrow, September 10, from 5.30 PM to 7 PM at the Hazel Park Rec Center.

Great. I think it's only meteorological fall, and I'm going to keep clinging to that, despite what all the events are telling us. Thanks, Vice President. Ms. Kim.

Urban Roots is having a Rivoli Bluff Bash this Saturday, September 12, 10 to 2 p.m. There'll be food and gardens and resources. So come between 10 and 2 to Rivoli Bluff at Urban Roots. Which I think Dr. Lee's going to want to do.

It's Johnson, and then it's Joseph, and then it's Louie.

The Ward 7's office is hosting a discussion on September 24th at 6 p.m. at Metro State University in the Ecolab room. So it's on the third floor of the Dean's Buff Library. We'll be talking about the Dean's Buff Library closure. I expect to see quite a few community folks there. So I extend that invitation to my council colleagues and to anyone in the public that would like to come. So it'll be at 6 p.m. on the 24th of September. Thanks so much, Ms. Johnson.

Ms. Jost. Thank you. So there's, I got a couple of events. There is Mac Girl Fest, which is by the McAllister-Groveland District Council, which is going to be this Saturday from 11 to 3 at Edgecom Recreation Center. There will be lots of different exhibits for local businesses and community organizations, food and performances. So it should be a lot of fun. There's also the Sisters of St. Joseph of Crown Valley have a September Fest that they do every fall that's going to be... This Thursday from 5 o'clock to 8 o'clock at, now I don't know the exact address, but it's basically at St. Kate's wh

A lot happening. Any other news from the board? Oh, sorry, Ms. Bowie. No problem, no problem.

We have the Selby Avenue Jazz Fest this year, or this Saturday, and it's going to start between 11 and it goes to 8 p.m. The announcement, the official announcement for the Honorary Street will be at the Jazz Fest. We still are looking at a time in terms of making that announcement. Mahmoud Okadi's son is Stokely, who is the former mint condition artist, will be the headliner there. Day two of the festival will be Sunday, September 13th at 3 PM at the Walker West Music Academy. It's going to be a free master class with Stokely at the Harmony Hall. And this year marks the 25th year anniversary

Thanks, Ms. Bowie. Well, since Ms. Kim took one that was in my ward, I'm going to give one that actually isn't in anybody's ward, but I am going to it. There is a Monarcha democracy defense training that my synagogue is hosting, Beth Jacob and Mendota Heights, next Tuesday, September 15, from 6.30 to 8.30. There are lots of these going on all over, but this is a great opportunity, open to all, for folks to make sure that they know how to keep our elections free, fair, and safe for everybody this fall. So all are invited.

Seeing none, it's been a productive day. Thanks to everyone. We are adjourned.