City Council - Regular Meeting

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

Welcome to our St. Paul City Council meeting, and thanks to everyone for taking time to be with us today. We invite you 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, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Is there anything to be taken for separate consideration? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang for the balance of the consent agenda. All in favor say aye.

And we quite quickly reached the ordinance section of our agenda today. For those of you joining us for the first time or not familiar with this practice, each ordinance in the city has three separate readings, at least. First, it has a first reading with a staff report where we learn what the ordinance is all about. The second reading is a public hearing where we hear from the public about that ordinance. And then the third reading is final adoption when we actually vote that ordinance into effect. Sometimes we take more weeks if we have amendments or other discussion we want to have about th

Thank you, Council President. I am excited that this vote is here. This is something we have been considering and talking about since Council Member Yang raised it a long time ago, December of last year, November. It's been on our radar for a very long time and obviously was something that has been of interest significant concern in the city ever since it was adopted in 2018. I also want to say a note of appreciation to our chief policy officer, Tim Greenfield, who helped us bring this to the policy committee back in April so that we had a chance to really dive in and understand the different

Thank you, Ms. Goldman. I'll take that as a motion for approval. And I want to thank you for your leadership on this issue and Vice President Yang for bringing this up, as you mentioned a while ago. I will be supporting the motion, and I'm grateful for the way that you've brought various partners together to make sure that folks felt good about the final outcome. I also think this really reflects our values as a city. One of the things I'm proudest of to be in St. Paul is that we empower young people, and we respect their opinions and their feedback and their experiences. And we do that in a n

Thank you, Council President. I am enthusiastically supporting this today, and I want to say thank you, Council Member Coleman, for working with our staff and partners to bring it to the finish line. I had brought this up maybe over a year ago. It was something that I had only realized last minute we still had. And so there was a lot of interest from colleagues at the table here to have more engagement on it. And I think that Council Member Coleman, you did a really great job just making sure that that engagement was done in a really meaningful way. I was very supportive of this from the start

Thanks, Vice President. Any further discussion of the motion?

I believe, Vice President, there's a version two in Legistar, which is, does that need to take a separate motion, or can we just say that's the one we'll be... We can move that. All right, take a motion from the vice president for version two. All in favor, say aye.

This brings us to the public hearing section of our agenda. So if you're here to speak on any one of the items in the public hearing section, when your item is called and when we call the public hearing, we'll ask for you to come to the front, stand in between the two microphones. You don't need to adjust them or lean over to them at all. They should pick you up just fine. And then you'll have two minutes to testify. We ask that you start with your name and where you're coming from. And when you're done, please sign in on either of the two sign-in sheets. So this is a public hearing on item 20

Thanks so much for taking time to tell us more about the project. We appreciate it. Make sure to sign in. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Joes to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye.

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.

Thank you for the big belly. Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Ms. Jost to close the public hearing and approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak to this item?

Thanks so much for your testimony. Make sure to sign in. Welcome up. We're just here for support. Oh, support. OK. Got a backup course. Is there anyone else here to speak to this item? Seeing none, before we close the public hearing, I just want to say thank you so much for taking time to be here, for your testimony. I had the opportunity to come to the Get Down last year. It's amazing. And your taking the time to share more about it and to make it happen is really so appreciated. So thank you to you and all the staff and young people who are part of it. We're very lucky. With that, I will take a motion from Ms. Kim to close the public hearing and a

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.

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.

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.

Ms. Moorman is doing double duty today as our interim council director, or temporary council, anyway, and our legislative hearing director. So I gave you extra time by not saying that well. Welcome up.

Thank you, Ms. Moorman. Any questions for Ms. Moorman before we open up the public hearing? Ms. Bowie.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Ms. Moorman. I do have a quick question, just knowing that this is incident took place out of a car accident. Was there any evidence around if that owner of the vehicle's insurance will be covering these damages? I don't know if the owner would have to address that. OK. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. Don't go too far. This is a public hearing. If you're here to testify, please come on up. You'll have two minutes.

Thank you, sir. And that is two minutes. So I just want to clarify, because it sounds like you're asking for something slightly different than what we heard from Ms. Mormond. Are you saying that you don't want more time to have an engineer look at the property and have it inspected again? You would like this matter decided today one way or another so that if it doesn't go your way, you can appeal it to district court? I just want to make sure I understand.

Thank you very much. I'm going to take a motion from Ms. Bui to close the public hearing, and then we'll have some discussion. All in favor, say aye.

Thank you. I just have a clarifying question. I really appreciate you, Ms. Moorman, for bringing that recommendation or suggestion around this unique matter. I think from the appellant, what he mentioned in terms of this being a frequent place that there is car accidents, the Dale and St. Anthony intersection has been very unsafe. I would want to know, just from your expertise, like, How much time would you think that if we were to have our staff or city employees do an engineering plan or even a safety review of that intersection? I understand solving traffic calming, that's a different aspec

Okay, so I would, unless there's any other discussion, I would like to adopt the hearing officer's recommendation upon the two things that you had mentioned. If you just could clarify, it looks like it was a request for inspector and also a request for a statement from an engineer. If we can also have that request or the recommendation clarify exactly what is structurally sound, because I could imagine if you're coming out of pocket frequently for these type of fixes, being very specific would be helpful in terms of what type of engineering or what type of structural sound fencing would help w

It wouldn't be on the city, it would be on the owner. The owner's engineer. And the engineer. And I think what I'm trying to solve for is that Mr. Rosenblum has shared that he, from his purview, that this fence is structurally sound. I think we need to have, what is the standard in which that is, what makes it structurally sound and done in a professional manner, I think needs to be explained.

Thank you. And I'm so happy we have an engineer on our council to guide us on this. But my last question, because I do feel like we got to a place to where we understand. I just want to make sure just that there is clarity. And within this recommendation, is it required that his engineer provides that statement? Or is that this?

OK. And I think there's a clarifying, so there was a, on the resolution it says September 25th, but you're saying if we do plan to grant extension in the third week of October. October 25th makes sense to me. OK.

So I just want to clarify the motion is to grant until October 25th? Yeah.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure the motion was clear as well, just because it sounds like the only thing that we're changing is just a date.

So grant until October 25th for compliance, which could include the engineer's letter and an inspection that certifies that that letter works and the structure is structurally sound, or actual compliance according to the way we've currently instructed.

How about to come into compliance by October 26, which is then a Monday, and then it's a wait time. That's fine.

If you'll accept that as a friendly amendment.

All right, so the motion on the table, there's a motion on the table, which we've said multiple times. Is there any further discussion of the motion?

Is there anything else for separate consideration, Ms. Mormont? I'm not aware of anyone else here to testify on a legislative hearing item. In that case, we will hold a public hearing on the balance of the legislative hearing agenda items. If you're here for item 28 through 33, now is your public hearing. Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang to close the public hearings and approve the items with the amendations and recommendations of the legislative hearing officer. All in favor, say aye.

I don't think we've even done this in a while, so it feels fresh. This brings us to the end of our agenda, and good news or news from the warts. Ms. Johnson, then Ms. Coleman.

Just reminding folks that tomorrow is all things budget. So we'll be starting our morning off at the budget address, the mayor's first budget address under her administration at Allianz Field. And afterwards in the evening, I'm inviting my work one over to the library board's budget address at Hamlin Midway at 2, I believe, and then following through at 5.30 to 7. I'm inviting my constituents to join me at the Ward 7's budget engagement event at Battle Creek Rec Center. Folks that maybe didn't get a chance to attend Council Member Yang's or maybe did and want to come over to the Ward 7 convers

Thank you. I'm really excited to share that we are getting a new playground at Newell Park. So there is a design event happening tonight. It is 6 o'clock to 7.30 at the Newell Park building, which is 900 Fairview Avenue. I don't really know what a playground design event is, but I'm very excited to go and draw some slides and see if somebody will build them. So encourage folks to join us. Dream wild.

Any other news from the wards? Seeing none, thanks everyone for a productive day. We are adjourned.