Remarks by Mary Jo McGuire
68 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 7:57
“Thank you, Mr. Chair. Every community owes its existence and vitality to generations from around the world who contributed their hopes, dreams, and energy to making the history that led to this moment. Some were brought here against their will. Some were drawn to leave their distant homes in hope of a better life. And some have lived on this land since time immemorial. Truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference. We are standing on the ancestral lands of the Dakota people. We want to acknowledge the Ojibwe,…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 10:02
“Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to move administrative item number three, the joint powers agreement with the Metro East Consortium for adult basic education services. Second.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 22:57
“Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week was a week of budget presentations and the state fair. So I go to the state fair often to participate in things that are going on there. the entertainment, of course, but on Saturday, Commissioner Carla Bingham and I from Washington County, we spoke on WCCO radio with Shaletta Brundage on our recycling energies business recycling program. So that was really exciting to really get that out into the community, and it was great to do it at the state fair. And just a shout-out to... All of the exhibitors at the fair, I spent a fair amount of time at the Eco…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:10:15
“Thank you, Madam Chair. Just thank you so much for all of your work in your departments. When I first got elected here, which wasn't all that long ago, a little over 10 years, I said, what are we doing about housing? And they said, that's not what counties do. We don't do this. That's what city, other people do that. And so you have come so far and it's just so amazing and exciting that the work, that the community and economic development group has done, and I agree, Madam Chair, that we just need more housing. We need more funds to go into affordable housing, and you were talking about the…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 1:12:23
“It opened up a door that was not there. It's one of the things that happened. We didn't have the ability to do it.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 2:09:39
“Thank you, Madam Chair. Just thank you so much for your presentation, for all the work that you and your team are doing, Director McCabe. You have a... It's a challenge to be balancing, you know, all of the different needs of our community and, you know, where our parks are and making facilities available for everyone in every way. And I think you're working on it and thank you for all your continued work in that. Just to, I so appreciate the questions of my colleagues. And I just want to highlight that I appreciate that you're available to partner with community when community comes to you.…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 2:56:31
“I really appreciate your line of questioning, Commissioner Miller. And it goes along with some of my questions as well. Yes, I love it when, after the county has done a road, I just, I love being on that road. And one of my constituents had a good monitor or measure. He would write to me and say, my teeth are rattling on that, you know, on that county road. So now it's a teeth rattling measure. So when I'm driving on a road, I'm like, is this a county road?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 2:57:03
“So I really appreciate the work that you're doing because as much as we get a little frustrated by detours, I'm so excited that almost everywhere I go in the county, there's a detour and I'm on a county road and we're getting some work done. So thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. I'm happy to have the extra time to help our roads be safer for our residents. So thank you for that. And just thank you for all of your responsiveness to my constituents. You know, I have constituents, they live in a senior condo that's next to a road that we're redoing. And they're very nervous that the…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:02:06
“Yeah, so we just, because of just all, is Hennepin the first, is that it? Yeah. And the second, yeah, just because of the times that you can, so it's a density kind of issue.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:02:45
“And I really appreciate that. I will say that you probably all felt this as well when you get new development or redevelopment in your area and the entities want to put an entry level, a driveway in and out of a county road and we say, our engineers say, no you can't because it's not safe. But they said, no, but then you can't get into our business. And we said, well, you have to go this way then. So I have a number of developments in my area, I'm sure we all do, where we've had to say, here's how you have to redevelop this. Because as you said, we're an older county, and we have a lot of…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:16:28
“I'm just going to put this out there. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to put this out there because we're all trying to resist the temptation to talk to you about all things public works related. And for me, it's all things like active living, parks and trails. But I'm just going to put it out there because this will probably come before us in the legislative package, I hope. is this new phenomenon that's affecting our trails and our walkers and bikers is the motorbikes. It's these really fast bikes that young kids are using and they're impacting people's willingness to go on our…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:17:50
“I will say that. do other trails are feeling it as well.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:18:24
“Because I own an electric bike. I mean, don't take away my electric bike. But we do want to see some regulation or whatever. I think legislators will be dealing with it. We'll probably be dealing with it. Just wanted to present it as an issue that I think we're going to have to work on, because we want people to have fun.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:44:48
“Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for all of your and your department's great work, Director Chapman. We really appreciate it, because we do get calls from residents about their property taxes and their values. have a lot of questions about maybe if they've gone up or not because they've done some work on their house, or maybe the person next door did. So I appreciate that you are answering all those questions and are helping our residents understand their differences in value. So first of all, just appreciate that. applaud your efforts to deal with the restrictive covenant discharge.…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:47:17
“It's a great connection to communities. Really, I agree. Just being out there I think helps people feel listened to and heard like someone is paying attention. Okay, so thank you so much for that. I know it's not one of your measurements. I'm just curious, you know, about calls to the assessor's office regarding their property tax values. You know, does that pretty much stay about standard or, you know, the same? Are there times that that's been way higher than others? This is calls about value and, you know, property tax and such.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 3:50:12
“And I just want to say, I appreciate that we're stressing that March through June, because we do get calls at the time that they're paying their property taxes, which is now coming up this fall in December. And so we get calls about their value then. And we say, no, no, you've got to do this from March through June. So I think we're all working really hard, making sure that people understand when they need to ask us questions about their value when they need to appeal it it's not when they're paying it it's when they get their property stats tax statements in march so we'll just keep saying…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:00:02
“Okay, thank you. Wait, wait, wait, wait one moment. Sorry.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:01:16
“Thank you, Madam Chair. My colleagues have asked such good questions. I'm going to try and distill mine as well. First of all, Director Yang, thank you so much. We just so appreciate the work that you're doing. The libraries are, as many of our departments and entities are just transitioning all the time to be the best that we can be and provide the services that our residents most need. So thank you. And I've been lucky to serve on MELSA, which is our regional library system. So I get to hear a lot of the good things that we are doing and to hear things that other libraries are doing. And I…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:04:10
“And I appreciate that. And our community loves this availability. And I really do appreciate it. I'm glad sort of that we don't charge for it, because it does allow access to everybody. And we also need to be sensitive about the cost to us, too. So I know that that's in your mix all the time. I do have a question. We do charge for copies and for 3D printers, though. Do we charge for that?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:05:00
“I know that. And I know a lot of people really love to use it. I'm not opposed to charging a bit for that. Because I think that that just goes along with copies. And that's a pretty good deal for copies, let me just say. So I'm hoping that you do look at the charge for 3D printing items. And... Also, the mailing versus virtual notices, I'm very conscious of this. You know, when you have seniors in your community that really want hard copies and, you know, I do a virtual newsletter. So, you know, we do have a couple people that we print it out for and either hand deliver it or mail it, which,…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:06:19
“Pardon me? Yeah, as a county. I think you said that you have a whole mailing list of people that still want to get hard copies. So you're printing and mailing hard copies.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:07:09
“Well, I appreciate that. I know that we're trying to be accessible to everyone that we can be, and I appreciate that. I was just curious. You said 10% of the St. Paul residents register for Ramsey County library cards. Do you know how many percentage of Ramsey County of the suburban library people register for St. Paul cards? And I sort of thought they were interchangeable, but clearly they're not. And you can just explain that one more time.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:07:52
“Yes, and I know that our library cards are available in all the seven counties. I mean, we can... Can we use our library cards in the other counties, or do we have to get a card there? I forget.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:08:45
“And I really do appreciate that coordination, learning from each other and everything. And that's commendable. So great job on that. I will say that other libraries are doing really amazing things. And I'm not sure we could ever do this, but I think it's Dakota County. They're allowing people to get access to their libraries at all hours, like when there's no staff there. Not all hours. Pardon me? Not all hours. Oh, really? Is it just from when to when?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:09:14
“We went into it. Okay. Is it just certain hours, like till midnight or something? No, it's not that late. It's just a few hours before. Is it just a few hours before and a few hours after? Okay. Okay, good. I heard it differently, but that's good to know because, yeah, that's really interesting. But I think we're just learning and understanding what other libraries are trying to do to serve their residents. And so... Just curious, just a couple more things, Madam Chair, because this is all so fascinating to me. I love our library of things. Can you just explain what that is? Because I think…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 3, 2026