Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

🎵 🎵 so so Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ... ...

County Board of Commissioners, roll call, please.

Cheban Singh. Here. McGuire. Here. McMurtry. Here. Miller. Here. Moran. Here. Dong. Here. And Ortega.

Here.

Aye. Can we stand 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.

Land Acknowledgement Commission is saying

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, the Ho-Chunk, and the other nations of people who also call this place home. We pay respects to their elders past and present. Please take a moment to consider the treaties made by the tribal nations that entitled non-native people to live and work on traditional native lands. Consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here today. And please join us in uncovering such truths at any and all public events.

Thank you. I'd like to entertain a motion on the agenda, September 1st, 2026.

So moved. Second.

Seeing no discussion, roll call.

Jebin Singh.

Aye.

McGuire. Aye. McMurtry. Aye. Miller. Aye. Moran. Aye. Zong. Aye. And Ortega.

Aye. I'll entertain a motion on the minutes of August 25th, 2026. So moved. Second. SEE NO DISCUSSION, ROLL CALL.

CHEVIN SINGH.

AYE.

MCGUIRE.

AYE.

McMURTRY. AYE. MILLER. AYE. MORAN. AYE. ZHONG. AYE. AND ORTEGA.

AYE. I HAVE ADMINISTRATIVE ITEMS. AND I HAVE COMMISSIONER SINGH.

I move the following administrative items. Item number three, settlement agreement in Felicia Marie Wilson versus Ramsey County, court file number 23, CB01309. Number four, joint powers agreement with the state of Minnesota for election recount services. Item five, fund transfer from Boy's Totem Town and Maplewood properties to redevelopment implementation project.

I'd like to call that, please.

Who's pulling it?

Either one.

Yeah, sure. Okay, go ahead.

Item number six, safe and secure courthouse initiative grant for Ramsey County. Item number seven, joint powers agreement with the Metropolitan Emergency Services Board.

Second.

Any further discussion? Seeing none, roll call.

Chabin Singh.

Aye.

McGuire. Aye. McMurtry. Aye. Miller. Aye. Moran. Aye. Zong. Aye. And Ortega.

Aye. Item number five, Garrison.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to pull five fund transfer from Foley's Totem Town and Maplewood Properties to a redevelopment implementation project.

Second.

I just wanted to give an opportunity for the county manager and for our CD director to come and explain a little bit more about this particular item.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioner McMurtry. I will invite Josh Olson up. I just wanted to kind of put a connection to this RBA to some of the broader work that we're doing. While this seems like a little bit of an administrative and kind of an RBA, it actually signals a pretty significant next step for us when it comes to our building stronger together work. You'll remember last week when I was presenting the budget on the criticalness of while we're managing our budget and doing all those things, we also have to work on growing the tax base. And one of the key ways we're doing that is selling county-owned property. And we talked about how we have to sustain momentum and sort of remove barriers and continue to align the work that we are in control of. And so this RBA is a good demonstration of that work as Director Olson has activated sort of a whole set of strategies under us disposing of county-owned properties. So I'm going to turn it over to Director Olson. Thank you so much for this ongoing effort. I'm building stronger together, and we look forward to hearing more about it this morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioners, County Manager Becker. So appreciate the opportunity to kind of step up here and give you a little bit more background and information on this action. So as County Manager Becker noted, this action actually does create some additional opportunities and flexibility as we kind of further the implementation of the Building Stronger Together initiative. strategy, specifically within that core aspect. If you remember, there's two parts. One is around downtown, and the other is around selling county-owned land. So earlier this spring, we brought forth in a workshop some information, including the statistic that well over 500 acres of of county-owned land is currently in that active state of redevelopment with an additional 100-plus acres scattered around the county that was previously identified, kind of monitored and identified as opportunities, but without having gone to that next step. So well over 600 acres of properties owned by the county are kind of areas of opportunity for redevelopment. Building a tax base, identifying new opportunities for housing, growth, etc. So Maplewood North, as sometimes we, in the board action today, we noted as Maplewood properties. That was actually a composition of two properties at that time in 2021. Maplewood South property, which was also known as the ponds at Battle Creek Golf Course, which was sold around that board workshop. And that was 80 acres, and there's another parcel north of there, as well as Boys Totem Town. Again, these were properties that had been previously identified as maybe potential opportunities for a variety of factors. They just haven't moved as fast as other ones. There's other series of actions that need to go along with those redevelopments. And I would just say that this action doesn't result in any impact to the budget. It's just a sliding over into a project account that provides some flexibility. Nor does it... prevent any anticipated work that we've already identified or need for Boyce-Totem Town or that Maplewood North parcel. Rather, really the primary purpose for today's action is to expand the list of eligible properties that we can use for this funding to support. So each property, as you know, comes with its own attributes and might identify its needs for what it needs to execute its own rollout plan of next steps. So adding flexibility allows emerging needs to be addressed more quickly, and so we're excited to kind of do that. Over the next several months, and we've noted this through a series of actions to you all, You know, there's a couple active projects that we in the CD department, or Community Economic Development Department, are tackling. Our big ones, obviously, Rice Creek Commons and River's Edge, but we have a series of other smaller projects that we've stepped up and provided some more active oversight and focus towards its reuse and redevelopment. So a couple of those, just the name out loud, and I just want to call out, there's more coming. But these are the two that we've been really actively working on and do not have a project account at this time. So one is a one-acre parcel near the intersection of Payne and Maryland on the east side of St. Paul. Given its size and the fact that it's a vacant parcel, it's envisioned to be a nice complement to our Emerging Diverse Developers Program. So we'll have more information to come on that one. A two-acre parcel that's been brought to you, I believe, in two different forms, one through this county board, but also through our regional rail authority. It's a two-acre parcel located near the intersection of Frost and English and Maplewood. Again, a couple of smaller sites, opportunities where we can kind of tackle them at the same time while we kind of look towards the larger picture of redevelopment. But as was noted in the board action, one of the limitations that has hampered us over the last several months is our ability to assist multiple properties at the same time has been resources. And so today's action begins to address one of those limitations on the funding side, giving us a little bit of added flexibility to kind of tackle multiple projects. but also on the staffing side. So I'm happily joined by our new deputy director, Andy Hessness, in our community economic development department. Andy most recently served as the executive director of nonprofit community development corporation serving five neighborhoods in St. Paul, and that was Redesign Inc. Before that, he worked at the City of St. Paul, so we're happy to tap into his knowledge and resources there, as well as the Native American Community Development Institute. So I'm thrilled to dive into that work with him. We've had some additional additions to our team to kind of help fill out the county, the community economic development team and begin to kind of support the multi-pronged approach of building stronger together as well as tackling multiple properties at the same time.

Mr. Chair, I will just say before, maybe this was related to your question, maybe not, Commissioner Zhang, but I know several of you have talked about, you know, kind of what is our plan for as we have all these properties to figure out sort of a prioritization or how we're going to, quote, unquote, dispose of them. And so I've been working a lot with Deputy County Manager Collins and kind of with a transition from some of this work from property management, actually. into CED officially now that we have Andy on board, as Josh was stating. And so we do plan to and have been working on a property disposition framework and plan to share more with the board at a mini workshop around building stronger together before the end of the year. So I think it's important, as we've whether it was when we were talking about East Building or other sites, you know, even at Rice Creek Commons to just embed sort of the multitude of plans that this board and previous boards have said sort of embody sort of the body of work and the things that we as a county care about along with our values. And so that framework sort of takes into account all of those different plans, as well as our county values, in order to make sure we're prioritizing the right things when we think about what we want to see as a next use of some of the properties. It is not just, let's just dispose them only for tax base, but we want to be thoughtful about those conversations as well. So does that represent? OK, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question about the $75,000 from Boys Totem Town. What does that mean from that account, or what does that account entail?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Zhang, so that account was set up in that 2021 board action, and it was really kind of a set aside, and it was intended at that time to be a complement to one of the board actions or an account that was set up in property management around what is necessary to maintain a property through a process. So if you could think about it as like two sides of a coin, one being on the operations side and what is necessary to maintain and kind of maintain the property as it goes through its next processes. And then that secondary account was really kind of to be talking about future development, future disposition, future needs. The minority of the time, particularly to that project, has been focused in the operations side. And our property management department has kind of been focused on that one. So in many ways, Commissioner Zhang, we have not typically, tipped into that account. And one of the limitations is that we called it out specifically as one project. And I think recognizing where we are in this moment, that there is a multitude of projects. The projects are at different stages, but also they have different market realities. So some projects may be ripe right now. Some have to go through a series of other actions, whether that's partnerships and work through community, through land use. It was just a particular moment where we just have identified this particular project as well as the Maplewood Properties project as one that if we can pool those resources together, I think we have greater opportunities to actually execute faster as well as kind of address other needs across the portfolio of projects that we have.

Mm-hmm. Well, Mr. Chair, I would just like to say that, you know, of that 75,000, it just seems like, you know, there hasn't been much movement at all since 21, actually, and I didn't even know that there was a budget for it, set aside for it. So that's... obviously before my time, but I think just given that there was a budget set aside that we could have done the engagement that's needed because I'm bombarded with questions about touring it or different ideas about it every single year and monthly right now too. It's a property that the county owns directly. We're not waiting on any other landowners. And it is basically just sitting there vacant and also the cost to maintain it. And that's upwards in the millions. So I would say that I would like to see this prioritized in terms of just some movement. And what does this mean if we are taking this action today? Does that mean that BTT still gets put on the back burner?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Zhang, certainly not. I think based on our conversations and both with the city of St. Paul and with our own team, this is still rising to the top of one of the things we need to continue to talk about. I mean, it is also something as we kind of think about the use of our current and past correctional spaces, I think there's a broader conversation that we need to have as we were sort of assessing that too, and that's something that we had actually talked at the legislature about this last session. So I can give an update on that at some point. But I do want to say, in between 2021 today there were things that were happening we sort of had to clear out the you know there was a natural resources survey done in 2022 there was a archaeological study that actually didn't wrap up until may 12th of 2025 to look at the burial site kind of authentication work so i i mean i i think two things can be true like we probably maybe could have done a little bit more community engagement we were also just making sure we understood the condition of the property to the point where it made sense to engage on the right things as well. So I do think that by pooling this money, our new ECI plan, the new Building Stronger Together initiative, thinking about, I know OCD's been working on getting some new contracts with different vendors around small area planning, community engagement, like lots of things so we can work on all these properties. I hear you that this is a high priority. And I think we were still trying to understand the property as well. There were a lot of things that happened since 2021 on that property, just as record. And I have a whole list of them if you want me to read them. Since 2020, there's been environmental phases done. I don't know if that helps.

I appreciate that. The point I'm also getting to also is that we should be doing the engagement side of it too. Having had this information already that wrapped up last year already, and I just haven't seen a plan to do the engagement or the prioritization of this at all. And also with our Building Stronger Together plan, we literally are using millions each year to just maintain this site. It's well maintained. The neighbors are happy with the county being a neighbor. But I would say that we really are just maintaining the site and it's in the millions.

Let me just add that during 21, we had a little thing called COVID. So community engagement was not something we could move at the time. But to your point, I think we're kick-starting it now and we'll get it going. Commissioner Moran and Miller.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Thank you, Josh, for updating and giving us more information about this project here and what we're doing around building stronger together. As the chair of budget, I think this is a timely conversation as we are just like going to our supplemental budget right now, as we are looking at our performance measures and looking into the future as to how we need to begin to look at what we are investing in, what we're spending dollars on, in a time where we know H.R. 1 is going to bring really big issues to the county, the state. Right? So it's really good that we are doing a deeper dive to really align our work and to be very intentional about how we are investing, or not, in the work that needs to take place within Ramsey County. I'm glad to hear that we're looking at our property. There has been many, since my time here, too, many conversations around Totem Town. I've had an abundance of meeting with community members, giving suggestions about what could be there and how they would like to align and support and work in West Ramsey County to be able to do that. But we definitely need to be intentional in what that looks like for the county, because we do not, at the end of the day, want to put a total burden on residents and on the levy to do the things that we need to do. I definitely agree with Commissioner Zong that this land has been sitting barren for a really long time. I mean, five years. This is pretty long. Six years. This is long. And that we need to look at our property and see what it is that we can do, what needs to be done, and how to best efficiently do this work. So it is a priority that we need to move forward in and be intentional in this work. And so thank you for that. Thank you that we got some dollars that we can move around like kick this off. You also mentioned a new person, Andy. Can Andy stand? Because I have no idea who Andy is. There you go, Andy. OK. Welcome, Andy. Welcome to Ramsey County. We look forward to your work in this area and helping us to move forward in a really intentional way as we look to 2027 and beyond. in doing this work on behalf of the people. So thanks for bringing this forward. Commissioner Miller?

Yes, thank you, Josh, for this. I just have a couple questions. So with this action, what can we expect going forward? So is this going to be like an RFI? Or is this just time for you guys and CD to really look at these properties and say, what could this be? Who could we engage in actually and working with community? And I say that, or I'll let you, so then I'll keep going.

No, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Miller, I think what I'm thrilled about, so let me just get to the excitement part, is that we're actually being able to, one, with additional resources, additional staffing, that we're actually able to kind of begin to tackle I mean, we were already tackling multiple properties, but frankly, being able to tackle them in a myriad of ways and areas. And so one of the evolutions that has come from the Building Stronger Together is the development of an internal multidisciplinary group. Why that's important is that there's a lot of skill sets across the organization, a lot of knowledge related to certain properties, but also acknowledgment that individual properties are on different trajectories. They have different needs. And it's not that they can't be prioritized, but we need to actually go through that hard and fast inventory of what it means to get from what the current state is to a future state where the county does not own that property. And in some instances, that is a little bit of the work that property management led related to Boyce-Hudum Town, which is doing detailed environmental surveys, detailed archaeological surveys, things that are really important for us as a county to do our due diligence on how we show up with community, how we show up with the development community who might have a strong interest in it, as well as an understanding of what are those limitations. Because not every property you're going to be able to do everything on and maximize it. And so actually the thing that we're, County Manager Becker noted, you know, a goal to come back towards this board in a workshop to kind of talk about the properties. I think one of those things, because of the added capacity that we have in our CE2 CED department, is the opportunity to kind of actually present what is the full and exhaustive inventory of properties that may be opportunities, like active, like what are the active ones and what are their needs, but also what is that next list of all the things that need to be accomplished. Some of them will come with added costs, and so this $200,000 pooled together gives us a little bit of flexibility to kind of tackle those in the moment, whether that is specific environmental things, specific surveys, getting the ownership right, that kind of thing, to everything to starting to develop those long-range engagement and land use projects. partnership needs that are often required of any development across the county. County doesn't have land use authority. We need to partner with cities to make sure that we're aligned in what we envision to happen in the future.

And then I just want to also just note that I'm familiar with these properties. They're very different properties. One is very wooded. One's very like Savannah-like. But I understand the importance of increasing our tax base, but I also want to just remind us, and I've said this to County Manager Becker, and I've said this to the CED team, that I don't want us to end up in a situation in 20 years where we come back and say, oh, man, it would have been great if the county would have owned 10 more acres so we could have expanded this or we could have built that. So I really want us to be thinking long-term and not always just at our short-term goals or our very short-sighted. And then also to remember that the equity piece in this and making sure that we work across parks departments on some of that land and that protection and even working with how we go about working with community on this and making sure that we're not just I'm very, very interested in expanding the tax base, but I'm also very interested in how we go about doing that work intentionally.

Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Miller, I want to agree with you wholeheartedly. And I think that's part of what I meant by the excitement around the kind of this formation of a multidisciplinary team. Because I know that as CED, we may be the ones who are kind of leading aspects of this economic development work. But pulling in those perspectives and needs across the entire organization I think will be fruitful for us understanding the long-term vision, both as an organization but also for these properties, what these properties present. whereas in other instances where they present other opportunities. And so that's why, you know, I called out a couple projects, smaller projects. They feel a little bit more tangible and, like, ready to go. But where we're already testing our... how we as cv work closely with public works parks and property management to dispose of properties effectively and efficiently but also opportunities for how we embed other work so um you know i i noted the the work around pain in maryland we're excited because we we see that as a a testing ground for how we embed the emerging the diverse developers program inside of that it feels I say easy, but it feels like we can do that relatively more efficient and effectively. But then on Payne and Maryland, where we're kind of writing a new chapter in partnership with the city, just in the last few weeks, they went forward and vacated a part of right-of-way that was kind of in between two Ramsey County regional rail parcels. so they went ahead and did that kind of proactive work on behalf to kind of consolidate and ready that site to something a little bit easier and more appropriate so that work has begun there's a lot more work especially on that property next but um it's all kind of as we're kind of testing things and moving and kind of building that muscle to be able to kind of um explore the economic development opportunities the community development which i think are you know two sides of two coins Two sides of one coin, excuse me. But also just other opportunities for how we partner with our other departments across the county.

Thank you.

Any further questions? Discussion? Thank you. Roll call.

We now have a presentation on the emergency communications.

Mr. Chair, as Nancy Pass comes up, I just wanted to give this a little framing as well. So as some of you know, as part of our operational excellence work, we are doing a deep dive on some of our JPAs. Some are quite dated. And this is one of the ones that we're currently tackling to sort of simplify and modernize and sort of improve the way that we do work. So thank you, Director Pass, for being here this morning. And I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, county manager Becker. My name is Nancy Pass, and I serve as the director of the Emergency Communications Center. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief update on our joint powers agreement modernization effort. Quick agenda today, I'm hoping about a five minute presentation just to kind of give you a little heads up. We're going to do a quick overview in the history of our consolidation, our joint powers agreement modernization efforts, and then we'll talk about next steps. I'd like to begin with a quick overview of our consolidated 9-1-1 operations and how we came to be. We are the largest 9-1-1 center in the state of Minnesota, providing dispatch services for 10 police departments and nine fire departments, and we serve 5,500,000 residents. Our team includes 151 employees and those that are taking the 9-1-1 calls, speaking to community, and dispatching our public safety responders. We have 60 telecommunicators that answer the phones, 60 public safety dispatchers that dispatch our responders, and we have 14 shift supervisors that are on the floor 24-7, 365. This is a slide of our call volume from 2025. Last year, we processed just under a million calls, which is our busiest period of... is during the summer months between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., which you'll show that in the higher red call volume. This past July in 2026, we handled over 84,000 calls in the month. We are a large, high-performing center dedicated to delivering exceptional service to our partner agencies and our community. A bit of history. So in 2006, the county had four independently operated 911 centers. in Maplewood, St. Paul, White Bear, and the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office, which covered the remainder of the jurisdictions. In 2007, three of those centers consolidated services, resulting in the creation of three joint powers agreements. And I have to apologize. I have a typo. It says October 2006. It's actually 2007 that the center actually opened. So with the creation of the joint powers agreements, one was with St. Paul, one was with Maplewood, and one was with the city of Arden Hills, which is the template that we used for all the other suburban cities. In 2017, White Bear Lake joined the consolidated model, creating a fourth joint powers agreement. From these agreements, the Dispatch Policy Committee was formed to serve as an advisory board representing all 911 center users, so all of our cities and township. This framework was, it all made sense at the time, but 20 years later, it's best practice to revisit and modernize these agreements to ensure they continue to meet the needs of a significantly larger and more complex operation. The existing JPAs were built during a period of uncertainty, and the ECC has demonstrated that we are stable and capable and a trusted partner in emergency services. The current agreements no longer reflect today's rapidly evolving 911 environment. Technology, cybersecurity, and procurement have changed dramatically. Moving from one-time hardware purchases and capital improvement to subscription-based cloud-hosted services similar to consumer models like Netflix. As we modernize, our goal is to keep what is working well and update the governance structure so that we can continue leading the state in 911 service delivery. Our areas of focus is ensuring the language reflects today's operational and governance realities, including technology. updating the agreement to support cloud-based systems, subscription models, and ongoing lifecycle management, strengthen the Dispatch Policies Committee's purpose, expectations, and communications pathways. Today, the DPC supports the ECC budget, but invoices are issued directly to the city administrators. And so we would like to have, without consistent communication, so when we send those invoices online, don't have communication with the city administrators so we want to establish a transparent predictable guideline for how the fund balance should be used to support the ecc operations and technology we aim to create a single operational jpa rather than four accompanied by primary service agreements for core systems such as radio and computer aided dispatch or cad systems I should mention that we also have separate joint powers agreements with each city that relates directly to the CAD system, so really this work aligns all joint powers agreements within our jurisdiction. This effort is highly collaborative. We began with sending 44 stakeholder surveys in July, receiving 20 responses, followed by a productive meeting with our Dispatch Policy Committee. Our next steps include meeting with the city administrator, police, and fire leadership across all participating jurisdictions. We are working under a tight and, I hope, achievable timeline. Our goal is to finalize the modernization ahead of the 2028-2029 biennial budget cycle. That means releasing a draft JPA in October or more like November of this year, gathering feedback, revising, and returning an updated draft to stakeholders. Our target is to execute the modernized joint powers agreement in March of 2027, positioning us to make final budget recommendations in May of 2026. Mr. Chair and members of the board, this concludes my update. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Any questions, discussion? Commissioner Singh?

Yes, I'm curious, what has been the initial response from the partners in knowing that this modernization and re-look at the JPAs is underway?

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Commissioner Jevonsingh. It's been positive. In the survey results as a whole, I would say there are some things that we can tweak. There's definitely an understanding of, like, it's 20 years old. it is time, right? So I do think it's been very supportive. County Manager Becker, I don't know if you want to chime in at all, too, with some conversations you've had. But so far, collectively, it's been positive.

Yeah, Commissioner Jevonsingh, you know, we started with this one because it feels like, one, we could test some of our muscle with our communities of how to, you know, do a process like this. Because to get, you know, similar to, I think, when, you know, CED worked so closely with Commissioner Zhang and did the whole tour to get the HRA levy. These are all stakeholders, and we have to have a lot of conversations engaging with our cities. And it's both at the administrator level, sometimes with their law enforcement and police and fire, and also with our city with the city councils. I will just say that this is really a testimony of the great work that Nancy and her team does. I mean, we have a stellar 911 department and service. And so people are more than willing to engage in even making it better. They feel very pleased with the service that they get from Ramsey County Emergency Communications. And so that really helps. So they see this as a process improvement and a way to get better. I was at the last DPC where the mayor of our, let's see, the mayor of Little Canada was there, Arden Hills, White Bear Lake, and also City of St. Paul had a representative. So we have quite a bit of engagement. But they even were saying, you know, they see the need to sort of modernize. And so even just realizing they could even have these virtual meetings public meetings. They're evolving in the way that they're even thinking about how they can do our work as a set of partners. So it was good. So I'm looking forward to it. I wanted Nancy to bring this here because we are going to be doing a set of road shows with the city council. And I didn't want you to be surprised if you run into somebody and they said, oh, we heard you're changing your JPA, just so that you know that we've been in this process. And most of it has to do with language, updating the technology. We were pleased to generally hear that there's the cost structure of how the ECC, the calls themselves are sort of, we use that. And Nancy could explain how that works, how we distribute the cost. But people seem pretty pleased with the way that is, and that isn't necessarily what we need to tackle in this JPA.

Well, and can I just follow up and say that I, having been in community while some of these different, well, at least when White Bear kind of tipped in, joined the centralized 911. And I do know that there had been times in community, to your point of being stable now, There had been, you know, I remember a League of Women Voters report that had studied whether or not a centralized 911 would be, that was back in the day. And there was concerns and a lot of discussion. And now that we have everybody on board and have been there for quite some time, the success of this and the need to modernize those agreements now that we do know that this is a successful model. So I appreciate that we take that time. And as part of operational excellence, as the county manager said, this is one of, of many like agreements. And I appreciate that you are the first ones to take it a go, to set a precedent, and encouraging that we take the time to bring our partners along. Because we do a lot of collective work. And how we do it is sometimes, I think, even more important than what we do. So thank you for bringing this to us. And we look forward to engaging with our communities this way.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question around for this modernization in the JPA. Will there be consideration or conversations about at least the capital improvements, such as I believe in your last budget, You did flag that there are dispatch radio consoles that will need to be upgraded for the next generation, and it's looking upwards of 13.1 million. Is that included in this conversation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Zhang. Multi-point question on that, so I'm going to try and tackle it in two different formats. Right now at the legislature, there is a work group that is studying the Armor project. looking at subsystem owners like Ramsey County that have seven tower sites in the county to identify if there's a path forward that it becomes ultimately a statewide system that's supported by state funding. So we are watching that very closely. They've had two meetings so far, and they are on track to, it's being fast-tracked. So we're keeping an eye on that through our government relations here in the county. So I would also say in our current joint powers agreement, the original one, There was no documentation on how the fund balance can be used or should be used. And in the CAD joint powers agreement, it's identified. And so our goal is to merge that so that there's one pathway of what that structure looks like and how we utilize the fund balance moving forward.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Director Pass. It's been a few months since I've seen you. We had a great meeting at the Ramsey County League of Local Governments. I was touring our Emergency Communications Center, and I was, of course, running to the meeting, and I heard. I broke my kneecap at that meeting, but Director Pass was right there with ice and everything I needed. So if you're going to get hurt, do it near an emergency communications center.

So you didn't have to call 911. I did not have to call 911.

We were there. They were in good care of me. I stayed for the meeting. I was driven to urgent care. But yes, they did a great job. Thank you for all of that. Still recovering, and it's good. But we appreciate you taking the time to give the Ramsey County League a great tour. People are so impressed. And as we know, they're all impacted, and they're all now going to be in joint powers agreements with you. So thank you for all of that work. A question I'm just curious about is the amount that they're contributing to this effort going to be about the same or will it be, I mean, sometimes it's going to be a little more because you're getting more services or if it's going to be less because you're combining services. So just talk a little bit about what our city partners are going to be contributing to this effort now that it will be new or be about the same. Thanks, Mr.

Chair, Commissioner McGuire. Thanks for all the kind comments as well. I'm definitely someone that's like a behind-the-scenes person, so the fact that I was even stable helping you, it's probably because there was no blood.

She was right there. I appreciate that. It was so great. I felt very cared for.

And we also have, just as a side note a little bit, we are with, through the Metropolitan Emergency Services Board, we have a legislative tour coming up at the end of this month as well. So excited to have them on board and do a tour of our center. To help answer your question, at this point, the 60% levy funding, the 40% paid by the cities, which is done based off 911 call volume, it's a rolling three-year average, and so we calculate that every year. At this point, we're not looking at changing that. When we were in our Dispatch Policy Committee meeting, there was a vote that they wanted that conversation kind of on the table, off the table, I should say. So at this point, I believe we'll be looking at the same structure of a 60-40 split.

OK, thank you. And thank you for that. And just to let you know, just to remind those of us that are on our Association of Minnesota Counties, and I serve on the Public Safety Committee, that this is one of our number one issues, is the statewide system. So I know that every county is working on that. So it's risen to the top, one of the top issues that I think AMC is really working on. So thank you. Appreciate that.

I think just to wrap up, I do want to say two things. I think it was good that you, Director, passed about the 60-40 split. In that meeting, it kind of dawned on me the importance of when we talk to our communities about the property tax levy, that while cities do contribute things toward these shared services, we are actually using a significant part of the property tax levy that we levy for. toward these services that are actually shared services. So I thought that was a good thing to remind ourselves of as we are in property tax season here with our budget conversations. And then I know we mentioned a lot of the cities that were part of the Dispatch Policy Committee. I want to thank that group for their work. a significant investment for them to spend time trying to understand the system on behalf of the whole group. But I neglected to mention the chair, which is Kathy Juneman from the city of Maplewood. And I just want to thank her because she's been a really strong leader for the Dispatch Policy Committee. So the membership of the Dispatch Policy Committee has some at large positions, but has been generally some additions of dedicated seats for the different mergers. we have taken on over the years. And so we're going to be re-looking at the membership a little bit as well. And they were very open at re-looking at the membership. So why White Bear has a dedicated seat and why Maplewood has a dedicated seat and was there one more? St. Paul. St. Paul. Is that they sort of came on at different, you know, and this has to do with what Commissioner Jeb and Singh was saying when people were still trying to trust and sort of feel like they had a voice at the table. Now we've evolved a little bit. And there was definitely some openness to rethinking how that committee is set up. And that is one thing I think that would be really helpful in the modernization of the JPA. From what I can see, that would be helpful to have more cities potentially sit at the table at different iterations. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good day. County Connections.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I only have one thing, and it's going to be a little bit longer, but I did want to give the board an update on the encampment response as well as our shelter capacity and housing transitions. So we at Ramsey County continue to coordinate with the city and St. Paul and our community partners to support residents that are living at the encampments. The county's approach centers on three things, really. Connecting residents who need services supporting the health and safety of residents and staff, and working with individuals to identify pathways to shelter and stable housing. As conditions at the encampments are continuously changing, and as additional shelter capacity has become available, the county has evolved its response from a broad sort of multidisciplinary on-site presence toward a more targeted model that is centering on coordinated outreach and resident-by-resident transition planning. This approach allows the county to remain engaged while using staff and public resources a bit more intentionally. I wanted to speak just briefly about shelter capacity. As I mentioned at a previous meeting, emergency shelter capacity in Ramsey County was insufficient even before the planned closure of Pig's Eye Encampment. And the county had already prioritized investments to expand this capacity. This was presented to you all from Director Wilkins as part of our LAHA presentations, as part of what is in the Heading Home Ramsey strategic plan. During the most recent reporting week of how we tracked shelter entry, our SHED team handled 608 calls that week, including 380 requests for shelter reservations. And we were still seeing that adult shelters were operating at or near capacity. before the additional beds. So while we're adding additional capacity now, those may or may not be immediately utilized by those connected to encampments. The newly expanded shelter capacity will actually help us address the immediate demand while also creating a more sustainable and fiscally responsible winter response, in my opinion. Ramsey County anticipates leveraging these additional beds as part of an updated warming space model this winter as the temperatures drop. So using the existing shelter infrastructure will reduce our reliance on temporary operations and recurring costs that have been associated with standing up winter warming spaces each winter. So I just want to make sure that folks know that these investments are for a year, and they're going to help us substantially as we go through the winter months. So this strategy certainly ensures that we're maximizing those investments, and we're going to reduce duplicative costs. and strengthens our connections between emergency shelter, supportive services, and pathways to more stable housing. I want to speak just real quickly about Randolph and Shepherd Road. Assistant Mayor Cedric Baker spoke to the city council last Wednesday, and people can watch that as he gave more of the city's account of the conditions at Shepherd Road. I'm not going to repeat those. As conditions at Randolph encampment, though, have changed, our on-site team has reassessed how the county can most safely and effectively continue to provide services. I want to just thank executive sponsors Karen Francois and Maria Sarabia. They have worked diligently over the past couple weeks on a site assessment effort that I asked them to lead. They have leveraged our county's risk team as well as other leaders, and we have a better understanding of the safety concerns, the environmental and health hazards, the site and physical conditions to ensure that we have the best sight lines that we can to ensure we can effectively deliver services at Sheppard and Randolph. So based on that assessment, the county is moving toward a smaller, more coordinated presence with an increased emphasis on individualized transition planning rather than the broad outreach that we were doing. So the county will... As of next week, continue to do outreach two days a week at that encampment. We will coordinate our visits with the city's HEART team whenever possible so city and county staff can be coordinating information and reduce duplication. We will deploy financial assistance, housing stability, social services, public health, and other specialized county supports like veterans support. based on identified residents' needs while maintaining a full multidisciplinary team. We will then, and we have been, shifting toward a resident-by-resident transition planning, and I'll talk about that in a minute, that really addresses the barriers related to shelter and housing benefits around identification, documentation, healthcare barriers, treatment, transportation that actually prevent residents from leaving the site. So instead of just offering handouts and sort of building trust per se, we're moving toward those folks that now we have some information about and really trying to work through their barriers. We also are going to maintain safety protocols and work closely with our Ramsey County Sheriff's Department. Also, they've been supporting us as well as in conversations with the city. We want to make sure we have clear exit and entry, protective equipment, and other things should conditions change. So I want to talk just a minute about the Lower Orient site, which is near where the Kmart facility used to be. that's owned by the Port Authority there. The county also will be spending a third day each week. Our outreach team at the LaOrient encampment, that initial work would be more of an assessment phase rather than an immediate establishment of full county operation. At that site, we're focusing on the number of residents at the site, existing outreach. We're doing a lot of language work at that site, particularly with Hmong population. And then trying to do that initial assessment so we can kind of figure out what is the best way for county to continue to deliver services there. We're trying to be responsive. The conditions constantly are changing, and we want to be respective of those changes and be able to be as nimble as we need. I want to talk a little bit about this kind of transition from operations to individualized support. We have been moving from a broad outreach toward this individualized transition planning. The question then we want to solve is no longer whether a resident has been contacted or offered a service, but what are the barriers that might be need to be addressed for an individual to be able to be moved to a safer and more stable setting so additional shelter capacity gives outreach teams another important tool to support these transitions shelter however remains only as one part of the solution residents may also need you know all those other things that i talked about before and so we want to make sure the county's showing up to help with those other So the way that we're doing that is that we've initiated what's called a by-name list case consultation. This strengthens coordination between the on-site team, our housing stability team, We have contracted case management providers now, and we also have housing providers and also other partners, including the city. They all sit together on a weekly basis and are talking through the people we know and each other would know and talking about how to coordinate next steps, develop housing plans, prioritizing who needs case management, who needs wraparound services. So that has been very effective. We have identified currently, let's see, housing work has included 120 onsite engagements, and we have identified 28 individuals who have active housing referrals. Eight have been moved to housing. Six additional individuals are completing their housing intake and required paperwork. I know those numbers don't sound like a lot, but the work is difficult and it takes time. And we continue to make progress and we can't do it alone. So while the county may not control the timing or execution of a particular encampment closure, county staff and partners are working to try to reduce disruption and connect affected residents however we can. Looking ahead, we continue to work with the city and aiming to try to improve coordination and improve these transitions as they make their next decisions around these encampments. Significant work is also happening across the continuum every day. um i want to recognize commissioner moran for her leadership as the chair of heading home ramsey there's not a day that goes by that she and i are not talking about housing so that is wonderful but that work brings together a broad range of partners you know along the whole continuum and she's continuing to lead important conversations with philanthropic partners to broaden our collective response, ensure that housing is not only a response to encampment, but also we're also focusing on the different populations that we know also have an emergency need, including families, including our young people. We had a good conversation about that yesterday. So at the same time, I think I just want to end by being very transparent about our capacity. Resources are finite, and the need is significant. We have been trying to leverage as much as possible what are the grant dollars, the LAHA funds, which are state sales tax dollars, We are working on our Metro sales tax. We are trying to leverage every resource we can. But we cannot invest everywhere at once, which makes it essential that we are really deliberate about where and how the county will direct its resources. And that has to be done under a plan that has been informed by our continuum of care. And that has to be kind of where we center our decision making. And so in a couple weeks or in a few weeks, our Housing Stability Department, which is the administrative entity for the continuum of care, will bring a board workshop to all of you so you can better understand that strategic plan. And we need to make sure that the investments we are making are having a sustainable impact, and that's something that Commissioner Moran has continually pushed us on. So with that, that's my update. I'm happy to take some questions. I do know Director Wilkins is online if you have something more specific about housing stability in particular.

Any questions? Discussion? Thank you. Okay, let's begin. Maishan, you want to start us off? Outside committee reports? Board and committee reports?

Let's see.

Okay, Mary Jo.

May you come back? Thank you. Yeah, I'll go, then we can come back. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just start off with this morning, there was a back-to-school workshop for the Roseville area schools district it was I was lucky to be at the very beginning of it we had to leave a little early to come to this board meeting but it's just just a kudos and congratulations and gratitude to all of our our teachers in our schools that are you know starting a new school year it was a great There was a great welcome by our superintendent, Jenny Lake, and the school board was all there, and different elected officials, but just the faculty that were there for their workshops. We also saw a video of a two-student speech team that were national champions, and they did an amazing speech on really important issues. And so just thanks to our schools that are doing such such great work also of course it's the state fair and i was lucky to be at the fair yesterday and it was mental health day at the fair and so at uh dan patch park there were all these um tabling done and ramsey county human services was there i was very grateful that they were there with a number of tables uh that were just really reaching out to people with their resources for for people with mental health. So thank you to Abrahamson County Human Services for being there for that. Also, there was the Rice Creek Boulevard open house. We talked about that. That was a week ago, but then we had a Rice Creek Boulevard webinar last week where the plans for that boulevard were discussed. And so people can find that webinar. on our website and they can watch it whenever they want so that was taped also this is very exciting we had a groundbreaking for twin lakes technology center last week in roseville this was uh a great uh we we provided 500 000 in funding through the environmental response fund This is formerly a trucking terminal. It's taken years to redevelop this property. This was the last piece of this huge trucking area that I grew up driving by. And it's just been so exciting that they've now redeveloped it, put all that land, most of that land on the tax rolls. It's staggering to know that it's going from a $5.4 million property value to a $26.6 million property value. So that's really going to increase our tax base. So all this great development. Kudos to Ella Mitchell and Josh Olson and our economic development for... their great work in getting this to happen. And it was just an exciting groundbreaking for a technology center in Roseville. So that was fun. We also had our Ramsey Washington Recycling and Energy Board meeting, where we affirmed a 10-year contract with Xcel for our feedstock, which is the waste that we have that we've pulled all of our recyclables and usables out of. So that's a good 10 years to allow us time to continue to keep forward thinking on our waste. And also heard from our intern from Germany. We received an intern through the Climate Smart municipalities and counties. She gave a great presentation on how we're managing our waste. the savings that we have by doing some of the things that we're looking forward to doing in the future. And then we did our review of our executive director. Our second year already, that executive director, Trista Martinson, formerly our colleague, has been the executive director there, and we did her annual review. Many thanks to my colleagues, Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Ortega, for being a part of that Ramsey County Washington Recycling and Energy Board. And then we had a haulers picnic. And we're in gratitude for all of our great people that work in our buildings and the haulers that deliver waste to us. So also, we have, let's see. This Saturday, Commissioner Bigum and I are going to be on WCCO talking about our biz recycling program at the fair. So that's going to be a great time to really promote. the great work that our recycling and energy and our work that we're doing with our businesses in getting them to be as environmentally conscious as they can be. So that's on Saturday. So with that, I'm done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Singh?

Yes. Well, I'm going to give more of a broader message today. Last week, as part of the work with the Direct Care and Treatment Advisory Committee, I represent the Association of Minnesota Counties in that work. It was the second of three tours. We went to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program facility. Last week, we were at St. Peter, their forensics facility. And then we'll be heading to the Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center. This is part of broad work that is continually part of my work day, whether that is meeting with our staff, front level staff who are working Our programs, directors who are thinking of strategizing how best to serve our community's needs and then working with our community partners with NAMI Minnesota and others. Just to say that this work goes on quietly every single day and that there's a couple of national days of awareness that are book-ending this week that I wanted to highlight. Yesterday was Overdose Awareness Day, and I just want to say that after its peak, opioid overdoses in Ramsey counties are coming down, thanks to the opioid response efforts, our public health, our partners on education and distribution of naproxone, and other activities to bring that down. But also, just to let people know that there are underlying causes of some of these issues, and that in times of stress where we are right now when there are concerns around affordability, food and housing stability, the encampment closures and the direct care and outreach that we've been doing there. There's also a lot of concern over medical, assistance, eligibility, and ability to maintain that for individuals living with mental health issues. There's some revalidation issues at the state that are making some of the providers to community vulnerable. And all that's going on as far as in the social outrage machine with elections and the war and all of these things can be really stressful for individuals living with mental illness and those who are caring for them and for anyone and everyone who's paying attention and feeling And so I just want to remind people that next week, September 14th, 8th is 9-8-8 day. And to remind people that the 9-8-8 call program is free, it's confidential, and help is available 24 hours, 7 days a week. We also have resources at Ramsey County as children are going back to school. Many schools have school-based mental health referral systems. We also have the Ramsey County Children's Mental Health Collaborative. which has a wealth of online resources for families. And just to remind all of us to do what we can to normalize conversations around mental health and all of our personal and professional spheres of influence. And just to remind folks that asking for help is a sign of strength. You are not alone, and it doesn't have to be an emergency to ask for help. So I encourage everybody to check in with yourself, check in with the people you love and the people you work with, and make sure that people feel as if they have a space to get the resources that they need. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner McMurray, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to highlight a couple of things from last week. Last Tuesday, I had a chance to participate in a town hall at the Lynn Blumstein Care Center in my district in the Como Park neighborhood. Myself, Senator Umunba Baden, and Councilmember Molly Coleman, Ward 4, all provided updates to residents as well as answered their questions. A lot of great conversation and questions around A lot of the decisions and topics that we've been dealing with here at the county, including questions around Medicaid and SNAP and how that's going to impact the residents there, as well as housing and election security. So a lot of great insights from the residents at Lynn Blumstein, but also an opportunity for me to really share out more of the things that the county is doing and hopefully getting them connected to uh, resources where they need it. Um, the last thing that I want to highlight, uh, is that I had a chance to attend, uh, the annual community picnic of the, uh, um, the Ramsey County judges, women's group and, and men's group. So the women's group sponsored by, uh, judges, uh, uh, growing, uh, star, uh, and Mitchell and Judge Stevenson over the men's group. They have this annual just get together towards the end of the summer. And we've all interacted with the group. They do amazing work to ensure that those who are just as involved get the support and the mentorship they need, not only to navigate the legal system, but to really help rebuild their lives. And so it was great to see so many folks out there at Newell Park celebrating one another, lifting each other up, and really being in the midst of community. And so myself and Commissioner Moran were there, and big thank you to our entire team who were out there. I know we saw the mental health bus that was there, Director Thompson, DCM Reyes, a number of different staffers who were also there. So just an amazing program that I'm glad that we're able to be a part of and to see the work that these judges and these women and men have been doing to take a moment to just celebrate each other was really great to see. Thank you. Mr. Miller.

All right. Last week I had the opportunity to represent Ramsey County and speak at the groundbreaking for the fourth incinerator at the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant. I just want to note that this is critical public health infrastructure, serves about 1.8 million people across our region. including nearly all of Ramsey County as our region continues to grow and the existing incinerators approach capacity. I mean, this investment is important to ensuring our wastewater system can continue safely. I just want to note, too, that in my remarks I also emphasized that while this infrastructure serves an entire region, its impacts are experienced most directly by those surrounding the Eastside community. So Ramsey County, we've been engaged throughout the process, and we remain committed to answering questions. So I do think it would be helpful. There was an open invitation if we as a board want to go and tour the wastewater plant. I was unable to do the tour, but Kathleen did, and it took quite a while. I will tell you, thank goodness it was a windy day because that smell was... It was, yeah, it was the smell. I also attended the Metropolitan Soil and Water Conservation District's Area Joint Powers Board on Wednesday evening. We received updates from the Engineering and Technical Assistance Program, the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program, the 2026-2027 Capital Equipment Plan, and approved some joint powers agreements supporting shared work across the metro area conservation districts. I did attend the R&E. I had that on my update. I do just want to note one thing. Mary Jo did a fabulous job. Commissioner McGuire did a fabulous job highlighting. I did just kind of want to go that we did receive the first stage of feasibility report examining the former Gardu steel mill property adjacent to the R&E Center. The study is intended to help us understand the opportunities, risks, costs, and additional information. This was information only. It does not represent a decision or commitment made by the board to do any type of requiring the property or even pursuing technology. specific technologies. I just wanted to make that note. And with that, I'm done. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to just speak to one issue or concern or priority. And I just want to thank County Manager Becker for giving an update on the work around the encampment and the work that we're doing across the continuum. But I had a great opportunity yesterday to go visit Avivo that's located in Minneapolis and Hennepin County, which is 100 tiny homes. And we're going to be doing more of that around Hattie Home, Ramsey County, visiting Settle, which is another location where they have created a community of tiny homes. But I had an opportunity to visit Avivo, which is located in Minneapolis, which the homes are inside of a former warehouse. And one of the things that surprised me that you would never know that it's there, it's well maintained, well upkept. When you go into the front door, The only persons that are allowed inside of the building are for those who live there. There are no visitors who come inside. It's only for those who live there. The place was very quiet, very clean, and they had security. But the individuals at the front door, they wore t-shirts that said, protective agent, protective agent. They have no guns, none, right? Very, very seduced environment. And once you go into the, there is a locked entrance. Once you go in, you have to sign in and write. And so once you go in there, there's an open space. There was like a community space with community room for TV, with chairs, with games that they can play in. And we spent an abundance of time at that front entrance just learning about the program and the services that are provided by the individuals there. And what stuck out really for me was the humanity that they bring into those spaces. There is no rules around you can't drink, you can't get high. It's like if you have your own apartment. You come in as you are. They wrap around services for you to take care of your needs. But very, very low barriers to access to be a part of the the program that they have there for them. They talk extensively around just listening that they did, and it came out of the pandemic in 2020, 2021. They had like three months to find a location, because in Potterhorn Park in Minneapolis was inundated with tents. And it was during a pandemic. So they had to do something. And they found that warehouse. And within three months, they had retrofit that space to move in, because they had to move in before the end of the year. Before the end of the year, it was done. 100 tiny homes was provided. And they did it because, like here in Ramsey County, we have a coordinated folks who go out who have been speaking to the individuals in the park. And they ask them, what do you want and what do you need? And what would you like to see? All of that is included in how they are engaging with the individuals. I've heard conversations here that we want to make sure that we have shelters and a bed for everyone. But what they really wanted was a place that they can call home, a place that is theirs, a place where they can go in and lay their head and be in peace. And most of them are dealing with mental health, substance use disorder, alcoholism, drug addiction. Those are real things that they are dealing with. But what they all wanted was a place that they can lay their head in peace. That they could bring their stuff. Some of the things they had to remove and say, you can't bring everything that you have. So there's a storage unit in another place where they can store some of the things. They can bring their pets. If they have a dog, they could bring their dog. If they have a partner, the partners can come with them. And they both have their own space. It's very low barrier, but very humane type of environment that recognize the difficulties that people are being challenged with and to allow the support service to do what they do. The number of days that they are there, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. They have very low having to remove people. That number was like under five, I think, over the five years, six years that they've been there. It's 190 days. They're there about 190 days before they have moved to supportive housing. And so my question was, how do you do that? How do you move in 90 days these individuals that have high level needs? And they said, well, we just work with our community partners. We work really, really close with our community partners. to do this. When they move them, they don't move them. They don't put them out. They work with them. And I was really, really surprised that they were able to do that. Over the time that Avivo has been in that location, they have placed over 300 people into supportive housing. And there are 300 strong supporting them in the supportive housing. And usually, once they leave Aviva and move over to supportive housing, they usually are there to support them from three to six months through a coordinated effort around their needs until they get into more of an independence. But they're able to take care of themselves, to pay their rent, and do the things that they need to do, because they have also given them support and given them some tools that they need to be self-sufficient to. They have done that. One of the biggest... And they have pods. So the space is not a really big space, right? I thought it maybe was a 10 by 10, but the space is 8 by 8. So it's a bed there. There's a desk and a chair and a desk chair and a bed. I know I've seen a hanging rack where they can hang their clothes, right? If they want to bring a TV in, they can do that, right, in that area. But the point is, it belongs to them. And they take care of it. There's washes there. There's dryers there. There's showers there. They feed them three meals a day. All that happens. But the interesting piece that they shared with me was that they were also not just in Minneapolis. They was over at Pig Eye. working with the folks over in . And they, from Minneapolis over here in St. Paul, was able to place a few of our residents into Kimball Courts, which is a supporting housing here in St. Paul. And I am mentioning that intentionally at this moment in time because that's the type of report that I want to hear from St. Paul. That's the type of support I want to hear from the heart team. That's the type of support that I want to hear from us in Ramsey County of the work that we have done to place people and stabilize them in their lives and wrap some service around them. And my thought was, how do they do that all the way from Minneapolis to show up at Pig Eyes? And they said, because we have our team, our outreach team, that is constantly out there with these individuals. And it takes trust, right? Because trust is built. It's not a given. But we keep showing up. We keep showing up. We keep listening. We keep learning from them. We keep listening. We keep learning from them. And because of that, Avivo has become a place that people now trust. And it's not Avivo trying to share with them that it's a good place for them to be, but it's the residents who are now living there who become the messenger of the message about this place called Avivo that is transitioning people from homelessness, from living on the street, to a tiny home, to supportive housing. You know, we have to move away and be more innovative to be more creative and more solution-based. When I talk to people here in St. Paul and I ask, how are we doing? How many people have we housed from the streets to that transition? And I'm sure we're doing good work, but I need to hear the story. I haven't heard a good story that I can share here today about what and how and why we are doing what we're doing. And that is concerning to me. We just spent and gave over an emergency of an enclosure invested $1.8 million. And I'm still not sure what we're going to get for that $8.1 million, or what impact we're going to have, or what difference is going to come out of that. They spent $4 million to rectify that building. $4 million. And it's still standing strong. And yes, there is some overhead. We can't do this work free. But for $4 million, we got 100 tiny homes. What are we getting for that money that we just, in an emergency, in an urgency, without a plan, what do we get from that? And so I just share that because we got to do some evidence-based work here. We got to have some results here. We got to be trauma-informed. We got to move people. People want to feel safe, and they deserve to be treated with some humanity. They deserve to be treated with some humanity. When I walk past Catholic Charity, it's a mess out there. I'm saying it out loud. It's a mess. It's a little scary. What we see, we can do better, and they can do better. And I hear a lot of the money that we're spending is for security. There's 100 people living in that building, not one gun. Not one gun. They have expectations, though. They have expectations of those individuals that come into that building. And sometimes expectation doesn't happen immediately, right? It's something you have to learn, because they've been living a certain way. But it happens.

is happening.

So I look forward to the rest of the team going out to Avivo to visit on September 14. And the only reason why I went early is because I'm going to be at MPAC out of town on the 14th. But I wanted to make sure that I my due diligence, because we can learn from others. And it's OK learning from others. We're also going to do a tour of Settle. What we have to learn was working and find a way. We don't have to study this again, study it along the way. There are some good practices out there that we can use and implement and follow and get a return for our investment. And I think a return for my investment is really, really important at this moment in time. We cannot continue to do this work the way we always do. And we cannot be reactionary. We have to have a plan. We have to create plans. And so You know, not trying to target no one specifically, but that's the work that we all got to do. Each and every one of us needs to do it, including myself, in figuring out how we can do this better and differently. But that's the work of us to go in there where we have found people moving from one spot to another spot on land that is contaminated.

We got to do something better here.

So I want to thank the staff over at Avivo who took over an hour to just walk me through what they're doing, how they're doing, how they get their money, how they get the support. City, county, Philadelphia, nonprofit, people just all working together. on behalf of bringing some dignity into this work, which can be around homelessness, which can be not so much full of dignity. So I just want to say thank you to, I'm really bad with names. I should have wrote down their names. But you know who you are. I just want to say thank you for the work that you're doing and the leadership that you're doing at Aviva Homes. And not to say that anything is perfect and everything has their issues. Not to say they didn't make me dress it up, but there was people walking around. There was people living there. But the piece that was there was definitely really good to see. And the work and how they're doing the work was great to see. So we have some work to do here. And it's not easy work. I'm not saying it's easy work. But it can be different.

Couple of thoughts. I remember visiting. those homes, tiny homes when they first came out over 10 years ago. Very impressive. Quite frankly, I thought they were very comfortable inside. But I think the critical piece is you're the chair of Heading Home Ramsey. That's really the table where we need to bring all our partners, the city and the community organizations to think outside the box and be more creative. instead of repeating the same formula over and over. So you are chairing the table now that we should be doing this. Otherwise, all the different government organizations are going to be acting on their own, and that's not going to get it. I guess I think the, hopefully those folks are going to get a site visit of this place. Hopefully. Your folks heading home, Ramsey, and we could start thinking outside the box a little more. So thank you for your work.

Yeah, Mr. Chair, I was just going to say, I think St. Cloud is on the verge of opening theirs. And just for context, they received almost $8 million in the state. Mm-hmm. And then they had a small amount of their own city-county contribution. So just so you know, as you think about legislative things.

They did mention that, that they are opening one in St. Cloud. A lot of lessons that came from the first opening that they have improved on the second home.

But it had a large state investment. Yes. Very large. Yeah.

So we'll have to add that to our legislative package to get $8 million from the state. Get something. We can do that. Yeah, when we chair that committee. So we can work on that.

You know what? I'm going to be a little. $8 million is fine. The question is what you do with it. That's right. At the end of the day. Otherwise, $1 million is just another number on a piece of paper. That's right. Thank you for that.

I was just going to say, Commissioner Moran, that NAMI Ramsey County has their number one initiative. They've been doing research and done a lot of site visits around the supportive housing, including St. Cloud. And I know that the new NAMI Minnesota executive director comes from a supportive housing background. So I'm guessing that there are a number of partners in this work along creating that continuum of care. making sure we're inviting all of the stakeholders to the table because I think you've made a compelling case. NAMI is a great organization, too.

Thank you. Commissioner Shaw.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So last week has been all about transit for me. So I've been meeting with both residents who live near the bridge at Johnson Parkway and Phelan Boulevard, the real life co-op, as well as residents who want to see us advance transit in Ramsey County. So on top of that, I recently met with the Met Council Transportation Chair, Council Member Reva Chambliss, because she also received a lot of public testimony about this, and she was doing her due diligence as well and meeting with the project team. So I participated in the meeting. And what I learned, and for all of us here, as we get questions about this bridge that's in my district, is that we are back at 0% design for the bridge. And I thought that we were much further along, but we are actually at 0% because the Met Council had identified a sewer line where it was identified with some of the original rendering. So it will have to be moved, and those conversations are opening up with St. Paul because St. Paul is the... adjacent property owner, which is a park. And so there will be conversations about it and also just receive really good feedback from the project team that because this is a locally funded project, we are able to open up those conversations more with our partners about what we can do to problem solve in that area. And finally, the Rush Line met. Rush Line was initially a part of, like, Rush Line and then part of PURPLE. But we are still, we did a special meeting to talk about pausing the coalition work because, you know, there is no Rush Line project. It's a bronze line project that only includes Ramsey County. And so we will be meeting again to do a second reading and also vote on finalizing that. But the pausing it just means that the funding partners and also some of our city partners will not be meeting regularly as required by the bylaws, but just meeting as needed to in the future. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll take a five-minute break. We're only a little bit behind schedule at 10, well, past 10.30 now, but we have a closed meeting regarding TCAP Rice Creek Commons A, and then at 1 o'clock, we have the Budget Committee of the Hall, and we'll be looking at health and wellness service teams chaired by Commissioner Moran. Is that right? That's one o'clock here. Okay. I saw her go, what's the matter? Did you not know that? We are adjourned.