Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon . . . . . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 🎵 Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

it would behoove us to get a little bit more information about a lot of our topics. So we spent the last month doing that. And I'm going to, in a moment, turn it over to Mr. McVey to share more about what we learned and how we did that engagement. I believe all of the council members were engaged in different conversations with different department directors. And then we also got some feedback from Dr. Britt as to her thoughts on what we heard and what she thinks would be most viable. Before we dive in, I also want to clarify something for the record. We misstated an element of the college-bound program at the last meeting, and I just want to be really clear that the program is automatic enrollment, so children, as soon as they're born, are automatically enrolled in the program. Parents then have the option to add additional dollars to the program or participate in other ways, but it is an automatic enrollment, so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear for the record, and apologies to The department, for having had that be misstated last time, want to make sure we are accurate here at this table. With that, I'm going to turn things over to Mr. McVey to tell us more about what we've learned.

So thank you, Madam Chair. I will try to give cliff notes to all this because I realize there's a lot going on in here. And I don't know. I'm really sorry we sent this out in this format, honestly. I mean, it works. Ms. Vang was very supportive of how this was all put together. But I realize it's a lot to digest in a very short period of time. And I will start off with council members, thank you for working with myself and with Ms. Vang to make the interviews with department heads possible and with their program management staff. The general, I'm going to give you a 36,000-foot level overview of our interviews, and then we can get into the weeds with each individual department. All four departments, they're interested in the work that we are doing. Here at the Audit Committee, however, there is some hesitation generally to undergo an audit currently, as in this calendar year. That was unfortunately expressed by all four of the departments that we interviewed. A lot of it's due to timing. For one thing, there's been a transition. Several departments have new department heads. There's also the concern about available staff resources and triage with us as we conduct these audits. That being said, it's actually not going to be that significant of a lift for them because we're going to be doing a lot of the work ourselves. And then there was also the question about data utility, which we can get into a little bit later. We can get into further details on that with some of the departments, especially with DSI in particular. They all generally expressed a preference for a latter half of 2027. That being said, in conversation with Ms. Vang last week, there There are ways to maneuver in terms of how we scope our questions, which we tried to do, as you'll see within the research questions that we proposed. These are just to facilitate conversation. They're not actually the end-all and be-all at this point in time. But, circling back, the... In terms of the latter half of 2027, I actually, and Ms. Vang agrees with me as well, that we can do audits yet this year for some, as long as we frame the research questions in a certain way. Because for instance, like with the Office of Financial Empowerment, there were questions that they had with, and I know Council Member Johnson, you can speak to this as well, with equity in terms of their outreach to the public because they admit they agree that there are they need to improve on that and that there's a lot of people that don't know about that particular program of college bound and also in a whole range of things with dsi as well we can really get into the weeds on that one because it's such a massive department that being said um I don't have much more to add over a general summary for all departments. We can discuss individual departments. And I imagine it'd be a conversation unless you want to go through each research question line by line item. I will add, as one just minor clarification, Madam Chair, we have not heard back yet in full from Dr. Britt regarding the costing. Basically, at this point, we have a very rough idea of where we're going to be in terms of cost for these audits. But we haven't gotten a specified dollar amount yet from her. And along with timing, it was kind of like a rough estimate. She needed to have more time to look at it. I imagine she's going to get back to us this week, if not early next week. So it is Tuesday, so fingers crossed. So with that being said, Madam Chair, I defer back to you.

Great. Thanks so much again, Mr. Pei, for both that summary and also for coordinating so much of this work. I think it would probably be helpful to hear from those of us who were part of the different conversations if we have things to add to what you just shared. Again, as you mentioned, we have very, very comprehensive summaries in front of us, but it might help folks wrap their heads around it to hear from any reflections or suggestions or insights that council members, or anyone else. Mr. Lassiter or Ms. Dilworth, you did not participate in the conversations with department directors, right? No. So any summaries that we would share from our conversations? And I don't know if either of my colleagues wants to start. I can go. Ms. Johnson.

Yeah, I mean, I participated in the college-bound discussion and appreciated kind of hearing from the director about not only just some of the program pieces but where they're currently at and just getting clarification. One of the things that I kind of shared with them as well is that this body really considered that topic as part because it came up in some of the mayoral discussion and conversations we had with the mayor. And they just shared with us just how at this time, you know, they also kind of shared with the mayor as well. It doesn't appear that they felt very strongly that this would be necessarily helpful to their program or hurtful, really just overall they're in a place where they're even doing their own reevaluation work as we speak because the program is getting to kind of its point in time where they can actually go through and do some of this work. And so just even in the questions, I specifically was like, would this be helpful? Would this be beneficial to you all if the committee brought this up? And I kind of got a sense that they didn't have really strong feelings that it would be. I mean, I would look to my colleagues for the discussion, but my kind of takeaway from it was more so that that there wasn't really, they didn't feel like there was much to really offer to the audit process. And so it just didn't, I left feeling like this wasn't necessarily the route to go and that the conversations that they had shared, even with the administration, was predominantly that they were in a decent spot right now in the program, they were reviewing things as they spoke, but that the team itself

Wasn't gonna be as active or helpful as you might want them to be if this was brought up as a topic Yeah, I had I think we had a pretty similar conversation with Public Works if they're one of the departments that's seen not just new leadership but leadership Come and that was not previously a part of the department. So I think they're you know, I similarly are asking a lot of the same questions and are undergoing their own, not the same questions, but same types of questions, and undergoing their own internal evaluations and decision making around how to get things done in the department. Obviously, I think unlike with College Bound, Our public works department has been around for a very, very long time. And so there's probably a limit to how much can change under any individual director. So maybe that's an argument for going forward anyway. But it was very similar in that I think that the department was concerned about duplicative processes when they are already in the midst of of doing some of this analysis about a lot of staff time going into this when they want it going into their own processes that are being designed to work and answer the questions that they want answered. I definitely walked away feeling like some of the conversations we've had around public works would be really valuable for an audit topic down the road, but that this timing did not feel like the right time. And I think that that was a shared perspective amongst those who were in that meeting.

Thank you to both. I can share, I was in both the DSI conversation and the district council reform conversation, and I think that both departments started in a similar place to what I'm hearing my colleagues say, sort of this reticence, I would say, to lots of reasons why this isn't a good time. DSI, it is very much the case that poly is the new innovation there and that we, I think there was a general agreement among all of us in the conversation that we should not touch anything that has to do with poly because it is literally just being rolled out and there's just, it's too soon to tell how that is doing and certainly to compare that over previous would really be apples and oranges. So giving Polly some time to get started, at least a year, we've discussed, seems prudent. We did, however, talk about a number of questions that could be asked and answered without now without waiting for Polly. One interesting question that came up was this idea of the perception of DSI's work with businesses and permitting versus the reality, and how a few really bad experiences, really bad permitting processes can color the rest of how people perceive the department and how the department is seen generally to engage. And we went down the road a little bit of asking, should we interrogate those small number of examples where things went really badly and try to figure out what went wrong? Because if the risk is so outsized for the few that go really wrong, then there would be a huge impact of just making sure that whatever those things are that went wrong don't go wrong again in the future. There might be some poly connection with those, obviously, or some things that poly might help with, but it didn't seem so didn't seem like the overlap was so complete that you couldn't look at those cases and learn something from them even now. And then there was also a potential question about outdated license ordinances that aren't in alignment with state law. This could definitely be something that could be studied now. Where are ordinances no longer in alignment? What's the impact of having these out-of-date ordinances and what should be changed? So those were two sort of I think they're both in the summary that you have here, but those were two that stood out to me as really interesting topics that could be studied now. And then for the conversation with PED about the district councils, there was a general consensus that because each district council is so different, we would really be talking about auditing district councils themselves, individual district councils, all of them, because it would be difficult to audit, say, PED staff's interactions with district councils and understand much about the situation given how different they all are. Given that, we we sort of landed on some questions related to the fact that we have contracts with district councils, but we don't know if our evaluation of those contracts is still aligned with our expectations of district councils, because the system was created in the 70s, looking at whether or not we are still measuring performance in the way that we expect performance to be. So for example, not just How many people are engaged, but who was engaged? Were the people who were engaged representative of the community? How do district councils evaluate their own work? How do we know if they're effective? How do they know if they're effective? What do we want engagement to look like in today's day and age compared to maybe when they started in the 70s? So there were a lot of interesting questions there that, again, even though we do have a new director of the department, she's been a deputy director for a time. She's served in the city council office for some time. It's not so much change in that department that I think, and district councils obviously have been around for a very long time, that that would be too fresh and too raw to audit. So a couple of things there. And then lastly, I can just share, Director Britt, Director Dr. Britz emailed to us. She said, I took a look at the proposed next round of topics. I definitely suggest not prioritizing the college-bound topic given the likely changes coming up and the potential for considering it later in scope. Of the three remaining topic areas, it looks like the district council reform, business licensing, and building code operations might be the two most optimal choices for the next round that also have staff buy-in and openness to change as a result of the study. I think the street maintenance study would be critical, but it appears the public works and the street maintenance division might have better openness for the study selected for future consideration. That being said, any of these three seem worthy of immediate consideration by the committee. So clear as mud. And again, our goal is to recommend three. Three. Eliminate one and recommend three for the council to choose two. So look to, I think at this point, all of us for open discussion, suggestions, reflections on what was shared and what's in front of us.

Thank you.

I know that it was shared just of like a regret of like the template, but I just want to share that.

I love that.

I appreciate this. I don't need spark notes for some of it, and I do appreciate the thoroughness, as always, that comes with the work, I would say, of the folks that are here, but your work specifically. So thank you for getting that through. I just would pay attention to just some of the cost estimates for each of them and make sure that... It could be helpful to have some balance there. But I think from what I'm hearing, I don't have any reason to recommend College Bound at this time, personally. And so I would offer that as a suggested. The rest of the three, except for that one.

Council Member Colon. May I piggyback on what Council Member Johnson just said? The folks at OFE were very interested in us taking a second look at them, maybe in like two years time. But definitely right now it's not the time. And honestly. I mean, I was just looking back at my notes from back in June. And again, there was never any mention about College Bound in our survey that we have for residents or in our survey that we have for city staff. And it only came up four separate times at district councils. And it was just in passing. I think in terms of interest in the community, I think that there are topics that are far more timely than college-bound right now. I think it would be really interesting to look at them, though, in, say, 2028, perhaps, if they have the time and resources for that. So anyway, Council Member Coleman, I'm sorry.

No, I think that's great and super helpful. I feel very good about dropping college-bound. I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So there's the district council reform question for PED. That seems very clear. But then there's two potential separate questions for DSI, one around the small handful of very negative cases and one around sort of outdated or negative ordinances and regulations.

Is that accurate? Yes. And there are Those were the ones that came up in the conversation. I think that what Mr. McVey did beautifully was then take those ideas and even further elaborate on them so that really any one of these numbers could become, many of these could become an audit topic. So what we're really presenting to the council is three buckets, large buckets, within which we would try to gauge what people are most interested in and then scope something even more specifically than that. But yes, to your point, there's there's numbers of audits within each of these. Got it.

Okay. Then, yeah, I mean, in that case, so if the three buckets that would be set in the informer are PED, DSI, public works, I would do that. I would then recommend to the council that we move forward with DSI and PED. And I feel like public works does not feel as ripe at this point. But again, if we have to choose three and then we can narrow it. Sorry, just trying to understand this process a little bit better. Then does the council have any input in how we narrow the DSI and or if we were to split that into multiple?

Yes, we would bring these, we would essentially bring these back to the council. We would talk to our colleagues about what flavors within each of these are most interesting to folks and see if there's consensus that develops. And then we would put forward a recommendation, essentially a resolution to the council based on what we hear back. Got it. I will say, I think that building code operations, and Mr. McVeigh, remind me of, I think that was the one that was We didn't talk about that very extensively, and I think that might have been because it had a lot to do with poly.

So, Madam Chair, part of the reason we didn't get into as much detail of the building code is for two reasons, because A, poly, and B, because of, I don't know if you recall, ma'am, but there was mention of ongoing litigation with DSI. and potential ramifications that audit topic. We'd have to frame it in such a way, basically, if we were to conduct a performance audit. To be fair, this is my professional opinion. We are the legislative branch. That's the problem with the executive branch. So at the end of the day, we have that discretion to make, in terms of forming our own opinion, how we scope our audit topics. But again, we're a very collaborative body, and we have a very collaborative process, which I think is actually beneficial to everyone involved. And so I'm always available to help to work with the executive with those kinds of concerns within reason. Emphasis on within reason. And I would remind the committee of that as well.

Thank you, Mr. McVey. And yeah, the litigation specifically relates to DSI's fees. And so that we would really need to avoid fees generally looking at that because while some things are under litigation, they really need to stay as they are. But yes, if you look at page two, building code response times and efficiency, a lot of what the building code came down to, because we don't actually affect the building code, that's determined by the state, what it was really about was our inspections, our property code enforcement, and again, so much of that is going to be changing with poly, that it just felt like... it didn't make sense to evaluate that. Licensing, on the other hand, while it also will use poly, there were additional questions that could be asked that weren't just poly-specific, especially, again, going back to some of those worst-case scenarios that felt...

May I add, Madam Chair? Director Jeon mentioned that, and I'm trying to remember the name of one of her senior managers at DSI, but he raised a really excellent point that it would be really nice to look at how we are aligning our regulatory stance, especially because we have responsibilities with over 300 different licenses here in St. Paul. I did not know we had that many. I was quite surprised to hear that. But seeing how we are aligning those actually with state standards and also seeing if there are any reason to update the legislative code in particular with regards to these licenses because some of these business licenses may be rather antiquated. And so I just wanted to bring that up as well, because that just came back to my memory. And that's all I have to say.

Thanks, Mr. K. And unlike most of our audits, that would actually be a legislative thing. action that we could take as a result. So it wouldn't be hoping that the administration does something with what we found. We could actually act on that as a council. I'm hearing general comfort with the idea of moving forward district council reform, business licensing, and then I know you had said, Ms. Coleman, building code operations as well. I'm I think basically what I was trying to convey just now is that that felt a little bit, it kind of seemed like it more came down to business licensing after we had the conversation, even though it looks like it's two topics. So I think that would only be two topics we would be advancing if we limited it to that. Ms. Johnson.

Yeah, can I ask just a contextual question, I guess, regarding, so I guess like the Department of Public Works, I think I understand some of the hesitation. I guess I am wondering just like, did they share kind of a little bit about Why not now? I am curious, just kind of a little bit more. If you could say a couple more things about that meeting, just because of how long they've been doing the work, and while they are somewhat impacted by poly, not to the extent of where I see some of the questions being. And so I was just wondering a little bit more.

Totally. I'm happy to answer that, although, Mr. McVey, you should definitely jump in. Of course I am. I'll just say quickly, I think their concerns, nothing poly related, just that they are that Director Barber felt strongly that they were in the process of themselves doing a lot of this evaluation and determining kind of what our best practice is, doing a lot of the cross-jurisdictional study. And so I think my impression, and again, Mr. McVeigh, correct me if this is not yours, but is more concerned about it being duplicative and taking up additional staff time. So I don't think it's the end of the world if we move forward with this. I just... agree that if they're asking the exact same questions, just on a different timeline, it might not be as fruitful as some other paths. But I have no skin in this game.

I'm still worried.

Thank you, Chair Necker.

It's interesting, because when we got a different response from, now I'm blanking on, who we just did the audit with last year. And they were looking at some of the same You know, they were doing their own internal thing, and when we came in to talk about doing the audit, we partnered with them, and it came out to be a very good. Parks and libraries, yeah. So it's like, I think it could be framed differently, because we wouldn't come in and be duplicative. We'd come in and actually partner with them and actually give them some resources that they wouldn't have had, maybe, with what they're doing. And we have some history in doing that.

That's exactly where we got to in the conversation, is how do we do this in a way that feels like it complements the work that's happening and that maybe asks different questions, but obviously done in very close partnership. The request was still the more time that we heard from a couple of other places that this could be a great topic a year and a half from now, two years from now, a year from now even. But again, that was just their perspective.

There was, if I may add, Madam Chair, there was... And Councilmember Coleman, you can probably speak to this as well. There was a general consensus during our interview with Public Works. They were struggling to generate research questions for us to consider as well. And we ended up drawing a little bit. What I put in here in conversation with Ms. Vang was research questions that actually were used by other cities for their own performance audits elsewhere in the country looking at street maintenance and pothole repair. And so we didn't get a lot of input from public, as much input in public works as say like what we did with DSI or from OFE or from PED. And so I actually move the opinion, and colleagues, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. But I think public, it would be really, there's a lot of interest in the community looking at public works. I think there is, it's still worth you, I think, put it really well that we can really work with departments to really frame research, study questions. questions and to really add value for 2020. Is that 2023? Yes, that's from before my time. But we can do that and where was I going with this? Oh yes, I remember now. We can do that in perhaps actually just have it later on in 2027 because we were thinking that we could potentially, that could be the very first topic that we do for our next cycle basically. Potentially we'd have that ready to go. listed, that's something that A, the committee wants to do, and B, that the council agrees with as well, potentially. That was something that Ms. Vang and I discussed last week a little bit, in passing. I think only maybe 30 seconds on it, but it's something that is possible.

Thank you, Mr. McVeigh. Yeah, and I will throw out to the group as well, I mean, we had this we decided to have three topics recommend to the council who would choose two topics. We can always recommend two topics to the council and just say, these are the two we think would be best, and share the ones that we considered in addition and why not, why those didn't rise to the top. And then the council can always decide they like one of these other ones better and bring that forward. if we're really feeling like some of these are great topics but not for right now, and there are a couple that are great topics for right now, specifically district council reform and business licensing. And by the way, right now, again, for the second one of these in particular, is not until the beginning of 27 at the earliest. So right now is definitely not right now for any of these. I think that's important to keep in mind that we could recommend two. So I'm just throwing more into the mix. Ms. Johnson.

I will just share that like, If this came to me in the form of three, I would really be interested in the Public Works, honestly. I think the street repair, I'll just, my personal opinion is the street repair and potholes of the three is my personal favorite. I hear the conversations around maybe thinking about their process and where they are as a department, and with that respect, I also think there's an ability to really showcase the work that the department is doing around repairs and street maintenance repairs in a way that I think this audit could be really actually helpful to that. I think there's a lot of questions that get had about potholes and street repairs in the community. But I think also just going back, this was supported too by several district councils and the topics I was trying to remember and recall. How many? I don't have that one in front of me. I do. Okay. I was hoping you did. But just to like, I just would put that in of, if these three came to me, then I would want to have a conversation with Director Barber about kind of fully understanding that because I probably would be of the mindset of the council to move this one forward. But Mr. McVeigh.

15 out of the 17 district councils. And also it was mentioned four times in the survey.

So I just want to bring that up as a person who's just like it's often talked about in my area. And so I hear the department. I completely understand that. I think the difference and distinction I'd offer just from being a part of all of these conversation is that there's heavily relates to being relatively giving very little data for us to actually make the process and the audit process helpful. And they're planning to do a lot of significant changes. So even though there's just not going to be that much data there in comparison to an department that is integral to the work that we all do, I think there's a slight difference. But we'll just offer that as a couple of pieces not to say it at all.

But I think if I personally have an interest in that.

But I also think that so do 15 of the 17 district offices, including, I think, all of them in my ward. Thanks, Ms. Johnson. Ms. Coleman?

Yeah, I felt super strongly that this was a good topic to bring forward. I only offer the perspective that the department shared with us, and so I have no objections. I want to be super clear that I don't object to moving forward with it. I think that we will have to navigate how to work with a department that doesn't want us to do the audit, but I imagine that that has been navigated in the past, and that will not be the first time we'll have to experience it. So I have no concerns about going forward with all three of those.

I do think the point that Ms. Silberth made earlier is a really astute one that I think a lot of departments are saying don't study us because we're studying ourselves. And to the extent that we can frame it as let's help you help yourself, take some of this work off your plate, you can study some other aspect of yourself if there's enough to study that might be received differently. Okay, so I'm looking to the room. Right now I think the proposal is to eliminate college bound and recommend the rest. And I'm seeing some heads nodding. So I'm going to formally make that motion. Is there further discussion of that motion? Mr. Lastetter.

Yeah, Chair Nienke. Yeah, I feel that there's a consensus developing around that of dropping the college bound. I would just put in, since that was the mayor's suggestion, in the interest of maintaining that relationship, circling back with the office. And we've been working on the self-assessment tool and maybe offering that as an interim. What questions does the mayor's office have and want to have answered? And maybe that could be put in the self-assessment in the meantime, that that could maybe be a good use of that tool and a way to also maintain goodwill between this body and the mayor's office.

Thank you for reminding us of the very fruitful line of discussion we had last time about the self-assessment as sort of another, like, audit light, self-audit idea. Where can you update us on where that creation of that tool is at? Are you both working with Ms. Bang on that? Or Noah's working on it?

And no, yes. We've been going back and forth. Mr. McVeigh, you had two examples that you found, and we're reviewing them. And the idea was maybe to have a subcommittee kind of further develop it. And maybe there'd be a standard set of questions that would be in each one and a custom set based on the topic. So it hasn't been kind of ironed out.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to, or I should say, I didn't have the forethought to bring this up with Ms. Vang. But maybe we should have just a brief moment to discuss this on the agenda. But I'm hoping that we can actually touch on the self-assessment in, I don't know if we're meeting in August, either in August or in September. And then go on from there. I was very supportive of the idea Mr. Lossetter's suggestion of having a subcommittee of the committee examine this in depth, because we do have one version that is from an institution of higher education. Also, I came up with another version that actually is similar to what's used by Minnesota Management and Budget. One's a little bit more rigorous, and the other one's a bit more user-friendly. But perhaps if we can merge the two together, that could be very useful for departments to use. And that could actually be an ongoing practice, where they are completing those self-assessments every year, providing them to us as a committee, so we actually understand their internal control framework that they have, and where things are going well, where we can really tailor our research questions. I was so excited when I saw that email, actually. I can't help.

Anyway.

Great, well we will definitely add self-assessment to the next agenda when we next meet. And I think the question of whether we meet in August or not really relates to how quickly we can get a resolution together and talk to our colleagues and adopt two of these. And then, because our next role as an audit committee will be to affirm the scope, which will take Dr. Britt working on the scope, which will, my guess is we're not meeting an audience, but we'll see. I think it's on everybody's calendars, and we have the option to cancel it, and it probably will be. But I will add that to our next agenda, whatever it is.

Thank you. Ms. Johnson. Yes, just a question for clarification. We are dropping building code operations from the recommendation?

I think it makes sense to just call this business licensing because I really think the department was clear that there's not much we can do on both of those right now. Okay. Yes. All right. So our three topics, to be clear, would be district council reform, business licensing, street maintenance, and possible repair. The council would be asked to choose two of those for the next calendar year, end of 26, beginning of 27, getting us through mid-27-ish. It's always ish when it comes to the audit committee.

Good timetable, though.

That's great. We're becoming more efficient. We're improving our operations continuously.

Quality management's improving. Exactly. Next time we'll audit ourselves.

OK, so with that, any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you all. We have our three buckets of topics, which we will now talk about amongst ourselves how to bring those to our colleagues. Not right now. After this. With that, that brings us to our second topic, which I believe is a much briefer one, our community engagement update. I would look to Mr. McVey for an update.

Okay. Let's see. Forgive me, council members. I just need to, and colleagues, I need to get myself organized here.

There we go.

OK. So between June and now, I actually met with my two final district councils. At our last meeting, I said, I'm done now. two district councils actually reached out to me and wanted me to come meet with them in person after they had reached out and provided feedback to us in correspondence. So I was like, sure. I will come present to your board, meet with folks in your neighborhood. Happy to do that. And so I met with Payne Phelan on, let me pull up my calendar here. Let's see here. Payne Phelan on the 23rd had a wonderful conversation with folks there. Prior to that, I actually stopped over and met with the folks in Frogtown. And also, yep, that's it. And we had a very good conversation, met with a lot of folks, and they gave us a lot of different ideas. I did remind them that we are actually currently in the middle of... At that time we were doing our risk assessment and narrowing down topics for further community discussion ultimately also for council consultation which they understood that but they gave us some ideas to take into consideration for the future which I need to document that and I'm gonna Make sure that miss bang has that at a later dates that way we can bring that to the committee say in 2027 or 2028 whenever we get around to that again and That being said, I actually was able to meet with all but two of the district councils. And otherwise, I was able to have conversation with all of them through email or other written correspondence. So I'm really thrilled about that. And I really just want to underline how much I appreciate our district councils cooperating with us and making this all possible. Got to meet a lot of really wonderful people through this process, and I'm looking forward to doing this again next year and continuing this forward. So that being said, I am going to shift gears, and I'm going to be meeting with several civic organizations. I'm not going to be doing that until this fall, though, because I'm a little busy right now with my internship in Capstone for grad school for one of my master's degrees. And I'm going to be up in Canada for the last two weeks of, or not that, well, technically the last two weeks of August through the first week of September, visiting friends and cousins. So I will be touching back on that in September for certain. Some of the organizations I hope to get in touch with is the League of Women Voters, St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation, the Citizen League, The Chamber of Commerce, Neighborhood House, Isaiah, which my church is actually involved with Isaiah, so that's going to be pretty easy for me, actually. The Asian Economic Development Association, the Brown Community Center, the Alliance, the Downtown Alliance, Open Arms, Star House, and a few other organizations as well. But I'm not going to go through the list, because you all have much more important things to do than listen to me rant.

Mr. McVeigh, first of all, thank you so much for all of your work. And I've been hearing from folks who are aware of us now in a way that they never were before, and it's because of you. So thank you. Would it be possible, I think it would be great if you could share the list of civic organizations you plan to visit and give us the opportunity to add names. I'm thinking about groups that tend to be more critical of the city. Insight St. Paul is one that comes to mind immediately. St. Paul Strong is another one. I think it's important to be reaching out to our critics as well as new troller friends. And I also think about neighborhood groups that aren't necessarily district councils, like Railroad Island Neighborhood Group comes to mind. So we could probably beef up the list, and then from there, Definitely prioritize the ones that are most important because there will probably be a longer list.

I will I gladly accept so We can definitely add that to the next agenda item if that's something the committee wishes to do madam chair great And I am the committee's humble servant. So if anyone wants to make suggestions at any time, I would gladly accept them.

Thank you. Any questions on community engagement? All right. Well, with that, that brings us to the end of our agenda. I hope everyone has a very safe and happy summer until we see each other again, which is probably going to be in September. If we don't see each other until she has retired after 31 years of the university, next phase of your adventure. And until then, we are adjourned.