Licensing Hearing - Regular Meeting

🎵 🎵 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶

St. Paul City Council Policy Committee to order. Roll call, please.

Councilmember Bowie?

Here.

Council President Naker?

Here.

Councilmember Jost? Here. Councilmember Coleman? Here. Councilmember Kim? Here. Councilmember Yang? Here. Councilmember Johnson?

Here.

Seeing six present, one absent.

Great. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our policy committee meeting today. We have two exciting topics on our agenda. And the first is our transit-oriented development city slash HRA asset scan. All of those words are going to start to mean more and more to us over the course of the next 45 minutes. Excited to welcome up Mr. Bruce Engelbrecht. to introduce our other speaker and also himself and our topic.

Welcome. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Council President Naker and Council Members. Bruce Engelbrecht from the Office of Financial Services, Real Estate Section. I want to thank you for the opportunity to share information about the city's transit-oriented development asset scan project, which is funded through an $800,000 grant from the US Department of Transportation and is being administered by OFS Real Estate. The city received the grant in late 2025. That allowed us to hire our consultant for the project, HR&A Advisors, and I'll say more about Aaron in a moment. Along with the leadership and support of the administration, we've taken some important steps to examine select city-owned and HRA-owned properties for possible redevelopment for housing or commercial uses. We're here today to talk about the focus of the grant, the progress of our work so far, and where we see things heading. and we want to ask for your feedback on what we're presenting and what ideas or advice you may have on how best to guide this study process to respond to the development needs of St. Paul. I know our time here is short, so I'll turn things over to Erin Lonoff, a principal with HR&A Advisors, who will walk us through a brief slide deck and then facilitate some discussion at the end and a few specific questions of the council members. Thank you again, Eric.

Welcome up. And I misspoke. We only have 30 minutes, so I think it will probably be best, as you said, Mr. Engelbrecht, to let you go through your slides, unless there's burning questions, and then take our questions at the end.

Perfect. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm Erin Lonoff. I'm a partner with HRNA Advisors. I'm based here in the Twin Cities. HRNA is a real estate, economic development, and public policy consulting firm. And we've been really excited to get to work with the city on this grant. So I'm going to walk through just a couple of slides, and then we'll go into discussion after this. So as Bruce was explaining and describing, we are working with the city. HRNA is the prime consultant, and we are joined by Platform and Formula as part of our team in completing this work. HRNA, just for a little bit of background, we work nationally with cities, internationally and nationally, with a focus on real estate advisory and how to pair real estate with public policy goals. Nationally, we've been working with a number of communities with these IFAC grants as they think about how to best leverage their city-owned assets, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. IFAC grant and this process. Locally, we've gotten to work with the city of St. Paul on a number of initiatives, most recently with the city's anti-displacement and wealth building strategy a couple of years ago. I've also gotten to work with Metro Transit in the city on the central station block feasibility analysis. For both of those, again, sort of going back to this core mission of how do you pair real estate with public policy mission goals, and how do you think about these sort of issues holistically around the economics of of public policy and mission. So the IFAC program, this is a US DOT program with the goal of increasing the use of publicly owned land across the country in TOD corridors. So the purpose of this program is to unlock asset value in cities, to accelerate the delivery of redevelopment of publicly owned assets, to reduce public costs associated with that redevelopment, and to build local capacity for redevelopment on underutilized land. All of this is really focused on transit corridors, so places and land near fixed corridor, so light rail and BRT and busways. The other goal of this program is to enhance the usage of TIFIA for redevelopment in station areas.

What is TIFIA?

Oh my goodness, the acronym, it is a finance program through the USDOT that has traditionally been used to help fund infrastructure, but has increasingly been looked to, and the program has shifted over the years, but has increasingly been looked to to support private vertical development and transit areas. To date, most 99% of the work has been on infrastructure investment. But there is a coalition of folks that are trying to get more private development using low-cost financing. Thank you. So the goal of this work is sort of four key areas. One is a comprehensive look at the city's assets. So what are holistically, what does the HRA and what does the city own as a way to really understand what is the sort of broad landscape of public land ownership in the city of St. Paul. We are also going to be working on and thinking about what are the priorities for redevelopment and the use of city land? What are those pathways for redevelopment? And given this market context and given public policy goals, how do you get development to happen on this land and where we want it and what kind of development? And sort of what are the resources needed to build up that partnership for redevelopment on these sites? The way that we go about this process is in six sort of key areas and steps. First, we start with what is the vision for the use of public land for a city and what are those goals that you are trying to achieve? What are those broader public policy goals that you have as a city and how can you use your land assets to help achieve some of those goals? We then evaluate the assets. What is the landscape of publicly owned land in your city and how does that start to bubble up potential opportunities for realizing some of these goals? We start to prioritize those opportunities around what are the site's readiness for redevelopment? How do these align with financing and mission goals? Do these align with federal requirements and broader local government requirements and goals? This includes stakeholder engagement as well, both with the development community around what is possible for delivery with private real estate, but also around sort of mission-driven and community goals. So how can we use these land assets to align with other policy goals that community stakeholders and you all have? We're going to be looking at planning and feasibility analysis as well. So looking at, and this is what we're going to be working with formula architects on, is once we've narrowed in on specific sites, what can physically fit on that site from a building perspective? What can be part of the good urban design of that? And then what is the development feasibility? What does it look like from a development cost perspective and return to the city and return to a developer? And then finally, what is that implementation path that will bring that site from concept design all the way forward to an RFP and construction with a developer? So here's where we are right now. We kicked off our work in June. and had an early initial visioning session with department heads and the mayor where we really were sort of, it was a listening session of what are some of the challenges that you as departments are facing? What are the opportunities that you see with publicly owned land? And what are some of the priorities based on sort of this broader city context that we should be thinking about as a way that city land may support? So we are here today to sort of show you some of what we've analyzed around the 800 owned sites and just a broad landscape and some of the early sort of bubbling up priorities and goals. Where we're headed is to start to narrow those 800 sites into potentially 10 priority sites and then ultimately three sites that will go into that sort of concept design feasibility analysis. So our kickoff discussions in late June surfaced three guiding principles for this work. And this is one of the things that I want to have a discussion around and sort of hear your perspectives, particularly from your constituents, sort of as you think about your constituents. So three things. So one is using publicly owned land to strengthen the city's fiscal position. So identifying the most significant opportunities to leverage public assets to generate revenue for the city and to help mitigate costs. Two is to use publicly owned land to support equitable growth in the city. So assessing how the city could best leverage publicly owned land assets to make St. Paul a more equitable place for communities or for residents. And third is to position the city as a development partner. So demonstrate how the city government can be proactive and strategic around economic development and a catalyst for growth and investment amongst developers and the business community. a quick overview of the land assets that we've been seeing. So today, the city of St. Paul with the HRA control a little over 800 sites across the city. And what you can see in this map is the larger sites are in blue. that you can see a little bit easier, and I'll show you why in a second. But those larger sites, city-controlled sites, are blue. And then there's about a little over 200 sites that are controlled by the HRA. Those tend to be much smaller sites because those are oftentimes single-family sort of parcels. So those are shown as little specks on this map in red. When we look at the land ownership, we see a wide range of site sizes. The plurality of sites are under an eighth of an acre in the city. So that's one way of sort of saying that you control a lot of land, but they're on smaller sites. You're not necessarily sitting on a ton of five-acre parcels that are just waiting to be redeveloped. There are 107 sites that are larger than five acres. But I'll note that what you can see in this bar chart is that 92 of those 107 are, in fact, parkland. So we're not suggesting that suddenly the city's parks are all going to be redeveloped into real estate. I guess what I'm trying to convey here is there's nuance into the city's assets. There are going to be many things, publicly owned assets and city land, that should not be touched for redevelopment. But there may be opportunities of things like a parking lot that is never used or a vacant parcel that is never going to be developed into a park or a library that may be an opportunity for redevelopment. The other part of this is you all are a city. You are not a private developer. And so your perspective around how to use your land is unique. It is different than how a profit-driven developer thinks about its land. And so oftentimes when we work with cities, we're really helping them to think about sort of these three competing ideas. and how they think about their real estate decision making. So it is around mission. So because you are a city, you get to have and you should have a perspective around the mission of your publicly owned land. So what does success look like with the usage of your land? Is this around affordable housing targets? Is this about equity outcomes? Is this about a certain kind of job creation happening on your land? This then is also sort of looking at timing. So what is the urgency of this land? Is this something that you can be patient on to wait for a market shift? Or is this something that you need to move on quickly because it's going to help to sort of transform a neighborhood in a way that you are aiming towards? And what are your aspirations with revenue, and what are your needs as a city? Does the redevelopment of a specific site need to have direct revenue implications for you all, or can there be indirect revenue, which I'll talk about in a second. Right here, actually. The other piece of, and sort of the unique feature of you all being a public entity in real estate is that you can define what you mean by value creation and return on investment. So there are, I would describe sort of four benefits or kinds of value that are created as a result of real estate development on city-owned land. One is through land value. So what is the direct return that you as a city get on the land? And that can be through a ground lease or a sale. and sort of the cash infusion that comes to the city as a result of that development. There are direct fiscal benefits that come from development from the project that gets built on that land. So things like property taxes from the future building, sales taxes as a result of the new residents that live in that building, or business taxes from the company that's now sitting on that site in that new building. There are indirect benefits that are created from development. So you suddenly have now 50 new residents that are living in your city and are spending money in the economy. They are working in your city, which create other kinds of benefits that you all want to see as a city. And then there's quality of life benefits that come from redevelopment. So maybe you have a site that has, there hasn't been a lot of market movement in an area, but now you get redevelopment in this area and it starts to really sort of shift the quality of life and the urban design in this area and creates new and different kinds of opportunities for residents. And I'll just sort of end that this is part of the discussion around how do you define value as a city and what are you trying to achieve with your publicly owned assets? Some cities are really focused by, because of their policy mission, their policy goals, as well as some state mandates, around having a very direct fiscal, or sorry, direct value sort of revenue return from their land. And sort of at the other end of this, some are using their land to catalyze other kinds of growth and really focus on those indirect benefits and that quality of life. And there's sort of a whole spectrum in between of where you may land. So I'm going to pause. We can go into questions and discussion. I've got some questions for you all, but I'll pause for questions from you first.

Great. Well, thank you so much for this comprehensive presentation and for saving us plenty of time for questions and discussion. And this is exactly the point of policy committee is to have discussion based on these types of policy priorities. So thank you for raising those very clearly in your questions. One just foundational point of information before we we open it up. I'm curious, you talked about how transit-oriented development was the guiding star of this project. But I'm assuming that all the sites you're identifying are not necessarily on transit corridors. So I'm wondering how the transit-oriented part of this plays in to how you're answering these questions and also how you're going to end up identifying those 10 and then those three high priority sites.

Yeah, so I would think of this as sort of two different outputs. One is going to be an analysis of all of the city-owned and controlled land, sort of irrespective of transit, but just here is all the land you own, and here is what it comprises of. As we showed, a huge percentage of the acres in your city are parks, right? Because of the grant coming from USDOT, as we dive deeper into site analysis and redevelopment opportunities, those three sites, those ten priority sites and those three sites that we ultimately analyze around planning and feasibility, those have to be transit-oriented sites because of the grant. But it does not mean that – I guess what I'm going to say is that Those three sites are going to be things that we would recommend as higher priorities for redevelopment. But there's going to be a longer list of assets that you all can consider for redevelopment sort of separate from this process. And ultimately, I would think about sort of the outputs of this study as not just a moment in time of, you know, in 2026, these are our priorities. But instead, think about this as maybe a 10-year sort of time horizon of each year. These are sort of the sites that we think we'd like to prioritize year over year for redevelopment. Near term will be transit. Longer term can be other sites for you all.

Thank you. Questions? Answers? Ms. Coleman.

Thank you, and thank you so much for this presentation. Super interesting. I am just curious if you could share a little bit more about what the next sort of now through March looks like, what that engagement will look like, what programming will be done, et cetera.

Yeah. So where we are right now is, working quickly from going from that 800 to those 10 sites. And one of the things that is tricky about this, I'm going to give you just a little bit of a preview, is that those three priorities that I talked about around improving the city's fiscal position, around equity, and around sort of demonstrating the city as a partner in business, those don't necessarily result in the same top 10 priorities sites. And so what we're trying to get to right now is a list of 10 sites that we think sort of start to encompass those three goals. But there's going to be some mixing and matching across those. And so what that looks like is over the next few weeks, we're trying to get to 10 sites. And then over to the end of the year, we're going to start to winnow down and try to get us down to three sites, and in terms of engagement, we're still mapping out exactly what that looks like. This is not going to be a large, broad public engagement process, but there's going to be sort of targeted stakeholder engagement I think looks like engagement with you all. It looks like engagement possibly with some district councils and some stakeholder groups that are more familiar with the real estate market as a way to test which sites may be higher priorities based on market conditions.

To that point that you just made about those three different priorities maybe not leading to the same list of 10, I'm wondering if they could be seen more as a way of winnowing from the 800. So for example, I would say that strengthening the city's fiscal position would be the top value. And I assume that that would lead you to, I don't know, a couple hundred sites probably. And then I would say among those sites, we should prioritize those that support equitable growth. So among equals, we should be making sure we're investing equitably in different areas of the city. Personally, I think the city can be positioned as a development partner with lots of different activities, and we should be doing that all the time in every single permit or license application we get, every time we get a constituent question. So that one, to me, seems like it could just be an umbrella statement. But at least the other two seem like they could be layered rather than mutually exclusive. Yep, I agree. Other thoughts or, I guess, responses to the questions that are being posed to us from my colleagues. Curious what people think. Ms. Willie.

Yes. Thank you, President Eaker. I just have a question particularly around the, I'm pulling up the slide here. It was a timeline. I think it's slide number 10 of just like the project overview. Can you speak a little bit more to the interagency workshops? And then I see you have cited there Ward 1, in ward two, and you could speak to what does that actually entail in terms of workshops? Is this just a geographic area that you focused on? Just trying to learn more about how the workshops were connected to those two specific wards.

So W1 and W2 actually indicate Workshop 1 and Workshop 2. It's just not clear. That's all simple. So we had a— I didn't mind it, though. I don't see Ward 4. No, it's not clear there at all. So we had a first interagency workshop really focused on here, some of the sites that are surfacing up. And we needed different department heads to take a look at those and start to actually pull some sites out where they go, oh, yes, it's bubbled up to the top because it's a large site. But actually, there's a huge parking garage here. And that is not a redevelopment opportunity. So that's what we're working on right now is sort of our model has, based on those priorities, we've run a couple of different scenarios around ways to look at how to prioritize sites. But there is a human element that has to happen for that. So that's what's going on right now. And that's what workshop two is going to be focusing on. here's our first pass at this list, and then we've been having one-on-one conversations with departments. Workshop two is going to start to finalize maybe like a list of 20 as we head towards 10.

And just a follow-up. Thank you so much for that clarity. It's funny how I jumped to that conclusion. Nope, that's really fair, given their perspective. But as I go back here, I don't know if it's, if you stated it, but can you list all of the different type of assets that you're assessing for? Because when you hear city assets, there's, you know, like every department has assets. Are you looking at like police, like, you know, capital assets, library assets, rec centers, all of the above? If you could just share what the scope is.

Yep, for these 800 sites, everything the city owns is on that list, so including where we are right now. So we do not think this is a redevelopment opportunity. And that's what we're starting to scrub out, is there are a lot of things that the city owns that really are not opportunities for redevelopment, like parks, libraries, fire stations, your city hall. Those are publicly owned assets that are part of this 800 list that needed to get taken out.

OK. Thanks for the clarity on that. It seemed like we had so much land, but probably including this building and other sites. Yes. Ms. Johnson.

Thank you, Council President. And yeah, I kind of laughed at the W-1, W-2 as well. But then I was like, well, maybe that isn't what I think of when I think of awards. I guess I just have a question. I'm looking at the time frame, and I'm looking at the identification of 10, narrowing it down to the 10 priority sites. And I represent the east side of St. Paul, so I represented Ward 7. On the map, you'll see blue and red in our area. But when it comes to a lot of the transit pieces, because a lot of the east side is transit expansive, I am curious just around like, at least for the sake of your scale, how you took that into account, being that one of the biggest driving inequities for a lot of our communities, but in particular on the east side, we are actively trying to make it more transit accessible. And so there's the transit-oriented neighborhood, but did that factor into where the 10 are going to be selected?

Yeah, so I guess I would think about it in two ways. So one is in this first phase of this, what we are producing for the city is a comprehensive list of here are some, here's a sort of a holistic view of potential redevelopment opportunities. And I'll say from the HRA perspective, I think the HRA has a very good perspective on what those redevelopment opportunities are because of the nature of their work day in and day out. As it relates to the 10 and the three priority sites, because of the constraints of this particular grant, the more detailed analysis that we do has to be for a TOD site. But it can be for a planned route as well, so that may help with the east side perspective of this. And I believe, and my colleagues would be kicking me right now as they watch this on YouTube, I believe it's a half mile from a transit area, which actually encompasses quite a bit of area in the city of St. Paul.

Okay, and as a follow-up then, I think just to some of the questions, I guess like the discussion question guidance of just like what could success look like? I truly, genuinely think how important it is when we're setting like five-year, 10-year goals is that our community taxpayers can see that development and investment, knowing that what comes along with the identification of priority sites often is funding and resources and redevelopment that goes into the community. And in some of our places, which I'm sure you're seeing in the 800 properties, right, we have like high concentration of city or HRA land that we've owned maybe. And I would hope that you also take into account like the amount of time that we've owned it, whether or not it's like a lot or like the vacancy pieces of it of just like if it's a building structure that we just own but don't operate and it's just a parking lot or it's just a this. I hope that that's brought into the analysis in some place so that piece of revitalization and all the neighborhoods are important, at least from my perspective, when it comes to just what I would perceive as what we identify as a city. I think one of the things we've done really well is when we have a program, that we've invested funding in or invested resources in. It's been a lot of the times throughout the city. There's been a touch somewhere throughout multiple different communities. And you may hear that from your engagement pieces and from constituents, but a lot of folks in my neighborhood will talk about wanting to just continue to see that city investment. And so sometimes even when we're looking at the grant and some of the ways to make it work, I can't express how much of an importance it is to think of ways that we can redevelop land that we've really owned, occupied for a while, and maybe always intended to redevelop, but just haven't gotten around to it. That's currently what I'm experiencing with the Hams Brewery redevelopment in Ward 7. It's one of the larger pieces of HRA-owned land that we've owned, but we've owned it for over 20 years. And so there's just like a space or a staple that in some of our communities that people want to see something happen to it. I'm not sure where that falls under your priority pieces, but the length of time and what it is, how big it is, all matter. But I think also just so folks can continue to see the city entity responding to all communities, it would be great to see it geographically spread as well.

Thanks, Ms. Johnson. I noticed you were taking notes. We're going to move straight to Ms. Coleman for our final question. on the subject, because then we do have to move on.

I'll just say really quickly, I strongly agree with everything that Councilmember Johnson just shared. And I think the other piece of it that would be really valuable is thinking about what is the potential to catalyze entire neighborhoods. Obviously, looking parcel by parcel is great and important, but understanding what could investment of X nature look like for the broader community that is served by this area, and how might it lead to other creative ways of thinking about land use in this space is something that I think would be really valuable, especially for some of the some of our neighborhoods in our city that just go years and years and years without seeing that type of investment.

Thank you so much to all my colleagues. I know this time goes by super fast. Did you have any quick closing words for us? And I know that we'll be seeing you again in May 27, and then none of us are going anywhere between now and then. So we'd love to continue engaging with you. But if you have any final thoughts for us.

No, thank you for your time. This has been wonderful. And if you think of anything else, please reach out through Bruce. We're happy to continue the conversation.

Really looking forward to seeing the results. Thank you for your partnership. And with that, we will gently pivot to our next topic, which is the tobacco price minimum increase presentation. We will welcome our friends from Answer. I'll let them introduce themselves. I'm grateful for such a large group of folks. Come on up. And as you're coming up, I want to thank Council Vice President Yang for bringing this item to our attention and ask her if she wants to introduce the topic.

Thank you, Council President. I want to say thank you to you as well for putting this onto our agenda upon my request. I want to give a big thanks to our leaders and representatives from ANSWER, our Association for Non-Smokers Minnesota, for being here. I'm really excited for the council to get a chance to hear about this. your ask for us to update our ordinance around tobacco and minimum pricing. I know you all have just been really key to the city's efforts around protecting our neighbors and community members when it comes to tobacco usage and our use especially. So I wanted to really commend you for that work. And a big shout out to Jeannie Weigum and Chris Smith, who have been really great leaders and point people from the association itself.

Thank you, Jeanne Weigum from the Association for Non-Smokers. And this is my first time here since the wonderful murals changed. Oh. I know. I know. You need to come more often. I do need to come more often. Absolutely. Anyway, we have a number of people who are going to be talking today. But I'd like to kick it off by just pointing out, and who's going to help me advance this? Would you advance?

You can.

Oh, you're poor.

Tim, are you able to help advance our judgment?

Where are we? Just the arrow keys.

There we go. OK. ANSWER doesn't do anything alone. We do it with community partners. And these are the organizations that have actually said, we support this work, this particular project. We're on board for this. And some of them will have sent letters or will send letters. Some of them will show up. But some of them will have signed on to this and said, this is important to the community that we represent. And we would encourage the council to proceed with this. Answer knows that no one thing does it all. We can work on price, we can work on advertising, we can work on clean indoor air, but it's sort of the Swiss cheese model. You line things up and a lot of things come together to help kids not become smokers or tobacco users ever. and to help adults who are already smokers quit. So we're here today about price, but we'll be back about other things because this isn't a one thing does it all. This is one step in a larger process. And to let you know how long this process is, In 1979, which I suspect may be before some of you were born, we were working on tobacco in this community. And St. Paul has a lot of firsts under its belt. We were one of the first to prohibit the sale of tobacco from vending machines. We were one of the first to set a minimum price on little cigars. And I'm going to pass these around. Do you believe it? Two cigars for 99 cents. Wow. and St. Paul had the courage to say, that's not okay here. This is clearly aimed at young people, and we're not going to encourage that. In 1986, these workplaces became smoke-free. Can you imagine? It was a time when people smoked in this room. People smoked in their offices. So we have been working with the city for many, many, many years. And some of the work we've done has aimed at helping adults live in clean indoor air spaces or work in clean air spaces. And some of our work has been about helping kids never become smokers. And that's the big thing we're working on with this particular ordinance. During COVID, the city council passed a minimum price on cigarettes and chewing tobacco. We couldn't quite figure out how to deal with vapes because they came in such different sizes and they were just, there was just so much variety. We couldn't figure out how to do a minimum price on them. We knew it needed to be done, but we said, let's go with what we understand. That was cigarettes and chewing tobacco, which comes in standard size packages. uh there weren't pouches back then city of saint paul was i think the first city in the country to set a minimum price on these products and it has worked well but we've had a little inflation since then and some answer volunteers including some of the young people who are here today went out and checked the prices we found that The minimum price on cigarettes in St. Paul is $10, and almost nobody sells them for that low a price now. The average price that we found was much, much higher than that. And we looked at the average price on the little nicotine pouches that people are using now, and they were about $0.65 a pouch. We can't set a minimum price on the container on pouches because they come in different sizes. Some containers contain 15, 20, 25, or maybe even 100. So we're proposing a minimum price of $1 per pouch. So it doesn't matter what size the container is. And we're proposing $15 as the minimum price on cigarettes. and City of Minneapolis put a minimum price on vapes at $25 and we're proposing that for st.. Paul also There's one first in this ordinance, and that's the pouches no one so far has put a minimum price on pouches Although on Tuesday night of next week City of Crystal will be looking at that as one of their options So that's what we are working on and I'm going to turn it over to our young people

Welcome.

Thank you for having us. Good afternoon, St. Paul Policy Committee. My name is Shirley, and I'm a constituent of Ward 1, and I'm here with Non, who is a constituent of Ward 5, representing Wash Escapes the Vape, or WTV, a youth advocacy group supported by ANSWER through Washington Technology Magnet School here in St. Paul.

Yes, as Shirley has said, WeTV is a group of young leaders who have experienced or seen the consequences of commercial flavored tobaccos where the company intentionally targets young youth with fruity flavors. Our goal is to increase the minimum price on cigarettes and put a minimum price on vapes and pouches because increasing the price is one of the best strategy to get people to smoke, to quit, and to ensure young people to never start. But during the summer, we participated in several community events with the Association for Non-Smokers, where we talked to community members about the policy. We collected over 109 postcards. Not only did parents and adults were able to participate, but kids also had a chance to be included by putting a bead in the jar for whether they agreed or not to the proposed policy. What stood out to me was how supportive the community was and how willing they were to help make a difference. Nowadays, nicotine pouches have rapidly increased in popularity amongst young people. Nicotine pouches are small flavor package containing nicotine and sometimes flavoring. These nicotine pouches are placed between the lips and gums. Here's the nicotine pouches. And the saliva dissolves the ingredients and enters the bloodstream. Some even puts them in shoes where sweat would dissolve the ingredients and absorb through the skin.

Nicotine pouches are often marketed as a safer or harm reduction alternative to other tobacco products. But we should ask who is promoting that message? The same tobacco industry that has profited from creating and selling addictive nicotine products. Calling these products harm reduction can make them seem harmless, especially to young people, while still introducing a new generation to nicotine addiction. We should be cautious about letting an industry that profits from nicotine addiction define what harm reduction means.

Health risks that nicotine cause are alternating the brain chemistry and creating a physical and mental dependence, leading to harm the developing brain of young adults and teens, affecting focus, memory, and impulse control. It also damages the gum, causing inflammation, irritation, and receding gum that exposes tooth roots.

Big companies and brands like Zinn, Velo, Rogue, Free, Lucy, and On target young youth because they know how easily youth are influenced. Bright colors and different flavors are meant to attract kids and keep them hooked.

Nicotine pouches typically cost between $2 to $6 per can, and they contain about 15 to 20 pouches. Kids are buying these addictive products for such a cheap price at such a high risk.

To stop this from happening, we suggest putting a minimum price of nicotine pouches to $1 per pouch. This is a small act with great benefits. Thank you.

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

OK. Chris Smith, Lowertown. I've been resident for about 14 years now. So why now? I'd like to just point out that

kind of skip ahead here.

City of Minneapolis in 2025 set the minimum price for vapes to $25. And in that process, so as Jeannie pointed out, St. Paul has always kind of led the way. And they actually, in Minneapolis, liked the idea of not redeeming coupons and also setting higher minimum prices. However, their health department determined that St. Paul's minimum price of $10 for a pack of cigarettes was ineffective. And so from that, this is how we ended up here, or why we're here now. But in addition to that, there were two council members, Council Member Chaudhry and Council Member Cashman, who are millennials. And they said that we always knew that smoking cigarettes was bad for us, but we're like the smoke-free generation. But now we're being targeted by vapes. Our generation is being targeted by vapes. And so we want to set a minimum price for vapes. And the minimum price that the health department came up with was also $25. And then the coupons and price promotions are relatively the same as what we have here in St. Paul. And so after this change in 2025, It's been effective. So a majority of retailers did in fact follow the ordinance. 70% number of stores that don't redeem coupons. Also there's a majority that are not accepting. And then also the number of in-store promotions has been reduced. Minneapolis is not the first city to set a minimum price for vapes. Actually, it was St. Anthony Village where the ordinance was passed unanimously with little opposition from the industry. And as our student leaders pointed out that they attended a number of community events, total of signed postcards from constituents, 109. But really the conversations were carried out by our student leaders and had one-on-one conversations with their peers, but also parents that are also learning about the pressures that their children are facing from the tobacco industry. And with the resolution, Jeannie already pointed this out, but we have over 20 community organizations, faith communities, even organizations that are across the river in Minneapolis that also support, faith communities also in Minneapolis support this ordinance as well. So here we are. Any questions? We'll take any questions.

Thank you so much for the presentation, especially thank you to our young leaders for being here. Really appreciate the information you shared. Looking to my colleagues to see what questions there might be. Ms. Jost.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you for being here. I just want to make sure I understand how the coupons and promotions worked in the Minneapolis ordinance. So is it basically that Minneapolis set the minimum price of $15 for for some products, 25 for other products, and then the stores in Minneapolis won't accept coupons, essentially, and then does that mean stores in Minneapolis are also not allowed to have promotions because those essentially reduce the cost or provide some type of benefit? Can you just say more about that?

Yeah, like anything that says buy one, get one free, that type of promotion is not acceptable by the ordinance, or it's not allowed.

Okay, and then they don't accept any manufacturer's coupons or any types of coupons.

Okay, got it.

That's already true in St. Paul.

Yeah. So really the SortNets is kind of a refresh and as Jeannie pointed out, nicotine pouches is a new product by the industry and it's actually the fastest growing product that they have. And they're really using it, promoting it more as like a performance enhancement for athletes. And nicotine in the pouches is transdermal. So they can even, athletes have been putting it in their shoes while they're playing hockey or basketball or whatever sport. So they're really pushing it. I mean, the... The concentration of nicotine is very high also. And the industry, really, their point is, well, we want, even with the vapes, high doses of nicotine to keep people addicted. they're learning that their idea around e-cigarettes, so it was really in the 1980s when e-cigarettes were being developed because the industry realized that their customers were trying to quit smoking. They were smoking filtered cigarettes, light cigarettes, which is in a way misleading, saying that there's low tar in cigarettes. And so they figured, well, we'll create something that can keep them addicted. So they promoted the idea of vapes, as if it's water vapor, but actually we're finding out it's a lot of chemicals. and hazardous waste. So now the industry realizes millennials, Gen Z, now Generation Alpha, are their next targets. And they're going to promote vapes and nicotine pouches to those age brackets.

I'm curious. First of all, I really like the Swiss cheese graphic. I think that really helps explain the different layers of protection needed. I'm wondering if answer is to the point that the Minneapolis council members made about we all, many of us grew up knowing not to smoke or hearing not to smoke, but these new products are not smoke. Is answer working with schools, school districts, maybe even the state on making sure that health education is updated, if it isn't already, to be talking about the negative effects nicotine on its own, absent smoke, one question. And my second question is, given that this is an update of an ordinance we have on the books, mostly due to a new product, but also, it sounds like, largely due to inflation, is there any downside to pegging our price to inflation, much like we do with our minimum wage?

We're thrilled with that idea. We actually had proposed that when this original ordinance was passed, and there was discomfort with pegging it and not having it come back to the council, although several council members were very keen to not have to revisit this every time there's inflation. And so we actually have model language for you that has a built-in inflator based on inflation. And that is in the Minneapolis ordinance. So it's not groundbreaking. And related to what we're doing about kids, we're kind of small. We can't affect everybody. But we have... several youth groups, and they do a tremendous amount of outreach within their own school and within the community. And they work on policy with us, and they also work on policies and administration within their own schools. If you talk to any adolescent, they'll tell you this is a big problem for them. It's a big problem in the bathroom. Sometimes they can't even get in. There are safety issues related to it. And we have worked with the schools on developing approaches that don't involve suspension, so alternative to suspension programs. It's a huge problem. And we will continue to work on that. And we see this as part and parcel. Making the products less accessible will help the schools too. Thank you. I see Ms. Coleman.

Thank you. Thanks also for the presentation. As you all know, I'm really supportive of this. I think this is an overdue update. So with that in mind, I think that this is necessary and good change. I'm just curious if there are unexpected consequences that you all saw arise in Minneapolis once they passed their ordinance, or what should we be on the lookout for to avoid any unintended negative consequences, thinking about impact on small businesses, thinking about impact

Well, in some ways, the good news is that the increase in cash is not tax, so that the store that's charging $10 now and charges $15 later may sell fewer products, but they're making more money. The money goes into their pocket, not ours. Tobacco tax is kind of nice because the city or the county or the state could benefit from that money, but state law prohibits cities and counties from doing it. It can only be done at the state level. So really the only thing we can do at the local level on price is minimum price. No businesses testified against it when we did this back in 2020 and 21. There wasn't a single business that came. There was a little confusion about how the tobacco tax was applied, and there were questions about that. But there wasn't a single vendor that came and said, don't make me charge more for this product. There's always a little discussion about cross-border, so people can go across the street and buy a somewhat cheaper product. But St. Paul has tended to be a leader on these things, and the other communities typically follow. This time we're following St. Anthony on some of it and following Minneapolis on some of it.

At least we're mostly following St. Anthony. I was glad to see that. Did you have a follow-up? Great. Vice President Yang.

Thank you, Council President. I wanted to share to my colleagues that I did state my support of this to answer, and I just really appreciate just even getting to hear thoughts from all of you. I also appreciate the question from you, Council Member Coleman, about basically the business impact. And I know in previous years when the Council did work on this before, there were some folks who were like, well, they can just, you know, customers can just go across to the in another city and buy their tobacco products there, which I acknowledge, yes, they can do that. I personally don't have an issue with our city having less tobacco shops, less liquor stores, too. I mean, you all hear me talk a lot about Maryland and Clearance, where we have two of those types of commercial stores right next to each other, where it is a hotspot for crime and violence. And I've also even heard from our police department about just the trends they see in crime and violence increasing when we have that sort of presence. Our city and so I I'm again not concerned about that for me What is really grounding is exactly the things that I heard from our youth leaders today? I'm just so impressed by the the advocacy and the leadership from you all and the many team members that you have Organizing with you. I know at the table here and in our official city spaces. We've talked a lot about our values and just the importance of not only creating spaces but also making investments that are truly about our youth and this is clearly a topic not only about public health but about how we tackle racism classism in our communities that we see coming directly from tobacco corporations that target our youth and folks of color you know it's how we how we tackle that and so i'm again just really in awe of your leadership and commend you all for your work including answer to and i know From my understanding, you all have ordinance language that you've drafted and shared with our Department of Safety and Inspections. I've asked our staff to take a look at the language, too, and inform them about my support for this. And so if we have the support for it, I hope that sometime... I don't know what timeline we're working on. That's something I would like to see you all for. But I would say the sooner we can approve this, the better, especially if we do have majority support for it. And so I wanted to, again, name my support for that. And thank you so much for your leadership here. St. Paul is a better city and a stronger city when it comes to public health because of your leadership.

Thank you. And we're ready. We can do this now.

Let's just do it. No, just kidding. Thank you, Vice President. Thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate the information. It sounds like there may be some legislation to follow coming from the Vice President's office, and it sounds like there is a consensus and support around this table, which is great to see. We will leave it there, so we have some time to transition to our HRA meeting. Thank you all again for joining us, and we are adjourned.

Thank you.