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Well, why don't we get started? Um, and I'll just assume that they have video going and we're good. Yep. Um, so with that, I, but us do take a moment to think or, or you can graduate. Also, members, true. And you did the half marathon. So I'm doing a half marathon, a marathon, a marathon, two weeks. This was a 10 mile part of my warm up, but it was only 10 miles. Okay. One downtown or the other?

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Yeah, fantastic. Congratulations. That's really a great accomplishment.

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And you probably passed all the cars that me in one of those cars.

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We were all sitting on the freeway.

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It was, it was fine. The Twin Cities Marathon.

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We all started driving over the weekend.

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They are just top notch organization and there's fans all around.

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It's so fun. Yeah.

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Pretty fun to be a part of that weekend.

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Very good.

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And then I think we should take a moment to recognize what happened in Las Vegas.

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and but for the grace of God go any city in this country right now and your

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hearts as citizens go out to the 22,000 people who were in that crowd and I have

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to take a moment to and say I'm shocked that it wasn't a higher total

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casualties given the circumstances and it shows how important our public safety

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departments are. And the, you know, it's not for me to judge, but I think that the police

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they responded quite quickly and saved a lot of life because of that. But, man, my

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heart goes out to them. Holy cow, the poor mayor from Puerto Rico. Don't, please don't

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let any president ever target me for anything, but she's got a tough job too. So,

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So with that, we have a full agenda tonight and this is one of my favorites is going through this report, the strategic performance report.

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And I think that it'll be interesting to hear how we've done, where we're keeping up with, and where we can improve, and I'll turn it over to you then City Manager Ladder.

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Thanks Madam Mayor, members of the council, this is, I want to say our fourth version of this report and it's gone through different phases of evolution, of course, driven by primarily by the strategic priorities as established by the City Council, we originally started out with six of those priorities, we then moved to five and kind of have modified some of those priorities, at least with the statements like financial sustainability,

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this particular statement reflects the council's discussion that was had at their January 7th

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team building retreat.

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Another directive that the council had made in a previous year was to take the effective

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governance strategic priority and actually make that a KPI of another priority.

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So there's been a little moving around and the report has been modified to address that.

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But there have been other additions as far as information to try to support the KPIs

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or show metrics that will serve as a dashboard, I guess, for the council and key areas that

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they've indicated have been trust.

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And so you'll notice that maybe it's a little more enhanced with content.

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And one thing that I want to point out, we'll get to at the end, but Madam Mayor, you and

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I kind of reviewed this in advance a little bit and our workforce, one of our KPIs for

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workforce engagement is to make sure that we're cultivating people from within to move

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up into supervisory positions and originally when we were looking at that, we had missed

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a couple of positions that actually we had filled.

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So originally we were going to report to you that it was a down arrow or a red arrow because

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we had three or four positions and only one of them was filled internally and actually

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So we had two of the positions we've missed.

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So it has changed on here now.

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So it's even Stephen, so it doesn't meet the 60% KPI.

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So we gave it a yellow, even arrow instead of a side

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to side arrow instead of an upper and down arrow.

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But that's the only substantive difference

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since you and I last talked about it.

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So is this the updated one over, are we going to get?

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Well, this grant and test will be updated.

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this you'll see up here. Okay, so thank you for that.

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Grant has hasn't been there. Okay.

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Madam Mayor, when we get to that,

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I mean all of us work in different versions of the

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public and private sector and you want to have a work force

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opportunity where people that work there believe that there's

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opportunity for personal growth, professional growth, whether that be

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salary, for responsibility, particularly that case.

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But there are times in this infinite world of public

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servants where we have to go outside and so there will be times where you know I think

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that it's important for us for the morale of our employees to have this as a continued

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priority but there will be times when you know when I saw that the initial analysis talked

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about four positions and three of them came from the outside you know there are going to

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be times when that's the right decision and it doesn't meet our objectives but that

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that shouldn't get us off course from keeping that drive for internal promotions as a priority in my estimation.

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I don't know about your work, Paul, but you want to keep that incentive for people internal that we want them to be all leaders in that expectation, but there will be times.

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I agree.

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I agree.

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Good comment.

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Thank you.

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So I mean said that, you know, actually I wasn't on vacation not that long ago and one

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of the things I asked Evan to work on was to work with the leadership team on updating

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the Strategic Priorities Report and he did that.

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So I asked him if he'd like to present it to Council and he said he would.

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So he's actually here to present it to me.

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Yep.

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So I'll just take you through each of the priorities and then the KPIs under them pretty

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We generally and briefly, but the first, as you know, manage a lot of noise financial

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sustainability in our intent here is to manage our finances so it can meet our spending

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commitments both now and in the future.

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This one share future generations of taxpayers do not face an unmanageable bill for local government

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services provided to the current generation.

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And for this one, the five KPIs, KPIs, excuse me, all five were met.

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The first one is fund reserves.

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This has a gold maintaining reserves between 40%, 45% of the subsequent year's budget, less debt service.

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This number is kind of the best practice from the state auditor and that's why we use those numbers specifically.

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And as noted in the chart, we've steadily been decreasing that number to come within range of our desired targets.

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So for 2016, we had an unassigned general fund balance at the end of the year of $6.5 million.

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That was 45% of the following year's budgeted expenditures minus debt service.

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So Director David will continue to examine these trends and make sure we're hitting these targets

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through our financial management policies such as the one that was approved earlier this year about fund balance.

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The second one for financial sustainability was non-tax revenue.

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This goal is that the city's non-tax revenue make up 40% at least of the general pundit

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expenditures.

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And as you can note in that line chart there, we've been doing a pretty good job of staying

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right around that area.

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I'd say since 2013 though, it's steadily increased.

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is 2018 currently has a budget of 45% for non-property tax revenue as a total of general fund expenditures.

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So looking to increase that number even further than we have,

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you know, it's an S&D staff.

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We always are trying to do this at your guys' direction and I think the most noticeable one

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that we'll be seeing in the future is the expansion of the license bureau.

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So that will hopefully in future years increase this number even further.

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The

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third one for financial sustainability is to keep a AA bond rating or better.

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We have done that again this year in 2017.

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This chart here shows what it would look like if we were AAA bond rating

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and our interest payments for these general obligation bonds.

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So you can see it's quite a bit lower than where we would currently at

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double-aid. We're going to continue to work obviously to improve this

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bond rating to perhaps double-aid plus in the future. I think that's a really

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tangible goal that Director David has. And one of the ways we do that, again, is

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through our financial management policies set by you guys.

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The fourth KPI under

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financial sustainability is our debt tax level debt tax levy ratio. We have a

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goal that external debt service remains at or below 15% of the city's total property tax

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levy. This goal has been achieved consistently in the past few years. As you can see, 2014

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was a bit below 12%. We've slowly moved that down to where it is right now. The red you

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can see coming on there is internal debt. Correct me if I'm wrong, manager lotter by believe

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that is for the street funding that, so a good goal that we're hitting Director

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David noted in her response that past history demonstrates we are consistently

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meeting this goal we need to ensure that we meet it in future years

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otherwise it could impact our boundary.

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The fifth KPI for financial sustainability is

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our maintain a 10-year capital improvement plan. We again have done that in 2017.

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As noted, you can see the different funding sources for that plan, tax-loving, making

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up 45% of it, a lot of treatment plan, and the funding there, making up another quarter

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of it.

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And this is just another example of one of the plans we use as a city to ensure good

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bond ratings and just favorable financial outcomes for the city.

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Any questions on financial standards?

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and move

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them to community engagement.

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And-

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Oh, just for a second, though, real quick metamere.

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I just, I think that when we gloss over, you know,

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the financial sustainability,

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one of the biggest things that I think

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is a feather in the cap of the city council

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for the years that you've seen before

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is to put the city on a more firm foundation financially.

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So we wouldn't have the up and downs

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and we talk about that periodically,

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but I don't want us to miss that

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just in, as we kind of just go through

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that that is the true story. This is where it comes from.

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Good point.

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I have a question. Going back to that same chart. So we put the water

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treatment plant in there, which is 24% of the budget, and that's the money that we

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will receive from the Army. From the judgment plan, yes. So if we took that out of

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there.

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What does that do to the to the chart so

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the tax levy would it be a higher

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percentage? If what you're suggesting is we would still sustain the expense of the

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water treatment facility but we wouldn't have funding from the DOJ then that's likely

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correct that the pie that is composed of the tax levy would move in that direction.

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So what you're looking at here is basically the plan of spending between the year stated

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2017 to 2026 and the sources of those and the kind of the behind the pie chart story is

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that we have that litigated settlement agreement that provides us those funds now from the

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judgment fund through the Department of Justice to pay for the water treatment plan.

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To just to clarify?

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Yes.

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So if you took that out of there, you also wouldn't have that same expense.

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Right.

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Boom.

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So the whole amount would be different and all of them would change, wouldn't they?

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If you're assuming you're taking out the spending or the expense as well as the revenue is.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That whole pie chart looks different.

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It's a completely different.

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Nope.

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So now, analyzing a different set of circumstances.

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Okay, thank you that you've mentioned my question.

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Okay.

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So moving on to the next priority, which is community engagement that states are strategic

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intent for community engagement is to provide a broad range of opportunities for citizens and

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state holders to participate to improve the quality of life in the city of New Brighton

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and to express their opinions and expectations of the city.

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Additionally, we'll be transparent regarding our business and we will regularly and consistently

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convey information to our stakeholders regarding city deliberations of these three priorities,

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two out of the three more met and one is just kind of kept even. So for stakeholder input,

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we wanted in the 2016 version it stated to look at where our residents are getting sources

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of information and then where they would like to see more information come through.

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So, interestingly, maybe not actually, 88% of information that our residents receive about

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the city through their friends and neighbors, I think that just kind of shows the importance

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that we're proactive and accurate in our communication so that they have pertinent information

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when they're discussing certain city matters back and forth.

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The second most common way is one that the city does have direct control over and that is

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newsletters, 79% of respondents to our survey said that that's their number one source

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of information regarding city happenings. And interestingly, 90% stated that they'd like

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to use that in the future, so meaning that in 2019 when we get the results back, it's likely

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we're gonna be increasing that.

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I think that was exciting internally for us because we've made it a priority to revamp our newsletter to make it more engaging pertinent and relative for our residents. And this was in one of our previous weekly memos. But Saundra, Daniel, off the deputy state clerk is really good at publications and we're utilizing her skills internally to revamp what the newsletter could look like.

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And this is just an example, not necessarily what it will be, but it just shows how much

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more engaging it could be for our residents as opposed to how it is now, which isn't necessarily

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not.

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But if we can attract those readers just through the publication itself, I think we can

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really garner some effective communication means that way.

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We will be breaking apart the flip newsletter, you know, where the city newsletter comes back

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to back with the parks program.

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And I think that will actually alleviate some stress in the parks department because

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they have to be on a very tight time frame because they offer classes at a certain time

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and that means the information for that has to go out at a certain time.

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And it's been my wish to have maybe a more of almost like a magazine kind of experience

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with the newsletter and that seems to be something that's also consistent with conversations

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we've had in the past, when we talk about the committee engagement aspect, or a strategic

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priority, and now we have somebody on staff who actually has really good experience in

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doing that, and so we challenged her with creating a mock-up layout of what that could

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be, and not too dissimilar from when Michelle Wheeler was here and talked to us about the

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website, you know, a lot of what she concentrated on there was the correct use of font,

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very

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of open space if you put too much in there it crowds you know the eye and it

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actually turns people away from wanting to look at it and saw all those elements

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are are being built into this mockup right now and we're hoping that for the

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first quarter of the new year we would kick off a magazine style newsletter that

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would come out and it's slightly different times in the parks program so given

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the fact that our public still relies heavily on written communication we

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We actually think maybe we're missing opportunity there to continue to have touches with the public by having one combined publications that are in two separate ones.

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A question?

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Please.

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So, Manager Ladder, you have sent out letters updating the community on the water.

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And they've been really from what I've heard really well received.

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So if you put that into the newsletter, then that portion would be paid for by the same source that pays for the one.

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I mean, would you put that in there? Would you continue to have a separate?

223
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I keep the letters, quarterly letters separate, but we're always going to have some kind of update on the waterfutum plant.

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That's also in the newsletter. That's been a pretty regular part of that.

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It almost always mirrors the letter content though. Might lag it or lead it a little bit.

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But I don't know that that's not that we would necessarily want to start combing

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gluing the 206 settlement funds with paying for the newsletter unless we

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dedicated the newsletter to purely just that topic.

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Okay.

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Otherwise it might, it gets a little too convoluted.

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Got it.

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If I could be asking a quick question, because when you say breaking it apart,

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because I've heard both sides, the people that love it the way it is today,

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because they get one thing from the city, they know what to look for,

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And they know it's got two things on both sides and it also gives them these are people that sometimes don't

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Look through the park and wreck part of it too often, but they do because they get the city one on the other side of it, so

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Would it be I

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Guess my little question as I kind of look at that is that seems to be where we pick up probably some of our new people

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That don't even that may not even look at the programming. You know if we did separate news

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Because I guess I'm a little bit, you know, thinking that might, the separation of that

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might be, I don't know, something to reconsider, or just to think about, you know, how we pick

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up then some of the people I think we pick up that just look for the news and then pick

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up the park and wreck stuff and come into the program and based on that.

244
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Okay.

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Can I ask a question?

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Yes.

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So, when the way I'm understanding is because that's paid for in a different source, using

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the means of water, your water, the means of water, right, we're not saying, it's the

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law.

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The resident news letter on the water?

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On the water.

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Is paid up for by the Army?

253
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Correct.

254
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Yeah, by the federal fund.

255
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So, if you incorporate it, I'm thinking of where you're saying that, to be able to, you know,

256
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The only thing that maybe could solve it is to say we're going to do whatever that newsletter entails.

257
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Putting the cost of that would stay static to that.

258
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And then prove that that's always going to be in that magazine in that way.

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So that it could be still paid for possibly that way and state the money.

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And you know, kind of bookmark it for just that in that magazine.

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And then you could still maybe get by with saying, okay, that's a percentage.

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This is what we pay for.

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Normally it's going to now be incorporated in this and we can pay for it possibly.

264
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I don't know.

265
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You're right, though, and the funding source is how that goes over.

266
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But as long as I think you stay, you know, a board and transparent board, maybe it can be done.

267
00:21:02,540 --> 00:21:07,820
Yeah, let me, but, let me add my thoughts to that too.

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I think by keeping the water letter separate, it residents have come to expect that.

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They know that when they see something from the city of New Brighton in that particular envelope,

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It's typically a letter from the City Manager regarding our water situation.

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And I can see your concern that you have with the separating the parks from this.

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I also understand that the, what the park's out is on newsprint, which is a little less expensive.

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But I think it's, I think we're maybe looking at not a huge expense adding a sentence.

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So what if we were to do a magazine feel with a staple stitch on the inside in newsprint

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of the park programs so that if you're interested in the parks, you're able to tear that out.

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You've got that information and then otherwise you still have a nice glossy cover look of what

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is happening in New Brighton.

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So it's just something to think about there, but I do, I have to admit that I really like

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the look and feel of what I just saw up here in that I would read that front to cover.

280
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I don't know that I, I shouldn't even say this out loud, but I don't even know that I read

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all of the information that comes out in the park thing because it's text heavy, it's not

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necessarily reader-friendly. You know people don't have the attention span to read half that stuff.

283
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So maybe what I'm saying is I don't have the attention span.

284
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But I think there are some ways

285
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that we can look at it. We're just seeing an idea here and not necessarily the interpretation of cost.

286
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And quite frankly you can also do some advertising in a two to offset cost if you wanted to look at it

287
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that way. Exactly. And I do, I would say, I love these ideas. And for me, it's a quick,

288
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I see a street sweep where I can go, what's that? Because I, instead of me having to hunt through

289
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whatever, go, oh, they're blowing out the things. So I can just go look over here and this little

290
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quick thing here. It's a lot easier to find the information on that layout. That is phenomenal.

291
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I think that's going to really score very high for us. Good. Good.

292
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And one last comment, getting most of their information

293
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from friends and neighbors.

294
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I don't know how accurate the information is always is.

295
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That's coming from friends and neighbors.

296
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So I'm really happy that people are talking to each other

297
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and interacting and getting what they think

298
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might be the best information.

299
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But if we can come up with something

300
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like this suggested newsletter, we're using your example again.

301
00:24:01,230 --> 00:24:03,390
and they see a picture of a street sweeper, they know.

302
00:24:03,930 --> 00:24:09,350
It's not gonna be speculation or rumor.

303
00:24:10,550 --> 00:24:12,570
So, plow in the wintertime or whatever,

304
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I mean, those are just really holy cow

305
00:24:15,050 --> 00:24:17,110
to get your message across the easiest way

306
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their ever could be, that is phenomenal.

307
00:24:20,130 --> 00:24:20,210
Yeah.

308
00:24:20,690 --> 00:24:23,210
Well, I think Madam Mayor, the, you know,

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in the data point of 88% of folks get their information

310
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from their friends and neighbors is a statement of fact,

311
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We don't have control over that, what we have control over is making sure that the quality

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of the information, the accuracy of the information that is out there is out there as prominently

313
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as well as it can be.

314
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And it was a thought process in the back of my head that said perhaps we're not quite

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reaching our readership with the newsletter because it's back to back and upside down on

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the parks information.

317
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and just because we do have a large volume

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of high profile things going on,

319
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whether it's the water,

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they're new bright and exchange or development there,

321
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the parks projects that we have going on,

322
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the Eagles Nest Lions Park,

323
00:25:13,170 --> 00:25:16,570
our street projects are getting bigger each year

324
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with our plan, you know,

325
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we're doing larger versions of that project.

326
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And so, and of course, we have the Hanson Park project.

327
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so it makes sense in my mind to really accentuate that just because of that

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data point. That's what really struck me when I looked at the survey results was

329
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folks before the newsletter or the website or anything? It's their neighbor.

330
00:25:45,350 --> 00:25:48,870
And to your point Dean, if they could grab something really quick that you know

331
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I have to admit if you were to ask me could I find my Brighton Park and

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correct programming folder to be able to find the information on the backside. I probably couldn't, but if I had a

333
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nice little shiny little thing that was like that that I could go look really quick and go, oh that's what's going on.

334
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They're going to be blowing out the sewers and the phone. Oh, they plow when we hit like two inches and they started randomly cool

335
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stuff. And I could find that probably a lot easier.

336
00:26:15,690 --> 00:26:19,490
I agree. Yeah, that's a great thought. And then I can make another comment. Please.

337
00:26:19,490 --> 00:26:49,270
So, just as far as the parks program being really wordy and very verbose, and I think that there's an opportunity for us to go through a little bit of an exercise like we went through with the website, like we're talking about having gone through with the newsletter, to maybe make that document less word intensive, and maybe try to grab people's attention more.

338
00:26:49,270 --> 00:26:51,490
with it by virtue of doing that.

339
00:26:52,310 --> 00:26:56,090
I do know that our staff member over there

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is Amici Floyd really has a strong background

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in marketing too.

342
00:27:00,270 --> 00:27:03,790
And I don't think we'd tap her always as much

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as we could as far as our skill set is concerned,

344
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or that she's necessarily always been positioned to do that.

345
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And I think that's gonna change.

346
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Be great.

347
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That would be phenomenal.

348
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And I do appreciate your comment,

349
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It comes from a revolman about the, you know, if you put together a plan that it's all that letter about water is always going to be in there and plan on seeing it there.

350
00:27:29,110 --> 00:27:38,310
I just hate mixing that bigality with with other stuff within the city.

351
00:27:38,310 --> 00:27:42,830
I just, I, it doesn't set well quite frankly with me.

352
00:27:42,890 --> 00:27:45,410
I'd rather just see it be a completely separate thing,

353
00:27:45,650 --> 00:27:46,790
handled the way it's been handled.

354
00:27:47,370 --> 00:27:49,890
Every, you know, when you talk about friends and neighbors

355
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and having good information,

356
00:27:53,450 --> 00:27:56,150
that's the one thing where I think our citizens are really

357
00:27:56,150 --> 00:27:57,710
well informed is on the water.

358
00:27:58,230 --> 00:28:00,410
And it could be because it's their number one concern,

359
00:28:00,690 --> 00:28:04,910
but those newsletters are, I think this is trying

360
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trying to add on to what council member was saying and how if that was something that

361
00:28:10,890 --> 00:28:16,950
could be done, that's maybe how it could be done, not to say it had to be done.

362
00:28:18,470 --> 00:28:20,110
Okay, thank you very much.

363
00:28:20,270 --> 00:28:24,570
Just one more quick comment on this, it's kind of innocuous looking here, but the social

364
00:28:24,570 --> 00:28:31,940
media since 2013 when we were measuring these has gone from 40 percent to 42 percent and

365
00:28:31,940 --> 00:28:40,320
up to 53% and then they said in the future 60% said they would like to receive their information through social media.

366
00:28:40,580 --> 00:28:43,080
So again, I think we'll see this climb even farther.

367
00:28:43,660 --> 00:28:51,980
So as a city, we've really focused on making sure that our messaging on social media is pertinent and accurate and also engaging just like we are with the newsletter.

368
00:28:52,380 --> 00:28:57,500
And I think you guys have probably seen that to public safety Facebook and the city Facebook page trying to

369
00:28:57,500 --> 00:29:11,610
Garner residents that way and get information to him through those means next one is citizen participation and this kind of state constant since the last report was published.

370
00:29:12,150 --> 00:29:22,470
And I don't know if you know these two metrics are the best for deciding how what level of citizen participation we have within the city here.

371
00:29:22,470 --> 00:29:27,070
One way we measured is the public attendance at town hall meetings and

372
00:29:27,070 --> 00:29:32,090
specifically who fills out the forms that rank how the meeting went.

373
00:29:32,390 --> 00:29:37,870
That dropped from 2016 to 2017, whether the amount of people actually there dropped.

374
00:29:38,110 --> 00:29:41,410
We don't know just the amount of people that fill out surveys did at least.

375
00:29:41,910 --> 00:29:50,970
So Madam Mayor, I went back and looked at my notes and my count in 2016 was 98 people in the room.

376
00:29:50,970 --> 00:29:57,890
And again, it fluctuates during the day, of course, but at a similar time, this 2017 was a hundred and twenty-seven.

377
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:28,880
I mean, and, you know, you have to find some consistent way to measure. So I'm not trying to be critical of this one. And counting heads at 9 AM only works if the same enthusiasm for the 9 AM subject is one year to the next, right? You know, people might come later for a subject or they might come early and leave. It's a fluid event. And so it is a challenge to put a hard number on that. But certainly there's more bodies in the room than this.

378
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:30,340
I think that's at least some of it.

379
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,000
Yeah, and when you look at it, it looks pretty dramatic,

380
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:34,720
but really that's 14 people.

381
00:30:34,780 --> 00:30:40,380
Yeah, it's not a big number, but yeah,

382
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:41,740
maybe there's something else we can do,

383
00:30:41,940 --> 00:30:42,740
you know, have a drawing.

384
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:44,020
I don't even know if that's legal,

385
00:30:44,020 --> 00:30:48,020
but hand out tickets or to everybody that comes in, so.

386
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,660
The second one we measure is our national night out parties

387
00:30:51,660 --> 00:30:55,380
that we have registered in that drop by 10 since 2016,

388
00:30:55,580 --> 00:30:57,420
but has remained pretty stable over the years.

389
00:30:57,420 --> 00:31:02,440
than as we all know is much higher than kind of our national and regional cities.

390
00:31:02,940 --> 00:31:07,240
It would be interesting about that is just I don't know what you guys experience with

391
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,540
mine going out this time is I think that drop is combining parties.

392
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:16,340
I think if we were to look at a participation by the number of residents we'd find that that

393
00:31:16,340 --> 00:31:22,000
probably if not stays constant actually probably goes up because we have very big parties right now

394
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,240
that we didn't have before. That's interesting. I know that when we were out visiting

395
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:31,460
There were, I didn't keep track of how many said, you know, were that neighborhood and that neighborhood and we just put it together?

396
00:31:31,860 --> 00:31:32,040
Yeah, yeah.

397
00:31:32,580 --> 00:31:34,440
And for me it was almost everyone I went to.

398
00:31:34,700 --> 00:31:39,360
Was we, we used to have one, oh yeah, we combined with them because they all want to be together at the same party.

399
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:40,380
It's more fun.

400
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:48,240
So like the last one, I would, you know, our metric on parties is great, but I think we should find some way to figure out about participation level.

401
00:31:48,940 --> 00:31:51,340
Because I think that stays more constant too.

402
00:31:51,340 --> 00:32:00,940
So it might be a, people could let us know how many they had if they would do it or have

403
00:32:00,940 --> 00:32:02,460
someone check with them.

404
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:08,020
The third one in community engagement is our advisory commission participation.

405
00:32:08,780 --> 00:32:17,880
In 2017 we had the most applications since 2014 and more than in 2012 but what's interesting

406
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:24,340
in this one is we had less vacancies than in 2014 so we had the widest gap between vacancies

407
00:32:24,340 --> 00:32:31,720
and applications that we've had in 2017 which is good and I think it shows that people are

408
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:37,200
interested in reserving in some capacity with the city and I think this came down to kind of council

409
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:41,200
remember you know getting the word out that there's these openings as well as the city so.

410
00:32:41,260 --> 00:32:43,220
And I think we should all be very proud of that number.

411
00:32:43,220 --> 00:32:52,370
Yeah, that's just look at that chart. That's pretty amazing actually going back further

412
00:32:52,370 --> 00:32:57,610
There were times when there are more vacancies than there were yeah people that applied and we had to say well

413
00:32:57,610 --> 00:33:00,390
We got to wait to fill it because we got to get the word out

414
00:33:01,130 --> 00:33:03,690
And that goes earlier earlier on but

415
00:33:03,690 --> 00:33:04,490
Any

416
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:14,800
more questions on community engagement what we've on so we're on the economic development three out of the four

417
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,860
KPIs were met here one remained constant

418
00:33:17,860 --> 00:33:23,640
In addition, physical redevelopment is our first KPI and our goal is to achieve residential

419
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:31,240
tax-based growth of 9.5 million by 2019 and commercial industrial tax-based growth 5 million

420
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:32,300
by 2016.

421
00:33:32,860 --> 00:33:37,260
Both of those targets were kind of blown out of the water, so to speak.

422
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:47,920
We, since 2012, the residential tax, the residential tax-based growth has gone up by 186.5 million.

423
00:33:48,380 --> 00:33:53,180
And the commercial industrial tax-based growth has gone up by 23 million dollars.

424
00:33:53,680 --> 00:34:01,380
So it beat both of the KPIs that were set for this one back in 2012, because when I think

425
00:34:01,380 --> 00:34:01,860
they were set.

426
00:34:01,860 --> 00:34:07,780
So the exchange coming online has really helped increase those numbers.

427
00:34:14,050 --> 00:34:17,730
We're going to add to that, the second

428
00:34:19,970 --> 00:34:22,650
one under economic development is business retention

429
00:34:22,650 --> 00:34:30,370
and expansion and we want to define ways that we could retain our existing businesses through

430
00:34:30,370 --> 00:34:34,530
helping them out with certain needs, but also adding and helping them expand as well.

431
00:34:35,430 --> 00:35:02,390
This has been done through a couple of different ways, but last January, the council approved the EDC's recommended business retention expansion plan, and that has been implemented over time since then up until the day and earlier this year in 2016 annual report was presented to the EDC and it said that 89 hours of assistance were given to new writing businesses.

432
00:35:02,390 --> 00:35:07,410
There was another report given to the EDC and said 29 hours of assistance were given.

433
00:35:07,630 --> 00:35:29,590
So, when talking with Assistant Director Grunlock about this, she just stressed to me kind of that there's not really these tangible results from this right now, but it's more kind of the long term process of helping these businesses, and we might not get some of the same time staying because of this program, but over time it could result in some more tangible benefits for the city.

434
00:35:29,590 --> 00:35:30,210
I

435
00:35:34,020 --> 00:35:39,000
can add maybe a little bit to that too but I know how I have a meeting with a business

436
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:45,000
here in town that has a grown their facility and they want me to work with them because

437
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:46,120
they want to stay in New Brighton.

438
00:35:46,380 --> 00:35:54,300
So I'm not met with them, I don't know really much about them anyway but I'm having that

439
00:35:54,300 --> 00:36:00,320
meeting through Sierra Friday but I am starting to hear from more and more of our businesses

440
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:17,420
and I'm really like the fact that they're reaching out to somebody either on council or the mayor or whomever and trying to find ways to either expand their business in New Brighton or stay in New Brighton or whatever reasons.

441
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:30,440
I'm not getting complaints from businesses and saying, gosh, your taxes are too high or you don't have a great environment for my business or anything such as that and I'm really pleased with that.

442
00:36:30,860 --> 00:36:47,400
I think we should also keep in mind that this past year we all worked very hard to make sure that the API expansion, which is not ready yet but that we've partnered with them and situated them for success by coming up with a good plan that they can move into that process.

443
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,980
property when they're into that third lot when they're ready.

444
00:36:50,700 --> 00:36:57,560
So we can talk about the open to business, which I think is a good asset to them, but

445
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:03,200
there is a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that really is not measured, but

446
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:03,820
is happening.

447
00:37:06,900 --> 00:37:07,580
Yeah, Madam Mayor.

448
00:37:07,660 --> 00:37:12,240
I mean, this doesn't measure too soon choosing to stay here.

449
00:37:12,300 --> 00:37:12,380
Right.

450
00:37:12,380 --> 00:37:21,100
I mean, they did that on their own, I mean, and when CSI moved to the exchange neighborhood

451
00:37:21,100 --> 00:37:27,840
that opened up other business space down by McDonald's in the water tower, this is a really

452
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:29,200
good story on a number of levels.

453
00:37:29,780 --> 00:37:34,420
It is, and we've had some businesses move out like my comm, but for no other reason than

454
00:37:35,220 --> 00:37:39,320
they retired, you know, and sold the business to somebody else.

455
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:47,980
So I think we're doing pretty darn well in terms of our economic development.

456
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:56,500
The third one is housing programs and the goal of this priority was to develop programs

457
00:37:56,500 --> 00:38:01,800
aimed at the maintenance and modernization of our existing single-family and multi-family

458
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:02,160
housing.

459
00:38:02,660 --> 00:38:08,760
And the EDC has played a role again in this and has discussed it twice this year both in April

460
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:14,080
and in August on what these programs could look like if there were programs.

461
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,880
There's been no concrete outcomes from these meetings yet, but

462
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:33,880
it sounds like the EDC will likely just want to continue supporting our existing programs that are helping single family and multi-family housing units expand and then create improvements.

463
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:36,360
And again,

464
00:38:38,580 --> 00:38:42,440
we have some opportunities coming up this next year, assuming the purchase

465
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,620
goes through on the Korean church in the right-and-school area.

466
00:38:47,240 --> 00:38:48,320
I think that will be good.

467
00:38:49,040 --> 00:39:00,380
And at a later date, maybe we can talk about what Koon Rapids has done and maybe Koon Rapids

468
00:39:00,380 --> 00:39:07,440
has taken the design of several kind of standard homes and has shown their

469
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:12,840
citizens how they can upgrade relatively inexpensively, but I think if we

470
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:20,490
can make a tool like that available, that might be a great exercise for EDC to

471
00:39:20,490 --> 00:39:24,630
go through and see if we can come up with something. Now, Kun Rapids went to the

472
00:39:24,630 --> 00:39:28,110
point of actually buying homes as model homes and that sort of thing I don't

473
00:39:28,110 --> 00:39:31,870
know that we're necessarily want to get into that maybe, but I think there's

474
00:39:31,870 --> 00:39:33,790
some happy median in between there.

475
00:39:34,770 --> 00:39:37,870
Because a lot of our homes were kind of,

476
00:39:40,050 --> 00:39:42,410
I say this lovingly because I lived in one,

477
00:39:42,950 --> 00:39:46,470
there are boxes with different floor plans

478
00:39:46,470 --> 00:39:47,350
on the inside.

479
00:39:48,250 --> 00:39:51,330
And if people could see some of the variations

480
00:39:51,330 --> 00:39:53,790
of floor plans that could be done within those walls,

481
00:39:54,570 --> 00:39:56,910
it's pretty eye opening.

482
00:39:58,510 --> 00:40:00,650
So maybe that's something for next year.

483
00:40:01,330 --> 00:40:07,390
Madam Mayor, I understand that the EDC in their next meeting is going to be discussing some of these issues and

484
00:40:07,390 --> 00:40:14,030
I look forward to hearing some feedback from that discussion and their feedback from just reviewing this.

485
00:40:14,830 --> 00:40:23,770
Clearly, there's some endorsement of the things that the city is doing well to support private investment in largely in single family homes.

486
00:40:23,770 --> 00:40:30,050
I think there's a separate discussion to be had about multi-family units, whether the

487
00:40:30,050 --> 00:40:36,810
duplex as a city staff is talked about as a separate category versus the larger apartment

488
00:40:36,810 --> 00:40:41,630
buildings and by larger that could be I mean four or greater and we have many that are

489
00:40:41,630 --> 00:40:45,990
much greater than four but I mean I start with four but separate those from the duplexes

490
00:40:45,990 --> 00:40:57,530
but on your discussion, the EDC has offered some nice compliments and endorsements to what

491
00:40:57,530 --> 00:41:05,730
the city's been doing thus far, but you and I were participated in a League of

492
00:41:05,730 --> 00:41:09,130
Minnesota City's conference where the Koon Rapids folks talked about their programs and

493
00:41:09,130 --> 00:41:15,210
there are other programs and a big no mistake about it, our housing is either Cape Cods

494
00:41:15,210 --> 00:41:20,290
That's from the 50s, ramblers from the 60s, or houses from the 80s.

495
00:41:20,570 --> 00:41:22,710
That's the vast majority of our houses here.

496
00:41:23,270 --> 00:41:29,690
And to keep on top of that, that this is an attractive place for

497
00:41:29,690 --> 00:41:33,010
millennials who are not even yet buying homes, some of which are.

498
00:41:33,290 --> 00:41:36,170
But largely, their cohort is not yet buying homes.

499
00:41:36,570 --> 00:41:41,870
To keep on track of that, this is a grand, grand opportunity for

500
00:41:41,870 --> 00:41:48,670
the city to have leadership and so I'll wait to see the EDC's done a nice job getting

501
00:41:48,670 --> 00:41:55,430
us to this point recognizing things that are done well and are supportive and it will

502
00:41:55,430 --> 00:42:01,010
be up to this body to say it's good enough good enough or can we be more proactive, can

503
00:42:01,010 --> 00:42:08,350
we take this as an opportunity to ensure that new brighten in 2040 matches our land use plans

504
00:42:09,190 --> 00:42:15,090
with the desirability of what we know is very, very old housing and how to keep

505
00:42:15,970 --> 00:42:21,930
incentivizing and modernizing that and publicizing that. So when these hipsters

506
00:42:21,930 --> 00:42:27,330
in Northeast look to get out of their up-floor rental unit, they don't go to

507
00:42:27,330 --> 00:42:32,850
blame for a brand-new home. So they don't go to St. Paul for a hundred-year-old

508
00:42:32,850 --> 00:42:37,310
home. So they come here for the school's services and proximity that they really

509
00:42:37,310 --> 00:42:46,030
want. And that is dependent on the future reaction to this particular KPI.

510
00:42:47,090 --> 00:42:47,510
Thank you.

511
00:42:51,140 --> 00:42:55,340
The final one of economic development is sense of place. And the goal here was just

512
00:42:55,340 --> 00:43:00,720
to explore how we could as a city implement kind of smaller, more incremental projects

513
00:43:00,720 --> 00:43:05,200
that add to the sense of place here within existing public improvement projects.

514
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:11,640
We are doing this through the comprehensive plan, making sure that place making is a part

515
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,340
of that throughout each chapter of that plan.

516
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:21,340
On all our public improvement projects, we use those to make sure we have the ability

517
00:43:21,340 --> 00:43:28,020
to add sidewalks, streetscapes and such like that, like over by the exchange, how that was

518
00:43:28,020 --> 00:43:28,180
done.

519
00:43:29,380 --> 00:43:36,080
But all along E2, Madam Mayor, I mean, that's an impressive change from what it was.

520
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:42,360
The fact that you could push a stroller or a wheelchair down to the, was a pump and

521
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:49,580
munch, whatever people used to call it, you could go down there and get a candy bar and

522
00:43:49,580 --> 00:43:55,900
walk back safely now. I mean, this is a healthy snack. Yeah, or a healthy snack. I would

523
00:43:55,900 --> 00:44:01,900
get a candy bar, but I mean, the notion that this is part of the dialogue is another

524
00:44:01,900 --> 00:44:08,980
credit Madam Mayor to the EDC and their leadership and determination on this. And there are

525
00:44:08,980 --> 00:44:19,560
tangible, tangible results in this community where people can go to and whether it be the

526
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:23,460
What you're not directly related to us, but they're certainly affiliated with us.

527
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:39,400
Yeah, and I think it's important to know too that our current budget for next year does not include some things that we keep hearing about, which is monument signs.

528
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:58,240
Some bussing trails we keep hearing about public arts and noting to that the farmer's market was established by two or three people in this community that just got together and made it happen.

529
00:44:58,840 --> 00:44:59,960
It had nothing to do with it.

530
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:29,320
Anything that we as a community, or we as a council or city, wanted to do it. It is a great testimony to the fact that we have citizens who will do that kind of stuff, take the initiative and help with their sense of place. But we're still missing that messaging that when you come into this city, you're in New Brighton, you're welcome here. And a lot of that has to do with mine and signs.

531
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:36,140
And when cities like Arden Hills, who are very small but yet have monument signs all over

532
00:45:36,140 --> 00:45:42,800
their city, and Shoreview has one of the biggest monument signs and one of the biggest

533
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:48,840
headaches they had on that for a while, but you know, how do you know if you're a visitor

534
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:55,700
that you're in the city of New Brighton other than those tacky little metal signs that

535
00:45:57,580 --> 00:46:04,740
So I still say that this is one area to that I think we need to continue to work on is the sense of place.

536
00:46:05,540 --> 00:46:12,580
And that goes from everything from monument signs to potentially a whole new makeover in our local.

537
00:46:13,180 --> 00:46:15,680
And I just throw that out into the atmosphere.

538
00:46:16,240 --> 00:46:18,260
I'm not saying that we necessarily have to do that.

539
00:46:18,260 --> 00:46:24,220
I know Brooklyn Center just did that this last year and they've got a new motto and they're

540
00:46:24,220 --> 00:46:27,280
painting their water towers now and putting that new motto on there.

541
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:34,320
So let's just not lose sight of this, that we have a sense of place, and it's a sense

542
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:41,020
of place that we hear a new bright and feel, but how do we make our outside visitors, people

543
00:46:41,020 --> 00:46:45,700
who come to see what we're all about know that they're here within our city limits.

544
00:46:45,700 --> 00:46:52,620
And we have another opportunity coming up that we need to focus on this next year, but

545
00:46:52,620 --> 00:46:57,440
that's with the sound walls that are going to go on the freeways here.

546
00:46:57,980 --> 00:47:00,820
And if you drive through Maplewood, you see a nice Maplewood leaf.

547
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:07,700
You drive through Little Canada and you see, I guess that's also a Maple leaf.

548
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:15,640
But if we put that NB on the side of those walls, I don't know that anybody's going to know

549
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,500
even what that is. If you live in New Brighton, you know that it stands for an

550
00:47:20,500 --> 00:47:25,000
N.B. But if you're outside this city and you don't, you've never heard the

551
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,180
words New Brighton and you drive by and you see a line and a little line lower

552
00:47:29,180 --> 00:47:34,360
and it's kind of scratched, is that our identity? And those things need to be

553
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:41,140
decided in this next year also. What is going to be put on those walls? And maybe

554
00:47:41,140 --> 00:47:44,540
Maybe it's just the words new bright, and I don't know, but think about it.

555
00:47:48,930 --> 00:47:53,890
On to the fourth one, which is effective service quality, and we reached all four of these

556
00:47:53,890 --> 00:47:54,670
KPIs.

557
00:47:54,830 --> 00:48:00,810
The first being service quality, in the 2016 version of this report it said that in 2017 we

558
00:48:00,810 --> 00:48:05,610
would look at comparing our core services with our national and regional benchmarks as identified

559
00:48:05,610 --> 00:48:11,550
through our citizen survey that was recently completed, so it's kind of a lot of information packed

560
00:48:11,550 --> 00:48:21,070
into a few tables here, but this much higher and the higher and the similar and the lower kind of seems like a nebulous way of saying how we compare.

561
00:48:21,570 --> 00:48:39,170
But it's actually pretty scientific and that if it's much higher or much lower, that means it's more than twice the margin of error away through the survey, which is 5%, so if it's much higher than 10% or more people said we had excellent services compared to our benchmarking.

562
00:48:39,170 --> 00:48:45,030
And then if it's higher, lower, it's within that five percent or, yeah, within that five percent.

563
00:48:45,410 --> 00:48:47,590
So that's how that works.

564
00:48:47,990 --> 00:48:53,530
So with the CAD, you know, our street repair and maintenance and snow plowing ranked much

565
00:48:53,530 --> 00:48:55,970
higher than our national and regional benchmarks.

566
00:48:56,630 --> 00:49:00,970
Land use planning and zowing was much higher than our national benchmarks and higher than our

567
00:49:00,970 --> 00:49:01,750
regional ones.

568
00:49:02,330 --> 00:49:07,230
And then economic development was much higher than national and similar to our regional comparisons.

569
00:49:07,230 --> 00:49:36,990
Public safety kind of clean house there, much higher on all of our core services we track within public safety, fire prevention and education it's higher than our regional comparisons, but much higher than our national comparisons kind of an interesting one one in parks, the level of participation in a recreation program or activity was much lower than our national comparisons and lower than our regional comparisons comparisons, excuse me, but the amount of people that

570
00:49:36,990 --> 00:49:41,850
But visited a neighborhood park or city park was much higher and much higher, so make

571
00:49:41,850 --> 00:49:46,970
about what you will that perhaps people are visiting parks more independently than joining

572
00:49:46,970 --> 00:49:48,330
the RAC program activity.

573
00:49:49,010 --> 00:49:54,030
But the public library at the Ramzan County one at the community service was mused much

574
00:49:54,030 --> 00:50:00,950
higher, nationally and regionally, city services to youth are higher, nationally and regionally.

575
00:50:02,530 --> 00:50:30,930
I'm very proud of these of course, but I think the notion that there are a couple that were just lower would be things that at some point I'd love to hear our new parks and recreation directors analysis of with her team as somebody that's new to the department, you may have fresh eyes, I mean, we're very proud of the numbers and the different programs we have, but maybe there's a gap that she would be able to identify with her, you know, being new to our department that would be better

576
00:50:31,470 --> 00:50:38,170
I agree. I think it's an exciting time for Director Fink to be coming on board.

577
00:50:40,470 --> 00:50:41,470
I just hesitate

578
00:50:41,470 --> 00:50:48,450
with her name. I'll tell you. I never mind. My mother saw her doctor today, same name. I'm like,

579
00:50:48,510 --> 00:50:53,690
oh, so you call her Doctor Fink. She'll like it. Yeah. So I'll be calling Jennifer Doctor Fink.

580
00:50:53,750 --> 00:50:59,630
Oh, no, maybe she will be. But it is an exciting time to be the director in that area. And I agree.

581
00:51:01,010 --> 00:51:05,550
For finance, it's kind of harder to track a core service, but we do have a question about

582
00:51:05,550 --> 00:51:10,510
the value of the services for the taxes paid in New Brighton, and our residents rated

583
00:51:10,510 --> 00:51:15,290
those much higher nationally than national comparisons and regional comparisons.

584
00:51:15,990 --> 00:51:19,910
Administration, same type of deal, a little bit more harder to find a core service that's

585
00:51:19,910 --> 00:51:25,570
measurable, but attended a meeting of local elected officials was much higher here in New Brighton

586
00:51:25,570 --> 00:51:27,570
than our national and regional comparison,

587
00:51:27,730 --> 00:51:29,970
which is maybe a better way to look at that citizen,

588
00:51:30,150 --> 00:51:33,910
participation, metric in the previous KPI.

589
00:51:34,410 --> 00:51:36,230
The overall impression of sitting employees

590
00:51:36,230 --> 00:51:37,650
was much higher in New Brighton

591
00:51:37,650 --> 00:51:39,390
than our national and regional comparisons.

592
00:51:40,090 --> 00:51:42,790
And then just generally, the overall quality of services

593
00:51:43,380 --> 00:51:46,450
were much higher than our national and regional benchmarks.

594
00:51:46,990 --> 00:51:49,250
So proud of that internally.

595
00:51:49,610 --> 00:51:52,350
And we think we're based on this doing a good job

596
00:51:52,350 --> 00:51:55,170
with this KPI and hope to do so in the future.

597
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:00,720
The State Performance Report is another one that we use.

598
00:52:01,060 --> 00:52:05,560
This is the made look familiar because this is the one that was submitted in 2016,

599
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,840
which we did meet all of the metrics that are required through the State Auditor.

600
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:14,700
However, in 2017, we did not submit one due to staff turnover,

601
00:52:15,300 --> 00:52:18,380
meeting me coming on board and not knowing we did this.

602
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:23,460
So this is just the same one in 2016 and 2018, we will submit one again.

603
00:52:23,460 --> 00:52:24,540
And effective

604
00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:36,500
governance, this is, I guess, new for this report rather than 2016, but I think you can measure effective governance in a variety of ways.

605
00:52:36,620 --> 00:52:41,620
We chose to just look at kind of the value you get for your dollar within the city of New Brighton.

606
00:52:41,780 --> 00:52:53,000
And this graph probably looks familiar to all our budget conversations, but the cost of services per capita with our comparable cities per capita.

607
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:58,460
our residents pay $431 total for the services received.

608
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,500
That's the second lowest out of our comparable cities.

609
00:53:03,420 --> 00:53:08,340
And kind of noted in the response here, after looking at the overall quality of services,

610
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:15,220
ranking much higher nationally and regionally and then having a nice low per capita for

611
00:53:15,220 --> 00:53:18,560
services is a kind of good justice position there.

612
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:19,460
This

613
00:53:23,100 --> 00:53:27,900
is similar to the core services, but it's a more broad community-based kind of services.

614
00:53:28,260 --> 00:53:34,280
So, again, the much higher in the higher, much higher would be greater than 10%, higher

615
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:40,040
would be 5% to 10%, similar is within 5% who right now is a place to live, ranked much

616
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:45,100
higher than our national benchmark cities, higher from our regional ones.

617
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:50,760
Your neighborhood is a place to live much higher than our national and higher than regional.

618
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:55,200
and then New Brighton has a place to raise children to work to retire and go

619
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:58,580
overall quality of like much higher than our national and regional benchmark

620
00:53:58,580 --> 00:54:00,340
cities overall

621
00:54:03,030 --> 00:54:05,670
government performance some of these were touched on in the

622
00:54:05,670 --> 00:54:09,850
earlier core services ones but the value of services for the taxes paid is much

623
00:54:09,850 --> 00:54:13,910
higher than our national regional benchmarks overall direction that New

624
00:54:13,910 --> 00:54:18,130
Brighton is taking is much higher than our national benchmarks and higher than our

625
00:54:18,130 --> 00:54:22,510
regional benchmarks and then the job New Brighton government does at

626
00:54:22,510 --> 00:54:25,850
that welcoming citizen involvement is similar to our benchmarks in this.

627
00:54:30,090 --> 00:54:31,790
Well, into the next one, I want to ask these questions.

628
00:54:32,750 --> 00:54:33,710
Okay, one.

629
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:39,780
The final priority is workforce engagement and development,

630
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:42,580
which managed a lot of kind of touched on earlier.

631
00:54:43,300 --> 00:54:47,960
Employee capabilities, we want 90% of our employees meeting the job competency requirements

632
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:49,440
through their performance reviews.

633
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:55,520
For the performance reviews completed in 2017, so far, which is the majority.

634
00:54:55,520 --> 00:55:06,270
98% of employees meet or exceeds those standards, about 50% of employees, where exceeds expectations

635
00:55:06,270 --> 00:55:11,430
for their essential job accountability, which is a pretty good number.

636
00:55:11,730 --> 00:55:15,690
So we met that one in 2017 as well.

637
00:55:21,130 --> 00:55:25,650
This is our internal promotions KPI that was talked about earlier.

638
00:55:25,670 --> 00:55:29,970
We had six supervisory positions either become open or be created.

639
00:55:30,550 --> 00:55:32,190
three of those were filled internally,

640
00:55:32,410 --> 00:55:33,990
three of those were filled externally.

641
00:55:34,550 --> 00:55:35,510
And kind of important to note,

642
00:55:35,850 --> 00:55:37,010
based on what you were saying,

643
00:55:37,130 --> 00:55:39,250
council members, drew that, you know,

644
00:55:39,470 --> 00:55:40,790
for the external hires,

645
00:55:40,950 --> 00:55:42,790
we didn't have any internal applicants even.

646
00:55:42,970 --> 00:55:44,730
So we can't always control who's applying

647
00:55:44,730 --> 00:55:48,010
for those job openings, but 50%.

648
00:55:48,010 --> 00:55:50,870
It's right below the 60% mark that we want to be at.

649
00:55:51,930 --> 00:55:54,590
And the license bureau supervisor,

650
00:55:55,230 --> 00:55:57,770
we really didn't have anyone

651
00:55:58,850 --> 00:56:01,370
that was trained in that, necessarily.

652
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:06,540
Right, and the internal.

653
00:56:06,660 --> 00:56:07,320
And the internal.

654
00:56:07,820 --> 00:56:10,380
Through park director, there was no internal candidate.

655
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:11,320
Right, right.

656
00:56:12,020 --> 00:56:13,120
There was no option there.

657
00:56:13,220 --> 00:56:17,180
Two out of three, or I don't know what the other third person was.

658
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:19,020
That's just the finance director.

659
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:22,840
Oh, and I don't know if anybody applied from like in the city.

660
00:56:27,110 --> 00:56:30,550
And kind of in the response here about how we want to meet this in the future,

661
00:56:30,550 --> 00:56:36,330
again, is an administration we've begun to look at developing an internal kind of supervisory

662
00:56:36,330 --> 00:56:42,290
training program for employees who aren't quite at that supervisory level but we can obviously

663
00:56:42,290 --> 00:56:46,770
tell have the capabilities and the desire to be in those positions. They have the opportunity

664
00:56:46,770 --> 00:56:51,470
to come to some of these courses that we're going to bring outside consultants in and third parties

665
00:56:51,470 --> 00:56:56,050
in to teach them, you know, the basics of supervision, discipline, having those hard conversations.

666
00:56:56,050 --> 00:57:03,930
So hopefully that when we do get a vacancy, we have someone ready to go who's been almost kind of training for that position beforehand.

667
00:57:06,410 --> 00:57:22,310
I know that the city manager and his team has put together a strong effort on the employee recognition and the annual breakfast and another kind of internal morale opportunities including a lot of focus.

668
00:57:22,310 --> 00:57:27,510
I'm glad I know a lot of appropriate amount of focus on the Michael J. Walker spirit award and

669
00:57:28,910 --> 00:57:35,330
Recruiting people for these kind of recognitions and promotions. My question in the city management mayor is this particular

670
00:57:36,070 --> 00:57:36,990
KPI that

671
00:57:37,470 --> 00:57:40,710
The five of us as a body have decided that it's a

672
00:57:41,930 --> 00:57:43,110
Expectation of ours that

673
00:57:43,650 --> 00:57:45,110
these management positions will be

674
00:57:45,790 --> 00:57:51,290
Filled internally when possible. Is that something that our rank and file staff know as well that

675
00:57:53,110 --> 00:58:00,770
Are they aware that this is, you know, not just this is a council directive?

676
00:58:01,970 --> 00:58:07,770
Yeah, I think that the answer to that is yes, because there are, I'll give public works.

677
00:58:07,950 --> 00:58:09,290
I'll use that as an example.

678
00:58:10,610 --> 00:58:13,370
You know, this was communicated to the directors.

679
00:58:13,370 --> 00:58:21,130
The directors were directed to communicate it to their supervisors and so for instance in the public works section of decad.

680
00:58:21,130 --> 00:58:26,550
The superintendent, their Scott Polar, had been looking over years.

681
00:58:27,430 --> 00:58:33,330
And actually, in one of his efforts, which would be with Jesse Hartman, Scott's efforts

682
00:58:33,330 --> 00:58:38,590
to groom him for upward mobility, preceded this strategic priority even existing.

683
00:58:38,890 --> 00:58:44,490
So there was already a culture of that in some of these instances.

684
00:58:44,490 --> 00:58:50,770
I don't know that I think different departments have different strengths in that respect.

685
00:58:51,390 --> 00:59:01,090
Public safety by virtue of just their profession has so many more outside opportunities to be exposed to

686
00:59:01,090 --> 00:59:06,790
like principles of supervision, inherent in like NIMS training for example.

687
00:59:07,190 --> 00:59:12,270
There are a lot of lessons that are learned as far as organization, communication, delegation

688
00:59:12,270 --> 00:59:39,630
that are very applicable, although not unnecessarily, a crisis response, but very applicable to everyday management within an organization, so different service areas of our city, I think, get that support in different ways, but all of the departments are aware that there's a desire to promote from within frequently when there's an opening.

689
00:59:41,030 --> 00:59:59,010
It's not uncommon for me, even, or the director of a given area to pull somebody aside who they think is ready and or at the very least would benefit by going through an interview process to prepare them at some other point in time for the future.

690
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:29,320
And encourage. So I think in a lot of different ways that that message has been delivered. Just another comment, too, about the supervisory training that's being developed. These are meant to be kind of light and fast moving classes. The initial training will be a principle of supervision. And we've already identified with the help of the directors, people who can benefit from that. And we do have a lot of new folks in supervisory positions.

691
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:34,600
It's Devon as a new folk in that position, Jennifer Fink is new in that position within

692
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:39,660
our organization, Lee Crawford, who's our licensed bureau supervisor, Gina Smith, who's

693
01:00:39,660 --> 01:00:45,280
our assistant finance director, are all in supervisory positions, and even some of our

694
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:49,840
sergeants, Tony thinks, could benefit by principles of supervision training.

695
01:00:50,440 --> 01:00:58,000
So the trainings primary focus is to grab people already in supervision and augment their

696
01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:04,480
training with regards to things like delegation communicating clearly, recognizing that your

697
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:10,660
style of communication may work with you, but I may have to change my style if it's with

698
01:01:10,660 --> 01:01:10,900
you.

699
01:01:11,580 --> 01:01:15,240
And so these training classes will focus on things like that.

700
01:01:15,780 --> 01:01:22,680
So I've identified kind of four primary areas, performance management, feedback are all part

701
01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:24,220
of those initial training sets.

702
01:01:24,220 --> 01:01:45,960
And so there will be opportunity also, though, for individuals who are probably emerging leaders to be grabbed up into some of those training sessions too, but the primary focus is really to go after and support those folks who are in those leading roles now and could clearly move on at some other point in time further in the organization somewhere.

703
01:01:48,330 --> 01:01:50,870
So I think we try to message that through a variety of channels.

704
01:01:51,810 --> 01:02:20,290
So I would like to, I would have some concern, and I know I voiced this in the past, that the folks that have brought us to this place where we are today, who have been here have longevity with our city, how are they being, how is that being addressed with those people that you're saying all these newer, younger, I mean, I don't want us to be agist and also, you know, people that sit quietly and do a really good job.

705
01:02:20,290 --> 01:02:26,970
that don't get that kind of attention because they aren't the outspoken person that you may not

706
01:02:26,970 --> 01:02:32,790
personally, you guys might not work with because they're in a different area of the organization.

707
01:02:33,750 --> 01:02:40,350
And I don't need an answer, but I don't want those folks forgotten about so that they're

708
01:02:40,350 --> 01:02:46,370
feeling left out or being passed up for all the efforts that they've done over years and

709
01:02:46,370 --> 01:02:51,790
been supportive to make us who we are today. Now we have new folks coming in and they're getting

710
01:02:52,810 --> 01:02:53,970
opportunities that are not,

711
01:02:56,090 --> 01:03:01,450
you know, that they're being bypassed or overlooked in what

712
01:03:01,450 --> 01:03:08,690
how much good they've done. So I know that that's been our city in the past. I don't think it's been

713
01:03:08,690 --> 01:03:12,990
lately, but I want to make sure, and I brought this up, you know, over the years, that I want to make

714
01:03:12,990 --> 01:03:18,910
make sure that we're recognizing the good things that folks do throughout our agency,

715
01:03:20,610 --> 01:03:23,530
whether or not they're young and up and coming stars.

716
01:03:24,610 --> 01:03:30,090
Yeah, and my thoughts on that are not to be contrarian, but doing good work doesn't necessarily,

717
01:03:30,390 --> 01:03:34,650
in your current job, doesn't necessarily mean that means you're good as a supervisor or leader.

718
01:03:35,230 --> 01:03:39,550
I think that, for instance, in the Parks and Rec area, I think with our new director,

719
01:03:39,550 --> 01:03:43,350
after she's going to have such a much different approach as far as interacting with people.

720
01:03:43,850 --> 01:03:49,290
She's already tried to meet with all the full-time staff one-on-one to spend time with them,

721
01:03:49,290 --> 01:03:54,290
just to understand what they think and feel and want about the work environment and opportunity.

722
01:03:54,510 --> 01:03:59,770
And I think she's naturally going to uncover if there are any folks perhaps in that service

723
01:03:59,770 --> 01:04:03,610
area that haven't felt particularly supported over the years to be supported.

724
01:04:04,850 --> 01:04:32,610
For instance, Craig in the Decat Department, at the end of every year, once he's done performance evaluations, he then has a separate sit-down with every single employee and talks about how pushes and dreams, where are they at, how do they feel, what do they want out of the work environment, who's interested in gaining more education in some areas, not always to be in a supervisory position.

725
01:04:32,610 --> 01:04:34,550
I wasn't referring to that.

726
01:04:34,850 --> 01:04:37,630
I was talking about the others that aren't trying to be supervisors.

727
01:04:38,230 --> 01:04:44,410
It's sometimes also about gaining proficiency or an opportunity to work in another area.

728
01:04:44,550 --> 01:04:49,890
And I think the one city mantra has emphasized that to the fullest extent.

729
01:04:50,310 --> 01:04:54,330
So you have made that comment over the years and feel like it's been addressed.

730
01:04:54,510 --> 01:04:55,230
Still bringing it up.

731
01:04:55,550 --> 01:04:59,490
Just to not forget that, you know, I think it's good not to forget it, but I think there's

732
01:04:59,490 --> 01:05:08,660
There's also some things that are being done, there are those people who simply don't want to be supervisors,

733
01:05:08,940 --> 01:05:14,700
but want to have a good work environment, and I think that's important is making sure we do have the right supervisors for them,

734
01:05:15,100 --> 01:05:20,840
that we are doing things like the employee breakfast and recognition type of deal.

735
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:29,040
I think we're doing service awards for numbers, years of service, and I'm trying to think back to

736
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:30,900
when I was in the business world,

737
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:32,420
but some of the things that we did.

738
01:05:32,540 --> 01:05:34,020
But I think we're doing some of that stuff.

739
01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:37,260
And I think we should continue with that,

740
01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:38,660
and maybe even enhance it.

741
01:05:39,020 --> 01:05:41,120
But the best thing that we can do for employees,

742
01:05:41,820 --> 01:05:44,440
I think, who are in those situations

743
01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:46,420
where they're plugging away, working hard,

744
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:48,500
is making sure that they have supervisors

745
01:05:48,500 --> 01:05:50,620
who are recognizing that, talking to them,

746
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:55,980
appreciating them, and looking for their feedback.

747
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:57,840
People want to have a voice.

748
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:05,960
So I think you bring up a really good, good subject and I think I think we all should

749
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:09,660
always ask that question, always be focused on it and making sure that we are doing those

750
01:06:10,220 --> 01:06:13,640
little things that go a long way for folks.

751
01:06:15,700 --> 01:06:19,880
Please, I'll kind of take on to what I think Mary's talking about, too, though.

752
01:06:19,880 --> 01:06:28,640
was, when you sit and you are in place for a while in that job for a long period of time,

753
01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:37,920
what are we doing or what can we do to let them feel more purposeful or give them opportunities

754
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:43,260
to maybe enhance the job that they're doing today, what ideas do they have that can do that,

755
01:06:43,260 --> 01:06:50,020
where maybe that can kind of fulfill their part in that department.

756
01:06:50,320 --> 01:06:53,280
It's not just, I'm going to do my job and I do it well,

757
01:06:53,660 --> 01:06:57,380
but maybe I have some ideas about how that job can function better

758
01:06:57,380 --> 01:07:02,200
or streamline it and how can it move the whole department

759
01:07:02,200 --> 01:07:05,540
and then get that recognition for doing something like that

760
01:07:05,540 --> 01:07:10,600
rather than just being in place every day.

761
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:15,840
So, I think I know where you're going with that, where sometimes it's really difficult

762
01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:19,320
to be that person to say, I'm doing a great job.

763
01:07:19,740 --> 01:07:27,540
I think that maybe, but how can we enhance or make them feel that they are valued and

764
01:07:27,540 --> 01:07:32,940
have that worth and what can they do moving forward to maybe make their jobs a little more

765
01:07:32,940 --> 01:07:39,260
interesting or their job can, you know, just something that could be some feedback on.

766
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:48,200
That would be a great challenge for your leadership team to, you know, in from where I'm

767
01:07:48,200 --> 01:07:52,940
sitting, I don't know that that's necessarily even a concern of employees because nobody

768
01:07:52,940 --> 01:07:56,100
is, well, I don't know that they've talked to us.

769
01:07:56,620 --> 01:07:58,980
Well, they're allowed to talk to us.

770
01:07:59,340 --> 01:08:02,780
Not in a negative way if they have it, they're supposed to talk to us.

771
01:08:02,780 --> 01:08:03,000
Yeah.

772
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:03,800
Are we getting off track?

773
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:05,000
You're doing a little bit?

774
01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:09,640
But they shouldn't, yeah, they shouldn't necessarily have to talk to us.

775
01:08:09,720 --> 01:08:14,560
That's not our job, that's the job of management.

776
01:08:18,770 --> 01:08:22,320
So maybe we can take that off topic.

777
01:08:22,560 --> 01:08:23,120
You know what?

778
01:08:23,240 --> 01:08:26,700
I want to say that the culture that's been created here has been outstanding.

779
01:08:26,980 --> 01:08:27,100
Yeah.

780
01:08:27,280 --> 01:08:30,340
I want to make sure that it can so I can redirect my comments.

781
01:08:30,660 --> 01:08:35,620
We have an outstanding group of people that work here, and I want everyone recognized for

782
01:08:35,620 --> 01:08:35,840
it.

783
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:39,900
And it comes from the leadership at the top, and I totally appreciate it.

784
01:08:40,220 --> 01:08:45,060
So I think we need to focus on all of our staff, everybody's important.

785
01:08:45,400 --> 01:08:46,420
And I want everyone to know it.

786
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:47,860
And thank you for what you guys do.

787
01:08:48,780 --> 01:08:49,080
Thank you.

788
01:08:50,420 --> 01:08:54,260
Continue to try and fill these supervise your positions internally in the future.

789
01:08:54,680 --> 01:09:00,680
The final one is employee satisfaction and the KPI here is to have a rate of 50% or

790
01:09:00,680 --> 01:09:03,420
or better on employee service, employee surveys

791
01:09:03,420 --> 01:09:05,500
of being a net promoter.

792
01:09:06,320 --> 01:09:07,740
This may look familiar too,

793
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:10,980
because the last internal survey we did was in 2015.

794
01:09:11,620 --> 01:09:14,360
We're playing on doing another one in the first half of 2018

795
01:09:14,360 --> 01:09:18,200
so that this can be updated with our strategic priorities report

796
01:09:18,200 --> 01:09:23,680
in 2018, but the last one that we did was met at 72%.

797
01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:26,420
And one of the things that we're achieving

798
01:09:26,420 --> 01:09:29,320
with finally getting some of those supervised retraining

799
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:35,000
in place is to actually respond to the staff comments that came out of that.

800
01:09:35,480 --> 01:09:39,400
It's been a while we've tried to create a more formal program.

801
01:09:39,840 --> 01:09:44,540
I've talked, I think, in the past, right mentioned about the idea of a New Brighton University.

802
01:09:45,360 --> 01:09:47,600
And it's difficult to get that off the ground.

803
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:51,800
We've looked into other cities that have done it and some don't do it anymore.

804
01:09:52,820 --> 01:09:58,560
And so right now, I think kind of at least get it started kind of momentum.

805
01:09:58,560 --> 01:10:01,700
Some project is, and I'm working with Barge Strandell,

806
01:10:01,780 --> 01:10:03,380
that's the facilitator that would help

807
01:10:03,380 --> 01:10:06,120
with some of the supervised re-level training.

808
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:09,940
And I think it's gonna be very cost-effective

809
01:10:10,420 --> 01:10:12,700
and it's not gonna take a half a day or a full day

810
01:10:12,700 --> 01:10:16,540
kinda stuff, you know, it'll be good, quick, 90s minute

811
01:10:16,540 --> 01:10:21,660
kind of sessions where people are given, you know,

812
01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:23,980
work to do in advance and they come in prepared

813
01:10:23,980 --> 01:10:25,860
and so you make the most of that time,

814
01:10:26,100 --> 01:10:28,400
and you don't keep people away from their city

815
01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:33,360
work too long. So, let's try to achieve all those goals. But it is that this is done

816
01:10:33,360 --> 01:10:38,660
with these comments in mind. And one of the things down and I talked about is maybe next

817
01:10:38,660 --> 01:10:45,200
year we need to do, we need to launch another employee survey of the entire city because it'll

818
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:50,040
be three years then at that stage of the game. So, it's getting old. This data is getting old,

819
01:10:50,580 --> 01:10:51,300
in other words.

820
01:10:53,440 --> 01:11:03,020
So of all the KPIs, we had none that we're view as an unacceptable performance and three that kind of were maintained in the rest we achieved.

821
01:11:05,380 --> 01:11:12,040
The three that were maintained, one is the citizen input.

822
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:24,580
But yeah, and we're basing that citizen input on three, or is on two, a national night out parties.

823
01:11:26,540 --> 01:11:32,700
I don't know that that's a fair assessment of citizen input lately.

824
01:11:33,300 --> 01:11:39,100
I think the fact that we've had the most applications ever for commission openings.

825
01:11:40,220 --> 01:11:47,740
The fact that we launched a new website designed to be more user friendly for our citizen

826
01:11:47,740 --> 01:11:57,520
and to get their input, the fact that the city is more engaged on social networks, you

827
01:11:57,520 --> 01:12:04,780
know, the public safety, when they put something out on their network, they're getting a ton

828
01:12:04,780 --> 01:12:12,480
of interaction and a lot of things, these are things that have grown over the last few

829
01:12:12,480 --> 01:12:19,540
years. And I don't know that it's fair to say that we are steady-eddy because I think

830
01:12:19,540 --> 01:12:25,700
we're making some really strong efforts as a council, even as individual council members,

831
01:12:26,420 --> 01:12:33,300
and as city people to listen to what citizens want. I

832
01:12:35,630 --> 01:12:37,030
don't know. I don't think that

833
01:12:37,030 --> 01:12:45,790
that we should base our whole interaction, our whole evaluation on these two events,

834
01:12:45,790 --> 01:12:50,090
which are really, we've just talked about, so we don't do a good job at measuring them.

835
01:12:51,050 --> 01:12:55,670
Council members, do you count to how many more people than are even reflected on here

836
01:12:55,670 --> 01:12:58,770
at the town hall meeting, and national and night out parties?

837
01:12:58,950 --> 01:13:03,230
How many people did we talk to that said that they had murdered their parties?

838
01:13:03,230 --> 01:13:14,590
So if we're going to base our yellow almost caution line, I think we're not using something

839
01:13:14,590 --> 01:13:18,590
that is a little bit of legitimate measurement.

840
01:13:19,430 --> 01:13:20,470
Council Member Burke.

841
01:13:20,630 --> 01:13:26,750
Even measuring all the times we've had residents in our council chambers for all the wonderful

842
01:13:27,180 --> 01:13:30,950
things that people do for each other, we could include that.

843
01:13:30,950 --> 01:13:35,750
We could include all kinds of interactions that we have, the blood drive.

844
01:13:36,690 --> 01:13:45,030
You have so many 26 pints every two months, that's as frequent as they do it because you have to wait 56 days to give again.

845
01:13:46,330 --> 01:13:49,970
There's so many little things like that that we all just take for granted.

846
01:13:52,290 --> 01:13:56,730
And maybe that would be a good thing to consider that there's a lot of other opportunities.

847
01:13:56,730 --> 01:14:00,910
There's so many other opportunities where we're engaging citizens and employees.

848
01:14:02,830 --> 01:14:04,690
Park, you know, the park.

849
01:14:04,750 --> 01:14:10,510
Yeah, we had 200 hours just on the Lions Park build of volunteers.

850
01:14:11,030 --> 01:14:13,150
We had a business that volunteered time.

851
01:14:14,090 --> 01:14:17,670
I don't know if any of you were up there, but it was pretty amazing.

852
01:14:18,670 --> 01:14:24,210
And I got to know the park staff a little bit better and they're a funny group of people.

853
01:14:24,210 --> 01:14:28,490
They have a good sense of humor and they take good care of each other.

854
01:14:29,310 --> 01:14:33,050
It was really a fun event to be a part of.

855
01:14:33,430 --> 01:14:35,490
So I don't know.

856
01:14:35,590 --> 01:14:40,950
I just think that this is not a fair measurement.

857
01:14:42,410 --> 01:14:43,590
It comes from a member, Bob.

858
01:14:43,910 --> 01:14:52,010
If you look at, you can't do a comparison within the comparison, because the national night

859
01:14:52,010 --> 01:14:57,550
part is really more safety oriented and it's not issue driven. It's just a

860
01:14:57,550 --> 01:14:59,730
night out and the people so

861
01:15:00,020 --> 01:15:29,720
That is engagement. But it's hard to define engagement, too, because when it's issue-driven, that's when they come to the chambers. When it's national night out, it's public safety more. When it's town hall, it's kind of an overview of what's going on. It's defining that. Exactly how we're going to mix that and measure it. So, I think that there is...

862
01:15:29,720 --> 01:15:35,900
There is something missing on some of the things that we do.

863
01:15:36,460 --> 01:15:39,940
But yet, what we do do is well.

864
01:15:40,580 --> 01:15:43,120
So if you look at that measurement itself,

865
01:15:43,440 --> 01:15:46,000
the tone hall, there's not much more you can do there.

866
01:15:46,720 --> 01:15:49,540
The national laid out parties are what they are.

867
01:15:50,260 --> 01:15:53,400
And so those measurements are OK.

868
01:15:53,820 --> 01:15:54,800
But it's the rest of them.

869
01:15:54,900 --> 01:15:58,680
How do you get that other interaction or that other engagement,

870
01:15:58,680 --> 01:16:04,800
And I think that we're talking about so, but you're right, there's there's other things in the city that they participate in and

871
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:13,200
I think there are rooms to grow with this. I think it's hard to say change today because you have nothing to measure it against.

872
01:16:13,660 --> 01:16:20,580
So when I look at this, I at least you're right, because what I say is that at least there's something to measure against period we have historical data.

873
01:16:21,380 --> 01:16:25,760
If you put anything in, we could say this is great. We think we knocked it out of the park.

874
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:35,180
We have nothing to compare it to two to say if we're not going to park or not and so I do believe by the way that this does need to grow and change because it does we don't I don't think it

875
01:16:35,180 --> 01:16:39,260
Wreck accurately reflects what we want it to reflect. I

876
01:16:39,260 --> 01:16:44,860
Just don't know how that could happen in any you know quick change and still be able to have it be anything

877
01:16:44,860 --> 01:16:48,540
But you don't want me to be able to read even if we came up with new measurements would happen

878
01:16:49,140 --> 01:16:52,300
The assembler because we would have nothing to measure the cancer well

879
01:17:01,070 --> 01:17:03,270
But if you're going to measure yourself against

880
01:17:05,150 --> 01:17:13,040
That's not faulty or poorly attained data, that's not fair either.

881
01:17:13,320 --> 01:17:14,840
I just say we've worked to change that.

882
01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:19,180
We have what we have today to measure something else.

883
01:17:19,320 --> 01:17:21,560
We don't want to give us a measurement of now.

884
01:17:22,260 --> 01:17:25,440
It wouldn't give us anything in the past to go back and compare to,

885
01:17:25,540 --> 01:17:27,260
unless we gathered something.

886
01:17:27,500 --> 01:17:29,300
Unless we gathered something and there are things.

887
01:17:29,560 --> 01:17:32,720
You know, this is entitled community engagement.

888
01:17:33,900 --> 01:17:43,900
you know how many people are engaged at the community center. How many people go through

889
01:17:43,900 --> 01:17:51,500
the library. We have those numbers now. But you know I look at 2017 and it's 40 maybe

890
01:17:51,500 --> 01:17:56,920
about 44 people on the public attendance at town hall meetings and we're going by the

891
01:17:56,920 --> 01:18:01,320
number of surveys that we're filled out. And that's at the end by the way just to be able

892
01:18:01,820 --> 01:18:03,560
So 44 people were hungry.

893
01:18:05,080 --> 01:18:06,480
That's exactly what you just got.

894
01:18:06,500 --> 01:18:07,740
That's just not an accurate reflection.

895
01:18:07,860 --> 01:18:09,320
Yeah, that's not an accurate reflection.

896
01:18:09,540 --> 01:18:14,980
And I just, we need to improve on how we're getting the data.

897
01:18:15,180 --> 01:18:20,360
And so I understand where you, where you're saying we have to have something to measure against.

898
01:18:20,440 --> 01:18:26,620
But, but we're measuring against bad data.

899
01:18:29,720 --> 01:18:32,140
And we are, we are still just apples to apples.

900
01:18:32,140 --> 01:18:41,460
Yeah, Amy Johns or subway. Yeah, what are they going to stick around for? Yeah, and you're you're do have an interesting take on it here with

901
01:18:42,440 --> 01:18:43,380
The difference

902
01:18:47,060 --> 01:18:50,580
You know, we're looking at two different kinds of things take out the

903
01:18:51,560 --> 01:18:53,920
You know public attendance at

904
01:18:53,920 --> 01:19:00,260
Neighborhood meetings how many neighborhood meetings that we hold how many people attended them that's not in here

905
01:19:00,260 --> 01:19:05,100
And that's all community engagement and we know the attendance of those right that's actually that's actually

906
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:11,360
really I think more financial reflection. Yeah. You know, and maybe it's shame on us as a council

907
01:19:11,360 --> 01:19:15,400
because we did the Vermont Park thing last year and we didn't do anything this year.

908
01:19:16,100 --> 01:19:23,260
It's not over. Well, I mean, it's not over in number two. There was a Hanson Park meeting

909
01:19:23,260 --> 01:19:28,540
that was standing remotely. Yeah. There were two meetings on the comprehensive plan. Yeah.

910
01:19:28,820 --> 01:19:33,480
So if you had those three of those three meetings surpassed the tenants at the town hall.

911
01:19:34,000 --> 01:19:37,320
And they're different people, they're different, it's a different group of people.

912
01:19:37,700 --> 01:19:41,180
And we have city staff participating in stockier days with the Comprehensive Plan.

913
01:19:41,500 --> 01:19:46,280
We have worked really, really hard to get citizens engaged this year.

914
01:19:46,860 --> 01:19:53,800
And so then to look at this and report to the public that we didn't do a good job.

915
01:19:54,800 --> 01:20:11,000
Well, in fairness, Madam Mayor, one of the things that I've liked about this document is every year after we ask the city staff to tabulate this thing, we look at it and go, well, how many people stuck around in the end of town halls and get us there and every year, they've come back with different.

916
01:20:11,740 --> 01:20:18,460
So this report, the first time I looked at it, I was like, what on earth would we use that measurement for this objective?

917
01:20:18,460 --> 01:20:24,540
of, you know, any of these, I mean, the EDC, so much work, nothing it was mentioned in

918
01:20:24,540 --> 01:20:29,700
there about two suit and the new buildings, but these are the metrics that a year ago

919
01:20:29,700 --> 01:20:35,020
we asked our leadership to come back with. And that's part of this as we look at it. Well,

920
01:20:35,680 --> 01:20:39,980
yeah, well, maybe there's another thing that could better reflect that. I mean, I've got,

921
01:20:40,380 --> 01:20:48,020
I keep attendance at every council meeting. And I marked down attendees and then I also

922
01:20:48,020 --> 01:20:52,820
So subtract staff because there are nights when we have 11 people here and 10 of them are here to give reports.

923
01:20:53,820 --> 01:21:16,680
So I can do a citizen, but with all the scout troops and the youth groups that have been here and the Izzy groups from Irondale, there's no doubt there are more bodies that come into this hall on Tuesday nights at council meetings in 2017 and there were in 2014 and I could back that up if I had a couple hours to plug those into my end of an Excel spreadsheet.

924
01:21:18,720 --> 01:21:26,740
So, this is, as I think you just said, cost member Jacobson, this is what it is.

925
01:21:27,620 --> 01:21:36,240
But is there a way to put an addendum in there that says, here's other things that have

926
01:21:36,240 --> 01:21:37,680
happened over this last year?

927
01:21:38,440 --> 01:21:40,240
I think you put it in the commentary.

928
01:21:40,520 --> 01:21:46,160
I really think that this is where, you know, interpretation, I think, so, for me, that's

929
01:21:46,160 --> 01:22:04,160
I think what I would do, I would say the interpretation that we've, you know, derived that this is we see while these two measures are similar, they don't take into account, the other things that we have, and that's exactly what you do here is you put it in the interpretation response, one of the two, but probably an interpretation just to say there's more here than meets the eye.

930
01:22:04,160 --> 01:22:11,940
X number of people attended that that's exact meeting X number of people attended the two separate as a plan meetings

931
01:22:12,500 --> 01:22:14,740
And you put right in with that in the neighborhood

932
01:22:14,740 --> 01:22:21,120
Track of what happened at stock your days as examples of other things other

933
01:22:22,220 --> 01:22:26,840
I'll meet you easily add that in and bring this back and just have it on your

934
01:22:27,360 --> 01:22:30,760
Consent agenda or approval at a future council meeting

935
01:22:32,720 --> 01:22:35,060
to illustrate all of those things that you've talked about

936
01:22:35,060 --> 01:22:35,940
of taking some notes.

937
01:22:36,580 --> 01:22:36,760
Okay.

938
01:22:37,240 --> 01:22:38,760
Are you all conscious member?

939
01:22:38,920 --> 01:22:42,220
So this is very, this is a, I'm going to throw this out.

940
01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:43,940
Town Hall meeting.

941
01:22:44,500 --> 01:22:48,840
Let's say we don't get an accurate reflection by counting comments.

942
01:22:49,640 --> 01:22:53,880
So instead we have a ticket, you know, we have a tear off ticket and you give them everyone

943
01:22:53,880 --> 01:22:54,680
that walks in the door.

944
01:22:54,780 --> 01:22:55,200
It's a ticket.

945
01:22:55,500 --> 01:23:00,740
The other ticket they can throw in and maybe they're going to win two months, two

946
01:23:00,740 --> 01:23:04,640
three month paths for the community center or something and the other one goes for picking

947
01:23:04,640 --> 01:23:09,520
up their donut because more people are there during the donuts and they just throw it

948
01:23:09,520 --> 01:23:14,440
in and you grab one and maybe it'll double but it would be more people that are there

949
01:23:14,440 --> 01:23:19,100
in the first two hours. They come in late, they might not be there at the beginning, they

950
01:23:19,100 --> 01:23:24,240
leave before lunch. So you get 48 people that eat a box lunch but you might have 100 people

951
01:23:24,240 --> 01:23:28,840
that had a donut and then a name drawing and they might there's an incentive to do it because

952
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:33,840
maybe we throw in something like one of those fleece jackets and extra fleece jacket that

953
01:23:33,840 --> 01:23:39,980
we have here or something or a little package a new bright and stuff that's pens and fleece jacket

954
01:23:39,980 --> 01:23:44,300
and an umbrella that's sitting in a corner somewhere from other years and this is the basket you're

955
01:23:44,300 --> 01:23:48,440
going to get your names in the bed you just fill it out and put it in there and that could be you win

956
01:23:48,440 --> 01:23:56,500
the lost and found at the community that are there and just say hey if we had some drawing

957
01:23:56,500 --> 01:24:02,660
stuff that we could do. Could you guys have anything that's there, too, that we could pick out a little drawing thing and do

958
01:24:03,340 --> 01:24:07,780
Periodically throughout the day. You'd catch all the people that don't stay all the way

959
01:24:07,780 --> 01:24:15,500
Yeah, it's a better reflection you're actually right something. Yeah, but I think it's a great challenge to the people who organize that event

960
01:24:15,500 --> 01:24:22,080
Who see if there's a better way for us to count and reflect who's who's spare in attendance?

961
01:24:22,080 --> 01:24:29,780
Well, like another pitching one that does come around that we as a city give out free eagles and

962
01:24:29,780 --> 01:24:37,320
ass passes to parents who show up for that because again that group is wildly, wildly underrepresented at Saturday morning at nine o'clock.

963
01:24:38,400 --> 01:24:47,720
And, you know, some additional touch of trucks in the parking lot, if it's not a rainy day, if it is a rainy day will be good, but, you know, to get some

964
01:24:49,060 --> 01:24:56,360
some broader representation, there's probably some things that could be done to try to promote

965
01:24:56,360 --> 01:24:59,180
it to a younger audience as well.

966
01:25:01,970 --> 01:25:03,810
In addition to those who have come.

967
01:25:04,190 --> 01:25:06,610
Or measure how many times people viewed it online.

968
01:25:07,590 --> 01:25:12,490
Some people don't come, they just take a look online, that could be part of that measurement

969
01:25:12,490 --> 01:25:12,850
too.

970
01:25:13,410 --> 01:25:14,130
Were you going to say something?

971
01:25:14,130 --> 01:25:18,370
Yeah, or maybe, and not to say it's not always good,

972
01:25:18,570 --> 01:25:21,610
but maybe we can have a different agenda

973
01:25:21,950 --> 01:25:24,210
that makes people want to call more.

974
01:25:24,590 --> 01:25:26,070
You know, instead of kind of the same,

975
01:25:26,370 --> 01:25:26,470
we,

976
01:25:29,030 --> 01:25:32,070
I don't want to call it the same,

977
01:25:32,190 --> 01:25:33,450
but it's kind of the same.

978
01:25:34,030 --> 01:25:36,330
And maybe we could do different issues,

979
01:25:36,650 --> 01:25:38,550
driven things, or maybe we could do something

980
01:25:38,550 --> 01:25:40,890
that's, we'll make somebody come,

981
01:25:42,910 --> 01:25:44,570
it, not make them come,

982
01:25:44,570 --> 01:25:51,070
but want, you know, so they want to come to these things and I don't know, but it just

983
01:25:51,070 --> 01:25:55,490
seems like I think if some people think, well, I've went to one, I was kind of the same,

984
01:25:55,730 --> 01:25:58,750
you know, there's not really much to it anymore.

985
01:25:58,970 --> 01:26:00,170
So I don't really know.

986
01:26:00,590 --> 01:26:06,970
I think we could almost make that, I don't know what that little fill out thing says, does

987
01:26:06,970 --> 01:26:11,470
it say, what would you like to see next year, what would you, do we do say that on that?

988
01:26:12,170 --> 01:26:14,670
I don't know that we come out and specifically ask that.

989
01:26:14,730 --> 01:26:18,650
I think it specifically will say, you know, like if there's three sessions, three of the

990
01:26:18,650 --> 01:26:22,590
five questions will be, how would you rate, you know, session one, two, and three?

991
01:26:23,550 --> 01:26:24,510
You know what I mean?

992
01:26:24,510 --> 01:26:28,570
Do you say, hey, what would you like to see us talk about next year, what would you like to

993
01:26:28,570 --> 01:26:29,650
I just don't remember.

994
01:26:30,370 --> 01:26:33,850
We ask if you would like to be a participant, like, vendor in the next year's one.

995
01:26:34,010 --> 01:26:36,550
So that's our future oriented question, you know?

996
01:26:36,830 --> 01:26:37,530
But topical.

997
01:26:37,670 --> 01:26:38,630
No topical.

998
01:26:38,630 --> 01:26:54,130
So some people just voluntarily make suggestions because they do have an opportunity to write, but, you know, to your point, maybe we could do a more overt or better job of soliciting ideas, you know.

999
01:26:56,510 --> 01:27:01,250
So that's a really good point because a few years ago you did that for our neighborhood

1000
01:27:01,250 --> 01:27:06,590
meetings and you had someone come and talk about snow plowing and you took, and I think

1001
01:27:06,590 --> 01:27:10,730
you went right to the staff and you had the staff, the people I'm talking about that just

1002
01:27:10,730 --> 01:27:14,950
due to the day-to-day work stuff that aren't supervisors and don't ever want to be.

1003
01:27:15,910 --> 01:27:21,050
They could even be asked, what's the topic that you think, I mean it might be a survey within

1004
01:27:21,050 --> 01:27:26,230
our staff. What's a topic that could be a good conversation at our town hall meeting

1005
01:27:26,770 --> 01:27:31,510
and you never know what you're going to hear. Ultimately you have to make a decision

1006
01:27:31,510 --> 01:27:39,410
how you put it together but finding things that have us will bring a group of younger

1007
01:27:39,410 --> 01:27:45,250
families there and you know more interest. I mean that's the challenge to do this every

1008
01:27:45,250 --> 01:27:50,610
year. So that's your challenge. It's a good one. Because we have so much to offer.

1009
01:27:51,590 --> 01:28:06,450
Yeah, you know, one of my thoughts had been in the past when we did do neighborhood meetings or more neighborhood meetings, you know, I think we always felt like we wanted to treat those respective neighborhoods the same and therefore they got the same program.

1010
01:28:08,210 --> 01:28:18,790
And it's not that big of a city, you know, I mean, maybe we at one of the neighborhood centers, it's a very park program in centric presentation.

1011
01:28:18,790 --> 01:28:23,890
You know, everything you, and maybe the overall program is called everything you wanted

1012
01:28:23,890 --> 01:28:26,010
to know, but we're afraid to ask about your city.

1013
01:28:26,670 --> 01:28:32,210
And the first one is just park centric and try to really, maybe that would maybe directly

1014
01:28:32,210 --> 01:28:37,830
tie out to that one metric that shows people, people's involvement in our actual programs

1015
01:28:37,830 --> 01:28:40,210
is lower than the region or the national.

1016
01:28:40,390 --> 01:28:44,570
Maybe that's a way to get at that is just to, you know, that's at Hanson.

1017
01:28:44,570 --> 01:28:48,270
And then freedom is something else.

1018
01:28:48,490 --> 01:28:51,310
It pertains to whatever we would want to,

1019
01:28:51,410 --> 01:28:54,610
but pick a topic, streets, maybe another one's water.

1020
01:28:55,210 --> 01:28:56,370
And that's all it's focused on.

1021
01:28:56,450 --> 01:28:58,110
And so it's not three hours, it's shorter.

1022
01:28:58,350 --> 01:29:00,510
Because I honestly think that was always

1023
01:29:00,510 --> 01:29:02,830
one of the goals I tried to achieve, too,

1024
01:29:03,010 --> 01:29:05,710
was I don't think people want to sit there for three hours now.

1025
01:29:06,370 --> 01:29:08,470
I really don't think they want to sit there for two hours.

1026
01:29:10,790 --> 01:29:14,330
And in the past, we've talked about finance

1027
01:29:14,330 --> 01:29:23,030
We've talked about the exchange development because when we didn't, when we stopped talking about Northwest Quadrant, we heard from people saying,

1028
01:29:23,690 --> 01:29:27,630
don't stop talking about that now, you're trying to avoid talking about it.

1029
01:29:28,330 --> 01:29:34,210
And so we'd bring it back. So that was very direct feedback that we got for a number of years from people.

1030
01:29:34,350 --> 01:29:40,290
And so we responded and then we always kept that as part of our town hall agenda for a period of time in our neighborhood needs.

1031
01:29:40,290 --> 01:29:45,710
we couldn't get away from it because people wouldn't let us but maybe that's

1032
01:29:45,710 --> 01:29:50,970
one thought would be you know if we did I'm not promoting more night meetings

1033
01:29:50,970 --> 01:29:56,410
for everyone but if there were instead of having the same replay of the same

1034
01:29:56,410 --> 01:29:59,810
three to five topics at Hanson Freedom Totem and Sonny

1035
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:27,020
May be you target it, so then the folks that are interested with young kids that want to get involved in programming, they just go to that one. So 45-minute program with Q&A on your way after that. And I think possibly we would see more involvement if the time commitment is shorter. I mean, we're hearing that so much in so many ways that people just don't have the time.

1036
01:30:29,760 --> 01:30:35,420
So, moms and dads with kids are never going to come on a weeknight, they got homework and they got kids in bed.

1037
01:30:35,740 --> 01:30:40,600
And you touched on that it got so long. I mean, you feel it when the room starts going like this.

1038
01:30:41,100 --> 01:30:49,100
And it's like, okay, wind it up now and somebody's still up their yak and not even because they got to get through their presentation, not reading the crowd.

1039
01:30:49,100 --> 01:31:00,660
So maybe the park program thing is that the community center on a afternoon, you know, Saturday afternoon, I mean everybody's busy all the time.

1040
01:31:01,780 --> 01:31:09,680
Yeah, to your point, Madam Mayor, to your point when you talked about staff who do the service making the presentation that was.

1041
01:31:10,260 --> 01:31:16,560
I saw that early on when I first started working for the city back when I and Kran was still in our public works department.

1042
01:31:16,560 --> 01:31:21,280
that was one of the first neighborhood meetings I attended and I don't think the title of his

1043
01:31:21,280 --> 01:31:27,000
presentation was quite this blatant but it was something along the lines of you know why we

1044
01:31:27,000 --> 01:31:33,460
knock your mailbox over in the wintertime snowplowing and and it was a really profound moment

1045
01:31:33,460 --> 01:31:38,640
for a completely unintended reason and that's because when I in walked up there of course you know

1046
01:31:38,640 --> 01:31:45,880
plot truck drivers in our maintenance shop aren't necessarily out there speaking on a regular basis

1047
01:31:46,560 --> 01:31:52,580
and so I and walks up there and he was a big guy you know big stature and I remember when he

1048
01:31:52,580 --> 01:31:59,160
turned around and he looked at all the folks staring back at him he froze and you know he got

1049
01:31:59,160 --> 01:32:07,320
a dry throat and he couldn't speak and I got up and I started walking and once I got halfway

1050
01:32:07,320 --> 01:32:13,420
up there because I was going to try to rescue him. He just simply had a very authentic moment with

1051
01:32:13,420 --> 01:32:20,380
residents and he said, I don't public speak and I'm frightened. And like everyone

1052
01:32:20,380 --> 01:32:25,200
all of a sudden just be like became his biggest fan and it was such a successful

1053
01:32:25,200 --> 01:32:30,320
presentation because you know he took this topic of why do we knock your mailbox

1054
01:32:30,320 --> 01:32:34,300
over in the winter time. It's something everyone gripes about or they get their

1055
01:32:34,300 --> 01:32:38,920
sod torn up or whatever the case might be and it humanized that and you realize

1056
01:32:38,920 --> 01:32:44,140
there's like real human being behind the wheel of that truck that probably has

1057
01:32:44,140 --> 01:32:48,520
worked many hours sometimes at night. If you've ever been in one of those trucks

1058
01:32:48,520 --> 01:32:52,920
at night, it's really snowing and those strobes are going. They're bouncing off

1059
01:32:52,920 --> 01:32:56,840
the flakes and they're reflecting off the snow and coming back at you. It's a

1060
01:32:56,840 --> 01:33:03,800
very exhausting thing to do. And you know if you get out of one snow removal and

1061
01:33:03,800 --> 01:33:08,400
you've only hit one mailbox, that's a moral victory. Can you do it all night? You've

1062
01:33:08,400 --> 01:33:10,600
just been up all day, hopefully slept a couple hours

1063
01:33:10,600 --> 01:33:12,120
before he came in at two in the morning.

1064
01:33:12,400 --> 01:33:13,920
Right, right.

1065
01:33:14,440 --> 01:33:15,080
So it's a big deal.

1066
01:33:15,440 --> 01:33:19,040
So I mean, there's validity in all those comments,

1067
01:33:19,300 --> 01:33:23,700
but I'm open to any kind of suggestions about agendas,

1068
01:33:24,020 --> 01:33:26,060
approach to agendas, the town hall agenda,

1069
01:33:26,380 --> 01:33:27,260
what that looks like.

1070
01:33:29,220 --> 01:33:33,820
Yeah, and I think we've kind of gotten off course here,

1071
01:33:33,920 --> 01:33:36,300
but it's been a good discussion

1072
01:33:36,300 --> 01:33:46,800
And maybe this is something that we concentrate on prior to the next town hall meeting or maybe put it on a work session so that we can specifically dive into it.

1073
01:33:47,380 --> 01:33:55,300
But why don't we move on and see if there's any other comments about this particular presentation at this time.

1074
01:33:55,980 --> 01:34:04,240
And I'm not trying to cut anybody short because it is a good conversation, but I do want to be respectful of the time that we've got going here.

1075
01:34:05,840 --> 01:34:13,340
anybody have any other concerns about this particular presentation? Devin, you did a great

1076
01:34:13,340 --> 01:34:19,640
job for the first time around. And the week that Dean was gone, there was a lot going

1077
01:34:19,640 --> 01:34:25,020
on in the city. And when I heard that after the fact that he had also told you this, I feel

1078
01:34:25,020 --> 01:34:27,680
bad now for some of the things that were going on.

1079
01:34:27,680 --> 01:34:28,240
It's fun.

1080
01:34:29,880 --> 01:34:34,320
So, but I think it's all good news for the most part.

1081
01:34:34,500 --> 01:34:40,840
It's all really good news that we should all be very, very proud of, and it just goes

1082
01:34:40,840 --> 01:34:44,980
to show you how well run this city is.

1083
01:34:46,380 --> 01:34:48,440
Can I just add to that, Devin?

1084
01:34:49,800 --> 01:34:56,700
I think it should be recognized that there was an issue and that was needed to call the council

1085
01:34:56,700 --> 01:35:01,280
members and I just want to say I appreciate Devin's phone call and the way he handled

1086
01:35:01,280 --> 01:35:06,300
the situation at the time, I think he did a great job at that so I just knew I didn't

1087
01:35:06,300 --> 01:35:08,580
know he should be recognized for that like we're done.

1088
01:35:08,820 --> 01:35:09,220
That's great.

1089
01:35:09,600 --> 01:35:09,880
That's good.

1090
01:35:10,500 --> 01:35:14,700
Yeah we did talk a little bit about that the last council meeting too in the work session

1091
01:35:14,700 --> 01:35:17,360
and I agree.

1092
01:35:17,860 --> 01:35:19,960
Thank you for making that note.

1093
01:35:21,600 --> 01:35:22,940
And that wasn't the only thing that happened.

1094
01:35:23,740 --> 01:35:23,920
No.

1095
01:35:23,920 --> 01:35:30,540
Yeah, we can't go into the other things on camera, but there was a couple of other things

1096
01:35:30,540 --> 01:35:36,200
that did require him to hold it together until I got back and we could formulate a game

1097
01:35:36,200 --> 01:35:36,520
plan.

1098
01:35:36,680 --> 01:35:38,300
And he's still working here, so it's a good thing.

1099
01:35:38,840 --> 01:35:39,280
He made it.

1100
01:35:39,360 --> 01:35:40,380
It's a good confidence folder.

1101
01:35:42,160 --> 01:35:44,140
Well, you became my best friend that week.

1102
01:35:44,800 --> 01:35:46,220
So at any rate?

1103
01:35:46,340 --> 01:35:47,020
I want them before.

1104
01:35:47,440 --> 01:35:47,820
Oh, yeah.

1105
01:35:48,200 --> 01:35:48,600
Before.

1106
01:35:50,580 --> 01:35:53,760
I wanted to break that to you at the six-month anniversary.

1107
01:35:53,760 --> 01:35:57,720
So very good, but great presentation.

1108
01:35:57,980 --> 01:36:00,040
Thank you to your staff for putting that together.

1109
01:36:00,480 --> 01:36:04,800
And let's make those additions on the community engagement

1110
01:36:04,800 --> 01:36:07,620
one and then in January.

1111
01:36:08,420 --> 01:36:12,460
I would suggest that whomever is sitting around the table

1112
01:36:12,460 --> 01:36:15,880
is taking a look at how we measure that going forward.

1113
01:36:16,360 --> 01:36:18,520
Can I ask a random question that maybe manage a lot

1114
01:36:18,520 --> 01:36:23,060
or a system-manager, MassPoo would look for when I'm looking

1115
01:36:23,060 --> 01:36:28,520
Having a granticus, we have shared folders for the commissions and then there was kind

1116
01:36:28,520 --> 01:36:31,560
of a common, I guess, common folder for it.

1117
01:36:31,640 --> 01:36:34,960
And they used to percolate at the top and then they're kind of way down.

1118
01:36:36,120 --> 01:36:40,820
I ask for two reasons, the one I think that the common, I personally like when the common

1119
01:36:40,820 --> 01:36:45,380
folders are up at the top so I can plug in and see what practice doing or EDC is doing,

1120
01:36:46,380 --> 01:36:51,320
or at least what the common folders were, but then secondly, within the council common folder

1121
01:36:51,320 --> 01:36:54,960
or I'm not sure I was able to find the final version

1122
01:36:54,960 --> 01:36:59,260
of the community survey that was talked about

1123
01:36:59,260 --> 01:37:02,120
at the town hall in April.

1124
01:37:02,740 --> 01:37:04,240
And I know there was a draft on there

1125
01:37:04,940 --> 01:37:07,120
that I'm not positive the final one was on there.

1126
01:37:07,720 --> 01:37:10,640
Because I was looking at these KPIs

1127
01:37:10,640 --> 01:37:15,020
and kind of what measures we had, I'd love to see

1128
01:37:15,020 --> 01:37:18,860
if number one, if it makes, if it's not hard work

1129
01:37:18,860 --> 01:37:20,640
to get those common folders,

1130
01:37:20,640 --> 01:37:22,860
is percolate a state at the top of the list.

1131
01:37:23,720 --> 01:37:25,600
It's a manual maintenance thing,

1132
01:37:25,660 --> 01:37:27,100
just because of the way the software is,

1133
01:37:27,140 --> 01:37:31,180
we've actually asked Granicus to try to write some language

1134
01:37:31,180 --> 01:37:33,880
that we could demarcate certain folders

1135
01:37:33,880 --> 01:37:35,320
to always just stay at the top.

1136
01:37:35,840 --> 01:37:38,920
But what happens is every time a new packet gets loaded,

1137
01:37:38,920 --> 01:37:40,360
whether it's planning commissioner council,

1138
01:37:40,920 --> 01:37:42,020
it goes up on top.

1139
01:37:42,260 --> 01:37:46,120
And so the person doing that has to be cognizantly

1140
01:37:46,120 --> 01:37:47,680
move those common folders up.

1141
01:37:47,680 --> 01:37:54,540
So it's a it's a small manual effort. It's not a big time consumer. It's just at least it probably doesn't know to do that

1142
01:37:54,540 --> 01:38:00,440
And so we can communicate that with it. I want to say thank you because I think I asked in that question all the time

1143
01:38:00,440 --> 01:38:04,280
But never remember to do it when I see you guys in person. Yeah, always I was

1144
01:38:04,280 --> 01:38:09,140
The common folders. Those kind of folders are helpful really help folks there. Yeah

1145
01:38:12,480 --> 01:38:16,160
But yeah, it's it can be done. It'll be done. Thank you

1146
01:38:19,540 --> 01:38:29,340
So shall we move on to the second topic tonight, which is a continuation of our discussion

1147
01:38:29,340 --> 01:38:35,500
about the, again, there's not really a name, but an inclusive task force or a,

1148
01:38:41,020 --> 01:38:41,780
but you

1149
01:38:41,780 --> 01:38:45,920
know what I'm talking about, community relations task force, whatever the case might be.

1150
01:38:45,920 --> 01:38:53,800
So we brought this idea up to you and what was it two weeks ago now at the work session

1151
01:38:53,800 --> 01:38:55,080
that we held upstairs.

1152
01:38:56,260 --> 01:39:04,860
One of the things that was of concern was selecting the people to be on this task force

1153
01:39:05,680 --> 01:39:14,160
and I met with City Manager Lotter yesterday and we talked about that a little bit.

1154
01:39:14,160 --> 01:39:20,520
You guys have had a couple of weeks to think about it and I'd like to, let me turn it over to you

1155
01:39:21,660 --> 01:39:23,060
City manager lotter to

1156
01:39:23,660 --> 01:39:28,840
Take it from there because I know you put together some stuff on it and let's have a discussion

1157
01:39:29,620 --> 01:39:30,100
so

1158
01:39:31,020 --> 01:39:34,900
You know, we're I think what we originally talked about Madam Mayor was the

1159
01:39:35,640 --> 01:39:41,580
Resolution that would actually create the set task force was supposed to be on the last meeting in September

1160
01:39:41,580 --> 01:39:51,860
Just simply due to timing and other circumstances that wasn't able to happen so that'll be on the October 10th agenda for your consideration at that time.

1161
01:39:54,120 --> 01:40:10,480
One of the things that I had hoped to do because we did identify some folks that could serve well on the task force and the resolution creating a task force would basically make that task force kind of a temporary body.

1162
01:40:10,480 --> 01:40:13,280
that would look at several different things.

1163
01:40:13,500 --> 01:40:19,060
One of those things is the need for a more longer standing commission.

1164
01:40:19,800 --> 01:40:19,920
Okay.

1165
01:40:20,600 --> 01:40:25,760
And so in an effort to move the task force conversation forward,

1166
01:40:26,200 --> 01:40:29,720
it was suggested at least the last for the initial discussion that was

1167
01:40:30,000 --> 01:40:36,400
had with the council that the, I'm calling it the founding committee

1168
01:40:37,120 --> 01:40:43,200
is the mayor and I, some city staff and some residents who have begun these conversations.

1169
01:40:43,560 --> 01:40:47,260
So I'm kind of calling them the founding committee of this task force.

1170
01:40:48,100 --> 01:40:54,760
Some of those members have each suggested folks they know in the community that they think would make excellent task force members.

1171
01:40:55,820 --> 01:41:04,060
And so one of the things that I really wanted to do for today was have reached out to each and every one of these folks.

1172
01:41:04,060 --> 01:41:18,520
and we were going to modify our commission application packet to have a task force box on there and then have these folks actually put down their background just like the council expects for commission applicants.

1173
01:41:19,180 --> 01:41:30,480
I was hoping to be able to accomplish that and bring that into you so you could look at those pack application packets then decide do you want to bring these folks into and interview them at a future council meeting.

1174
01:41:30,480 --> 01:41:35,840
just to kind of give you that familiarity and that opportunity to put your

1175
01:41:35,840 --> 01:41:41,020
fingerprint on the membership and I just I wasn't able to achieve that with

1176
01:41:41,020 --> 01:41:46,380
our with beat on vacation and then coming back and focusing my time on some

1177
01:41:46,380 --> 01:41:50,840
other things I popped up last week. So having said that I do have a list of

1178
01:41:50,840 --> 01:41:59,040
folks and for example there's Sam Kuru and Cassandra Schlangen their

1179
01:41:59,040 --> 01:42:00,840
or educators within the school district

1180
01:42:00,840 --> 01:42:03,440
that we feel in the discussions

1181
01:42:03,440 --> 01:42:04,880
that this neighborhood group has had

1182
01:42:04,880 --> 01:42:06,440
that having a connection,

1183
01:42:06,840 --> 01:42:08,960
more hard-line connection with the school district

1184
01:42:08,960 --> 01:42:10,100
makes a lot of sense.

1185
01:42:11,080 --> 01:42:13,580
And so maybe one of those individuals

1186
01:42:13,580 --> 01:42:14,680
or both of them,

1187
01:42:16,500 --> 01:42:17,200
Abdallah Qadid,

1188
01:42:17,540 --> 01:42:19,740
who is the owner and operator of Unigato,

1189
01:42:20,280 --> 01:42:22,980
also firefighter, personal color,

1190
01:42:23,670 --> 01:42:26,660
and would be a representative business community

1191
01:42:27,110 --> 01:42:28,020
in that respect.

1192
01:42:28,020 --> 01:42:35,180
Claudia Valdez. She is a current resident of ours. She's Latina, lives in Oak Grove,

1193
01:42:35,440 --> 01:42:42,240
and she's a police explorer. And so you'd get the kind of that younger perspective,

1194
01:42:42,780 --> 01:42:48,000
person of color, both Tony, director of pacenic, and our community engagement offer.

1195
01:42:48,460 --> 01:42:53,320
Officer Brandt Krabzbach can't say enough good things about Miss Valdez.

1196
01:42:53,320 --> 01:42:58,900
And she was a great support when I was working with the folks at Oak Grove.

1197
01:43:00,560 --> 01:43:02,000
She's dynamite.

1198
01:43:05,760 --> 01:43:11,840
So another person that is recommended or has been recommended for consideration is one

1199
01:43:11,840 --> 01:43:16,580
of our current planning commissioners and she's in the audience answering fine weaver resident

1200
01:43:16,580 --> 01:43:21,340
writer, educator has a wonderfully applicable background.

1201
01:43:21,340 --> 01:43:26,960
background. Another resident of ours recommended an individual named Wakan Anderson. I've not

1202
01:43:26,960 --> 01:43:33,340
met him and I don't know what his background is. I can't speak to what that is. And then

1203
01:43:33,340 --> 01:43:40,020
another person that has been meeting with us regularly is, I think it's Anna Viserra, who's

1204
01:43:40,020 --> 01:43:48,520
a pastor at Christy King Church and leads up their Hispanic community kind of liaison relationship

1205
01:43:48,520 --> 01:43:56,120
with that church. So you also have a faith-based arm, you've got a business arm, there's an

1206
01:43:56,120 --> 01:44:03,560
educational arm, there's kind of a young person, a member of our community arm. And so that's

1207
01:44:03,560 --> 01:44:09,460
kind of the initial group that was suggested, and if you'd like, I can pursue all of these

1208
01:44:09,460 --> 01:44:15,200
individuals, have them fill out application packets, upload those into the files that will be

1209
01:44:15,200 --> 01:44:20,960
raised up to the top of the iPad for your consideration, and then if you'd like to schedule

1210
01:44:20,960 --> 01:44:24,780
them maybe to come in at a very soon work session.

1211
01:44:25,520 --> 01:44:32,060
And if you all have suggestions on people who should be a part of this task force, we

1212
01:44:32,060 --> 01:44:36,000
don't have a, well, I've not met Joaquin.

1213
01:44:36,540 --> 01:44:43,820
I don't know if he's Caucasian, African-American, I don't know anything about him, but we don't

1214
01:44:43,820 --> 01:44:50,140
have a strong African American presence on that task force as it stands right now.

1215
01:44:50,980 --> 01:44:55,450
So if there are other suggestions of people that you think should be considered, let's

1216
01:44:55,450 --> 01:44:59,950
them on a, let's have the conversation with them, let's get them.

1217
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:09,020
I'd like to fill out an application to and consider them for the task force, but I'd like to move on that sooner rather than later.

1218
01:45:11,180 --> 01:45:28,880
Sounds good. Thoughts? Is there a question? Please. Is Dr. Howard that came to our last councilman? Is that George's dad? I wondered the same thing. Councilman, we're very good. No. No, I've met George's dad before. Yeah, I have to. Yeah, however, I, you know.

1219
01:45:28,880 --> 01:45:32,460
No, we have an address he gave it to a committee.

1220
01:45:33,180 --> 01:45:34,840
It's rather a forward cracker.

1221
01:45:35,240 --> 01:45:38,360
You know, I could certainly reach out to them.

1222
01:45:38,700 --> 01:45:39,220
Please.

1223
01:45:39,940 --> 01:45:41,760
I have a question about the whole thing.

1224
01:45:43,360 --> 01:45:47,760
One, will this task force determine the purpose?

1225
01:45:48,380 --> 01:45:48,520
Yes.

1226
01:45:48,760 --> 01:45:49,140
Okay.

1227
01:45:49,380 --> 01:45:50,720
At least that's what I envision.

1228
01:45:51,640 --> 01:45:57,500
That they would determine the purpose of a commission going forward.

1229
01:45:59,760 --> 01:46:16,260
It makes some recommendations, I think Madam Mayor, you know, one of the things that I look back upon or reflect upon is when I look at the urban farming task force, for example, you know, the very first meeting was just kind of a housekeeping, get to know you establish who's chair, take care of that stuff and then lay out the calendar.

1230
01:46:16,740 --> 01:46:23,260
And then the second meeting was to study at least what was known to the city at that time about the issue.

1231
01:46:23,260 --> 01:46:27,380
I think the third meeting, there was a listening session, there was a three and a half hour

1232
01:46:27,380 --> 01:46:33,980
of public hearing on the topic, and so I could easily see something similar to that approach

1233
01:46:33,980 --> 01:46:38,740
being used by this particular task force, and part of the question is, you know, is there

1234
01:46:39,300 --> 01:46:46,300
a need for the outreach or not, and that would be one of the things the task force would

1235
01:46:46,300 --> 01:46:48,640
try to explore and bring back.

1236
01:46:49,340 --> 01:46:54,120
So that's I think over time originally I think the conversation was to establish a

1237
01:46:54,120 --> 01:46:58,980
commission of some kind and this founders committee kind of moved more in the

1238
01:46:58,980 --> 01:47:03,640
direction of a task force because we're recognizing we don't know what we

1239
01:47:03,640 --> 01:47:09,080
don't know and we go and have the conversation ask these folks to help us have the

1240
01:47:09,080 --> 01:47:13,440
conversation with the four corners of the city and then determine are there

1241
01:47:13,440 --> 01:47:20,820
things that we should be doing or it's everything great and you know could

1242
01:47:20,820 --> 01:47:25,140
simply be that we find out people just simply want more about community

1243
01:47:25,140 --> 01:47:30,260
sense of place opportunity to interact and that becomes the focus of the

1244
01:47:30,260 --> 01:47:35,980
effort it could potentially take a direction we don't even anticipate so I see

1245
01:47:35,980 --> 01:47:41,600
it as more of an exploratory task force that might exist six months that would

1246
01:47:41,600 --> 01:47:49,140
look at these questions and in the event they're making good ground but they need more times they'd have to come back to the council and make that ask.

1247
01:47:50,180 --> 01:47:58,740
Make that ask or we set up a commission that then moves forward on various issues I think identified.

1248
01:48:03,200 --> 01:48:12,040
One of the things I would, I'm already moving forward beyond, one of the things that I would say their task would be is community engagement.

1249
01:48:14,100 --> 01:48:18,180
If we're having them look into it, is that a piece that we need to address?

1250
01:48:18,600 --> 01:48:19,080
Absolutely.

1251
01:48:20,640 --> 01:48:29,480
So that would be, I mean, I, I'm very supportive of having a task force to look into these kinds of needs,

1252
01:48:29,480 --> 01:48:32,820
as I mentioned, I don't know if it was in the room, I don't think you're here yet, Mayor,

1253
01:48:33,400 --> 01:48:38,240
that I had two unsolicited, two folks were you and you and I said, yeah, but I don't think

1254
01:48:38,240 --> 01:48:38,600
we run.

1255
01:48:39,040 --> 01:48:39,780
I won't start.

1256
01:48:40,180 --> 01:48:46,020
Today on my job and I work in a very diverse community and I had two different people come

1257
01:48:46,020 --> 01:48:50,220
up to me and talk to me or casually we were just talking and they brought up that in their

1258
01:48:50,220 --> 01:48:57,060
communities they're doing this sort of thing and then I also have a dear coworker that

1259
01:48:57,060 --> 01:49:00,720
that has was a refugee and has been through trauma

1260
01:49:00,720 --> 01:49:03,700
and she's actually, you know, a Ph.D. level person.

1261
01:49:03,880 --> 01:49:06,120
She's going to school for that and she's a supervisor

1262
01:49:06,120 --> 01:49:08,760
and she's living in fear of being departed

1263
01:49:08,760 --> 01:49:10,160
and she's a naturalized citizen

1264
01:49:10,160 --> 01:49:13,460
and she's having all kinds of issues

1265
01:49:14,500 --> 01:49:16,580
with like she took herself off Facebook

1266
01:49:16,580 --> 01:49:18,560
because she's afraid of being on Facebook.

1267
01:49:19,120 --> 01:49:22,880
And I think, I sat with her and I said,

1268
01:49:23,000 --> 01:49:24,060
I can't relate to that.

1269
01:49:24,520 --> 01:49:25,740
I'm sorry you're feeling that way.

1270
01:49:25,740 --> 01:49:28,220
Okay, I think that's one of the things we could learn about.

1271
01:49:29,320 --> 01:49:35,720
I work in a very, very diverse area, so I know that my family members don't get the same

1272
01:49:35,720 --> 01:49:39,720
exposure I do to the diversity, and I think it would be beneficial to them.

1273
01:49:39,840 --> 01:49:43,020
So I think I support having a person like that.

1274
01:49:43,460 --> 01:49:48,140
Thank you for that comment, and I think from a public safety point of view, we don't understand

1275
01:49:48,140 --> 01:49:56,140
necessarily, we being a council don't understand necessarily what the needs are from a citizen

1276
01:49:56,140 --> 01:50:05,680
point of view. I think there's a great connection between public safety and our diverse

1277
01:50:05,680 --> 01:50:14,650
community, but they don't want to wear this wrong, but the kind of public safety takes care

1278
01:50:14,650 --> 01:50:20,770
of what's in front of them and is not necessarily coming back to the City Council and saying,

1279
01:50:21,170 --> 01:50:23,770
okay, here's what this community is saying that they need.

1280
01:50:24,810 --> 01:50:30,690
And they take care of it from their perspective and maybe there's something that would come

1281
01:50:30,690 --> 01:50:35,350
back and say, okay, here's what this community needs and we can help them in our parks area

1282
01:50:35,350 --> 01:50:42,410
or we could help them in different areas in economic development as an example.

1283
01:50:45,070 --> 01:50:50,290
It's such a sensitive topic because nobody wants to say the wrong thing.

1284
01:50:52,230 --> 01:51:00,230
And we as nice people don't want to say the wrong thing, and we also think that everything

1285
01:51:00,230 --> 01:51:04,190
is okay because we're not necessarily hearing about it.

1286
01:51:04,250 --> 01:51:09,190
But I want to be proactive and I want to set up a task force that goes out and purposely

1287
01:51:09,190 --> 01:51:16,750
they've looked for ways that we can engage the entire community at ways that they want

1288
01:51:16,750 --> 01:51:17,770
to be engaged.

1289
01:51:18,350 --> 01:51:27,710
One of the things I've learned is that I was interested in doing this because I'm not

1290
01:51:27,710 --> 01:51:34,210
seeing that diversity when I go up to the exchange or adagios or the eagles or church or

1291
01:51:34,210 --> 01:51:34,770
wherever.

1292
01:51:34,770 --> 01:51:40,910
I'm not just I'm not seeing that diversity and so I'm judging the community based on that

1293
01:51:41,990 --> 01:51:47,710
whereas people don't necessarily it's not bad that they don't want to engage

1294
01:51:48,850 --> 01:51:55,050
outside of their little neighborhoods you know and so when we set up this task force

1295
01:51:55,050 --> 01:51:59,410
I think one of the things we'll learn is that in some cases we have to go and meet people on their

1296
01:51:59,410 --> 01:52:07,650
turf. You know, and I'll use my friends at Oak Grove now as an example. It wasn't, they weren't

1297
01:52:07,650 --> 01:52:14,810
going to come to City Hall. But when City Hall came to them, oh my gosh, the things I learned and the

1298
01:52:15,750 --> 01:52:26,590
improvements that I think that they're going to feel is amazing. But I just assume that people pick up

1299
01:52:26,590 --> 01:52:30,810
fall in call city hall or write something on Facebook when they're disgruntled and go from there.

1300
01:52:30,970 --> 01:52:32,230
No, they don't have the same culture.

1301
01:52:32,530 --> 01:52:33,490
They don't have the same culture.

1302
01:52:33,750 --> 01:52:40,670
So I think this is going to be a real eye-opener for not only myself, but the entire community.

1303
01:52:43,130 --> 01:52:50,950
And as I mentioned last week, one of the real benefits was for me after having this group meeting

1304
01:52:50,950 --> 01:52:59,230
at Oak Grove and meeting ownership and our residents is that the residents invited me

1305
01:52:59,230 --> 01:53:05,970
to a meal. And I got to experience getting to know a whole new group of folks that I might

1306
01:53:05,970 --> 01:53:11,790
not have normally interacted with. And now I'm going to look at that area and I'm not

1307
01:53:11,790 --> 01:53:17,250
going to drive by. I'm going to drive in and enjoy the friendships that I've made.

1308
01:53:19,930 --> 01:53:20,450
And

1309
01:53:20,450 --> 01:53:25,210
And we can create that kind of environment for all of our citizens so that if they feel

1310
01:53:25,210 --> 01:53:33,110
like they want to go into Oak Grove or go to a national night out party with the people

1311
01:53:33,110 --> 01:53:36,090
at Garden View, no, what's done by you?

1312
01:53:36,990 --> 01:53:37,630
Is it Garden View?

1313
01:53:37,630 --> 01:53:39,710
No, but on Southern Strait?

1314
01:53:40,450 --> 01:53:41,010
Yeah, okay.

1315
01:53:41,450 --> 01:53:42,110
I used to live there.

1316
01:53:42,130 --> 01:53:42,570
Field Polly?

1317
01:53:42,990 --> 01:53:43,130
Yeah.

1318
01:53:43,450 --> 01:53:44,230
It's Garden View states.

1319
01:53:44,810 --> 01:53:45,030
Okay.

1320
01:53:45,510 --> 01:53:49,350
There's another garden, something, an old 8 that I used to live in.

1321
01:53:49,350 --> 01:54:01,230
But you know, if they want to go into that neighborhood and enjoy the festivities that are going on there because their kids go to school together, but we don't bring them into interact.

1322
01:54:01,950 --> 01:54:06,930
Gosh, let's take down those barriers and make everybody feel welcome.

1323
01:54:09,150 --> 01:54:19,600
I would say one last thing and then I'll be quiet, but all of our surveys show that

1324
01:54:19,600 --> 01:54:23,420
New Brighton is a great place to live, it's a great place to work.

1325
01:54:24,160 --> 01:54:28,600
We have a great park systems, I mean we just went through this whole exercise where it

1326
01:54:28,600 --> 01:54:31,660
showed how great we are, and there's a reason people live here.

1327
01:54:33,640 --> 01:54:36,260
Let's share that greatness with everybody.

1328
01:54:37,460 --> 01:54:42,980
So, I'm proud of the city. I'm so proud of the city. And I want to make sure everybody

1329
01:54:42,980 --> 01:54:47,580
who's living here has that chance to feel proud of their city. And the folks in Oak Grove,

1330
01:54:47,800 --> 01:54:50,260
man, they can't say enough good things about New Brighton.

1331
01:54:52,290 --> 01:54:54,130
They talk about, yeah, somebody,

1332
01:54:54,370 --> 01:54:58,750
the police came by and they took us away or they stopped us. And I'd look at them and say,

1333
01:54:58,830 --> 01:55:03,390
the New Brighton police? And they go, no, those guys are fine. It's, you know, other people.

1334
01:55:03,390 --> 01:55:11,490
It's Ranzi County, it's other people, so anyway, I'm done, I appreciate Council Member Berg's support here.

1335
01:55:11,990 --> 01:55:20,330
I think that we'll have an opportunity if we move forward with this to learn a lot and

1336
01:55:20,330 --> 01:55:24,430
offer our own support and our own ideas and different things that we'd like to see.

1337
01:55:24,810 --> 01:55:27,350
I've been vocal, Council Member Jacobin, what are you thinking?

1338
01:55:28,470 --> 01:55:36,610
I think it's a tough spot to be, and I think it's not weird that other communities are struggling,

1339
01:55:36,810 --> 01:55:40,070
struggling with identifying what it is and how you're going to put something together too.

1340
01:55:40,930 --> 01:55:46,510
I don't know that we're going to be able to get a six-month task force and figure out what other groups have not figured out either.

1341
01:55:47,510 --> 01:55:52,170
My concern is that we're going to focus on just a couple of communities, and that's not what New Brighton is.

1342
01:55:52,330 --> 01:55:54,690
New Brighton is a lot of different communities that fit together.

1343
01:55:54,690 --> 01:56:00,370
I can even just go up and say sunny side is very different from totem part and the patch in neighborhood.

1344
01:56:00,950 --> 01:56:07,190
I can go and say the people on the other side of 35 W that say the wrong side of 35 W, whole different route.

1345
01:56:07,610 --> 01:56:14,190
And I'm not even talking about differences in culture by, you know, defining it by I have to have somebody from Oak Grove.

1346
01:56:15,030 --> 01:56:21,690
I'm talking about we haven't even engaged in getting these separate entities together other than to do one meeting in Vermont.

1347
01:56:21,690 --> 01:56:28,570
And so I do think there's a lot of different parts that could fold into this that are very different.

1348
01:56:28,890 --> 01:56:33,790
Will it need a commission, and at this point in time, I'd probably say I'm not so sure

1349
01:56:33,790 --> 01:56:36,430
would need a commission, a task force, a cool idea.

1350
01:56:36,590 --> 01:56:43,690
I just don't want us to focus and have some parts of new brighten dictate what might happen

1351
01:56:43,690 --> 01:56:45,190
with other ones we're not engaging.

1352
01:56:45,790 --> 01:56:50,730
And so even defining who is going to be on this task force or what a representative would be

1353
01:56:50,730 --> 01:56:57,750
on the task force, I think, is interesting by itself because I could just say, well, why

1354
01:56:57,750 --> 01:57:02,630
wouldn't we have somebody from Vermont neighborhood on, where they patchy neighborhood, or, you

1355
01:57:02,630 --> 01:57:06,450
know, some of the different neighborhoods, Aspen Glen, why is there anybody from Aspen

1356
01:57:06,450 --> 01:57:12,890
Glen? Those are all different cultural areas that are defined very distinctly by the geography

1357
01:57:12,890 --> 01:57:17,810
and the neighborhoods that they are part of. And they don't have voices. They don't come

1358
01:57:17,810 --> 01:57:24,270
here, I don't think that we get a lot of complaints from the senior high rises we have around the communities and that's a very

1359
01:57:24,270 --> 01:57:30,510
you could say it's an underserved group of people in New Brighton at least they would say that to some extent

1360
01:57:30,510 --> 01:57:38,650
in it we're not doing a senior citizen task force or a senior citizen commission so I think it's just an interesting

1361
01:57:38,650 --> 01:57:46,210
it's well one I believe we have to take and dip our toe into the water either come and play or you don't

1362
01:57:46,210 --> 01:57:52,750
We need to play. I agree that that's true. I just think that the devil's in the details, you know

1363
01:57:52,750 --> 01:57:58,250
We have to figure out what that means and what it means for new brighten and for all the citizens in the brighten

1364
01:57:58,250 --> 01:58:04,590
Not just some components of new brighten, but then we'll try to fold in because I don't think we reach

1365
01:58:05,190 --> 01:58:06,610
all of the new brighten today

1366
01:58:07,370 --> 01:58:12,770
And I think there's groups that are unrepresented today and it has nothing to do with

1367
01:58:12,770 --> 01:58:17,690
just I'm from old Grove. It could be I'm from Vermont and we have underrepresentation.

1368
01:58:18,430 --> 01:58:29,380
So I appreciate your comments. I think, however, that this task force is about engaging

1369
01:58:30,820 --> 01:58:45,870
people of color and it could be, it's about engaging a defined underserved community.

1370
01:58:46,990 --> 01:58:50,290
and your comments about others being underserved,

1371
01:58:50,850 --> 01:58:55,550
then I would suggest and challenge you to do the same thing.

1372
01:58:56,210 --> 01:58:59,130
If you think that there should be a task force for senior citizens,

1373
01:58:59,610 --> 01:59:00,890
then bring it to the council.

1374
01:59:02,710 --> 01:59:05,990
But that's like any city has different pockets.

1375
01:59:06,150 --> 01:59:09,250
If you go into New York City, you have the Italian district.

1376
01:59:09,550 --> 01:59:12,550
You have the, I don't know, I haven't been to it.

1377
01:59:12,550 --> 01:59:16,590
We have 190 different ethnic districts in New York City that

1378
01:59:16,590 --> 01:59:24,530
you're crazy and German but that doesn't mean that they're uncomfortable you know

1379
01:59:24,530 --> 01:59:31,270
it does not mean that the people who live in Vermont or in that the southeast side of

1380
01:59:31,270 --> 01:59:33,010
the city are uncomfortable in their city.

1381
01:59:33,470 --> 01:59:39,070
What I'm trying to make sure is that these people who have identified themselves as being

1382
01:59:39,070 --> 01:59:47,910
uncomfortable in our city are getting a voice. And so, if there are other people who are uncomfortable, then let's get them in here.

1383
01:59:48,570 --> 01:59:58,110
Well, that's what I say. I think the devil's in the details, because defining a task force, unless we really have a very specified. And I think we talked about that last time.

1384
01:59:58,110 --> 01:59:59,850
we'd have to really determine what

1385
02:00:00,000 --> 02:00:29,980
What is the role of the task force? Because it would have to be specific enough, because if it's broad enough, then who am I serving on the task force? Or who is going to be on the task force? Well, I could make a lot of different suggestions. But I think that, you know, for me, it almost, it's crazy. It sounds, it almost goes to public safety. And so you guys already have connections. Tell me who would be from all the different areas, you know, that you work with today. That seems to be, if I brought all the areas together and all the groups together,

1386
02:00:29,980 --> 02:00:35,640
But if that's not the way the task force is going to be formed or set up to be it's going to be more

1387
02:00:35,640 --> 02:00:41,680
distinct than that and more refined than that. And I think we really need to talk about what it really is.

1388
02:00:42,000 --> 02:00:48,080
And who it's going to serve. And if it's for all the people in the Brighton, let's make it in all the people in the Brighton

1389
02:00:48,840 --> 02:00:55,500
Commission. If it's to say no, let's serve the underserved, that even is very different and a very different definition because

1390
02:00:55,500 --> 02:01:00,280
because there's a lot of underserved areas and people groups that we have in the

1391
02:01:00,280 --> 02:01:04,360
break. If it's because I want to give a voice to people who don't have a voice

1392
02:01:04,360 --> 02:01:09,420
together today or feel they don't, then I think we still define what those are.

1393
02:01:09,860 --> 02:01:11,820
But I think that's where the devil's in the details.

1394
02:01:13,780 --> 02:01:16,720
I'll spend a moment. I appreciate your comments.

1395
02:01:19,180 --> 02:01:24,200
I'm a little bit regarding when you said they're going to define what the

1396
02:01:24,200 --> 02:01:30,320
purposes of the task force I think there should be ground rules from us where

1397
02:01:30,320 --> 02:01:31,480
that direction.

1398
02:01:34,000 --> 02:01:39,440
Like I said it's about government where government by here. If

1399
02:01:39,440 --> 02:01:43,320
you want to talk about community that's a whole different subject matter but

1400
02:01:43,320 --> 02:01:51,760
what government is going to how can we maybe relate to more of what's going on in

1401
02:01:51,760 --> 02:01:57,700
the city with different ethnic backgrounds that's fine, but that's on a city level, on

1402
02:01:57,700 --> 02:02:07,180
a community level, that isn't, that isn't us in the sense of what we can do, but if we're

1403
02:02:07,180 --> 02:02:13,320
going to have a task force, I believe it should be inclusive of a lot of people and maybe

1404
02:02:13,320 --> 02:02:15,760
that's what we need to do is meld people together.

1405
02:02:16,360 --> 02:02:20,720
And if we're not melding people together, even within that group.

1406
02:02:20,720 --> 02:02:29,800
Now I work, where I work, I happen to, I always, I always call them highway highs, so I'm,

1407
02:02:29,800 --> 02:02:34,380
I'm walking in a hallway and I always tend to say hi to people and I end up at the

1408
02:02:34,380 --> 02:02:38,360
time he was always, I was with this gentleman all the time and I was going, hey, so finally

1409
02:02:38,360 --> 02:02:39,220
I said, what's your name?

1410
02:02:39,460 --> 02:02:44,700
I always, so his name was Bernard, Bernard lives in Brighton Village just happens to live,

1411
02:02:44,700 --> 02:02:46,640
but he's from somewhere else.

1412
02:02:46,740 --> 02:02:49,440
He is not from here, and he is African-American.

1413
02:02:51,900 --> 02:02:53,520
And so he lives in Brighton Village.

1414
02:02:54,180 --> 02:02:55,740
But I also know in Brighton Village,

1415
02:02:56,020 --> 02:02:57,640
I used to do, and I had my shop.

1416
02:02:57,900 --> 02:02:58,740
I did Kins and Yes.

1417
02:03:00,100 --> 02:03:05,100
There's people from Mexico in that apartment building.

1418
02:03:05,280 --> 02:03:06,140
I know those people.

1419
02:03:07,500 --> 02:03:09,140
They used to come to my home.

1420
02:03:09,140 --> 02:03:16,600
So, it isn't where, personally, you know a lot of people that way.

1421
02:03:18,700 --> 02:03:25,240
To consummate with Jacob from this point, we have to have some type of purpose, or what

1422
02:03:25,240 --> 02:03:30,520
is this purpose, but we have to define it rather than just feeling like we're doing something.

1423
02:03:31,720 --> 02:03:34,980
And I don't see that we're having some type of a,

1424
02:03:37,500 --> 02:03:39,720
to say that these people are going to define

1425
02:03:39,720 --> 02:03:46,660
what this task force is about. I say absolutely not. We need to have some type of input because

1426
02:03:47,240 --> 02:03:54,160
this is the task force we are creating and responsible for in government so I just I think that

1427
02:03:54,160 --> 02:04:01,240
is there um are you part of this group it's city manager part of this group and then you know

1428
02:04:01,240 --> 02:04:07,340
how are we all involved in this in the sense of they're only going to get to know you and him or

1429
02:04:07,340 --> 02:04:13,280
all of us, how is this going to work? So I believe everything would be a posted

1430
02:04:13,280 --> 02:04:17,580
open meeting and that any of us could show up and it would be a posted so it

1431
02:04:17,580 --> 02:04:25,720
wouldn't be an open meeting violation. But this isn't I'm this isn't I'm

1432
02:04:28,000 --> 02:04:28,120
not

1433
02:04:28,120 --> 02:04:36,380
bringing this to the council to say that I'm doing all the work work body and

1434
02:04:36,380 --> 02:04:40,540
You've been very clear with me on that particular situation.

1435
02:04:40,720 --> 02:04:41,600
We're a body of five.

1436
02:04:43,100 --> 02:04:52,230
And I think that what I'm proposing here is getting,

1437
02:04:52,710 --> 02:04:56,310
I think you're

1438
02:04:58,390 --> 02:04:59,250
making it too broad.

1439
02:04:59,890 --> 02:05:01,610
I think you're making it too broad.

1440
02:05:01,810 --> 02:05:04,550
And I think that one of the purpose of this

1441
02:05:04,550 --> 02:05:06,490
is to find out what we don't know.

1442
02:05:06,490 --> 02:05:14,910
And so, when City Manager Lotter says to us, okay, the first meeting might be getting to know you, housekeeping rules, all of that kind of stuff.

1443
02:05:15,890 --> 02:05:28,310
The second meeting might be looking at the demographics of the city, who lives in this city, how many people are African-American, how many people are Latino, or Hispanic descent, and doing this kind of thing.

1444
02:05:28,730 --> 02:05:34,470
And then, if we can engage people throughout the community that will say to us, okay,

1445
02:05:34,470 --> 02:05:37,030
Do you know that this is going on in New Brighton?

1446
02:05:37,870 --> 02:05:44,770
Because you've met Bernard and you've had people in your home and, you know, God bless you

1447
02:05:44,770 --> 02:05:45,210
for that.

1448
02:05:46,030 --> 02:05:56,430
But that doesn't mean you, I don't feel I have a handle on how the racially different

1449
02:05:56,430 --> 02:05:58,670
people than myself feel about New Brighton.

1450
02:05:59,590 --> 02:06:02,090
And that's what I'd like this task force to figure out.

1451
02:06:02,770 --> 02:06:06,010
I'm going to go to you for a esteem because you had your hand up first.

1452
02:06:08,150 --> 02:06:12,550
So the resolution that's being worked on that would be brought forward to Council

1453
02:06:13,770 --> 02:06:19,310
would have has different suggestions on directives that the Council would have for the task force.

1454
02:06:19,590 --> 02:06:26,010
So the point that the Council should be directing the work of the task force would be fundamentally

1455
02:06:26,010 --> 02:06:27,470
reflected in the resolution.

1456
02:06:27,470 --> 02:06:30,090
The resolution would be there for your consideration.

1457
02:06:30,670 --> 02:06:33,150
You may choose to add, subtract, modify.

1458
02:06:33,710 --> 02:06:39,530
So that the resolution is relating your message to this task force.

1459
02:06:39,790 --> 02:06:43,790
But I think that there are maybe two things that are getting a little confused.

1460
02:06:44,050 --> 02:06:48,270
So the task force would be perhaps a multicultural.

1461
02:06:48,750 --> 02:06:52,810
So it's an inclusive community task force is the name that's been used.

1462
02:06:52,810 --> 02:06:58,810
And so there have been suggestions that we haven't even mentioned people with disabilities.

1463
02:07:00,210 --> 02:07:06,170
You know the suggestion Councilmember Jacobson's making is perhaps seniors are 55 and up.

1464
02:07:06,830 --> 02:07:15,350
There might be an opportunity essentially that the task force cultivates because all of

1465
02:07:15,350 --> 02:07:22,090
our residents, all regardless of your ethnicity or your racial makeup or your religious

1466
02:07:22,090 --> 02:07:26,850
police have seniors in your population and have young people in your population.

1467
02:07:27,710 --> 02:07:34,950
I think the idea is generally to reach out in what may almost kind of seem like a

1468
02:07:34,950 --> 02:07:42,030
somewhat fumbly, bumbly, stumbly but full of good intent way to simply find out, do

1469
02:07:42,030 --> 02:07:48,090
people feel connected to City Hall? It's oftentimes been or to the community at

1470
02:07:48,090 --> 02:07:54,210
whole as a whole. I've heard comments or when you look at those who participate in the

1471
02:07:54,210 --> 02:07:58,370
neighborhood meetings and town hall meetings, things of that nature, it's very homogeneous

1472
02:07:58,370 --> 02:08:05,370
and it's very agent. And so for the most part, so I think that you know a lot of times

1473
02:08:05,370 --> 02:08:11,050
just the natural course of activity that cities have historically engaged in are familiar

1474
02:08:11,050 --> 02:08:17,490
to certain sections of our population. New members of our community or people who

1475
02:08:17,490 --> 02:08:24,490
who haven't started out their lives speaking English first don't have that experience and

1476
02:08:24,490 --> 02:08:29,030
they don't have that background, they don't necessarily know much about the city.

1477
02:08:29,390 --> 02:08:33,070
And so one of the things Devon and I was even talking about was with a launch of that

1478
02:08:33,650 --> 02:08:38,370
new newsletter, I didn't want to complicate that discussion too much, but maybe we identified

1479
02:08:38,370 --> 02:08:44,850
the top three, four or five languages that are being spoken in our community and we actually

1480
02:08:44,850 --> 02:08:51,870
to publish the newsletter so that Somali resident can read it in their native language.

1481
02:08:52,250 --> 02:08:56,590
And a Russian resident can read it in their native language and a Spanish-speaking resident

1482
02:08:56,590 --> 02:08:58,430
can read it in their native language.

1483
02:08:59,150 --> 02:09:04,310
And that might be an example of, that's an idea we've already had, but it could be even

1484
02:09:04,310 --> 02:09:10,010
just ideas like that that a task force or ultimately some more formal body comes forward.

1485
02:09:11,170 --> 02:09:16,090
So, I really think that there is an opportunity, once the resolution is being considered to

1486
02:09:16,090 --> 02:09:21,210
maybe have a robust discussion on the direction that's going to give into that task force

1487
02:09:21,210 --> 02:09:25,570
and that will be a council directive, so that, I think, satisfies your concern, the council

1488
02:09:25,570 --> 02:09:34,290
member of Bowman, and frankly, you can add to it, shrink it, you can do whatever you want

1489
02:09:34,290 --> 02:09:35,290
because you are the council.

1490
02:09:35,290 --> 02:09:41,310
And then if in the event that they recommend creating some more formal body, then that's

1491
02:09:41,310 --> 02:09:45,890
going to be up to you because you'll have to adopt an ordinance that enabling an ordinance

1492
02:09:45,890 --> 02:09:49,330
that creates that body and adds it into Section 2 of the colon.

1493
02:09:50,010 --> 02:09:54,470
So there's a lot of opportunities for touches with the council on this.

1494
02:09:54,570 --> 02:09:59,190
And I think that all of those comments or interests can probably be reflected or achieved

1495
02:09:59,190 --> 02:10:00,030
in the discussion.

1496
02:10:00,030 --> 02:10:12,630
By meeting the needs of the group that I've been discussing, does not mean I'm not interested in our age of population.

1497
02:10:13,070 --> 02:10:16,710
It doesn't mean I'm not giving a voice to the people up at sunny side.

1498
02:10:17,550 --> 02:10:17,670
I'm not,

1499
02:10:20,300 --> 02:10:23,860
you know, I'm trying to find a way, I'm

1500
02:10:26,000 --> 02:10:29,260
trying to find a way to not be 1960s.

1501
02:10:31,360 --> 02:10:35,480
The time for this has come, this is right now.

1502
02:10:35,720 --> 02:10:40,820
I mean, just a few years ago I was looking up, again, a Liberian man's body was found

1503
02:10:40,820 --> 02:10:50,440
in Rush Lake and Long Lake Park and our police department went into, now we've got to build

1504
02:10:50,440 --> 02:10:53,420
or enhance our relationships with the Liberian community.

1505
02:10:54,440 --> 02:11:02,560
You know, we all know the tragedy that happened in Falcon Heights, and the time for action is now when there's not a problem.

1506
02:11:02,860 --> 02:11:11,160
The time for action is now when communities of color in this community look at the five of us and say I'm not represented there.

1507
02:11:11,180 --> 02:11:13,820
They look at our police force and say I'm not represented there.

1508
02:11:14,080 --> 02:11:19,060
And they listen to this debate and think, well, you know what, what they need is some more Ukrainians on there.

1509
02:11:19,060 --> 02:11:24,800
maybe we do we have to start this right now and we have to start this as soon as

1510
02:11:24,800 --> 02:11:28,800
possible so that those people that you met in Oak Grove so that the parents that

1511
02:11:28,800 --> 02:11:33,480
I see at Bel Air so that the students at Irondale think that when they

1512
02:11:33,480 --> 02:11:37,020
graduate if they stay in this community that there's a place for them at the

1513
02:11:37,020 --> 02:11:42,000
table we start now and then we build on to it and we learn from it as a body and we

1514
02:11:42,000 --> 02:11:46,680
don't put anything in in ordinance until we've had that learning period but

1515
02:11:46,680 --> 02:11:51,760
At the time starts now, those folks that I speak to that represent communities of color

1516
02:11:51,760 --> 02:11:56,900
are bored of death waiting for us to take some kind of action that makes clear to them

1517
02:11:57,300 --> 02:11:59,140
that there's a welcome man outside this hall.

1518
02:11:59,400 --> 02:12:00,360
We know that it's there.

1519
02:12:00,820 --> 02:12:03,480
It's not that it's not there, but it's not in Spanish.

1520
02:12:05,040 --> 02:12:06,180
It's not in Somali.

1521
02:12:06,820 --> 02:12:07,820
It's not in Russian.

1522
02:12:09,160 --> 02:12:14,240
So let's put it out there and do it now and then learn from it, learn from our mistakes.

1523
02:12:14,720 --> 02:12:21,280
We might make some mistakes, but if we don't put the welcome mat out, we'll continue to get the same results.

1524
02:12:21,300 --> 02:12:27,940
If we talk about this more, we'll lose the inertia that we have at this time, or the folks that you met with.

1525
02:12:28,360 --> 02:12:33,880
The folks that are in this community want to know, is there a place for somebody like me at the table?

1526
02:12:35,980 --> 02:12:43,280
I think you, Councilmember Strueb, this morning, when I was talking to my friend from Latin

1527
02:12:43,280 --> 02:12:49,200
America, and she said, well, she said a lot of things and maybe I shouldn't say it right

1528
02:12:49,200 --> 02:12:49,380
now.

1529
02:12:49,500 --> 02:12:56,640
But I encourage somebody that was Latino to get active in our community running for City

1530
02:12:56,640 --> 02:13:02,280
Council some years ago, and he said there's the inclusivity isn't there, and I said, well,

1531
02:13:02,280 --> 02:13:06,580
Well, you know, look at the people, okay, we all have white privilege.

1532
02:13:06,820 --> 02:13:09,800
We don't know what it's like to not have it because we do.

1533
02:13:10,020 --> 02:13:12,460
We go everywhere and we're just, we have that.

1534
02:13:12,660 --> 02:13:13,680
We don't know the difference.

1535
02:13:13,960 --> 02:13:15,400
We don't know what it's like to not have it.

1536
02:13:15,840 --> 02:13:19,460
And I said, we can't do what, look at who's up here.

1537
02:13:19,840 --> 02:13:23,660
We can't move forward as all of being people of white privilege.

1538
02:13:23,660 --> 02:13:26,140
We can't because we don't know the difference of not having it.

1539
02:13:26,380 --> 02:13:31,500
By talking to people or having people that have the other experience and find out what is

1540
02:13:31,500 --> 02:13:36,240
it that we can do to change our community to make it more inclusive would be the reason

1541
02:13:36,240 --> 02:13:37,240
would be the purpose.

1542
02:13:37,420 --> 02:13:42,540
But I would ask please tell us what we want to, what is it that we have to accomplish

1543
02:13:42,540 --> 02:13:47,360
to make our community more diverse and more, not more diverse, we have a diverse community.

1544
02:13:47,760 --> 02:13:49,980
How can we make our diverse community more inclusive?

1545
02:13:51,120 --> 02:13:57,000
I have ideas, I can't do it unless we all work together, all work together.

1546
02:13:57,000 --> 02:14:02,880
I'm not just talking about this little group of half a dozen people that have come from

1547
02:14:03,900 --> 02:14:06,760
Northern Europe, you know, and we can't raise you.

1548
02:14:06,980 --> 02:14:10,900
So I think this is critically important, and I think your point of the young people

1549
02:14:10,900 --> 02:14:15,800
that are going through our schools to stay in our community and feel welcome.

1550
02:14:16,400 --> 02:14:19,840
It's just exactly what we need to do.

1551
02:14:20,100 --> 02:14:22,780
And there's not going to be any disadvantage in this.

1552
02:14:22,780 --> 02:14:30,140
There's no disadvantage. There's only a disadvantage in not taking advantage of this opportunity. That's what I think.

1553
02:14:30,380 --> 02:14:35,580
Madam Mayor, I hope Council Member Bowman's friend from her work might be interested in this as well.

1554
02:14:35,800 --> 02:14:43,860
And if she can contact our city folks or extend an invitation, there should be a likely room at the table.

1555
02:14:43,860 --> 02:14:45,940
You can't kind of remember, Bob?

1556
02:14:46,080 --> 02:14:46,280
Yeah.

1557
02:14:47,160 --> 02:14:49,000
I resent what you just said.

1558
02:14:49,820 --> 02:14:52,480
I mean, because I'm white,

1559
02:14:53,040 --> 02:14:55,000
you think I was privileged my whole life?

1560
02:14:55,700 --> 02:14:56,160
Are you kidding?

1561
02:14:56,760 --> 02:14:59,940
I grew up in an Italian neighborhood when they came here.

1562
02:15:00,880 --> 02:15:28,660
They didn't speak English, but they were treated very well, and that's why they lived in the neighborhood they lived in. I grew up that way. However, you grew up knowing that, but you never treat people differently because of their skin color, and I would never pander to somebody because of it. But I resent that you think that I had white privilege. I didn't come from...

1563
02:15:28,660 --> 02:15:34,740
I understand what you're saying, but maybe they get treated differently, but I, you want

1564
02:15:34,740 --> 02:15:42,500
to know what I work for somebody from South America, from Holland, from everywhere, everybody

1565
02:15:42,500 --> 02:15:46,080
I work for or with is usually from another country.

1566
02:15:46,580 --> 02:15:52,600
And they say to me, here's what they say, is we as Americans don't realize, and it doesn't

1567
02:15:52,600 --> 02:15:57,480
matter what color we are as Americans, because I believe we are all Americans, is that we are

1568
02:15:57,480 --> 02:16:04,460
privileged to just live here. So and they we don't realize how privileged we are but we want to

1569
02:16:04,460 --> 02:16:10,740
make these differences half the time and they said we're just happy to be here because you don't

1570
02:16:10,740 --> 02:16:17,220
want to live in some of our countries. So I totally 100% agree with you. So I don't want to

1571
02:16:17,220 --> 02:16:24,200
think that this body doesn't feel that they can't represent people because they're white.

1572
02:16:24,200 --> 02:16:31,600
And that again to me is just saying, I'm different because of color. No, I might be different

1573
02:16:31,600 --> 02:16:37,300
because of culture, because of tradition. But those are the things that I think I always

1574
02:16:37,300 --> 02:16:42,120
ask when I, because I work with these people, I ask about their country, I ask about their

1575
02:16:42,120 --> 02:16:48,260
families, I ask how it is, how they feel about America, all of that. That's how you get

1576
02:16:48,260 --> 02:16:53,160
to know somebody. That's how you get to understand where they come from and where their opinions

1577
02:16:53,160 --> 02:16:59,700
comes from. But I don't think you can make such a broad brush and say that we've all been privileged

1578
02:16:59,700 --> 02:17:09,520
or that we don't understand because we're white. No one can live in, so European people, you're

1579
02:17:09,520 --> 02:17:15,680
kind of, so the gentleman that I know is Dodge that I worked for, I think he would disagree with you

1580
02:17:15,680 --> 02:17:22,660
that his culture is different, but he's living here. Indonesia, there's a lot of people

1581
02:17:23,160 --> 02:17:25,600
that I work with, that would probably disagree

1582
02:17:25,600 --> 02:17:27,200
with some of what we've said.

1583
02:17:27,260 --> 02:17:29,900
Can I quantify or clarify what I meant?

1584
02:17:30,340 --> 02:17:30,880
Yes, please.

1585
02:17:32,420 --> 02:17:34,680
The reference to being white privilege

1586
02:17:34,680 --> 02:17:38,320
means that if you were not, if you walked in,

1587
02:17:38,640 --> 02:17:41,440
if you were of color and you walked into a place,

1588
02:17:41,740 --> 02:17:47,000
somebody might, a person you could walk by

1589
02:17:47,000 --> 02:17:49,820
and they'd be like this, but somebody of color go by

1590
02:17:49,820 --> 02:17:51,780
and they go like this, that's the difference

1591
02:17:51,780 --> 02:17:59,640
because it just does happen and we can't really relate to it, so I'm not saying that because

1592
02:17:59,640 --> 02:18:05,500
I think I'm an open person too and I believe you when you say that, I feel that probably

1593
02:18:05,500 --> 02:18:11,420
all of us sitting at this table want to be, I know each and every one of you were really

1594
02:18:11,420 --> 02:18:15,880
good people, but we don't have all of our community feeling comfortable with us.

1595
02:18:17,480 --> 02:18:25,060
And so I want to bring those folks that don't maybe feel comfortable in our community forward to feel comfortable to stay here and live here.

1596
02:18:25,460 --> 02:18:27,780
That's what I mean by that. That's what the reference is.

1597
02:18:27,920 --> 02:18:36,100
And it's not to offend anyone, but it's a matter of something that people live with.

1598
02:18:37,140 --> 02:18:40,520
You, um, does anybody else want to say anything to this first?

1599
02:18:48,890 --> 02:18:52,190
You are the exact reason we need this, this commission.

1600
02:18:53,150 --> 02:18:58,130
If you don't understand the white privilege, then you are not representing those people.

1601
02:18:58,850 --> 02:19:01,310
You're not willing to listen to them.

1602
02:19:04,410 --> 02:19:10,870
And what you have just said is the most racist excuse me.

1603
02:19:12,270 --> 02:19:15,590
Don't you ever, ever accuse me of that.

1604
02:19:16,050 --> 02:19:23,950
You have no basis to say something like that in public and no basis to say something like

1605
02:19:23,950 --> 02:19:24,250
that.

1606
02:19:24,470 --> 02:19:25,930
Then let me, let me rephrase it.

1607
02:19:26,190 --> 02:19:29,030
That statement was one of the most racist things I've ever heard.

1608
02:19:29,110 --> 02:19:29,830
What statement?

1609
02:19:30,170 --> 02:19:36,910
That you, that you are offended by the fact that you're not feeling the white privilege thing.

1610
02:19:36,910 --> 02:19:45,610
weight privilege exists and it is something that we need to accept in this

1611
02:19:45,610 --> 02:19:53,010
country and you're interrupting me and by the way I'm running on camera I'm

1612
02:19:53,010 --> 02:19:57,510
running this is in me of something pretty big here I yep it's unacceptable

1613
02:19:57,510 --> 02:20:04,050
because you have no case you're out of order you're out of order no I have basis

1614
02:20:04,050 --> 02:20:05,830
is for it based on what you just said.

1615
02:20:06,010 --> 02:20:07,030
No, you don't.

1616
02:20:07,210 --> 02:20:09,550
Well, because you said hi to Bernard.

1617
02:20:09,870 --> 02:20:10,730
You understand?

1618
02:20:11,230 --> 02:20:12,890
Oh, excuse me, I work with the,

1619
02:20:12,930 --> 02:20:16,330
I probably know many more people of color than you do.

1620
02:20:16,570 --> 02:20:17,610
And I work with them.

1621
02:20:17,610 --> 02:20:19,910
So I do not want to have this argument with you.

1622
02:20:20,150 --> 02:20:22,970
But you are out of order and you're out of line.

1623
02:20:23,210 --> 02:20:24,210
OK, fine.

1624
02:20:24,590 --> 02:20:28,790
Let me just say this, that the discussion I just heard now

1625
02:20:29,270 --> 02:20:30,710
makes me so angry.

1626
02:20:30,710 --> 02:20:45,560
I'm shaking. You refuse to understand how other people in this community feel.

1627
02:20:46,060 --> 02:20:51,040
How do you? You refuse. How do I refuse? Because you're obviously not going to support

1628
02:20:51,040 --> 02:20:57,600
this. You're obviously not going to support this. And what you're doing, you don't know what

1629
02:20:57,600 --> 02:21:03,040
I'm going to support. But I have a quick interrupting me. You're accusing me of things

1630
02:21:03,040 --> 02:21:07,900
that are going to quit interrupting me. I'm going to finish my statement. What I heard

1631
02:21:08,370 --> 02:21:13,060
was a racist statement. What I heard was a racist statement. No,

1632
02:21:16,160 --> 02:21:18,340
you're just crediting.

1633
02:21:25,240 --> 02:21:32,420
I'm passionate about this. I'm so passionate about hearing all sides of the story. And for

1634
02:21:32,420 --> 02:21:41,240
For you to disregard the fact that white privilege exists is beyond me,

1635
02:21:43,920 --> 02:21:44,580
I'm going to let you

1636
02:21:44,580 --> 02:21:47,140
go in and I'm going to excuse myself for two minutes.

1637
02:21:48,440 --> 02:21:54,360
Minute-minute members of the council, so I think just by virtue of the past 10 to 15 minutes

1638
02:21:54,980 --> 02:22:00,300
we can understand that there is energy and a dynamic just around this very topic.

1639
02:22:00,300 --> 02:22:10,040
And I think at the end of the day, if we stop and ask ourselves, can we confidently say

1640
02:22:10,040 --> 02:22:15,760
that every single person in New Brighton feels included, feels comfortable, feels that

1641
02:22:15,760 --> 02:22:18,420
the city is available to them on the exact same level?

1642
02:22:18,920 --> 02:22:20,980
And maybe the answer is yes.

1643
02:22:21,660 --> 02:22:24,420
I don't know that any of us are in a position to know that.

1644
02:22:24,420 --> 02:22:30,620
And I think if we just looked at the task force as a way to get the answer to that question

1645
02:22:30,620 --> 02:22:37,040
because as community leaders, wouldn't we rest easier at night if we knew one that everyone

1646
02:22:37,040 --> 02:22:40,540
did feel that there was an inclusive nature to new brighten?

1647
02:22:41,540 --> 02:22:45,780
And if there isn't, wouldn't we all at least feel better if we tried to make at least some

1648
02:22:45,780 --> 02:22:51,700
sort of effort at identifying what those initiatives might be to at least chip away at that?

1649
02:22:51,700 --> 02:22:57,640
that, you know, we're not going to find perfection in anything that we do, but we can strive for

1650
02:22:57,640 --> 02:23:02,560
excellence. And I think that this is an opportunity to position the community for excellence.

1651
02:23:03,460 --> 02:23:08,020
And I think we just are asking questions because we don't necessarily know all the answers

1652
02:23:08,020 --> 02:23:14,880
to them. And I'd have to believe that everybody around this table wants everyone to be comfortable

1653
02:23:14,880 --> 02:23:19,980
in this community. And if there are things that we can do, even if it's simply to have

1654
02:23:19,980 --> 02:23:25,260
listening sessions. One of the things that Mayor Johnson I think achieved when she interacted

1655
02:23:25,260 --> 02:23:32,760
with the old-girl neighborhood a few weeks ago is that one, as she said, city hall came

1656
02:23:32,760 --> 02:23:39,320
to them. The mayor came to them. Two, we found out something that we didn't know. And that

1657
02:23:39,320 --> 02:23:45,520
is that there was an employee of that particular organization that was interfering in the city

1658
02:23:45,520 --> 02:23:52,640
having a good relationship with that neighborhood, and Director Pacenic made it clear that there

1659
02:23:52,640 --> 02:23:58,900
have been efforts even with our community engagement staff or with our public safety staff,

1660
02:23:59,180 --> 02:24:05,440
just to get in there, spread information about who do you call if there's a particular issue

1661
02:24:05,440 --> 02:24:11,180
or problem that you might have, and there's been resistance to that, and by virtue of these

1662
02:24:11,180 --> 02:24:17,580
conversations. This population felt recognized, they felt heard, and that

1663
02:24:18,120 --> 02:24:22,820
employer became aware of what a problem they had with that employee. And my

1664
02:24:22,820 --> 02:24:27,880
understanding is that at least temporarily she's been reassigned, and there's a

1665
02:24:27,880 --> 02:24:32,280
very strong likelihood she may not return. And I don't know what that means if

1666
02:24:32,280 --> 02:24:36,440
she'll go somewhere else in the organization or what. But the fact of the matter

1667
02:24:36,440 --> 02:24:44,520
is the ownership then spent a couple of different days interacting directly with their

1668
02:24:44,520 --> 02:24:48,180
residents to hear directly what their issues and concerns were.

1669
02:24:48,760 --> 02:24:53,880
Another member of our founding committee, Rugen Vasquez, sat by his side to interpret

1670
02:24:53,880 --> 02:24:54,320
form.

1671
02:24:55,160 --> 02:24:59,100
And just to make sure there wasn't a language barrier there, and really helped out.

1672
02:25:00,240 --> 02:25:05,180
And so I think that's kind of what we're talking about, like it might not even be so much

1673
02:25:05,180 --> 02:25:11,420
that there's a direct initiative that even the city's got to get involved in

1674
02:25:11,420 --> 02:25:18,620
sometimes just simply by listening, hearing, there was no city resources that

1675
02:25:18,620 --> 02:25:23,160
were you know invoked in that and there's no ongoing program that's coming

1676
02:25:23,160 --> 02:25:27,280
about from it. There was a connection that was made I think that the people that

1677
02:25:27,280 --> 02:25:31,940
live there. We found we didn't know this. How does that neighborhood feel about our

1678
02:25:31,940 --> 02:25:37,560
public safety. And we now know, based on the mayor's interactions, that they actually

1679
02:25:37,560 --> 02:25:42,420
feel pretty good about them. Isn't that good for us to know that? I think it is.

1680
02:25:42,420 --> 02:25:47,400
Isn't it good for us to know that? And so I think that's how I'd rather, you know, the

1681
02:25:47,400 --> 02:25:53,900
council kind of approached this topic. It's not by virtue of its name, it's meant to be

1682
02:25:53,900 --> 02:26:01,720
an inclusive community effort. And, you know, I think that we can't be all things to all

1683
02:26:01,720 --> 02:26:08,520
people either so maybe the council has to wrestle with that yet. How do you bite off a piece that

1684
02:26:08,520 --> 02:26:16,160
isn't too big? And that doesn't mean that we're ever stopping with it. It's possible that for a

1685
02:26:16,160 --> 02:26:24,940
period of time it's there's a focus in certain areas of our community and then maybe once that has

1686
02:26:24,940 --> 02:26:30,820
gotten up and running council then chooses to reassign that task force. Maybe that means a membership

1687
02:26:30,820 --> 02:26:35,380
of change of some kind, maybe you only, maybe you keep some for experience and you bring

1688
02:26:35,380 --> 02:26:37,920
on new ones, but then you go after something else.

1689
02:26:38,220 --> 02:26:45,220
And that could be, you know, maybe dealing with shut-ins regardless of what ethnicity they

1690
02:26:45,220 --> 02:26:45,440
are.

1691
02:26:46,020 --> 02:26:50,500
You know, when people get old and they lose a spouse and their kids have grown up and moved

1692
02:26:50,500 --> 02:26:57,800
away, and you have shut-ins, I guess I want to know how big of a problem is that we have

1693
02:26:57,800 --> 02:27:02,660
an aging population, I would have to think that there is a segment of our population that

1694
02:27:02,660 --> 02:27:08,200
is there with a need like that. It could be a very simple thing that where we are able

1695
02:27:08,200 --> 02:27:12,880
to interact with folks and then that gets to your point, Council Member Jacobson.

1696
02:27:13,340 --> 02:27:13,960
I appreciate it.

1697
02:27:14,160 --> 02:27:19,620
So, because that actually is, I think that you put it, I think, good, good scope or good

1698
02:27:19,620 --> 02:27:25,420
focus on it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so I think maybe if we can approach it from

1699
02:27:25,420 --> 02:27:30,220
that standpoint that we're we don't necessarily we have questions and we don't

1700
02:27:30,220 --> 02:27:34,760
necessarily know what the answers are to them and we're not going to tackle all

1701
02:27:34,760 --> 02:27:39,560
the issues with this task force but it's we'll get a lot of good things out of

1702
02:27:39,560 --> 02:27:42,900
it I think we'll also get kind of an agenda and approach that we

1703
02:27:42,900 --> 02:27:49,660
template if you will that we can then use to continue to reach out. It's a this

1704
02:27:49,660 --> 02:27:57,440
This is, community engagement is never done, but the focus will be different.

1705
02:27:57,940 --> 02:28:03,480
And that, to me, is reflective of an organic and an agile community that responds to

1706
02:28:03,480 --> 02:28:09,460
the changing, or a council that responds to the changing needs of a given community.

1707
02:28:10,100 --> 02:28:16,340
And sometimes that's with aging in place and sometimes that's with immigrant populations

1708
02:28:16,880 --> 02:28:18,680
and sometimes it's a blend of all of that.

1709
02:28:18,680 --> 02:28:27,600
But I think that everyone around this table once would like to know that people feel good.

1710
02:28:28,060 --> 02:28:36,560
Like the way I set it to the founding committee is when somebody who lives here leaves to go to work or they leave to go shopping

1711
02:28:36,560 --> 02:28:43,620
or they leave New Brighton, how do they feel as they're in their vehicle or on their bus or on their bike or just walking?

1712
02:28:43,880 --> 02:28:47,120
How do they feel as they're returning? Are they looking forward to returning?

1713
02:28:47,840 --> 02:28:54,860
you know just it gets after that sense of place issue you know there are ways to

1714
02:28:54,860 --> 02:29:00,220
define it and maybe if we can build some inroads into different communities then

1715
02:29:00,220 --> 02:29:05,100
we can produce city surveys in those neighborhoods that are actually written

1716
02:29:05,100 --> 02:29:11,300
in their language and so that you get opened up a lot of opportunity to interact

1717
02:29:11,300 --> 02:29:14,260
and have tough conversations.

1718
02:29:15,480 --> 02:29:17,280
Yeah, we're not so tough.

1719
02:29:18,340 --> 02:29:20,620
But we actually do face what it is,

1720
02:29:20,620 --> 02:29:22,020
because we don't know what it is.

1721
02:29:22,460 --> 02:29:24,260
And so I just say that, you know,

1722
02:29:24,640 --> 02:29:26,820
it could be very emotional, it could be very happy,

1723
02:29:26,920 --> 02:29:28,460
it could be very not so happy.

1724
02:29:28,700 --> 02:29:29,240
We don't know.

1725
02:29:29,720 --> 02:29:31,380
And I do appreciate that,

1726
02:29:31,620 --> 02:29:36,520
because I appreciate Dean with your scope statement

1727
02:29:37,380 --> 02:29:40,440
and your definition statement on the task force stuff.

1728
02:29:40,440 --> 02:29:44,420
because I do think that I don't know how we get it right the first time.

1729
02:29:44,460 --> 02:29:47,380
I don't think everybody gets it right the first time. Nobody gets it right the first time

1730
02:29:47,380 --> 02:29:50,140
but you keep working at it knowing that you make a difference.

1731
02:29:51,000 --> 02:29:56,440
The reality is, you know, do I know every population that's in New Bright and I don't?

1732
02:29:57,260 --> 02:29:59,880
Do I want every voice to be heard in New Bright?

1733
02:30:00,000 --> 02:30:29,720
And then have a, you know, feel they could be engaged and make a difference in the right. Oh, you know that. You know, that's the world. I would say that's all of us here. You know, how radical do we want to make the changes? I don't know. I don't know. I think the task force is a good idea. My concern as I was sitting before is just who's the voices or where we starting or what's the scope that makes it the starting point? What is the starting point? I like when you said it can just be the starting point period.

1734
02:30:29,720 --> 02:30:31,380
and we have a scope document.

1735
02:30:31,580 --> 02:30:34,280
We can change it if it looks like we got to make changes

1736
02:30:34,280 --> 02:30:35,440
till we can have people.

1737
02:30:35,940 --> 02:30:37,520
We can change the focus.

1738
02:30:37,740 --> 02:30:39,600
We can do what we do for you.

1739
02:30:40,060 --> 02:30:41,940
And I agree with what you said comes from members true.

1740
02:30:42,140 --> 02:30:43,180
We got to start somewhere.

1741
02:30:43,840 --> 02:30:44,400
That's true.

1742
02:30:44,700 --> 02:30:45,340
That's so true.

1743
02:30:46,260 --> 02:30:49,080
Now, we could talk about this until all the culture

1744
02:30:49,080 --> 02:30:51,040
were blue in the face, but until you do something,

1745
02:30:51,160 --> 02:30:52,100
that's when you make a difference.

1746
02:30:53,140 --> 02:30:56,140
So I think that I do appreciate that

1747
02:30:56,140 --> 02:31:01,760
and I would support that type of approach.

1748
02:31:03,120 --> 02:31:03,900
Any other comments?

1749
02:31:07,100 --> 02:31:12,820
I want to thank you folks for what you've done to reach out and to bring this forward.

1750
02:31:14,500 --> 02:31:15,400
Any other comments?

1751
02:31:16,480 --> 02:31:16,820
No.

1752
02:31:18,140 --> 02:31:19,160
Meeting's adjourned.

1753
02:31:19,740 --> 02:31:20,080
Thank you.

1754
02:31:20,580 --> 02:31:20,880
Thank you.

1755
02:31:20,880 --> 02:31:21,420
That's

1756
02:31:23,430 --> 02:31:23,450
it.