this board action does three things. First, it consistent with state law declares this property uh surplus property because public ownership of the building is no longer required. Second, uh after a competitive process, uh Touchstone, Inc. was selected to purchase the property. This bar authorizes the uh county administrator to negotiate the sale at a little over $1.2 million. And third, it authorizes the county administrator to negotiate a loan with Touchstone for $600,000 uh during the period of uh September 1, 2025 to the end of the year in 2035. The loan requires use of the property for an Z for 10 years.

No, Madam Chair, I think it's a great action and just want to reiterate the collective need for greater bed capacity in the state and regionally. And while this is not new beds, it uh for me it seems favorable um for ownership to be uh centered with those who are operating that service.

As you pointed out, this is uh seeking to amend an agreement that we have with Cyclop Media that we've had in place for five years. It adds an additional 5-year term. And this the previous uh board resolution was passed in uh 2020. This new term increases the not to exceed amount by $1.1 million and includes uh a 2025 fall uh time drive capture spanning approximately 6,732 miles of roads in the uh Henipin County and 48 miles of trail capture. Um along with 5 years of licensing and hosting the service.

One of the primary uses of this is in the assessor's office where they're able to do local assessing uh using the the images from here when uh they're they don't go onto a particular property to make sure that we get uh an accurate uh assessment of of that that local property.

this action um is quite routine. It recaptures prior year unspent funds uh and then reallocates them to uh meet our both our federal requirements and county and community goals. Uh specifically, these funds will be reallocated to our consolidated pool, which is the largest portion of our um suburban cities uh for our essential home repairs program.

Just very, very creative work as always. Um, of course, the repurposing is in part because of federal federal timeline. Um, but just really appreciate the way in which staff is ensuring that our funds are being used to their fully full extent while advancing our broad affordable housing agenda.

I would I would actually like to lay this over to to the next committee. I'd like to make a motion to lay it over to the next committee.

We received a letter from the city of Minneapolis and I I think it's as we're trying to aim to close the herk, I think it's good to be collaborative with the city of Minneapolis. So, if staff could work with the city of Minneapolis in the next two weeks and come back when we're at committee and just maybe have some revisions for a plan.

I think it's worth having a little bit of conversation um just to make sure that we have an opportunity to kind of be transparent with where we're at and try to make sure that um we are doing this process in a way that is respectful of the community um and the HHS leadership uh as we're as we're moving forward.

I'm going to be supporting this next week and the reason I am is because we have to work on our communication, our collaboration between the county and the hospital. This is temporary from my perspective that we will rebuild the hospital hospital board.

Henipin County has an obligation to keep this hospital open. And when I hear publicly that the hospital has a risk of closing before the end of the year, when I hear that publicly, that is an emergency. That is a call to action with the authority that we have as this board to make sure that our level one trauma center remains open.

This action is about ensuring the operational continuity of the last public safety net hospital in Minnesota. HHS management has identified the operational risk of hospital closure at the end of 2025 and the HHS board has prioritized workforce reductions and program divestment as its primary solutions in service to the continued operations for the hospital.

You know the conversation here at the deis is about the possibility of a hospital closing. Um we are concerned about this. You know we have financial responsibility as the county board for any bills that are unpaid by the hospital. We have to hold it up. They have to make payroll. If they don't make payroll, we make it for them. This is this is the understanding that we have. This is a pretty big deal.

brought before you provides the um succession plan in the event that the county administrator is not available for emergency and non-emergency situations. This the last time this was updated was in 2016. We're bringing forward to update with new leadership in succession planning.

the agreement you have before you proposes uh services agreement that would include the creation of drawing and sculptures that are requested by the medical examiner's office to assist with identifying deedants. Uh the proposed artist would be transporting these sculptures, uh make corrections and fix damages. and it's a part of a proposal uh to include uh services for the annual missing person's day missing person's day.

In 2020, the sheriff's office entered into an agreement with Act One Group Incorporated doing business as ATIMS to replace its outdated jail management system. The scope of services included in the project management, data migration, interface, development, training, and ongoing support and maintenance.

The increased not to exceed amount is already included in the 2025 budget and the 2026 requested budget. Moving forward, ATIMS and the sheriff's office will continue collaboration to finalize the implementation of the JMS. The revised not to exceed amount accounts for ongoing maintenance support, ongoing maintenance and support, implementation of change orders and other related expenses through the end of the agreement term.

this is all backend. This isn't like the video call. This isn't anything on the client facing portion.

I was just going to mention how uh great 2A is. Um, as someone who just recently put a piece of furniture on my driveway, uh, I think it's great that that it'll get picked up in a Henipin County truck. Uh, but I think it's just, uh, great that we offer this service to residents, um, especially for those larger items and um that it is um really um a part of how we reach that 75% recycling rate um, which is coming up very soon.

I'm just going to call attention to the uh the Fletcher bypass and Rogers. uh this has been in conversation for decades and so it's very exciting to see this come through.

The green partners program supports organizations that implement projects that engage and empower residents to take action to improve the environment. And they also engage youth in environmental education and leadership opportunities.

these uh projects do total 236,300. Um, these agreements are before you because these organizations have existing contracts with the county that exceed $100,000. Um, but there are an additional 17 projects that are being awarded through administrative processes.

Twice a year, the county solicits proposals and awards funding for environmental contamination assessments and cleanup on brownfield sites to support future redevelopment. The seven projects recommended for funding as part of our 2025 spring ERF round um support the preservation and new development of affordable and supportive housing, the redevelopment of community and civic spaces, and the development of new green infrastructure in the cities of Minneapolis, Rogers, Robbinsdale, and St. Anthony Village.

these um these awards are in concert with development plans. So, people local to the community expressing a development need. Oftent times it's housing or affordable housing or another community need. and just uh how meaningful it is to ensure that there is environmental cleanup that matches uh and restoration that matches uh the residents in that area and then like mentioned the reducing barrier to development costs.

Little Earth Housing is in the middle of a development and this is uh this award is part of a soil uh vapor mitigation system. And I really want to just stress that little earth is in an area of district 4 that is underneath a toxic when we look at maps that asthma cloud that um that uh sickness cloud of of pollution there's a big red blob that always just sits right over little earth.

this action today uh authorizes Henipin County to submit for a grant application to um the it's a it's a federal grant through the state of department of transportation that allows us to continue the mobility program that we have put in place.

We have our mobility manager on board. We're beginning to put our work group together. We're beginning to uh work with other county departments to identify mobility needs and challenges for, you know, primarily the most um dependent um from both elderly and disabled services residents in Henipin County as well as primary users of Henipin County services that might find mobility as a challenge to access those services.

this amendment will implement the remainder of our 2025 home ownership assistance fund um to continue the great work of our home buyer assistance program for the rest of this calendar year. Um back in 2023, we set out to create a home buyer assistance program that would leverage the learnings from our home buyer assistance program pilot and our research partnership with CURA.

We were trying to meet two headwinds at the time um and both exist today. first stark disparities in home ownership rates. Um for households above 50% of the area median income, we see a 13,000 household gap between white and black and brown homeowners uh home ownership rates. Uh but the second headwind being the basic lack of housing supply.

I just want to also express the generational wealth that is built through home ownership. I know that's not true in every instance. Um, but as the second born in the US in my family, home ownership has been a really key aspect of economic stability and we have more barriers still.

Minnesota has the worst disparities in the country for home ownership rates for black and brown people. And I know that there will be a day where this pilot that turned into just a a part of what we do will bring that disparity down, right? To the point that we eliminate it, right? That's the goal.

for more than 20 years, Clare housing has provided housing stability and positive health health outcomes for people living with HIV AIDS at Clare Apartments over in Northeast Minneapolis. Uh, in recent years, the HA and other funders have awarded new capital funding for essential repairs to the building. This additional debt now far um exceeds the property's appraised value. So, forgiveness of the 2003 loan will allow the project to close on the recapitalization funding, which will ensure quality, affordable, supportive housing for a new 50-year term.

CEO Next is one of Henipin Countyy's secure signature business support cohort programs that provides in-depth research support and peer-to-peer learning for established growthminded second stage businesses. To date, over 180 Honey County businesses have participated in CEO Next. Those businesses have retained over 2,900 jobs and 750 new jobs.

This investment in these 34 advisor agreements represents the core offering of elevate henipin. By investing in these agreements, the housing and redevelopment authority is making specialized consulting services in the areas of business strategy, marketing, accounting, legal, technology, human resources, and more. Available at no cost to Henipin County business owners.

I just want to say that I have the opportunity many times to go to a lot of these Elevate meetings to talk to these businesses. And I want to say that how responsive the staff are. So when we don't have expertise in a specific area where new business, we go out and get it to make sure that we're filling holes that really meet the needs of this business community and these startups.

What's really um incredible about these two items 4C and 4 D is we know that small businesses and entrepreneurs are a vibrant and necessary part of our community. And these are very coste effective ways where the county has identified a very particular pinch point for a second stage entrepreneur or CEO and then for entrepreneurs and smaller businesses.

in 2017, the HR provided AON a $15,000 loan toward acquisition of three naturally occurring affordable housing properties. This lowcost investment qualified AON for the lowincome rental classification, otherwise known as 4D, um to reduce their property tax obligation and also ensured affordability at 60% AMI um for 30 years.

AON is now selling one of those three properties uh as part of its repair and grow strategy to rebalance and stabilize its portfolio. The sale and these board actions allow transferring the property to a local entity uh who will continue the affordability restrictions for the remainder of the term.

The item before you would approve a Henipin planning grant agreement with the city of Crystal Economic Development Authority to support the town center vision plan. The business district initiative and Henipin planning grant programs are administered through a coordinated process as part of Henipin County's economic development strategy.

The city is continuing its planning efforts in the Town Center mixeduse redevelopment district, which includes the future Bass Lake Road station on the Blue Line extension and is engaging in an updated vision plan addressing redevelopment opportunities and public realm improvements to guide the council in revising or developing zoning requirements and tools for the city and developers.

This will ensure that we have leadership uh going forward. So, consistent with last week's action um that the county board took with respect to the county administrator, we'd like to welcome Miss Wentland to the HR family.