[Music] welcome to agenda Edina a program summarizing the actions taken at City Hall that affect you most I'm your host dorothia Marty affordable housing is being considered for development adjacent to the new Fire Station 2 the city bought an 8 acre property on West 76th Street to build the new fire station which will take up less than half the site one option the city is exploring is the development of housing to meet 's affordable housing goals so housing on this site uh would help the city uh with achieving its comprehensive plan goal of uh providing approximately 1,800 units uh of affordable housing by 2030 um and also uh helping the city with meeting its climate action plan goals uh reducing VMT and increasing public transit ridership by providing more housing near near Transit and jobs the Dina housing Foundation hired lhb architecture and engineering to create concepts for housing on the site the foundation and lhb presented three preliminary ideas to the city council at a work session earlier this month one option is five sets of 4unit twostory town homes another is a four-story apartment building with 45 to 50 units and three sets of 4unit two-story Town Homes the third option is most dense with both three and four-story apartment buildings on the site council members gave the foundation feedback on the proposals and asked for additional information to move forward with the project the foundation would need to request control of the site from the city the cost of the land if acquired by the foundation has not been determined the city's new diversity equity and inclusion manager began work earlier this summer Thomas Brooks will continue the work needed to follow through on the city's vision of providing a high quality of life for all its residents Edina TV shows us how Thomas is approaching his new role in any Community change is unavoidable but how a city views and reacts to that change takes intention Thomas Brooks has been on the job as the new diversity equity and inclusion manager for only a couple months but he's taken that time to learn and gather data it's a great way for me and for staff to one make sure that we understand the community um who's actually in the community and who's actually accessing City programs and services Brooks arrived at the city after working for the state of Minnesota a move he says brings him closer to both employees and residents on a day-to-day basis I look at a city like AA and certainly something special has been built here in the city but I also look at a city like AA and there there is so much potential and opportunity particularly when we start to leverage um an inclusive and and and Equity lens and the work that we're doing work that includes looking at guiding documents one of the things that Thomas and I will be working really closely on and also having the opportunity to engage the community in is as we look at our Equity strategic action plan to how can we move our community forward and follow the data in order to be able to make changes to best serve the rest of our residents Services accessible to anyone regardless of need which goes hand inand with recruiting and retaining a diverse Workforce some of those hardto fill jobs that we have within the city that maybe aren't getting as many applications as we'd like or are particularly harder to diversify because there are so uh limited applications and like what can we do to create ideas taking City operations into sharp focus with the help of a new and experienced point of view Thomas is a thoughtful Problem Solver I'm super excited for the opportunity to work alongside him to learn from him and to grow with him from Edina City Hall I'm Scott Denfeld Edina TV Brooks resume includes a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology he also serves on the Minnesota Board of Social Work where he aims to reduce barriers for social workers especially those working with diverse communities the Aina police and fire departments have relaunched Smart 911 a service that has dual purposes notify the public of Public Safety incidents and better inform First Responders of a resident's health conditions and more smart 911 allows police sergeants Fire Chiefs 911 dispatchers and Communications Department staff to send alerts on Public Safety incidents throughout the city smart 911 also gives residents the opportunity to share information about themselves such as their health conditions pets and more so First Responders have that important information when they respond to an emergency the goal around the smart 911 is to try to inform the public as quickly and efficiently as possible about a significant event our officers and our sergeants have to try to maintain the scene they have to try to manage it manage the Personnel manage the situation so they're not going to be able to do it in a real-time setting so it's going to be within an hour and a half or two hours of an of a significant incident that will allow them to be able to communicate out via text email Facebook and Twitter uh what the situation was if you are interested in enrolling in public safety notification text updates text Edina alerts to 67283 once this step is complete you can either stay subscribed to the text messages only or you can finish creating your smart 911 account by clicking on the link in the follow-up text message to opt out of text notifications send the word stop to 67283 if you do not want to sign up for text alerts but want them in another way you can visit Edina mn.gov alerts to start creating your account and manage your notification preferences the 50th and range street project near ID City Hall is behind schedule pushing the completion date to late September soils in the area were different than preliminary borings indicated causing a change in how two retaining walls along the north side of West 50th Street can be constructed the contractors and Engineers have determined a different technique and construction is scheduled for Mid August after the walls are installed the remaining concrete curb and sidewalk and pavement will be installed the street will reopen as soon as it is safe for both The Traveling public and the contractor I hope you are enjoying these last few weeks of subber which starts to Signal the end of road construction in Minnesota thank you for watching this episode of agenda Edina I'm your host dorothia Marty [Music]