[0:01] ready to go Mr Mayor thanks well good evening everybody I think this is the first time we've had a full delegation

[0:06] here usually us we have a snowstorm three people get here you know

[0:13] everybody annual snowstorm yeah and Julie we hope you feel better soon I

[0:18] heard your colleague Erica allenberg was sick I was supposed to be over there yesterday to celebrate her five years of

[0:26] chair chairpersonship and yeah I'm glad I'm I'm glad I'm able to zoom in you no one

[0:32] wants to be near me right now that's for sure so I'll keep you all safe a good distance so this is a work session of

[0:38] the ad city council with all of our key legislators and advisers and at least many of them we

[0:44] got a few that are missing but we got most of them here which is really wonderful and uh Sharon I'll call as I

[0:50] as I call them any order I'll next ask you to call the role for the council council member agu here council member

[0:56] Jackson here council member Pierce here council member sir here may hman here

[1:02] and then we'll go around the room I think and start with our Senator Lee mown at the end and introduce yourself

[1:07] please Senator El man Senator Ron Latz uh Patricia Alman

[1:13] executive director of Metro cities representative Cheryl Yim council member

[1:19] Risser Carn Jackson Council Kim huband Council James Pierce Council Kate AG

[1:24] Council Scott Neil city manager Katie sun with Master Le Kramer and vin with the leag of Minnesota City

[1:30] shis City and Julie green representative oh

[1:37] thanks um Daniel start over there yeah good evening Daniel I the league of Minnesota cities

[1:44] lens I everyone communications director mner city

[1:50] engineer hi I'm bill newor from the city's economic development manager all right um you know we've got

[1:58] a fairly extensive leg of agenda I want to ask um Scott Neil our city manager Mak a couple of comments and I think we'

[2:05] decided we don't want to delve too deep into this um legislative platform a

[2:10] couple of key things at the beginning were a couple of bonding Bill requests uh but we wanted to just have a

[2:16] conversation with all of you and get your observations on what you expect uh to see happen uh if we have a session or

[2:24] when we start the session when it ever that occurs and u talk about some of

[2:30] these other things as we go on Scott any open remarks you know we we prepare a a

[2:36] legislative platform each year we we start kind of at a bottom level and with staff and move it up uh we have a chance

[2:43] to talk with our city council about it a couple of times um so they have seen this before and and given it kind of the

[2:49] tenative approval uh we divide our platform into two sections one is is the

[2:55] priorities the second is is positions priorities are things that we Define as

[3:00] having a special impact on on our City generally uh our priorities uh this year

[3:06] have been uh a bonding uh bonding Bill uh uh assistance for The Interchange

[3:12] improvements at Highway 100 and Vernon Avenue that's which is just right here right outside of of city hall there's a

[3:18] bridge replacement going on there it will happen generally about the same time as the county is replacing the uh

[3:25] railroad bridge over the Dan Patch line uh so we want to do both of those projects simultaneously so that we don't

[3:31] have to interrupt your lives more than one uh one long year uh the second item

[3:37] is our bonding request for our Aquatic Center uh we have a a a very old uh

[3:43] Aquatic Center uh 1958 was it's when when it uh was built needs some love and

[3:50] care and a lot of money to uh make it work that's something we want to talk more about number three is a sales tax

[3:56] exemption uh for projects that are related to our Brar master plan and our Fred Richard master plan both of those

[4:03] projects uh were authorized by our voters as local option sales tax funded projects and so we're seeking a sales

[4:10] tax exemption from a sales tax funded uh project uh number four is extending uh

[4:17] the life of of two Tiff districts uh that U or excuse me yes two Tiff

[4:22] districts that on France Avenue uh number five uh really talks a little bit

[4:27] about protecting municipal employes employes and enforcement functions not not generally police uh but all those

[4:34] other people that work for the city and have interact with the public uh and an enforcement or a regulatory basis um and

[4:42] that those are our five items that we talk about as being our priorities the balance of them uh of this is our

[4:49] positions and the positions are Mo mostly positions that we've taken on issues in the past uh they're very

[4:55] similar to the leagues and and other other uh groups that take positions on

[5:00] these items and so I would say that's probably a good place to stop and and get some prognostication for what's

[5:06] going to happen in the in the near future one of the things that our Cil hasn't contribute to but so many in the

[5:13] gr I've worked on early on is housing this housing issue uh last session we

[5:19] had uh some folks at the legislature look at preemption of local land use

[5:26] regulation at the at the State Legislative level and we were successful in I think negotiating with them uh as

[5:34] legislators and kind of heading that off but we promised those that were interested in in housing affordability

[5:39] and housing production uh at the legislature that we will work on it in

[5:44] the off season and we started diligently with the league and others uh all the mlc cities Tom thanks for joining us

[5:51] want to introduce you that introduce yourself real quick oh hi Tom Paul with Paul hos

[5:57] representing the municipal legislative commission thank you than uh we've had quite a few meetings

[6:03] with uh legislators that are in key positions around housing and I don't know Daniel or Patty if you'd want to

[6:09] comment at all on where we are on some of those things yeah Daniel come on over and sit up at the

[6:15] table yeah thanks mayor and Council appreciate the opportunity to just provide some brief comments um on the

[6:23] housing efforts so as as May huin indicated we've been diligently working

[6:28] with uh both chairs report and Howard on uh as well as representative craft and

[6:33] others who were uh really key legislators in pushing the missing middle uh housing Bill last session in

[6:41] identifying um both you know places of of synergy where we can agree on um on

[6:47] on key principles you know we all agree that we need more housing across the housing Continuum I don't think there's

[6:53] a single City official in the state that would disagree that they don't need more uh housing stock in their City and Edina

[7:00] is is certainly one of them as well um but also um identifying areas where um

[7:07] you know some of the approach to how we achieve that can be improved and so um what we've been really focusing on is is

[7:14] moving the conversation from you know what's just going to work for the developer Community um so that they can

[7:20] you know sort of do whatever it is that they want to do and sell housing stock at whatever price point they want to

[7:26] sell um to what's going to work for for cities and developers that achieves the

[7:33] goal of of more development um across the affordability spectrum and the

[7:39] housing Continuum um and those conversations I think have been um really productive um you know I think

[7:46] there's still some disagreement in kind of the approach um the prevailing uh discussions from The Advocates and the

[7:53] proponents of that bill have been you know we really need to remove uh completely remove local decision making

[7:59] Authority in order to pave the way for the market to do what it wants to do and

[8:05] um I think that's really shortsighted um I think the conversation and what we've been really focusing on is um how do we

[8:12] create uh you know if if there is going to be a state framework how do we create that framework in a way that um provides

[8:19] the ability for cities to scale um those recommendations and requirements to to

[8:26] fit within their individual City communities um because what's going to work for youra is going to be a lot

[8:31] different than um you know than than Rochester going to be a lot different than bedet um how do we scale those

[8:38] things and then um you know how do how does the state continue to provide support for communities like Edina and

[8:45] others that have done a lot of this work at the local level already we don't want to have a state framework that

[8:50] completely replaces something that cities have done um in their efforts with their residents um and the input

[8:57] that they have um on those pie pieces as well and so um we're going to continue to have those conversations I know that

[9:03] there is going to be um sort of a missing middle 2.0 um series of bills um

[9:10] rather than one large package it's going to be six or seven um and so we'll continue to engage with um legislators

[9:17] in both caucuses as as those conversations move forward and make sure that we attempt to preserve local

[9:22] decision-making Authority find that balance um between scalability and local

[9:28] leadership um and then also have something that ultimately is going to work both for the developer Community um

[9:34] but also for cities as we do Planning and Zoning ensuring infrastructure is in place to support new development and

[9:40] density um putting density where it makes sense Etc so looking forward to working with um the din delegation here

[9:47] and um and our and our partners uh on this issue and um it's going to be a an

[9:54] interesting bipartisan issue to continue the conversation on and Patty and Tom too I think Tom can comment I just add I

[10:02] Daniel's articulated well the general issues we've been dealing with and and

[10:07] challenges around the preemption and I think that one of the other things we've tried to communicate and will continue

[10:12] to do is all the work that is going on at the local level um in cities on

[10:19] housing issues you know trying to meet the needs of their Community whether it's affordable housing life cycle housing of force housing um typically

[10:26] the state of course has played a very important role role historically and certainly recently there's been a lot of

[10:32] money uh put in but of course it's we always need more but um that's been the typical role for the legislature is to

[10:38] appropriate funds um we certainly do support those various funds that go into

[10:44] to housing needs um but I do think our part of our challenge going forward is

[10:50] going to need to continue to be to um work to communicate what cities are actually doing I do think there's some

[10:56] outdated perceptions particularly about what Suburban communities are doing with housing that are maybe 20 years out of

[11:02] date um and so you know we're going to continue Metro cities has been very um

[11:10] consistently opposed to the preemption and it's really hard to see how we find Middle Ground there so that's kind of

[11:16] been the the thing it um finding you know you're either preempted on zoning and land use Authority or you're not and

[11:24] um I usually articulate it by saying that somebody's going to make the decision is it the is it the state or

[11:29] local cities that get to make those decisions somebody's going to make the decision so we do continue to of course

[11:35] support having local communities uh make those land use decisions on behalf of their of their uh residents and

[11:42] businesses thanks Betty Tom your observations thank you good evening apologies for being late got stuck

[11:48] behind an accident on 100 so uh all good but uh yeah I think Daniel and Patty articulated it really well in that in in

[11:57] 2024 we really weren't at the table able at the beginning to talk about how best

[12:02] to solve these issues that in ways that work for the city or for communities and

[12:07] so at the end of the session we said we want to engage and so we held some all

[12:12] stakeholder meetings wanted to talk to the builders the developers the nonprofits and try and find some Middle

[12:17] Ground what what are the issues in terms of trying to build the kind of housing smaller homes on smaller Lots at a more

[12:24] reasonable price uh to try and move in that direction and so we we've had a good dialogue I think there there are

[12:31] disagreements but I think there are things we can do to help bridge the gap and that's really what we focused on at

[12:37] mlc is trying to figure out what are those things that we could do this session that would help uh and and move

[12:43] in that direction and I think from a big picture you know it all the housing kind of got lumped into one discussion and I

[12:49] think we need to to be a little more focused and talk about what are the solutions that are going to help get more homes built we're just we're at a

[12:57] shortage there's a lot of reasons why but we just need we need more volume in the market for one and then secondly

[13:03] housing affordability and affordable housing are are another issue that's really challenging and the affordable

[13:09] housing issue requires funding it it it it needs subsidy to happen it needs

[13:15] Partners but there needs to be money uh you know brought forward in order to make that happen and there's different

[13:21] strategies that can be utilized for for both of those there's probably some crossover but just generally looking at

[13:27] that so I think you know we've got and I can hand out our um our legislative

[13:32] agenda but we we have and I don't need to go through all them but we have some ideas on how to to do a little more you

[13:38] know one area that I think Idina probably has done better than others is the condominium area they're just condos

[13:44] are not being built like they were years ago and it's an option that I think

[13:50] people want but is not available to the degree it probably should and so what are the barriers why aren't they and so

[13:57] we're we're digging into that a little more to see if we can help solve that um or to use just some existing strategies

[14:04] uh for tax increment financing for example to say why can't we take excess or pooled dollars and use that for

[14:11] affordable housing there was a pilot project that was um brought forward in minaka took advantage of that last year

[14:17] maybe we could do that Statewide so I think there's U you know there's certainly some options that are maybe

[14:23] some that would be more agreed to and others like uh expanding the Musa line and saying you know if because we have

[14:30] these arbitrary border and there's a reason but uh land expanding land

[14:36] options within parameters could help that if you said you can expand it but

[14:41] it has to be in this certain density or this type of housing has to be you know built in those areas maybe you could you

[14:48] could get some progress so I think we're trying to put some different ideas out there that we'll get some debate and discussion and then we hope at the end

[14:53] of the day that some of these things that will work will get will get implemented and uh mhm find some

[15:00] solutions Julie go ahead um this is based on a house that was torn down and

[15:08] you know beautiful hardwood floors 1950s roof that was put in 3 years ago went

[15:15] for like 470 okay and um also a massive beautiful

[15:21] old oak tree was taken out and the other thing is it's sandwiched between two roads and so you could have had an ENT

[15:29] off of both you know the front of the house and the back of the house and we did just pass this accessory dwelling

[15:35] unit thing and I know this is one example but I feel like there is room

[15:41] for acknowledging the value of existing housing keeping things out of the landfill and also working with cities

[15:48] that have those accessory dwelling you know rights in place and what's really

[15:54] kind of heartbreaking is seeing the opportunities that are lost and the

[16:00] expense you know and then also just the training that a lot of us have received knowing that those houses that are older

[16:07] burn slower if they ever catch fire than the new ones going in and so I mean there's just so much there to work with

[16:15] and if there was a way to incent um naturally occurring affordable housing not just through Municipal action but

[16:21] seeing it as you know something that the county the state you know have a vested

[16:27] interest in particularly if we're going to reduce landfill I think you know I hope there's kind of a holistic Vision

[16:35] in place yeah I think you your spot on and and that is part of our legislative agenda is the natural occurring housing

[16:42] you know Noah that is the most affordable housing I mean that that new construction is not going to be the most

[16:48] affordable housing no matter how hard we try and especially in the Suburban area it's just really difficult with land

[16:56] prices uh you know all of it it's it's it's really challenging so using or

[17:01] keeping homes that uh you know an elderly couple wants to move out of Etc

[17:07] the affordable homes but getting yeah before the developer tears it down is

[17:13] you know if there could be some way to you know put in a step that the developer would have to go through

[17:19] before tearing it down I don't know I mean it just seems like there needs to be something and there's there's certainly

[17:25] I think it's a great Point there's certainly this misnomer that density sort of automatically equals

[17:32] affordability and we've seen we've seen that tear down sort of rebuild model

[17:37] play out over and over again in in communities certainly across the 7 County Metro where you have that sort of

[17:44] no a property that that gets that gets torn down the lot gets subdivided and um

[17:50] and a duplex or a Triplex is built and you know they're they're much less

[17:56] affordable on either side than the house that existed before it and so I think the conversation that we've been having

[18:03] with legislators who are really leading on on the housing discussions is the the conversation on housing sort of has to

[18:08] be twofold on the one hand there's there's this conversation on sort of we just need more across the Spectrum which

[18:15] is absolutely true um there's no disagreement there um and you can't just

[18:21] talk about um you know Statewide Frameworks to create more development

[18:26] and then leave out any ation on um policies and resources that make those

[18:33] products affordable because absent um resources as Tom was saying or policy

[18:39] that ensures those units are going to be affordable right when a city does Tiff or provides resources to a developer um

[18:46] to get affordable units you know we're providing that resource in exchange for affordability and it's required to be

[18:53] affordable if you just have you know policies that you know in theory from a developer standpoint say well yeah we're

[18:59] going to be able to sell stuff for cheaper they may be able to build it for cheaper but that doesn't necessarily

[19:04] mean that they're going to sell anything below what the market will bear for that product and so there has to be both

[19:09] conversations around how do we create policies and Frameworks that ensure affordability for that 30 to 60 to 80%

[19:17] average median income and then also how are we thinking about just overall production across the Continuum and how

[19:24] do we ensure that Tiff financed affordable housing is compliant yeah

[19:31] absolutely um I so I definitely appreciate the conversation there's one

[19:36] thing to me though I think is a glaring Miss we talk about we're talking about

[19:42] solving a problem that not everybody even agrees is a problem and so if we if

[19:51] the focus is and I think it's right it's zoning and funding right for sure um but

[19:58] to only talk about how do we solve those two problems without leaning into the

[20:04] awareness issue um I think that stifles progress and I'll just give two examples

[20:11] we had a conversation with one realtor who says well in Idina we need um

[20:18] smaller homes um main level housing

[20:23] remember we talked to and affordable so she actually agreed with the position

[20:29] that we had then I had another realtor from the same company say to me well

[20:37] James the market is what the market is if people can't afford to live here they

[20:42] could move to they got Hopkins St Louis Park Shaka right so he's started naming

[20:49] cheaper cities to move to and So within the same company you've got realtors

[20:57] that don't actually agree or see what the problem see that it actually is a problem to be able to get people to the

[21:04] table and I could give the same examples with two different developers who saw it

[21:11] differently as well so I think leaning into the awareness piece um has to be

[21:16] huge to get more people to recognize how this issue actually impacts everybody so

[21:24] that we can get more people at the table to come up with Creative Solutions I'm

[21:30] sorry so my ask would be for mlc and for the state legislators to figure out how

[21:37] we can we can up the ante on uh getting more people to see the

[21:43] problem so from a sort of threshold St standpoint you thinking we need to provide more data to support the notion

[21:49] there it's got to be greater production [Music]

[21:56] capacity so on the um I think Awareness on the production

[22:01] side and then I think the awareness of well who is affordable housing for and

[22:07] so there is a group of and none of this is bad but there are folks who believe

[22:12] affordable housing is for lower income individuals who want to live in our

[22:19] community um sure but it's also for the

[22:24] retiree who may be moving out of a million doll house house and want a

[22:29] downsize and want to buy something that's affordable you got to have products in the market for both of those

[22:36] things but you can't solve the other problem unless they realize no

[22:42] affordable housing or housing affordability is actually for everybody

[22:47] but you have to look at it through a different lens to understand the value of it yeah we you're right you're

[22:53] exactly right and it's changing that the discussion around it that's we talk a lot about Workforce housing and show

[23:00] examples of like we want a nurse we want a teacher to be able to afford to live where they work and that just doesn't

[23:07] happen unless you have the Continuum and you can do a Continuum even in a smaller

[23:13] um city like Hopkins we're 2 by two miles now we're over built on rental we

[23:20] have 65% rental we're 40% bipac 30% of our households make under 35,000 a year

[23:27] but a ton of our rent told is Noah and we need help updating it and our single family homes are becoming extremely

[23:34] unaffordable so you know finding that continues so people can age in place or

[23:39] downsize from we have a lot of folks in our um more market rate housing munit

[23:46] housing coming in from motanka that they've downsized and now that they don't they're empty nesters and they're

[23:52] moving in to Hopkins because they can afford the you know little story and a

[23:57] half that's 5 $50,000 already so on a 50 by 150t loot um but yeah it's it's a

[24:04] whole Continuum that you have to hit and Daniel's right in the sense that

[24:10] too it's that concept of oh yeah if you just change the zoning it'll be affordable and it's like no I don't

[24:15] trust that to walk across the street with it because it just won't happen there has to be some requirements around

[24:22] if you are going to make a mandate or at you know preempt then better be getting

[24:29] stuff for it and they I think people forget we can't the state can't do this by themselves the county can't do this

[24:35] by themselves the cities we all have to work together and I was going to ask too I don't know if you've had your discussion with um you new

[24:43] commissioner Heather Edon since we did put that quarter of a cent sales tax

[24:48] into Global housing it's going to the counties and they're deciding how it disperses but having those having the

[24:55] local units talk to the county and put pressure on how they want that to look would be really important coming to our

[25:01] council meeting tonight so in hour nice so where is the discussion on um the

[25:07] cost of building new housing is I remember years ago there was a lot of talk about are there ways of change the

[25:14] building code is that still alive is that part of the discussion yeah council member it

[25:19] certainly is I mean that's if sort of the through line of all this conversation is sort of the all of the

[25:26] inputs that go into build building uh a housing unit and it's I think it's

[25:33] harder to uh to regulate prices of lumber and labor for example um and so I

[25:41] think the focus has largely been on you know what can we regulate well cities are creatures of the state and this

[25:47] state and so we're going to focus on uh on on zoning and land use um but the

[25:52] building code piece I think is an important uh an important part of this conversation representative craft had uh

[25:58] a bill and now is going to be considered by the Department of Labor and industries to do um a single stairwell

[26:06] construction for multif family buildings um current State Building Code requires that multif family buildings have two

[26:13] separate stairwells for egress Ingress and egress um from a fire code safety so

[26:19] there's also this balance of like sh you know from an affordability standpoint making sure that we don't uh reduce

[26:27] Protections in the state building code to ensure that homes are built safely and durably and will last you know

[26:33] longer than that 1915 Bungalow um you know just for the sake of affordability

[26:39] and find that balance between you know making sure that when we do uh improve

[26:45] the code and do adjust the code that affordability is in mind and current statute does require the Department of

[26:51] Labor and industries to consider affordability as they are considering uh new updates to the code um and the

[26:58] developers are are involved in that process um and the the code really is is

[27:03] kind of the the Baseline but we are having conversations around that and I think there are also conversations

[27:10] around um from an energy code perspective you know what are things that can be done from a material

[27:16] perspective that may be a little bit more costly on the development side but

[27:21] over the course of the life cycle of the housing unit will save residents you know multiple X dollars on their um you

[27:30] know on their utility bills because of that durable construction um I know as

[27:35] somebody that lives in a you know a 1905 house in in South Minneapolis that

[27:41] old windows are are not very energy efficient they're they're they're problematic and so it's all about that

[27:47] balance of affordability on the front end affordability on the back end and also not compromising on kind of the the

[27:54] minimum levels for a a safe and durable home that uh that will last for for

[28:00] Generations but it is a part of the conversation conversation here is primarily evolved around

[28:08] ownership as opposed to rental and charl I'm wondering if you know if we had more

[28:13] rental and uh capacity multif family capacity in udina thinking about Hopkins

[28:19] has has it been pushed back from the single family homeowners about the changing pace of Hopkins or there's too

[28:27] much multif family well there's always thought that there's too much multif family but they overbuilt in the 70s so

[28:34] it's like we have what we have because of that there's a lot of discussion as we start to finally get market rate like

[28:41] I don't you know you don't want to overbuild and market rate too and then make it even um harder we already have

[28:48] really small Lots in Hopkins and the majority of Hopkins so there's not a lot of more subdividing to do um so the this

[28:58] discussion on the missing middle housing looks different when they talk about requiring cities to put a fourplex on a

[29:05] lot because our lots are 50 by 100 so um

[29:11] yeah just it and that's the point about local controls it looks different in every city but we you know there's been a push

[29:19] um to do more market rate but a lot of the market rate projects coming in

[29:25] aren't asking for tip and if the city doesn't own the property you don't have a whole lot of control if it's Z the

[29:30] right way to say no to a developer coming in and and doing market rate but we have a pretty wide variety between um

[29:38] RH we have section 8 we have um deeply affordable 30% we have a beacon um

[29:46] project we have a PPL project um so yeah

[29:51] we have a lot a governance question for you to at

[29:56] you at about the house the side only so we we spent much of the summer as Daniel said visiting with

[30:04] people that were in key leadership positions in the house jnie cleor uh Mike Howard uh and then on the Senate

[30:11] side uh you mentioned the senator from Burnsville and so Lindy port and so now

[30:18] now what well first I want to who are we talking to now for looking at when we you know we have the par dedication fees

[30:26] that can't be split unless you're dividing the property so that's something that I think folks are looking at because that really does affect

[30:32] Hopkins as we and will you as you go up because it means more people using your parks and your services but you're not

[30:38] getting the extra money for it um as for the governance piece we'll see so far

[30:44] you know we had you know they had 60 days worth of negotiations on a power sharing

[30:50] agreement and um a a ruling that had a

[30:55] we lost a member and a special elections coming on 28th so we'd hate to see two

[31:00] uh two weeks of uh plurality then be used to take power for two years because

[31:07] if things do change if they go in and say what they want to do which is change all the Committees elect a speaker once

[31:15] we get back to a tie on January 28th it can't go back it's done so that's the

[31:22] big discussion right now and we'll just see if people come to the table our leadership's still trying to negotiate

[31:28] Julie you're getting quite an indoctrination here yeah how was that for first

[31:34] session we hoping get right it actually has nothing to do with me being sick I

[31:40] promise but yeah no I mean I I think I think I uh appreciate what um what

[31:45] Cheryl just spoke about there and and making sure that we're respecting the will of the Minnesota voters that voted

[31:51] us into a tie and that we need to be by person so this is how we have to do it so plus we have

[31:58] we're waiting on a a a court result for shaki and um if if we go in now there

[32:06] has been a very strong message from the other side that they will not see or member oh so a very unprecedent we've

[32:14] never that's never happened even in 1979 the only other time where it's been a

[32:19] tied legislature their power sharing agreement looked different than ours they decided to do okay Republicans get

[32:26] the speakership Democrats get the major party chairs and it was all agreed upon and

[32:33] then like five a week or five days before session was going to start a Democrat had a heart attack and couldn't come to session he lived but he couldn't

[32:40] come to session and the speaker that who had been appointed as a republican got a

[32:45] lot of pressure to then take over until that person could come back and that

[32:51] Republican speaker said no to what end in a few weeks we're going to be back to a tie and we're going to have to to get

[32:58] along for 2 years so why parlay two weeks of a plurality it's not a majority

[33:04] it's plurality um into two years of control so when does that decision come

[33:12] from Shaka they were talking today it's a possibility it has to come before session starts well they got all the

[33:18] papers in December 30th or 3 first all the appeals and all the everything so

[33:24] hopefully soon but the court case did have they figured out which 20

[33:30] ballots had been they' not even sure how they'd been destroyed who the people

[33:35] were and have them come and testify on who they voted for and tapy had six more

[33:40] votes which mathematically then Aaron Paul can't win it's just whether or not

[33:47] um how the judge does the ruling but even if the judge does say he should be seated we've been told they won't see

[33:54] him you don't have any of those problems like that over the Sunday you you got that big margin Senate's got

[34:01] Senate's got a tie for two years too ask him the same question I got an easier we got an

[34:07] easier situation uh in some ways more tragic

[34:12] because it happened because we lost Senator diedi um but we are tied at

[34:19] 3333 um at least until there is a new Senator seated following the special

[34:24] election in in Senate District 60 to replace senator D um as a practical

[34:30] matter that's about an 80% dfl District so um it would be pretty stunning if if

[34:36] uh GOP would win that District so we're anticipating a 3433 continuing dfl

[34:43] majority but until then without an agreement the Senate can't

[34:50] organize die uh basically we give up all of our organizational Authority except

[34:55] for some in Authority so even though we're midterm

[35:01] as an institution uh we still have to organize we have to elect a president we have to

[35:06] elect all the front Des staff including the secretary of the Senate uh we have to elect a majority

[35:13] leader and uh so theoretically uh we could limp through

[35:22] um a couple of weeks if we don't have an agreement and they're working on discussion discussing having some kind

[35:27] of a power sharing agreement until until we're the body's at full strength uh we

[35:33] have one other little wrinkle which is we have a senator who's got a jury trial in northern Minnesota on January

[35:40] 27th um and especially if we're not organized at that point there's be no remote voting but given that she'll be

[35:47] tied up in a trial in all likelihood it' be hard for her to remotely vote anyway and are we're in the same position in

[35:53] the house where our rules don't follow you have to reestablish rules you have to to

[35:58] reestablish um everything basically so um if you know they came in and said

[36:06] okay with power sharing agreements out the window we get to set the Committees we're taking members off we're firing your staff that you

[36:12] have but we'll see what happens in 3 weeks and do we get them back um and if we're not

[36:18] organized we're constitutionally since our salary set constitutionally we get paid for the

[36:25] salary part that we have like all year we're legis all year but the PM the communications dispersements the

[36:32] housing allowance for Greater Minnesota members none of that can be done without a rules

[36:39] committee so at least until we're organized certainly in the Senate um as

[36:45] of yesterday which was the Constitutional expiration of the current legislative

[36:52] body um there are no formal there's no majority leader in the Senate there no formal committees the no committee

[37:00] chairs um staff are still paid um but they can't take any official action as

[37:06] committee staff so we're trying to figure out exactly how to how to manage that and

[37:12] you know when we get back to full strength um all of the existing committees will be reconstituted with

[37:19] the existing chairs um there'll be some shifts around because there have been some changes in the special election in

[37:26] Plymouth so we've had to move some some people around to make sure we've got um a place for our new Senator um but um

[37:34] personally as as a chair of a committee I don't want to lose two three four weeks of committee

[37:40] time um because time is very limited anyway so it it it will throw wrench in

[37:47] at things I'm I'm a little more optimistic I think we'll find a way to get through because the G could come in

[37:53] and say hey we're at a tie we need to do power sharing and that St is for the rest of the two years well not in the

[38:00] Senate he doesn't do it that way well we would never agree to no I know but I'm saying they could say that they could

[38:06] say that just like ours saying hey we're in control for two for two weeks we get to tell you what to do for two years

[38:12] well but they in the house you actually have you they actually have a real

[38:17] majority for the go plurality plurality enough to organize should they choose to

[38:22] exercise that that's a debate because you have to have a quorum to organize yeah well there's the debate and then

[38:28] you have U our secretary of state Steve Simon my constituent is going to be ging

[38:34] in and so and and running the house until we have somebody and lieutenant

[38:39] governor flan again is doing the same also a 46 well she's 46a resent is going

[38:46] to be ging in the Senate until they have so St Louis Park is really

[38:56] controlling formerly of St Louis Park now Hopkins we got two branches of

[39:02] government functioning courts and judicial and the executive branch and where a lot of the work gets done is is

[39:08] not well yeah are still functioning because we all still work we're all getting you know meetings like this at

[39:15] least for us at a minimum we will lose time but it won't change the outcome in the end in the Senate well when you all

[39:21] do go back to work uh are there things that you think we should be mindful of

[39:27] that we should be helping you on you've got you'll have our list of legislative priorities there you've heard about a

[39:33] few of them just in sort of summary form but are there things that we should be doing to help you instead of it being a

[39:39] one-way street that we're working together on things I have a quick question on the bonding bill for The

[39:45] Aquatic Center was that under the local option sales tax that passed or was that just ice arena it was all right and it

[39:52] has a big Regional use yeah and we draw I we can give you the

[39:58] you didw oh no yeah we've done we've done um bonding for well we've mostly

[40:03] done local actual sales tax for aquatic centers and not bonding as much so that's I don't know how much of a

[40:09] precedent there is there but that also number four the tax increment I I kind of know about the tip from carrying it

[40:16] uh last year but um city where it says the city requests an extension of the 5

[40:22] to 10 year rules in addition the city requests this um ability to extend the the terms of each Tiff agreement by city

[40:30] council so you're saying extended even further by just a City Council vote versus the legislative to statute the

[40:38] request is the same as last year and how that was written is to ask the

[40:46] flexibility um but in order to extend the district in the future it would be a

[40:51] future vote vote by the city council by the school board and by the county

[40:57] that's how last year pass okay so there's still a pretty high bar but at

[41:03] least it's an option you go and that was in the bill that almost

[41:12] passed yeah thank

[41:20] you didn't get a bonding Bill well you know bonding Bill requires

[41:26] by part partisan cooperation super majority which is going to be uh harder

[41:32] to find I would expect uh on the other hand there's a lot of local builtup

[41:39] projects pressure um and so I still think there's a possibility of passing

[41:45] something um again it probably becomes fodder for the end of session

[41:51] negotiations uh this time including major budget negotiations if we could just talk about the Bing bill is the

[41:57] bonding Bill instead of having us trading it for for them the biggest trade for us in the house was they were

[42:04] like you know we won't if you pass you can't pass the Equal Rights Amendment if you pass if you want a bonding bill so

[42:11] there were other things attached to it when they were negotiating I'd love to come in and just

[42:18] talk negotiate bonding as bonding nothing else attached what's the budget

[42:29] um we've got a little over a $600 million uh I don't want to call it a

[42:35] surplus but it's a uh funds available this by anyia um but the

[42:42] Tails um about $5.1 billion shortfall um and uh there were a number

[42:51] of budget moves made last year that took one-time money and put some of it into

[42:57] longer term expenditures um certainly in my budget area I'm most familiar with it but we we

[43:04] took we took some onetime money we've made it available for a four-year

[43:09] period uh which means we're not going to hit a cliff for this by any them but our Tails will hit the cliff um and so we're trying to be

[43:16] cognizant of that um and when you factor in inflationary increases uh you know just to maintain

[43:23] current levels of operation it's a really really tight budget yeah and that's I mean we did that's part of the

[43:29] reason why it looks as tight as it does is because we did finally add inflation to both sides of the books instead of

[43:34] just making believing numbers um but the yeah the tals does not look good and

[43:41] we're always cognizant of the tals when we when we use money and not going into ongoing but it's also a forecast model

[43:49] that they've always been really conservative about um my biggest concern is when they did it they weren't taking

[43:54] into account um that um forecasting the economic houses that do all modeling

[44:01] we're not taking into account any changes at the federal level when it came to like tariffs or things that are

[44:08] going to affect the economy um so we'll have another forecast in February that

[44:13] talks more about chewing up in real dollars and that's usually the number we look at and then when they when we do

[44:20] get targets they usually give us you know first B you know first bium Target

[44:25] and then a second bium target um to look at the Tail's Target so we'll

[44:31] see and the the bonding forecast is allows for a $780 million bonding bill

[44:37] which is almost 200 million lower and almost all Bond than last yearh that compared the two years ago when you

[44:44] included cash it was over2 billion bonding bill so a lot lot smaller than the bill two years ago 785 780

[44:55] okay because of the debt de service in the tals and the tals and I think because of probably lower revenues must

[45:01] be too but it's in the it is that's what the forecast number was think with the

[45:07] kind of challenges you have this year because of the uh structure that it it means that if you

[45:14] get some things done it's more likely to get they more likely to get done like a oneoff piece of legislation like a

[45:20] bonding bill as opposed to having a big Omnibus Bill where things all get Lo together talk about that every year

[45:27] process question mayor um I I prefer smaller bills that at

[45:33] least related in in subject matter the Constitution requires a single subject

[45:38] but um I think there's only been one time in history that the the Supreme Court has overturned a bill that was

[45:45] passed on those grounds um and uh part of the challenge is that you run out of

[45:51] floor time and especially if the uh if you got some members of the body that

[45:58] are using up a ton of floor time to make political points you're welcome um yeah

[46:03] thanks they sent us their most vocal house members into the Senate um who

[46:09] refused to uh don't worry we' got some new ones now um but suffice it to say we I think

[46:18] we could have made better use of the senate floor time but we you couldn't so if you can't have full debates on 13

[46:25] budget bills um you end up lumping them into into one is the way it ended up in the end which

[46:32] is a terrible way to make policy um but we had to get stuff done and we felt we

[46:38] did and that's the way it ended up um so it takes a certain level of cooperation

[46:43] for there to be good governance which is I'm actually hopeful for that this year if we still keep with

[46:50] uh the phrase that's been coined now the house a t ority that um it will it will

[46:55] put more pressure on us to work together uh we just have to make sure there is a

[47:02] lot of new members in the house on both sides and I think it probably looks the same on the Republican caucus but in the

[47:08] dfl caucus there's eight of us out of the 67 that have served in the

[47:14] minority that's how many new members there are so like it it's me and like me

[47:20] and Pino and then like the six people above us um and I think it's probably

[47:26] pretty similar in the Senate that there's not as you got a lot of new members too that haven't served in the minority before or haven't served in the

[47:33] majority before um yeah we we're not as lopsided as you because um it's just

[47:41] uh um but it's hard for people to when they've only served in the majority to

[47:46] realize that someday they could be in the minority and it's harder to get things done and how do they want to be

[47:53] treated when they're in that position um and uh so you got to think

[47:58] longer term in maintaining some positive relationships how you conduct yourself um I think this year is going

[48:05] to be mostly a steady as you go year there's not a lot of budget room for new

[48:12] initiatives um I don't think there'll be a lot of political support in terms of bipartisanship for uh big new uh

[48:20] initiatives there'll be some there'll be pressure to come together on things and

[48:25] I think that's what we get done I don't think you'll see any of the the more extreme uh proposals uh get very far I

[48:33] think that's just the political reality so if if I can come out of uh

[48:39] Judiciary and Public Safety with basically a a maintenance level budget including cost

[48:46] living increases for personnel and and health benefits increases and and some

[48:51] smaller initiatives um you know I'll be pretty happy

[48:57] I would think you'd have a strong chance on Public Safety finding some common ground

[49:04] usually we do um in in some years we've had some issues that uh were were deal

[49:12] breakers for that bipartisanship uh most notably in 2023

[49:17] the two gun violence reduction bills um which normally we get about

[49:22] 2third of the senate or more to vote for the public safety bills but uh we didn't have anywhere near that um in

[49:30] 2023 um we did pass uh well last year we had some issues too and he passed a

[49:36] standalone Judiciary Public Safety just before everything else collapsed into one single

[49:46] Universe you know one thing on housing I was forgot to mention earlier that as part we've had these conversations

[49:51] through the summer and the fall with different groups um

[49:57] one of the things we've never really uh vetted very well is uh requiring cities

[50:03] of a certain size to have an affordable housing policy I think Hopkins has one St Louis

[50:08] Park has one we have one but a lot of these cities don't have an affordable housing policy and and when I when our

[50:15] affordable housing manager looked at the data before we had that policy it was just the bully pulpit you know and you

[50:22] get five here a couple here big developments and we could put that affordable housing policy in place we

[50:29] really took off and it seems to me that that's something that you could all think about as you go through this

[50:35] process of looking at what are the different mechanisms for production and

[50:40] affordability achieving some of those goals that might be something to look at is whether cities of a certain size

[50:46] ought to have a mandatory affordable housing policy I mean Bloomington has a good one

[50:53] to look at ours looks good I can't St Louis Park I think those are all good models in our neck of the woods Hopkins

[51:00] just recently did one you worry about that looking like a preemption or mandate well that's I'd like to learn

[51:06] more about the preemption issue and where it's coming where the pressure is coming from from whom yeah I mean I

[51:13] think mayor you're kind of referring to the I inclusion zoning policies that

[51:19] cities call them different things differently um but essentially the sort of the the the gist of it is that um for

[51:28] generally for multifam development um a city would say look if we're going to give you you know resources Tiff Etc um

[51:37] you're going to have a percentage of these units in whatever development you decide to do whether it's market rate or

[51:43] affordable have a percentage of those units in that new development at a you know 60% to 80% average Med income level

[51:51] and um you know I think for communities that have um you know High propensity

[51:56] for for multif family rental development um it can be a really good tool um Minneapolis Bloomington Richfield and

[52:02] others have have done have had great success um you know for cities that

[52:07] aren't doing um as much of that higher level development for multif family it may make less sense but I think it's

[52:14] certainly something that cities you know should be thinking about in terms of maybe it's not inclusionary zoning but

[52:19] how do we create that environment at the local level um through local decision

[52:25] making to um you know roll out the red carpet for the development that we need and I think a lot of cities are doing

[52:30] that it may not be in that particular way um but a lot of cities um are doing that and so certainly we can continue to

[52:36] have that conversation and Mr chair to your question I mean I think you know the the pressures really for the last

[52:42] six years have been um surrounded by the for-profit homeb building industry um

[52:50] housing first Minnesota which is kind of the the the trade Association for the

[52:55] the big the big developers the m& the Lars they do they do they want they want to be able to um develop um in any City

[53:04] whatever they would like um they really do not like so preemptive prohibition

[53:10] on reasonable guard rails like they really dislike anything that they that

[53:15] adds that their perspective adds cost to their their development and that started

[53:21] with the I mean I when I was in the minority on go Ops they ERS came and

[53:27] pushed for the changes to the building codes I remember just because I asked can you tell me one building code that

[53:32] doesn't have to do with health and safety and it was like crickets yeah and City fees the park dedication things

[53:38] that things that cities the building fee itself I mean anything that fee related for sure sewer and water accessibility

[53:45] like anything that cities require as you know reasonable baselines to ensure that

[53:51] housing is is is built safe is built sound and is going to last for

[53:56] generations and ensures that your you know your toilet doesn't flush into your basement um ensures that we have green

[54:03] space for residents to enjoy you know things that residents I think when they go to purchase a home really expect a

[54:09] city to be doing um you know those Services cost money and and we have the

[54:15] philosophy in our organization and cities across the state do that growth should be paying for for growth that if

[54:22] a developer is going to come in and and build property and they're going to cut down beautiful hundredy old oak trees

[54:27] that they should probably have some skin in the game to replace some of that tree canopy or you know if they have a a new

[54:33] subdivision with 50 new homes that are going to be demanding you know uh park

[54:39] access um that's some Park dedication funding for so the city can build um new

[54:44] capital projects to provide more park space for um for new residents is is fairly reasonable um and you know when

[54:51] they were kind of beating cities up on on the fees and the building fee stuff

[54:57] when you look at the overall costs the inputs of what it takes to build a home

[55:02] um the fee piece on the city side which is what I said you know it's it's 3 to 7% of that so we're certainly continuing

[55:11] to and willing to have those conversations of of how do we work together to address this problem but

[55:17] when the finger just gets pointed at local units of government I think it's really frustrating because you know this

[55:22] city and and all of our members work really really well with the de developer Community we want development but it has

[55:29] to work so I won't speak for Cheryl but we both served on City councils for many

[55:34] years um well functioning City councils that that found the value for the most

[55:41] part I guess you can speak for Hopkins St Louis Park when I was on there for nine years we functioned pretty well

[55:47] across ideological lines um and uh see a value in local

[55:55] discretion local control local control um so I could I just add one thing to

[56:02] kind of to your question on The Following on what Daniel said the the uh Coalition the big Coalition that was

[56:08] really Builders developers and housing Advocates really the Nugget the Nexus of

[56:14] that agreement is on the preemption and both want to use it for

[56:20] different exactly so the builders don't want City regulation of any kind they never have they never will

[56:27] and housing Advocates are under using the assumption that the zoning preemption would equal more

[56:33] affordable housing and so they've you know they have a marriage going now and and I say prove it to me it's

[56:41] not it's evolved into a much larger Coalition than just the home builders

[56:47] what started as just the home builders piece I think is really involved into this sort of strange bedfellows kind of

[56:53] Coalition where you have a lot of the a lot lot of the affordable housing Advocates even like the Energy Efficiency folks that have sort of drank

[57:00] the Kool-Aid on you know preemption equals the answer to all of our needs and uh you know we did this like cute

[57:07] little Vin diagram and just to focus on look there's a there's a group of legislators and I could see it when I first got elected in the house in 2002

[57:15] only two of us in my Democratic class had served on local government one was a mayor was a city council like me and

[57:22] there was a difference in attitude toward local governments there was a lack of trust in local governments to

[57:28] make their own decisions to make their own mistakes but that's their right um

[57:34] and they're elected and they stand um for reelection as accountability for whatever decisions they make um so I

[57:41] I've always seen a bit of a more limited role for the state in terms of preempting local government decision-

[57:47] making but a lot of people the legislature don't have that experience they come in they see the world is not

[57:53] working well and somehow now that they're in the state legislature they know how it should work and they should tell everyone else how to do it well or

[57:59] they lump local government all together so that it's different with school boards I mean local government you guys

[58:04] usually don't get a heck of a lot of money School boards are a mess is that what you government Aid right you know a road

[58:12] call first responder and everybody should be able to do that no matter where you go to Minnesota Morris has what 55 60% of their budgets local

[58:19] government Aid um but school districts they get 70 to 80% of their funding from

[58:25] the state so that's different when you want to talk about what you're going to do with that money so like I feel more

[58:33] comfortable as education Finance chair telling a school board well we're giving you x amount you need to take care of

[58:38] your kids and this is some of the pieces versus local governments that are

[58:43] basically funding themselves except for a few carrots from the state that's a

[58:49] whole different ball game but a lot of people lump in that local control the same

[58:54] way be ophy applies much more broadly than just preemption on housing issues I

[59:00] mean talk about sales sales tax need permission from the state school districts need permission

[59:08] uh have to go to referendum you know on some things they have 30 they have 30

[59:14] other local levies they can do by in by um just you can ra you can raise your

[59:20] revenues without having to go to referendum municipalities school boards don't have that as much flexibility as

[59:26] do and I don't personally I don't see the difference voters can say I don't like

[59:32] what you did vote them out or not it's been an interesting

[59:37] experience getting uh involved in that overall op sales tax methodology where

[59:42] you first have to prove that it has a regional implication and then you got to get permission from the legislature to

[59:48] go to your own voters to ask them if they want to approve it or not I mean it's you know why why don't you just go to the grass

[59:55] Ro to let the voters decide and there is not use the legisl as a screen right and

[1:00:01] there is legislation pending and I think we'll see it again uh on the local option sales tax in having a a bypass if

[1:00:07] you will for a regional project and so I think that's important and I think the

[1:00:13] whole local government sales tax issue is really important you know there was a slew of them approved a couple years ago

[1:00:19] and then they put a moratorium on that moratorium goes through 25 and so unless the legislature addresses it and looks

[1:00:26] at how to move these forward uh you know a lot of cities are in a tough spot with

[1:00:31] projects that they had planned on on moving forward yeah and to play The Devil's Advocate one of the things chair

[1:00:37] Gomez kepts talking about is it sounds great to have locals decide but then you end up raising the Statewide like

[1:00:45] Statewide sales tax has raised over 1 and a half% in the last 15 years just because of all these ones and say if you

[1:00:52] look at education fi Finance if you look at that piece of it you you do want districts to lovey

[1:00:59] because that's supposed to be the icing on the cake what we give them supposed to be the batter we've underfunded of them so some of the icings become the

[1:01:05] batter but you also have property Rich districts that can Levy so we cap them a

[1:01:11] little bit because it shouldn't depend on where you live as a child how you get educated so there there's that tension

[1:01:17] and that balance that's there um so I'm all for having that Fuller discussion I

[1:01:22] actually when I was property tax chair wrote kind of an off ramp bill that we

[1:01:28] could couldn't get through the but um almost didn't get out of my caucus either but it's a whole another story

[1:01:35] but um yeah I think I always look at The more I've learned about school finance

[1:01:40] and then being on a city council there really are kind of a different discussion around what local control

[1:01:45] looks like right and there's a dialogue around sharing of that that's one of the

[1:01:51] the sticky points in in moving forward the equalization component that that the

[1:01:56] house has and actually Senator rest in her bill has a small piece of that too I

[1:02:01] think hers is 5 still undefined sort of yeah right so def but not D like okay

[1:02:07] yeah that one one key difference I'll just say too that uh Department of Revenue had

[1:02:13] coordinated a task force a couple of years ago and I do think that helps will help ongoing conversations on trying to

[1:02:21] get some level of bypass for certain projects it doesn't ask for much we we are sure

[1:02:26] we don't get we don't get local government Aid we are one of the big contributors of fiscal disparities you

[1:02:33] know we don't when we come we only come because we need to come so and we are

[1:02:39] since we have obviously a sales tax has passed here watching closely if any of those bills impact ones that have

[1:02:45] already passed for our just for our legislators to know that is good that we should be on the defense this year

[1:02:51] because we just don't know what is keep us posted if you hear anything or see anything because you know cities that

[1:02:57] have already passed them made all their planning based on getting that amount and so if they then went back and took

[1:03:03] some of that to try to redistribute it that could and they've borrowed against so I don't I don't assume they wouldn't

[1:03:09] go there but let us know if you hear anything I know it's a consideration for

[1:03:15] future ones um other things that you think we

[1:03:22] should be mindful of are inside baseball things you want to

[1:03:28] share with us tonight readence going here it's only

[1:03:34] being recorded I was just going to see if I had one other question are you hearing

[1:03:39] anything on Transportation that's going to be happening we've just started up some meetings on that I know one of the issues uh that we're going to be trying

[1:03:46] to address is that the transportation advancement account that was created in

[1:03:52] 2023 which is made up of the retail delivery fee and the phase in of the um

[1:03:59] sales tax on auto auto parts uh is coming in low and that will have an

[1:04:05] impact on cities because part of those funds go to larger cities for discretionary money on their

[1:04:10] transportation system and the small cities assistance account which helps our cities under 5,000 that are not on

[1:04:16] any other formula oh is that the small lows yes yeah so that's coming in a little low I know I heard um today that

[1:04:23] potentially Senator jinsky is going to drop something in to try and make up the shortfall on that because uh our cities

[1:04:30] did get projections and probably have budgeted around some of that um other

[1:04:35] than that we're watching how the the indexing of the gas tax plays out the

[1:04:40] 2024 bill was pretty big or 2023 bill was pretty big so you know I don't anticipate given the the budget

[1:04:47] situation that uh Advocates are going to come in with a really big ask but that's where I think the bonding bill is really

[1:04:55] critical um that bill tends to have pots of money that help cities all over the

[1:05:00] state uh with the local Road Improvement program the local bridge account the local Road Wetland replacement program

[1:05:07] and then of course all those um other water infrastructure funds that are typically included in a bonding bill so

[1:05:14] we're going to be placing a lot of emphasis on trying to get that done great thank you thanks for asking yeah

[1:05:20] noticed an article a couple weeks ago that Evan ramstead wrote about uh demographic iics and how we're not even

[1:05:27] keeping up with the national average in terms of our population growth fact we're slipping backwards and I think we

[1:05:32] had Hazel Reinhardt do some work for us the old State demographer and she said we're birthing 10,000 fewer kids a year

[1:05:38] in Minnesota than we were just a decade ago and um I'm wondering if you're all

[1:05:44] starting to think about that is how do we how do we accomplish a strategy around immigration or uh population

[1:05:51] increase population growth what are we going to do to where these workers going to come from for these good businesses

[1:05:58] we're trying to maintain or build well Minnesota's warming

[1:06:04] up so that might change the migration Trend a little bit weather not withstanding today's weather

[1:06:10] notwithstanding we could get into a whole immigration discussion U that would take us quite a

[1:06:17] while um I think we need to have we need to be able to welcome

[1:06:24] people um who want to

[1:06:31] work Tom or k can I just add a um a comment on on what you just said mayor

[1:06:38] um you know we did talk we have talked about this a lot at least on the ad School Board the migration and the impact that it has on schools and have

[1:06:45] looked at kind of um long-term trying to plan and I think actually the

[1:06:50] relationship with the city has kind of been based on that and making sure that we are taking care of of what we need to

[1:06:56] do to make sure that we are continuing to attract students um so I think it's a way bigger discussion but I do think

[1:07:03] it's interesting to um bring school boards in across the state to talk about this because um it's having an impact

[1:07:11] already okay you thanks for that maybe on just a couple closing notes on things we've talked about one is just huge

[1:07:18] shout out to our delegation who I work with really regularly I mean having two chairs on your delegation who are deal

[1:07:25] makers and knowledgeable really makes a difference for helping us get I mean even talking to Senator rest about the

[1:07:30] tax bill like having those relationships and um you know dealing with same thing

[1:07:35] on the house side representative Gomez and pulie and it it really makes a big difference in our success so thank you

[1:07:42] um and I think you all know this but mayor huband is like the go-to person on housing so if it's not an issue you've

[1:07:49] worked on along with the city groups who I think if you had told me at the beginning of session that we would have

[1:07:54] ended up with we did at the beginning of session like we ended up in a really good place and that's because of the

[1:08:00] groups that are here but for our legislators that may not know mayor hin is deeply involved in that issue and

[1:08:05] that and negotiating that issue so if you hear about it from other people you know he's a great resource so um so I

[1:08:14] think that's but we've been successful the last few years a lot based on those relationships that people

[1:08:20] have I would just Echo what Katie said um to the city officials here your delegation is very accessible you are

[1:08:27] folks who always have open doors even if we don't agree or you can't get to where we need to be with an issue we always

[1:08:33] talk and you're always receptive to our ideas so I want to thank you for that and then um just as a takeaway we do

[1:08:39] have a long of your list of priorities that some of which we have not discussed tonight and these are priorities that

[1:08:45] are adopted by the League's board of directors and Scott Neil is a member of the League's board so um he's a great

[1:08:51] point of contact too on um all kinds of City issues but he's definitely a voice for the league as well can I ask you

[1:08:57] both to send that to me electronically so I can attach it to my notes from today we don't really have offices that

[1:09:03] much anymore right now we were in the Centennial Building yesterday and we were like CU lot of Cu I actually do

[1:09:11] have an office with a door just because I've like Pino and I are up there but it's still I like because then I can

[1:09:17] find it anytime I want so and I'll just add that Metro cities also we are putting the final touches on our

[1:09:23] legislative priorities so and we will be sending those electronically so and I will absolutely Echo what what

[1:09:30] Katie and and an said that the legislative delegation is phenomenal to work with and and it does make a

[1:09:35] difference the the reason a housing Bill didn't pass that was detrimental was because of our delegation in all honesty

[1:09:43] and so uh it is important to have a local understanding of how things work

[1:09:50] uh sitting on a city council and and that engagement is is really really important so we really appreciate the dialogue

[1:09:55] um I will also put a plugin we have our mlc breakfast coming up February 7th I'd love to have all of you there at the

[1:10:02] Plymouth Community Center bright and early 7:30 but that be a snowstorm that day yeah we don't get snow anymore no

[1:10:10] hope not just that day yes yeah probably will Danel anything good of the order no

[1:10:16] I don't think I would add anything to that great great uh discussion and appreciate uh represent you came Senator

[1:10:23] lats and Senator man and represent green for coming here and um listening to us

[1:10:28] and um just looking forward to a what is sure to be a whirlwind of a session but thanks for always being uh willing to to

[1:10:36] chat and to understand uh issues impacting not just cities in your

[1:10:42] District but cities across the state of Minnesota thanks Julie have you been sworn in

[1:10:50] yet no not yet I mean officially started yesterday that's what my the terms start

[1:10:55] but yeah swearing and it's next week they're going to see her we're not

[1:11:02] worried about that one not worried about representative like green her started by

[1:11:09] that's right

[1:11:18] she's thanks for inviting us thank you very much

[1:11:25] that's just