Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the regular business housing and zoning committee for August 4th, 2026. My name is Jamal Osman and I'm the chair of this committee. I will call order in this meeting. Before we begin, I want to remind folks that this meeting are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. They include real-time captioning to increase accessibility of our proceeding to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully transcribe all comments for the broadcast. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. We'll be using speaker management for this meeting, so please make sure you are signed in. At this time, I'll ask clerk to call the roll so we can verify a quorum. >> Council member Rainville. >> Present. >> Warren. >> Present. >> Shafer. >> Present. >> Chavez. >> Present. >> Chughtai. >> Present. >> Vice Chair Choudry. >> Present. >> And Chair Osman. >> Present. >> That is seven members present. >> Right. Let the record reflect we have a quorum. If folks want to speak during any of the public hearing for today, please sign up with the clerk at the end of the dais. Our agenda is front is front of us and we'll begin with the consent agenda. Item four approves two liquor license. Item five approves 15 liquor license renewals. Item six approves two gambling license. Item seven approves four gambling renewals. Item eight approves rezoning application for the neighborhood development center. Item nine approves a workforce development board appointment. Item 10 authorizes a contract amendment to the pizzeria project in the convention center. Item 11 accepts a bid for the interior doors at Target Center. Item 12 is accepting a bid for remodeling concession stands for the convention center. Item 13 is approving a loan forgiveness for the Lindquist apartment project at 1931 West Broadway. Item 14 is authorizing an ownership and opportunity fund loan to Lager Lagerencia. I got it. Yeah. Item 15 um is amending a previous contract item to the correct individual work order amounts. Item 16 is a grant granting the 2026 Hennepin County Transit Oriented Communities Award and authorizes an agreement. Item 17 is accepting a gift reimbursement from the International Code Council. Item eight 18 is accepting a gift donation from the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials. Item nine is referring to staff an ordinance related to the events center license. Item nine 20 is setting a public hearing for Axe 18 to consider ordinance related to the dress code posting requirements. Item 21 is setting a public hearing for Axe 18 to receive a public comment to the 2025 Housing Urban Development Project. I'm sorry, development car CAPER report. And lastly, item 22 is setting a public hearing for September 8 to consider 2027 license fee schedule. With that, do any of my colleagues have an item to pull or or discussion or question. I see Vice Chair Champlin. >> Thank you, Chair Osman. I don't need to pull anything out. I just wanted to comment on number 14, the ownership and opportunity fund loan to La Herencia. Uh this is a this is for uh a space just outside of the 12th Ward, but really dear to a lot of my constituents in just the business district in Nokomis East. So, formally in this area we had Grande Sunrise, which is like a beloved Mexican restaurant that was there. Um they moved on because they needed a bigger space for their business, but community members for a really long time have just been really wanted to fill this vacancy. Um they felt that like without it, the vibrancy of the neighborhood kind of waned a little bit. And so, I just wanted to highlight the importance of the ownership and opportunity fund loan um to this business to their acquisition. And this business is a woman-owned business. Uh and it started off as a food truck. So, uh La Cochinita was a really, really good Mayan cuisine food truck business. They also started selling breakfast burritos in local coffee shops on the south side. And the ownership opportunity fund is doing exactly what we want to see happen is take women-owned, women of color-owned businesses where they're starting off at a food truck and helping them incubate into a brick and mortar and creating vibrancy for the neighborhood. So, I just wanted to shout that out and just give a big thank you to all of the team and teams in the small business team and economic development. This is just really big deal for the community over here. All right. Uh thank you. I will recognize Council Member Warren. >> Thank you, Chair Osman. Um I just have two things. Um item number four under consent, um, the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame at 1 Twins Way, Minneapolis, Minnesota. That's located in the fifth ward, correct? >> Which item is it? Sorry. Four? >> Yes. It's number four under consent. Twins Way is a part of the fifth ward. It wasn't named on here, but I'm happy to support that. And then I'm also excited to see the Lindquist Apartments loan forgiveness for 1931 West Broadway. Um, approving the forgiveness of all principal and accrued interest of the 2004 Affordable Housing Trust loan for the Lindquist Apartments. It's also the home to RS Eden, the Link, and the RSI Laboratories. And so, this really serves, um, all of those, um, businesses serve as great assets to our community and the West Broadway corridor. So, I am, um, pleased to support them in receiving the the support, um, around this. >> Thank you, Council Member. Uh, I'll recognize Council Member Chavez. >> Uh, thank you, Chair Ostman. Just like to speak in favor of item number eight, the rezoning, uh, 2941 Chicago Avenue South, an application submitted by the Neighborhood Development Center to rezone the property. Um, and I just want to talk about the importance of this project. I'll make sure this is an impact just an area of South Minneapolis that was devastated by the uprising, and it is important that we do everything that we can to help rebuild the East Lake Street corridor. So, I just want to speak in favor of this item and thank the applicant and staff. >> All right, uh, thank you, uh, Vice Chair Chowdhury. >> Thank you. Uh, just wanted to uh, uplift the point uh Council Member Warren made about correcting the ward. So, this is actually something that we have discussed in agenda setting. So, as members know, we get thousands of liquor license renewals and renewals that come our way and our licensing staff has just asked that we give them a hand up in correcting the wards cuz things have changed with redistricting. And so, anytime you see one that just isn't right cuz I've seen a couple ward 12s saying they're ward 11, but we know it's ward 12. Just sending them a little bit of notes so we can, as time moves on, correct it for the districts. And I'm By the time we finish, I'm sure we're going to just be ready to write new district lines, but we'll do that again later. >> [laughter] >> All right. Um, thank you. Uh, with that, I will move all items for approval. Refer item 19 to staff and set public hearing for item 20 and 22. On that motion, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> And those opposed say nay. The eyes have it and the motion carries. All right. Before we jump into a public hearing, I will move to postpone item 23 under the postponement header. Staff indicated to me last week that they will need additional cycle before we can vote on this license renewal. Are there any questions on that? Seeing none, I will uh move to postpone this item to our next meeting on August 18th, 2026. On that motion, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> And those opposed say nay. The eyes have it and the motion carries. All right. Uh, public hearing. Uh, for everyone in attendance, here's a notice for public hearing. Folks, for anyone in attendance and especially those who might participate in our hearing or comment period, let me offer this notice. This hearing are being broadcasted and recorded. Both recording and broadcast are classified as public data under the Minnesota government data practice act. By attending and participating in this proceeding, your image and testimony or information that you provide will also be subject to disclosure under the law. That includes but not limited to your attendance, your name, and other personal details you provide as we as well as any testimony or comment you provide, which includes any written submission you make, which are in recorded in this meeting. Our public Our first public hearing is two l- is two license application is for Pot Shot in Ward 3. One is permanent expansion premises and the other sidewalk is cafe license. I will invite Max Cervantes from the business business uh CBAT to give us presentation. Welcome. >> Thank you, Chair Osman and committee members. I am district supervisor Max Cervantes with Licenses and Consumer Services. I'm presenting an application today from Pot Shot Minneapolis LLC doing business as Pot Shot, located at 700 North 3rd Street in Ward 3. The applicant is requesting a permanent expansion of premises and sidewalk cafe license. If approved, they intend to add 11 tables with 34 seats facing 3rd Street North and five tables with 20 seats facing 7th Avenue North. Pot Shot is currently a restaurant with a full kitchen and bar as well as a nine-hole mini golf course. There is no proposed change of hours to their interior hours. Uh and the proposed hours for their sidewalk cafe are Monday through Thursday 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Friday through Sunday 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Public hearing notices were sent to residents and property owners within 650 ft of the premises. Notices were also sent to the North Loop Neighborhood Association and Council Member Rainville. We have received one comment from the community with concern for outdoor dining changing the character of the neighborhood. This concern has been shared with the applicant and the applicant intends to operate as a good neighbor. The application meets the minimum requirements for sidewalk cafe seating to be allowed. A review of any complaints, 311 calls, police calls found no significant issues concerning this business. Licenses and Consumer Services Division recommends approval of a permanent expansion in sidewalk cafe license. This concludes my presentation and I will stand for any comments or questions. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for that presentation. Are there any Okay. I would now to proceed the public hearing and see if there's anyone who would like to speak on this item. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and see if Councilmember Rainville would like to make a motion. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll say Max, I I do have one question. Could you please repeat those hours that would be open until, please? >> Yes, so the hours for the sidewalk cafe be Monday through Thursday, 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. close. >> Great. Thank you very much. I'd like to move approval of this, please. >> Second. >> Second. >> All right. Great. Thank you. That item has been approved. Um Say that again? Yes. Uh On that motion, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> And those opposed say nay. The eyes have it and the motion carries. All right, our next public hearing is a two license as well for Bill's Bait Shop in Ward 12. One is permanent expansion premises and other sidewalk cafe and I'll have Max again. Welcome. >> Thank you Chair Osman and committee members. I am Max Cervantes, district supervisor for licenses and consumer services. I'm presenting an application from Bill's Bait Shop LLC doing business as Bill's Bait Shop. This business is located at 3101 42nd Street East in Ward 12. The applicant is requesting a permanent expansion and a sidewalk cafe license. If approved, they will be adding six tables with 12 seats on the the public sidewalk in front of their business on 42nd Street East for 12 patrons. Bill's Bait Shop is not open yet, but when they are open they will be a sit-down restaurant with 48 interior seats, 30 private patio seats and the premises is the street level space at 3101 42nd Street East. The proposed hours of operation for their sidewalk cafe and their private patio are Sunday through Thursday 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. On July 17th, public hearing notices were sent to residents and property owners within 650 ft of the premises. Notices were also sent to the Standish Ericsson Neighborhood Association and Council Member Chaundry. We have received eight comments from the community. Six are in support of this application, two with concern about outdoor hours, cigarettes and litter. These complaints or these concerns have been addressed with the business. Routine litter collection is part of their business plan. The business has also decided to close their outdoor seating at 10:00 p.m. in an effort to be a good neighbor. This is a new business that has not begun operating yet and the Licenses and Consumer Services Division recommends approval of a permanent expansion and sidewalk cafe. This concludes my presentation. At this time I will stand for any comments or questions. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for that presentation. I will proceed to open the public hearing and see if there's anyone who would like to speak, welcome. >> Hi. Thank you, city council members. I'm Jerry Wolfe. I'm consultant for the owner. They are working on their soft opening for tonight. So, that's the reason why the owner couldn't come. They are going to be mirroring the sidewalk cafe time frame with the private patio that they already have approved under the license. And had made a compromise on operating hours to ensure that the neighborhood weren't disturbed at all. So, if you have any questions, let me know. >> Thank you so much for your testimony. Anyone else? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and recognize Vice Chair Chaudry. >> Yeah, thank you so much, um, Chair Osman. I will move this item for approval and just want to, uh, shout out Bill's Bait Shop for just working with the community. Originally, the hours were going to be till 11:00 p.m. which for me, I would just like, let's give it a shot and see how it goes. But, it it just says a lot that you are willing to hear community feedback about the timing. Like, I think that makes a huge difference. Um, and I think the sidewalk cafe is just going to be such a great activation for the area. I did get one request from a constituent and so I'll just put it out there for you. They want bike racks. They're like, we want to bike over there and put some bike racks. So, they're working on it. Okay. So, see, the neighbors are heard. So, yeah, people are really looking forward to coming over there and just good luck tonight with your soft opening. That's really exciting. >> Uh, Council Member Schaefer. >> I had a question for staff on both of these items related to waving of fees. With these additional, I know that we talked with Operation Metro Surge about waving some of the license fees around patio seating. Is this in that category? >> I'm not aware >> Or or or extra tables to the exterior of businesses. I would just was curious if this was in the category for this season. I know it was a seasonal >> Chair Osman, Council member Sheaf remember Council and the CPED director, I'm have to look into that one. I I've been contemplated we haven't contemplated we we we have a for license forgiveness for food based business that fee but not for encroachments. So I'll take a look at we are looking at um maybe some sorry it's a bit of my brain is was working on something else in the back so >> [laughter] >> kind of stopped for a second. Yes, okay. Uh we're we're looking at red tape cutting, making it easier to do business. One of the things we are looking at is is outdoor exterior seating. I know that is a challenge for businesses, especially when it comes to fees around sack and wet charges with the city. Working with public works on that. We we do not have anything to report back but we are looking into how to make it easier for people to enjoy the summer months outside with a restaurant and making it easier to do that business with the city but right now I don't believe that there's part of the restaurant the resiliency fund that there's funding for that fee but I will double check cuz it's been a minute >> Okay and and maybe just with that follow up if you could clarify the difference between what we did fund and what this is would be helpful. >> you Council member Osman, Council member Sheaf, we did the the license fee for food based businesses were covered for all businesses in Minneapolis. So >> Right, I thought there was expansion of patio seating for >> Not not specifically. Not specifically. Yep. In that not in that fund. Not specifically in that fund. We have free fee of fee free events that you can take for you can take advantage of and that's for special events that people are on but not for an encroachment. >> Okay, I'll go back and look at that cuz I remember you advertising a picture and talking about that but I could be completely wrong. So. >> We'll learn together. >> Okay. All right. >> All right, thank you. All right, on that motion, um all those in favor say I. >> I. >> And those opposed say nay. The eyes have it and the motion carries. Our last public hearing is annual is our annual service charge continuation for Minnea- Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District. I will have um Director Jeff Johnson to come and speak. Welcome, sir. >> Thank you, Chair Osman and committee members. Uh my name is Jeff Johnson. I'm the general manager of the Minneapolis Convention Center. Today, the Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District leadership will be bringing forth their first annual report. Last year, the City Council approved amending Title 16 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances relating to Planning and Development, adding a new Chapter 425A entitled Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District. This action established the Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District and provided for its administration and operation as authorized by Minnesota Statute Chapter 428B Tourism Improvement Districts. To be aligned with that state statute, the Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District is here to accomplish three goals. First, to deliver to you a presentation that summarizes their annual report. Second, to hold a public hearing on the first year of their operation of the Tourism Improvement District. And lastly, to ask you to pass a resolution allowing for the continued collection of fees for this second year of operation of the total 5 years that were authorized last year. With that background, I would like to call forward the Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District presenters at this time to give you their presentation. Thank you. >> All right. Welcome. All right. Melvin, welcome. >> Good afternoon, Chair Osman, members of the committee. My name is Melvin Tennant and I have uh pleasure of serving as the leader of Meet Minneapolis, our convention and visitors association. I'm joined here by the chair of our MTID, Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District, uh Jeff Barnhart, and we're here to tell you about the uh first year. Uh it's been just about a year since we were before this body and we shared the vision and we certainly appreciate your support and you all were kind enough to approve this unanimously. So, we're here to give you fill in the blanks and to uh let you know how the first year has gone. So, Jeff and I will do a bit of a a tag team today. I will give you the TID background information and I know you'll recall some of those uh some of those details. We'll also talk to you about the overview uh and the timeline to get to this point, at which point in time I'll turn it over to Jeff to talk about the district area, also some of the service charge and management, the activities of the district, and then I'll return to talk about inclusive workforce and about racial equity impact, some things that I know that you all ask about during the course of this process. So, Tourism Improvement District is a perfect example of a public-private partnership. These have existed in the country for about the last 20 years, but through the course of the work that we've done with the hospitality community over the last few years, we were instrumental in in establishing the enabling legislation for us to do that, which we did. Again, it's a partnership that provides supplemental funding for the community to augment the existing dollars that in this case the city of Minneapolis is investing in our tourism marketing program. Uh a number of activities are involved. Sales and marketing activities, and we'll give you some examples of those in just a few moments. Uh marketing and special activities, and of course, as I said, we'll um go on and talk about some of the uh other uh programs. Again, the TID is funded by the hotel industry, and uh they willingly did this. So, the funds are specifically for tourism, and they're controlled by the hotel. And even though, as I did not mention earlier, this is by state statute something that is uh given them that responsibility, but we are here today to uh again, as the uh as the legislation allowed to uh present this for you. Um the operations management allocation again are determined by the hotels, and I'll just tell you that Jeff and his colleagues are spending a significant amount of time being very diligent in the way in which they are uh choosing to invest these funds. And again, uh we talked about the sales and marketing programs, the promotions, and the digital presence, and group sales, things that are again extensions of the work that Meet Minneapolis has been doing. Public-private partnership. The enabling portion of this came from the state of Minnesota and this body, the Minneapolis City Council. So, again, you stepped up and allowed us to create this opportunity to augment the marketing initiatives that we were already undertaking. The hotel community, again, had to make the choice as to whether or not they wanted to self-impose this, in this case, 2% fee on the hotel revenue, and we're just happy that 71% at that time of the hotel community agreed that they wanted to do this. So, unanimity, we've created a great deal of goodwill within the hotel community, really brought the community together, and I believe this is something that they can all really rally behind, especially since we've had some difficulties in our community. And then, the third part of this public-private partnership is Meet Minneapolis. We are the the chosen marketing organization for the city of Minneapolis, and the MTID board chose to work with us to be able to do the work, again, an extension of the Meet Minneapolis existing program of work. So, the timeline. Just a quick review. In 2018 is when we the began this discussion. The board of Meet Minneapolis made the decision that we wanted to figure out a way to be able to invest more in our community, and that's when this process started. We have a number of general managers and hotel leaders in this community that have worked at other places where TIDs are in existence, so there's a lot of support for it. From From 2019 to 2023 was the legislative process. We lost some momentum, as you can imagine, during the COVID year. We didn't make progress that year, but ultimately, in 2023, it was signed into law in at the state level. And then, in 2024 through 2025 is when we went to the petitioning process. I mentioned the 71% of the hotels that agreed to be a part of this, and that is when we also came to this body, and you you approved it uh unanimously and um the MTID initially created what is now their nine-member governance committee, which works as a subset of the Meet Minneapolis board. Collections began 2025 and through August and September August when that took place, we're using a private company to do that for us. From October 25 through uh 2025 to the present, the committee has set up processes to uh allow us to come to them with particular projects and to be able to able to vet those for the committee so that they can make the good decisions. And again, they've made lots and lots of decisions over that time. And we've at that time, as soon as they made those first uh commitments, we began to implement some of those programs. We did have to go back to the legislature uh this year because there was a a technical error in the legislation that the Department of Revenue identified that would have uh inadvertently uh created a situation where the TID fee would have been taxed. So, we were successful in going back, working directly with the Department of Revenue to get that corrected and so we're in really good shape right now. And so, at this point, for the technical aspect of how this works, I'll turn it over to Jeff and I'll be back in just a moment to wrap up the presentation. >> Thank you. Thank you. I'm Jeff Barnhart. >> [clears throat] >> Um before I continue on with the presentation, I just want to do some acknowledgements. So, on Chair Osman and and this committee, we appreciate and the City Council for today really supporting this. Uh Melvin and his staff with Meet Minneapolis has done an excellent job displaying their expertise and professionalism executing our work plan. There's a ton of work behind this and I can attest to that. And uh the other eight committee members, I know um Mark Labovitz, the vice chair, is present today, but uh they're all volunteers. They have full-time jobs and I think we all really intrinsically care about helping Minneapolis. Personally, I was born here. I went to the U of M. My entire career has been in Minneapolis, Minneapolis proper, and so I really care about the city and we're trying to do our best to you know, get a pep in all our steps here. So, we're going to continue on with the presentation. As you can see here, >> [clears throat] >> um all hotels with 50 or more rooms are up self-opted into this fee and currently there's 48 hotels. And also, you can see on the district boundary, that's Minneapolis proper. So, this is all This is for all of Minneapolis and I appreciated uh Council Member Warsame, she's my council member. Uh she helped petition for geographical representation early on and it's probably the reason I'm standing here. So, uh the management is the the nine committee members and uh we're volunteers. We were however voted in last year by um the ownership of the hotels. So, that that was uh good participation to get to this point. Uh we basically We probably met over 30 times this past year for an hour and a half each time. So, if you talk about the amount of effort that went into establishing this, figuring things out, and we have to report back to the body, it's pretty intense and there's a lot of preambles and post work related to that. Uh but we kind of come up with the the the plan and then Meet Minneapolis is kind of our expert uh executor on that. Uh we have full authority to manage all the matters related to the MTID. As as we uh illustrated, there's a 2% uh fee and um something to just know is that, you know, this goes you know, this is like looks like an additional tax. It's a fee, but you know, at at the end of the day there's I think um almost 17% of taxes coming off or fees coming off our every dollar that's that's spent um in our hotels. So, that's kind of a high rate and we need to manage that. Um Let's see. Yeah, so the the original term was a 5-year period. After 5 years, we have to go back and re-petition the ownership. So, hopefully we've done a great job and everybody sees the the merit in what we've done in the first 5 years. Um managed by the committee and again Minneapolis executes the plan. We were we meeting weekly for a long time and I think now we've gone down to monthly meetings, but there's uh now we're we're active, you know, around our our meetings. So, there's a lot of work on the side. And here we are for the annual report. And really kind of what we're all here for is how do we use the funds? And so, you can see sales, uh marketing, PR, special projects, activation, workforce development, and then the not so fun stuff, administration, and contingency, and stuff. Uh this is pretty general stuff for TIDs to spend their money on because ultimately we're trying to get more overnight visitation. This is uh the year one authorized investments and we're prob- we're trying to spend in line with what the annual collection is. So, you can see it's it's broken out here into several different categories. And again, I'll just reiterate this is pretty normal stuff for TIDs to be allocating their proportional spend on. Uh some of the specifics to get into that are exciting is we of course want to fill up the convention center. And so, it's important that meeting planners want to book their meetings and events here. And so, we're offering additional rebates and trying to find ways to reach out and you know, host the meeting planners so they want to host their conferences here. But, the 2028 NFL Draft is really cool cuz that's a huge event. We have we get to look forward to it for a couple of years, which is exciting for us. And then during the event, there's going to be 100 thousands of visitors here. And the main event is free. It's going to be right at the Commons Park here, and it's anybody can come. So, we think that's pretty cool and reachable. Under under the market marketing, we've we've had an agency of record here, which is going to help just ensure that all the messaging and stuff that we're doing that comes out of the TID has has some commonality and theme behind it. We've done some social media campaigns. You can see right there. And we've done some show up and stay over campaigns just created specifically to increase overnight visitation. So, there's there's several different categories in each one of these that we're trying to target to to drive overnight visitation. So, it's we're not doing one thing. They're they're Meet Minneapolis is executing like 20 different initiatives simultaneously, which is pretty good. And then there's special projects and activations. You can see here Savannah Bananas is in town this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and that's new to this market. That's pretty cool. It's really kind of family-oriented event. Michelin just kind of shows this is how um the TID is helping sister industries. Michelin is trying to up the profile of the the restaurant industry here, which is good for everybody. And then Squared Roots is a Squared Roots is a workforce development that is going to develop the the chefs the next chefs for the city, and we hope that a lot of them end up working in our local restaurants and hotels. And then the the two other buckets is just, you know, there's there's costs associated with administration and collections, and then we want to be good stewards of the fund, so we have some contingency and uh reserves, and that's how we are using the funds. So, I think Melvin is going to take it the rest of the way. Thanks. >> Let me just also just really reiterate the fact that this group has done so much work, and the it's representative of not just um hotel leaders, but actually hotel owners. So, they have a sense of of duty as to how these dollars are expended. So, I certainly want to compliment them for their willingness to be a part of this process. We've been at it a year, and we know that one of the priorities is to make sure that we are mindful of how we can have an inclusive workforce, because we want a workforce that represents our community. And we are very optimistic about what the MTID will do over the coming years, but I just wanted to give you a little snapshot of where we are right now in terms of employment. 2019, you can see that we had just about 36,000 hospitality employees here in our community. And as you can see from 2025, that number declined. That's really indicative of the fact that our community our hospitality community has not recovered as well as some of the other cities. So, we are very mindful of the fact that this gap of individuals, we need to try to close that gap, and many of the activities done being done by the MTID will help to address that. I'll even tell you further, it's not on this particular slide, that declined even further in the first quarter of this year, indicative of probably what Operation Metro surged did. It got down to around 28,000 people in the first quarter of this year. This is a heat map representing a a representative sample of hospitality workers in Minneapolis. So, 73% of the people working here actually live here. And so, we have a good cross-section about a third of the total employees shows you where they live as as it represents the various wards in the city. So, we have hospitality employees that are spread throughout the city. So, they are very much a part of the community and we very much value their contributions to our industry. We do a number of projects already. We work very closely with Hospitality Minnesota. They have a number of workforce development initiatives that we've supported over the years and continue to do so through the TID. As Jeff mentioned, Square Roots is in the process of opening on Lake Street and there will be a lot of opportunities for the development of new talent within the hospitality industry and hopefully many of those talented individuals will choose to make their living here and hopefully open businesses and be very supportive of what we do. And again, we continue to make significant investments in the hospitality workforce through many means. And with that, we'll pause and see what questions we might be able to answer. Thank you. >> Yes, thank you so much for that presentation. Before we open questions, I would like to uh open the public hearing and see if there's anyone who would like to speak on this item. Seeing none. Oh. Chavez, sorry. I'm uh Council Member Chavez. Um Um the public hearing is open. So, >> Just kidding. Ignore me. >> Okay. So, um I'm not seeing anyone who's here to speak on the public, so I'll close the public hearing and now the floor is open for my colleagues. I sorry, my system crashed here, so Have you signed up? Uh Council Member Rainville. Did you sign up? >> Thank thank you, sir. I do I do have a few questions, but first Thank you. I do have a few questions, but first congratulations on this last weekend. I read a report that $100 million was spent uh from the visitors who attended the two events at US Bank Stadium. That's pretty impressive. >> Yes, thank you, Council Member Rainville. That's uh exactly the type of impact that we're looking for. As you know from your your years of working with us, it's really important for us to really stack events and have multiple things going on, and that's exactly what we had this past weekend with the WrestleMania, with the Lynx playing, with performances at Hennepin Theaters. So, it was a great weekend for us. We can't wait to get all those numbers, but thank you for acknowledging that, sir. >> Great. And then I just you know for for the group here uh this fund will help increase room nights. True? >> Yes. Yes, it will. That's that's the that's the objective is for us to extend the uh level of investment that the city currently makes, and for us to have weekends like this where we're able to increase the occupancy, as I mentioned earlier. Our community has uh lagged behind other uh others across the country in terms of recovery. So, this is going to help us close that gap and book more room nights, sir. >> And then it'd be fair to say that the visitors in the hotels when they're eating out and purchasing uh uh gifts and so forth, clothing, that uh we benefit as a city from the tax generated from those sales. >> Yes, sir. Chair Osman, Council Member Rainville, you're exactly right. We uh we know that it's not just within the hotels that the spending occurs, but just the eye test over the weekend shows you that people were like across from our offices at the Hennepin House, the line was out the door for the entire weekend as an example of of the way that people spread the dollars around. But yes, sir. >> Great. So, thank you very much. I'll be voting for this, but I would like to give you a little heads up when we meet again as the board. Perhaps you could explain how this is going to help get the RevPAR number up. RevPAR is the amount of dollars per hotel room, and that has been slipping. I'm assuming that these extra dollars will help get that back up to our comparable cities. >> Yes, sir, it will. We It's It's It's about compression. Again, having the demand increase so that more people are in and there's as the demand increases, so do the prices of the rooms. And so, that's what we need to see when the visitors come in. >> Well, I look forward to more knowledge about that. Thank you. >> the board meeting, we'll make a note of that, sir. >> Thank you. >> All right. I will recognize next Council member Chavez. >> Thank you, Chair Osman. I just have one question. It's about slide number 21. Just curious about the data of the hospitality workforce in Minneapolis. I know that I'm trying to understand how to read this slide. There's circles and then numbers and then I'm assuming if it's 1 2 3 4, is it just I guess if you can explain that and then if we can get access to the data. Just cuz I would like to see what it looks like across the city and where folks are living at that are in the hospitality industry. >> May I Council member Chavez ask Sandy Christiansen of our from our team to clarify? >> Yeah, thank you. >> Chair Osman, Council member Chavez, thank you for that question. The chart or the graphic that you see on the slide before you is the result of a survey that we did of the hotels who are members of the Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District. And in that survey, we merely asked for the zip codes of the employees within their establishment because we don't want any personal information. So there's no individual addresses. And we did get information from 22 of the 48 hotels. And of those responses, that represented 11,007 employees. And taking the zip code information that was provided per each employee in the responses, they're mapped out based upon the the number of employees who are in the specific zip code. So if you see and then the numbers that are reflected on there, of course, are the ward numbers. But if you look kind of in the lower center portion, big circle encompassing multiple wards, that represents about 600 over 600 people. So if you think about the sizes of the circles are representative of the number of people, excuse me, who are in that zip code, it gets us to that representation of about 8,000. Now we think that it's a good representative sample of all of the hotels. So I would just see that these circles would either become bigger or darker red if we overlaid responses from the other facilities. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Yes, first of all, thank you President Turrent for for coming back and giving us the presentation, you and your team. This was something, you know, we passed and now we have new council members who are learning our first time with this program is about. Can you talk about a little bit more about you know, as you were starting, you know, the Metro search happened. And that was a huge effect in economic uh for our city especially hotels people were not visiting our city so how did that affect and also the follow-up question if we have things like metro search covid how does this back on thing affect in this program or this hospitality workforce program overall how do you maintain the continuing of this of this program >> Chair Osman members of the committee we obviously did not anticipate operation metro surge and Mr. Barnhart and I were just speaking about that the other day very thankful that you approved this this legislation when you did because if we had not had these new dollars coming in we would have been in a lot worse shape right now so we're still as I said in recovery mode but now that we are beyond that first quarter and really beginning to make some make some hay I think you're we're reflective of activities that we're doing to kind of help for the moment we're doing immediate activities such as we're doing a summer digital marketing campaign that's in the in the market right now but we're also working longer term for a broader brand marketing campaign to reintroduce ourselves to the marketplace that's going to be out next spring so we're doing a number of things continue to do our work and and being present in the marketplace perhaps Jeff would you care to talk about that as well we did have that >> Thanks [clears throat] again chair Osman and council members so Minneapolis has not recovered as well as some of the other what we call peer cities that we compare ourselves to since covid and you know we we had the riots with which other cities didn't have and then operation metro surge was obviously something that other cities didn't have so we we had to overcome more and for prior to operation Metro surge, you know, Minneapolis has has needed to continue its recovery and I think we had a pretty good 2024 and 2025 was was down a little bit, which was concerning. So, it was great a great timing that the TID be you know, became itself because right when we started assessing the fee, we wanted to start spending those dollars to try to regain market share and then of course we went through what we went through in in earlier in the year and prior to that we had pretty good projections for 2026 in first quarter. As as you all know, the city in general, we took a huge dive and we were concerned as a committee and as an industry that it was going to be worse off you know, indefinitely than maybe where we're at now. We're feeling a little bit better, but the committee met weekly, you know, for 3 months during that first quarter to at first pause initiatives because we didn't want to spend into operation Metro surge, but then we started tailoring and ramping back up our our advertising and spending thereafter, which we think we got a more immediate faster recovery. So, we're thankful that we had the TID and Meet Minneapolis executing our plan thereafter. >> Okay, no, I I just want to say that you know, TID is is a brilliant idea. I I'm super excited to um continue its support and I do want to thank your leadership all of you to continue you know, invite and talk about the growth of our our businesses and as a council leaders of our city, we have your back and we are excited this is going well and we're hoping that we're back in the old days and economic is is something that that will grow. As you mentioned the the is uh it's a a lot of residents Minneapolis uh workers rely on and thank you for for your programs and workforce programs that you are offering for our residents and we look forward uh many years hopefully we can hear uh even better numbers next year. Um I will recognize Council Member Pal. Oh, Warren, sorry. >> Thank you um Chair Azman. I want to first of all say thank you for your presentation and um all of the hard work that you all are doing in ensuring that we have the the space and the opportunity to welcome people back to our great city. Um yes, we have been through a lot, but this is really tailoring to our resilience as as a city and as a community and and shows our buoyancy. So, I am appreciative of that. Um I'm appreciative for the continued opportunities. I'm excited for um the events that are coming and and for the expansion of our hospitality team as as we're greeting more more tourists and travelers and individuals who are coming into our city. So, it's good it's good work. Thank you for all that you do. I appreciate it. >> Uh Vice Chair Chaudry. >> Thank you so much Chair Azman. This is a really exciting report, first annual report of this um so it is a really big deal. And uh when we were discussing this in the agenda setting, I think Jeff was just like, "Yep, we're going to cover it." I was a little nervous. I was like, "No, this is really exciting. Like, this is good um to share about and really important work um and I just want to start off by thanking Council Member Rainville and Council Member Wansley for their leadership on working on this and then thank you to Jeff and everyone a part of Meet Minneapolis and the the MTID board. This is really excellent. Um I'm really looking forward to seeing what more happens as this continues. Um some highlights for me that I really liked and would love to see grow is just the um inclusive workforce development work. I think that's super important. I think we're in a really um really interesting, difficult time as it comes for our workforce and people looking for a good paying job or a place where they can step into the hospitality industry right now and it's this is a great opportunity for us to give people a hand up and a pathway. So we'd love to see that grow especially since um yeah, I think I hear more and more from working people right now that it they're struggling to find employment or struggling to find a place where they're being paid a really good wage or good salary where they aren't having to have three to four jobs. So that's why incubating this part of it really does matter into the future and I mean it's so incredible that we are going to have um anonymous food critics coming throughout the city of Minneapolis for that Michelin guide. Like as a tourist, as a foodie, as someone that just loves to eat at all of our different restaurants, like that just gets me really excited and we saw in that incredible map that you showed us how much of the workforce in our city really delivers to make that type of excellence for the restaurants and food businesses that are here that are putting Minneapolis on the map. And so fostering that is really great and I love that we're going to be a part of that Michelin guide. Um the thing that is a super big positive and I'm bummed about is the Savannah Bananas. I didn't realize they were coming and like everything is sold out. It just sold out. All three days are sold out. So great job on that. Please bring them back. It's just hilarious. Such a fun thing. Like, I followed them on social media for such a long time. So, that's um really excellent. [clears throat] Uh I guess one of the questions that I have and I'm interested in is kind of like what has MTID's role been in kind of marketing and elevating the amazing events and activities we have during Pride Month in the city of Minneapolis? Like, Minneapolis was popping this Pride weekend. Like, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people just on like a square block doing their thing. And I wanted to see if you all had any plans you're discussing into the future, too. >> Well, thank you for your comments, uh Councilwoman Chat- Chatterley. I uh think it's awesome that TID and while we try to drive overnight visitation helps all these other industries, the restaurants and the special events and all that stuff. So, we're thankful that we can have an impact beyond just hotels, and we think that's great for the city. And we're seeing a lot of partner organizations get excited about what we're offering, and we got a very active committee, which is exciting, too. And we're all trying to figure out how we can do more. Uh as it pertains to uh let's say multiplying the impact of events, we have hired a agency of record that's going to help us kind of perpetuate the wins that, you know, Minneapolis wants to celebrate. And although we we've now um chosen them, we're still kind of giving them the download, and pretty soon you're going to start seeing some of the the media and the the social channels kind of amplified around all these events. So, maybe we didn't get it uh quite in order for Pride this year, 2026, but we're thinking that all of these events in 2027 are going to have uh stronger media strength behind them, which we think is going to be awesome to amplify that. So, >> Yeah, that's awesome to hear. I'll just like share um when I was out during this Pride weekend, um I talked to so many people that were visiting our city cuz I was just like, "Okay, I get to be a promoter for Minneapolis tonight." Like I was at First Avenue and I was like, "All of these strobe lights, they're just sitting on the table, so I'm going to hand them out and we're going to just like have a good time, especially in this moment in our country." Right? We have cause to celebrate this community. Um and I heard from so many individuals that they were from rural Minnesota coming in or other parts of the Midwest where they don't feel like that is a place where they get to be out and proud and celebrate. So, we get to be a North Star city for people to come together in that way and like celebrate their self-expression and who they love. And so, I would love to see MTID be a huge part of that. And we have so many uh amazing um performers, drag stars, ballroom performers who are gaining notoriety and it's like, how cool would it be if like we were able to elevate that type of performer and have them be a national name and a draw. Like I really think there's a lot of potential there. >> Minneapolis is cool and we got to tell the world again and we got to amplify this. So, appreciate appreciate those comments. >> All right. Uh great. Uh next I'll recognize Council Member Scheifer. >> Yeah, I just want to publicly say thank you to the TID committee for all this initial investment of time. Huge initial investment of time and the seriousness with which you have really taken this role of setting the foundation as the first TID committee to really set a strong foundation for all that's to come as we roll out this new taxing authority. So, thank you for all of your hard work. A couple of questions. Um number one, have you seen um your occupancy rates rising since TID has unleashed itself? Is it starting to trend upward from where you were? I know that we're still kind of digging ourselves out of the hole, so to speak, from previous years, but do you see any change even in the last, you know, 6 months? >> Chair Asma, Council member Schaefer, thank you for the question. On a sustained level, our occupancy still is uh lagging year to date, but what we've seen is on weekends when we have major events and conventions in town that converge and create the compression, we definitely see an increase. We had, for example, this past uh June and July were very, very strong months for us uh for occupancy and also uh average daily rate, hence uh RevPAR also were were rising. We've we've done much better on the RevPAR side than on occupancy over uh the last year or so, but when we have the convergence of events, that's really when we can make hay and be able to see those increased occupancies. Where we still lag is the uh reduction of business travel that occurred following uh the pandemic. And so, once that returns, uh once since that has not returned, we are much more uh reliant on special events and and conventions, and that's why we're working hard to fill the gap. >> Yeah, that's great. And then I had a couple questions on slides 20 and 21. If we could just quickly pull those up again. Um obviously, we're really excited about driving revenues for the city and driving revenue for um some of these occupancy rates. Um but also, I really am grateful that you included these two slides. Um because, you know, not only revenue and occupancy rates, etc., but you're driving actual jobs for our residents. Right? And so I really appreciate that seeing the map. On this slide, um looking at this >> or do you want the next one? >> This one is great to start with. On this slide, seeing that decrease, um it seems a little more slight than what the Federal Reserve reported for accommodation job decreases in mid-May. And so I'm curious, you know, um if you saw that report and do you feel that was a little inflated to compared to, you know, these numbers? I mean, I guess maybe just to the your confidence in this cuz I think this percentage, I think they said about 17%. Um decrease in accommodation jobs and I'm sure that's probably the restaurants and the workers in the hotel, both. Um so is this I mean, I'm just wondering about that differential between what you're presenting and what the what that report was about and maybe maybe it's not that much of a difference that we're worried about it, but I I'm just excited that if you know, maybe maybe we're trending even um better since that report came out. >> Uh Chair Osman, Council member Shafer, um I will attempt to answer that question. Uh first I do want to call out that uh the data reflected on this slide is as of 2025 and I believe that Melvin alluded to earlier that the first quarter of 2026 was significantly worse Yeah. than what than what it is here and also to um I'll refer to the Federal Reserve um is is more of a regional uh report, but to that point, I think it's more of a timing issue that the data that we have here available is uh slightly dated and that what you would see if we were to pull the Q1 report from Deed would be lower. >> Okay. Thank you. I just for some reason forgot it was 2025 versus 2026. Thank you for reminding me that. And I'm just really um I just want to point that out because this is something that I think is a real opportunity for us is to figure out how we can try to cuz we directly saw on your next slide these jobs are our jobs for our residents, right? And so if we're seeing, you know, 15% decrease, 17% decrease in our hotel jobs, that means less jobs for our residents. And so I just wanted to point out that correlation and how important that is. And of course when in that same report when they point to the decreases in the, you know, full-time restaurant and part-time restaurant loss of jobs, it's even higher, like, you know, So we have to get our our thought process going around that and be all in on how we can drive that the other direction because we need those jobs for our residents. So I just wanted to point out these two slides, point out that information, and just tell you thank you for including those two slides. And one other thing is the Michelin investment an annual one or is that a multi-year? >> Chair Osman, Council Member Scheffer, the Michelin is a 3-year initial investment and commitment. >> All right, thank you so much. And again, cheering you on and so proud of the work that you've done today. >> Council Member Rainville. >> Uh thank you. So I I want to not only thank the volunteer hoteliers who are here today, but really your nine-person board. If you could just pass that on at your next meeting. You know the business better than anybody. You have your sleeves rolled up, especially your the hoteliers that are invested in your hotels. It's your livelihood. So I appreciate all the time you spend guiding the staff of Meet Minneapolis towards the needs to bring this all back and I want to know how do I get the Michelin people to come to Elsie's bowling alley for breakfast? [laughter] >> All right. >> Chair husband, that Councilmember Rainville, uh Michelin makes those decisions on their own. They don't give us any any insight as to their uh secret missions into dining establishments. What I will say though is that they have several categories beyond the stars, the Bib Gourmand Gourmand, and then Michelin recommended restaurants as well. So, there's more They and they've even uh ranked food trucks in the past. So, there's lots of opportunities for our dining scene to be acknowledged. >> Thank you, Melvin. >> I was hoping they'd be publicly tuned into this um right now, but >> Well, Jeff, I think you have the power to do something. So, I have high expectations. [laughter] >> All right. Uh wonderful. Thank you so much for your presentation today. I will move this item for approval. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> And those opposed say nay. The eyes have it, and the motion carries. Uh next discu- next item we have is um Let me see here. It's a discussion item. Next is a It's a discussion item that uh that continued last cycle, and and it's rental license reinstatement for the property at 213 Leon Avenue North. I believe staff's here to provide updates. Welcome. >> Hi. Thank you. Um good afternoon. My name is Jordan Oh, sorry. Chair Osman um and Councilmembers, my name is Jordan Hooks. I'm the rental license operations analyst. Um during our last meeting or last committee meeting, I became aware of the occupancy at this address. Um From that after that meeting, I asked one of the members of regulatory services to interpret on a call with me and the property owner. Property owner is a Spanish-speaking resident. Um during that call, I did find out that the property owner did not live at the property at the time uh the application was submitted. Since then, the property owner has moved into the property and is occupying one unit with family. Um until we we will update that license or that contact address on the actual rental license. Um we also had a Spanish-speaking housing liaison door knock at the property. The property owner and family are living in the upper unit and the lower unit is vacant and ready to be rented out. Um we respectfully ask that you consider the reinstatement. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much. Um All right, we're going to open for discussion and I see council member I want. Please go ahead. >> Thank you, Chair Asman. Thank you so much for your due diligence in the work. I had driven past all of the properties that were on the application, whether if belonging to the previous owner and the current applicant, because I wasn't exactly clear on whose responsibility was it for what and who, but I went I walked around. I take pictures. I'm that council person. So, you know, if you are going to do business, I want it to be ethical and quality business and I want to make sure that we're not missing any things cuz teamwork will make a dream work. So, um thank you for your due diligence and your work and I will move this forward to um for recommendation. Thank you. >> Thank you. Seeing Seeing no one else uh on that motion, all those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> And those opposed say nay. The ayes have it and the motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Our next item is a discussion uh which is an appointment to the Minnesota Park Board Ball Park Authority. This was submitted by Council member Fita. And um uh it's open for discussion, but I do want to um give you that I am having I I had a with Councilmember Palmisano and also Council President and I am moving this item without recommendation. Um, are there any discussion on that? Uh, Councilmember Gordon, please go ahead. >> Thank you. Um, I'm actually very glad to see this on on the agenda here um for discussion and I am pleased to um approve Justin Baylor for his appointment um to the seat beginning January 1st, 2026 and ending um December 31st, 2029 for the Minnesota Ballpark Authority. >> All right. Um See no one else. Oh, I see Councilmember Chavez. >> Uh, thank you, Charles. I just want to make sure the public knows that just because you're moving it forward without recommendation doesn't mean you support the appointment. I just want to make that clear. Thank you. >> Sure. Yep, that's correct. Um, thank you so much. On that motion to move this item without recommendation to the full Council, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> And those opposed say nay. The eyes have it. Eyes have it and motion carries. All right. Uh, our last one is uh we'll be receiving and and filing the second report apart from the rental license ordinance implementation. I will invite Josie Shardlow from Regulatory Services to give us that presentation. Welcome. >> Okay. Good afternoon, Chairwoman, Council members. My name is Josie Shardlow. I'm the Director of Operations and Engagement with Regulatory Services. I'm here today in response to a series of legislative directives about a new rental licensing ordinance. Today's presentation is actually the second one in the series. So, if you'd like to watch the first, Director April Bogard of Inspection Services spoke before Public Health, Safety, and Equity Committee on May 13th. Passed last year, ordinance number 2025047 will require rental license renewals for properties in the highest risk tier, or those with rental licensing conditions, to go before the City Council for consideration. The ordinance is currently set to go into effect on January 1st, 2027. So, I'll cover our progress on implementation, as well as provide data about rental licenses, and a brief update about changes to rental licensing tearing. Before addressing the legislative directives' questions, I'd like to provide a brief overview about that tearing system that we have. The city's rental license program is fairly unique in that we categorize rental properties into tiers. The tier impacts how frequently we inspect a property and the rental license fee. The tearing was intended to provide renters with transparency about the places they call home, and it's designed to help the city dedicate more attention to the properties that need it most. The property condition tier is based on the last 2 years of records that we have from both proactive and complaint-based inspections. Based on inspection history, properties in tier one are presumed to have the fewest number of code violations. We plan inspections for tier one properties every 8 years. You'll also notice there's a tier 1D category. D stands for default. So, that's the category for properties that are licensed for the first time and have not yet had an inspection. Candidly, we know this category's name causes confusion. So, tier 1D properties are not the same as tier one. This category just means we don't have enough information to put it into an appropriate tier yet. Next, based on inspection history, properties in tier two are presumed to have more documented issues than tier one. Those inspections for those properties are planned every 5 years. And finally, based on inspection history, tier three properties are presumed to have the most code violations out of all the rental properties in Minneapolis. We do annual inspections for those properties. While the city has sometimes treated tiering as a way to disclose property condition to renters, we've begun encouraging people to view it more as a potential warning system. Instead of a litmus test, you might say, for whether a property is in good or bad shape at this moment. So, it's important to understand that the tier does not always match a property's current condition. Because it's based on findings in the last 2 years of proactive and complaint-based inspections, it's a better indicator of a property's history. Or at least what we know about that history based on, like I said, either the complaints or the proactive inspection. So, sometimes a tier status is based on minimal data. If a tier one property had its scheduled inspection 7 years ago and we received little to no 311 complaints in the meantime, it could mean we haven't been in that property for several years to observe any potential code violations. Lastly, a property's condition can change the instant an inspector leaves, for better or worse. Another challenge with tiering I'd like to call out is that it may not it may not align with what a renter would expect. So, life safety violations influence the tier status the most, which is a reflection of our department's deep commitment to prioritizing renter safety. However, some life safety issues, like a smoke detector without batteries, may feel less visible or impactful on renters' day-to-day lives compared to livability issues like unresolved piles of garbage, for instance. We're actively working now through ideation, analysis, and community engagement. We did host a policy round table for city council members in early June to share more about these efforts, and want to thank everyone who was able to attend, and offer to meet one-on-one to connect and bring folks up to speed if you want to go deeper on on that topic. Moving on to our implementation of the new rental license ordinance and related data. Currently, we have just about 23,000 rental licenses, and I would just like to take this opportunity to recognize the six staff who process those applications and payments annually, in addition to many new applications throughout the year. Those licenses designated as high-risk for the purposes of this ordinance are tier three properties, as well as those with rental license conditions. Rental license conditions means that city council has approved a property owner to continue having a license so long as they meet criteria over 36 months. Currently, about 74 properties fall into these two categories, but I want to flag that that's just our working number for now, so it'll change from year to year, and updates that we're working on to fine-tune tiering will definitely impact that number. You can see in this map that geographically, tier three properties are spread across Minneapolis. And I'll just note that even though tearing has its limitations, I do want to recognize the numerous tier one property owners who are doing their part to meet or exceed minimum housing standards. And now I'll share some opportunities in this next phase of implementation. At face value, this new licensing process for high-risk properties appears simple because other licenses at the city do come before council. In reality, the operational and technica- technology changes and hands-on staff involvement make this quite layered and complex to implement. Because of that, the council authors are considering an extension to the implementation date um to March 1st, 2028. This extra time opens up several opportunities for regulatory services staff to strengthen the ordinance's impact and proactively iron out critical processes. We're also discussing a technical amendment to the ordinance language with the authors to reflect their intentions that the renewals come before the body. A March 1st, 2028 implementation date would be advantageous for kind of four main reasons. First, this would align with the rental license renewal cycle and when we'll roll out changes to that tearing system. Then with the large volume of rentals we license and inspect, we're also working to be strategic with stewarding our staff time. This additional time will hopefully hopefully help us find ways to mitigate uh challenges that would otherwise pull inspectors away from their inspections or strain limited staff capacity among the other teams who'll be involved with implementing this new process. Thirdly, uh multiple software will support this new licensing process. As software changes are in the works this year and beyond, we want our systems to function as smoothly as possible to best support renters and ensure our records are accurate. We're currently in the middle of the 311 login transition. Uh we'd have more time to work with IT on ELMS process changes and the systems migration to the cloud, as well as coordinate with the city clerk's office to integrate ELMS and LIMBS. Also, we're hopeful that the new enterprise payment platform might be implemented by then. Lastly, additional time gives us the opportunity to be fully ready operationally and properly educate uh the various interest holders. We've learned a lot this year about the complexity of these internal process changes. For example, we may need to issue provisional licenses prior to council's review. We also need time to invest in staff training and educating both owners and renters about what to expect. There's a few clarifications uh I want to leave you with just to close out about this new process uh and rental licenses. First, the licenses that will go before council will be recommended for renewal. It's because we believe there are still operational pathways for inspection services to improve a building's condition without displacing renters. If we encounter a case uh cases that warrant revocation, we do bring those to council throughout the year under a separate process. Ultimately, a rental license is not inherently a stamp of approval on a building. It does, however, bring a rental property under the city's authority. And [snorts] as we discussed earlier, a tier doesn't tell the whole story of what's happening at a property. We can provide more context about a particular case uh when we have advanced notice to prepare information ahead of committee meetings. And most importantly possibly is if council decides to deny a license renewal that inherently means displacing renters. As you know, renters cannot live in an unlicensed rental according to city ordinance. And I thank you for your time and attention. >> Right. Thank you so much for that presentation. I'm opening it for discussion here. And I have council member Warren on Q here. >> Thank you kindly Chair Osman. My question is um So with a tier one property they are inspected approximately every eight years. So how many violations or complaints do they need to receive in order to change their tearing in that eight year time period before someone comes forward again in order to do a re-inspection? >> Chair Osman, Council member Warren. Um that's a great question. So I don't have it off the top of my head. It's quite a matrix and it's quite complicated which is one of the things we're trying to improve in the tearing redesign. So we can get you there's a really nice matrix on the on the city's website and we can share that with you so you can really yeah see the details of it but I don't have it off the top of my head. >> Okay. I'm excited to receive that information as I'm looking at the number of properties and vacant properties and then I have a copy of the inspection report that is utilized when inspections are being done courtesy of Director Valquez provided me with a copy of that but when I'm walking through, you know, just community and I'm looking at the conditions of housing, the question then becomes, how many 311 calls, how many complaints have to be made in order to ensure that property owners and landlords are are holding up integrity to the commitment that they made to provide safe, suitable, and sustainable housing, right? And so, and what that looks like as a reflection of what's happening in in the wards themselves, you know? Um, I respect the 8-year, I respect the 5-year. I personally think, you know, just starting out you're receiving a tier one or 1D because there's not enough information that it kind of and I think you said it yourself best in the presentation. It it things can change right after the inspector leaves, right? So, I think that, um, in our thoughtfulness of moving forward that there should be additional more random inspections that then, um, come up so that, you know, hey, [clears throat] we're we're paying attention, we're giving you an opportunity, we're trying you out. Um, one of the other things that I've shared this, um, with Director in several meetings it that concerns me about this is, um, and I know we've talked about changing, you know, even the application process as it pertains to rental licensing here in the city of Minneapolis because you'll have Joe Blow LLC that hooks up with John Doe LLC and both of them have a plethora of tier three properties that then turns into, you know, Doe and Blow, you know, now they got a whole new team of something and then they've went and purchased up a bunch of other stuff that again looks deplorable and sub-par in the communities that are causing again and it and a fraction on the first tier of public safety and that's housing, right? Um and so I'm I'm consult concerned about that and I really really want us to be very thoughtful and intentional about um lessening the time periods on the tearing inspections and then making the appropriate alterations to um the the rental licensing where it includes the developer or the uh LLC owner or founder or CEO's name, those people and you know, associated board members or decision-makers on there that there is space for that so that we can kind of weed and seed these portfolios together to find out exactly who is responsible for what and it and it helps in holding individuals accountable behind the type of things that are that are happening in the community with respect to housing. So I thank you for your presentation. I appreciate your time and energy. >> All right. Um Thank you. I I put myself on on here and I I do want to say thank you Eric. Your your staff and and I appreciate uh the presentation. The idea behind um bringing this back to the council was that we know the tier system is broken. It's not catch catching up the uh the bad actors out there. It's it's not uh a fair system. Um there are properties that are hired uh tier one that are actually could be tier three. So um and I'm super excited that the the regulatory services regulatory services is doing this overhaul study community engagement which I like to be part of in my resident there are a lot of residents who have a lot to say in my word. Um, to overall and come up with better system that that could, you know, be make sure that that we're we are holding accountable that landlords that are doing business in our city and when they come in front of us or ask license and um, you know, I look forward to that system. I don't know what that system will look like, but I know it will be better than what we have right now. Just the idea of two three system coming from from front of the council, it was not a punishment to the to the landlord or displacement of resident. It was to pay attention and tell the landlords, "If you're doing business with with the city of Minneapolis and you are you know, providing housing where people you know, rent and you're charging them, you're making business, you're making money out of it, we expect you to meet certain basic things which is, you know, the heat, the fridge, basic things. And and we are not seeing that there are properties that are not seeing that. So, the idea was just put a little bit more weight on on that that now you get to go in front of the council because I have seen other license, you know, I'm not comparing liquor license, but I have seen anyone who come in front of the council, they came best prepared, make sure they fixed their you know, take care of the citations, take care of those basic fixes they need. And this is that idea. I do we do not want to displace residents and that is not our intention and we look your leadership and your expertise to hopefully come up a system that can work and um, make sure that people that are coming in doing business with with us are also meeting the basic services for the resident to live in a condition that's humane way for people to to live. And and I would encourage my colleagues to set up a team set up a meeting with your team to kind of learn more about it, engage, and learn about how this licensing system is working because you know um uh it's it it is it is different. It is different you know there are properties in in my word that are a lot of challenges and I'm sure you guys are tired of my emails and >> [laughter] >> there's emails always elevators out, this is out, and and we're we got to we it's a time for us to say, "Hey landlords, work with us to work with you." And that's what we're doing right here. So, uh Council Member Schaefer. >> Yeah, I would like just to have a if you could speak a little bit to the overall direction that's happening. You alluded to community engagement, etc. but between now and March 20th March 1st, 2028, what would be the rough timeline and process that you see unfolding for council and for community engagement? Rough. I know it's rough. >> Chair to the chair. Council Council Member Schaefer, do you mean for the tiering or for this high-risk rental license ordinance? >> Implementation. >> Um both. >> Okay. Okay, so or how they interface. >> Yeah, like assuming the authors want to move forward with the technical amendments to the high-risk rental license ordinance, we'd be moving forward with that first I would say. Yeah. Um so that we can get that that language in place and then keep working with our partners in IT and clerk's office on all the logistics around the um the high-risk rental license ordinance. Um in terms of community engagement for the tiering, we have already engaged um a task force of community members. So, renters, renter advocates, property owners, um and gotten a lot of great information from that group. Um, and we've also been to the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on Housing and we'll be back there later this month, I believe, um, to keep that group engaged. We're the next step for community engagement will be a broader survey that we would love to have Council members help with to get out the word to your folks, um, to get like a broader, um, engagement in- input, uh, feedback. Uh, I will say it's it is, as you can tell, the tiering is very technical. So, >> [laughter] >> um, so it is kind of a challenge. Um, so that's why we did kind of a deep dive with the task force to really bring them up to speed so they could give like really robust, but we do want to hear from renters what's going on so that can get informed, um, everything we're putting together. So, yes, then basically we have some internal, uh, project management infrastructure for both of these projects, but they are also are going to kind of dovetail at some point for if if we do get implementation date of March 1st, 2028 for both of them. >> Okay, thank you. I I would just say this is very important, obviously, to my ward and as much as you can keep us in the loop as rough drafts are happening or if you're giving, you know, key nuggets of, you know, where we're headed but where those direction where those meetings are happening and with which groups, just to keep us in the loop would be really great so that we can attend or we can have another legislative lab, um, so that we can, um, really have input before um, we see it come to council. Um, that would be my feedback. And then, um, if there are any rough draft ideas, I mean, I've heard a little bit between the lines, um, from some of your comments now where you're headed, but is there anything you would like to detail, um, rough ideas of where you're headed within that tiering work? >> Through the chair, Council member Sheaf er, There's a number of kind of themes that we're hearing. One that comes to mind is the the naming of the tiers it's itself, right? Like tier it's confusing whether the tier one and the tier one D and people don't know if you want to be a high tier or a low tier. You know, is it good to be a higher number or lower number? You always say it's like golf, right? For two you want to be tier one. But it's also kind of a misnomer because we know that we don't know that much about tier one properties. [clears throat] Like it's hard to say that like like I was saying in my presentation, we're not we don't know the condition all the time. And so I ex- I'm We've been getting feedback from the task force from others like the naming convention convention is one of the things that's causing the complexity and some of the confusion. So I If you have any ideas, that's one of the things we're work shopping. Um that that's what comes to mind, yeah. >> Okay. So you don't foresee any of the inspections changing or any of the timing around analysis of these buildings changing? >> Through the chair. Customer shaver, so yes, sorry. Thank you. Everything is kind of on the table, right? So the cycle of how frequently they're inspected as well as um the actual violations and how the violations are weighted. Basically all the components we're we're looking at. Um I'm trying to think. The number of tiers, that's something we've heard already. Maybe there should be more tiers, that kind of thing. >> Okay. That's really helpful. I really appreciate because I think that helps me as a council member start to to brainstorm and and and collect feedback um kind of anecdotally. Um so that's really helpful. Um And then could you clarify, you know, you told us that um, with under this new ordinance, um, that the high-risk properties would come to the council for approval or denial. If they were denied, that would mean, um, displacement if they were denied by the council. Um, but you also said that displacement took another route. Uh, a staff route. Um, so I'd like to understand how those two, um, processes will intersect. Does that make sense? Um, with the staff, if if some property has become a question mark for staff and you've decided it needs to be displacement and that process starts, is that a separate process from what a council might decide in saying deny a license? I'm trying to understand how those two pathways that you described intersect. >> Yeah, but I don't think >> Through the chair, Councilmember Shepperd. We'll have someone from inspections answer cuz I'm not sure I quite understand. >> Okay. >> Do you want to? >> Oh, okay. >> She's ready to go. >> Or or just like if the council has this role, then does the staff role in that process go away? I'm I'm just trying to understand like I think the staff process has how we currently do it, right? I mean, if there's a if there's a problem property and we need to displace people, we've, you know, that comes before us in your process. But with this new change, that's not, you know, that's not till 2028, so I understand there's still some question marks. How if the council has that power, then how how do those two, um, pathways intersect? >> Um, through chair, through chair, uh, Councilmember Shepperd. So, it it we have talked through that a bit in the implementation, um, project team and it would kind of make the process a bit backwards in a in a sense. Um so usually when staff is recommending a denial or revocation of a rental license, we would send a notification or our intent to um recommend that to the property owner. Um and there's a process that would go through would go through before it comes to you including if they wanted to appeal it, it would go to the hearing officer. Hearing officer recommendation is forwarded into council. >> Okay. >> Um if we are recommending the license be a license renewal be approved, um then it would be coming to you from us. You if you denied it, then it would go back to the hearing officer instead of back to us. And the hearing officer would make a determination and then I'm not clear on where it goes from there. My understanding is it wouldn't come right back to you. Um be kind of silly. Um but I don't know if we've clarified that process fully. >> I think that's helpful. So there's a staff process of denial that happens >> Mhm. >> Um before all of the the high-risk rental units would come before the council. >> Yeah, through the Chair Kouns Shafer, there's there's a revocation process and so >> you. >> Yeah, if if staff is recommending revocation, those come to council throughout the year. Not wouldn't necessarily be at the time of the renewal cycle. >> Right. >> Mhm. And if it gets if a license gets revoked, uh they can't get another rental license for 3 years. It's another thing people should know. >> So where is the data that council will get to make a decision of denying a license? >> Through Councilmember Shafer, so for the renewals will be we will be recommending approval of those. >> Okay. >> Um even though they're tier three, we'll be saying these ones are okay. You know what I mean? >> Okay. Okay. >> So, we would our aim, and this is one of the processes we're looking at to uh to iron out is that we would be able to send council members potentially like a list of those in their ward so that you could let us know at agenda setting if you expect if you want to see more information ahead of time or if you're expect to pull it or something, and then we have to figure that out on our end how to prepare those presentations. >> Okay, so that's very helpful. I mean, the the um challenges of, you know, withholding license would probably come through a different process than at that moment in time when all of the high risk would come before the council. >> We would hope so. Yes. That'll be simpler. Yeah. >> That's really helpful. Um Thank you. Uh that's it. And I really appreciate your um looking into all of this. Um I know from personal experience, you know, with a tier two property in my ward going to court this month. Um we've got some things to iron out. So, I I just thank you for your hard work, and please know um I would like to stay close to this discussion and keep please keep all of us informed on um if there's places for us to come here a presentation about your rough directions. Thanks. >> Council Member Ward. >> Thank you, Chair Asman. Um and pardon myself for getting back into queue again, but I had a couple of more questions. So, with um rental properties now that are are umbrellaed or underneath the jurisdiction of um property owners, property management companies, um larger property management companies, with the changes that we are making to the tiering system, um if you will. Are we putting language in there that is going to be specific around how we govern or weed and seed through these different property management companies that are holding them to a different standard? Because, and I'm saying this for two reasons. At one point in the conversation, it was stated that, um, there wasn't like these blanket rental licenses. But, then it almost like it is, like they do exist, um, that are basically tailored to certain property management companies, like a Renters Warehouse or, um, you know, that those individuals then have these blanket rental licenses that it's not the fiduciary responsibility that lives necessarily with the property owner if they're in business with these specific type of property management companies. So, ensuring that we're holding individuals to their own individual license, um, which is why it was important for me even with the item that came before, um, you know, Biz Committee today for the rental license, um, reinstatement at 2113 Ilion, um, that moved forward now to Council. Um, it was sold from someone else who had had a license that was terminated. Now, it's in the hands of somebody else, but then, what if it would have been underneath the governance of a a property management company and that is now hosting those things. And that's another huge issue. It's a lot of times not the individual but these blanket property management companies. I didn't mean to pick on Renters Warehouse but then again I do because they're kind of those people too. But but so Renters Warehouse will have these blanket you know packages. You buy the Cadillac package or you could buy the Yugo package you know. You go and figure it out and we'll just put somebody in there but if you got the Cadillac package then we'll handle all of the bells and whistles and everything for you but then if you you got the Yugo package then you know you going to figure out the rest of the stuff yourself. We're just going to put somebody in the property per se and those end up causing a lot of problems with with issues around renting and rental repair systems and how repairs and and things are being done to the properties when the owners themselves are absent and these property management companies are managing the properties but are not being given the tools that they need to prioritize the repairs and if it's not being looked at for an extended period of time like that poses a big issue. Um and then I also wanted to ask about how this tearing system is going to relate to scattered site housing around Minneapolis Public Housing Authority sites for those independent and standalone properties that are throughout community because I understand that we do not have jurisdiction over the high-rises but then what does this mean for the scattered site housing um um Yes. >> [laughter] >> Good afternoon, Chair Osborn, committee members, Enrique Velasquez, director of regulatory services. So, with respect to uh I'm going to try and reframe the question to um how the rental license tearing will relate to public housing authority and scattered sites versus high occupancy dwelling units. We have authority to license all of them and to tear them accordingly in conjunction with all of the other uh market rate and other housing that we have available. So, we will move forward and do that when we go through and look at the two-year look back or whatever that new process looks like in terms of the new rental license tearing. So, we will do that collectively as one entity, not as market rate and then scattered site or public housing. It all gets um folded together and we'll look at the same criteria all the way across the board. >> Okay. Thank you for that. Um I I also have one more question um with respect to that in in as we're looking at over site for MPHA and scattered site housing, so then how does that tearing system then impact their portfolio? Is it we're just looking at this one and this one is a three and or you know, because you have so many that are considered three, then this is where we're lining you up at or how does that because again, there's that big huge it's a huge blanket of a large portfolio of and I'm trying to understand how that impacts those those large portfolioed um developments. >> Certainly. Through the chair, Councilmember Warren, um when we have large portfolios like that, that's why we shift those inspections over to the alternative enforcement team so that we don't have an inspector in northeast versus an inspector in south or southwest individually inspecting properties. The alternative enforcement team is able to take a more of a 30,000-ft view and survey the entire landscape of that portfolio and see okay, we're seeing some challenges in a variety of different areas and we're seeing some recurring patterns. Perhaps it's time to call that property owner in and let's have some real dialogue about what's happening. What do we need to do differently so that we have consistency all the way across the board. >> Okay. I have one more question for you. Um and I know I sent this to you in an email, but I'm going to just pose it out there. Um with respect to my predecessor and um my also neighboring council colleague LaTricia Vita authored a bill, I mean authored an ordinance, excuse me, in 2023 around mold and mold inspections. And so, is that being implemented into the inspection reports where there going to be a deep dive is are we recruiting someone into regulatory services that is going to aid with mold inspections and mold abatement? >> Council Council Chair Alston, um Councilmember Warren, yes, thank you for the question. I still owe you a response on that one. Uh so, the way we have approached this specific ordinance was looking at all the different factors that would contribute to the creation or the emanation of mold in that property, whether it's cold, moisture, dampness, all those different factors, and abating the situation that caused the mold, and all the under other underlying conditions, as well as remediating the specific surfaces or whatever is damaged by the mold. >> Mhm. >> Uh which is also to say, we're not going in with uh air quality systems or other tools to be able to evaluate which specific spore type is in the air or on the surface or in these different areas. Um we're focused more on all the other factors that would lead to mold. >> Yes. And I think with all of the wonderful learnings that we are learning in in dealing with Heritage Park, that it would be advantageous for us as a city in order to have someone in our our our side shield that is of that experience in order to aid us in these deep-rooted investigations because as we are holding property owners and individuals to these expectations, if there is an issue of moisture, we know that the wall has to be opened or the envelope of the of the property also has to be opened in order to truly abate or resolve said issue around pipe or water intrusion or something as it prepares to windows and if we're opening up walls, then we're pulling permits. And if we're pulling permits, then you know, then we're really talking about proving that we have done the deep-rooted work in resolving the issue and there's an inspector that comes along with those permits that are pulled in order to inspect all the way through the process to ensure that, you know, shutoff valves are put in or this is done right and that's done right and you know, the plumbing is inspected and then you get permission to close the wall and then once you close the wall, that's inspected and the windows inspect and so we have we have wonderful systems that are put into place, but I what I'm trying to really ensure is that we're holding people to the standards of those systems that are put into place and really doing everything within our power and due diligence to protect, you know, our renters as well as our our property owners in these instances, right? So that everyone, you know, everyone's a winner all the way around. So I appreciate that. I look forward to more of these conversations and us exploring ways to get a mold and a baiter and inspector on team with regulatory services but cuz that's something that is definitely needed. And so I'm I'm very excited about having that conversation. Thank you, Director Valquez. The end. >> All right. I will close it down by saying that, you know, um I think Council Member Schaefer raised uh very good questions. Um there are there might be some confusion, but hopefully when we reopen this ordinance uh we can make it fairly clear and have the city attorney work with us to come up language that um that will work and the goal we're trying to solve is we do not want Heritage Park uh situations to happen, right? We have a problem and we're trying to find a solution and this will be the solution and if there's any confusion, we can always add a language here to, you know, to make sure that everything is clear to to council members, to the resident and also to the landlord. So, I look forward on that conversation. And um thank you so much today for your wonderful presentation. And I will ask clerk to file that report. And seeing no further business before us, with no objection, I will declare this meeting adjourned. Thanks, everyone. >> Um chair, um >> Thank you. Uh