Good morning and welcome to the first meeting of the committee of the whole for the year. My name is Orin Chowry and I'm the chair of this committee. Before we begin, I'd like to note for the record and our viewing public that as a result of the ongoing concerns and challenges connected with the presence of federal agents and the ongoing ICE occupation in our community, the council has temporarily restructured itself so that we as elected representatives for our communities and constituents can be positioned to respond in a timely manner. that temporary restructuring essentially consolidates all of our standing meetings into a committee of the whole also known as super committee of the whole. This body will be responsible for the regular work of all standing committees which is to review, revise, refine and make recommendations on all matters and submitting those recommendations in a single report to the full council. Our calendar reflects that we've moved from a standard two-week cycle to a compressed oneweek cycle with committee of the whole and council meeting every other week. This is the first consolidated cycle and we will have a second consolidated cycle the week of February 16th to the 20th with this committee meeting again on Tuesday, February 17th at 9:30 a.m. followed by the regular meeting of the full council on Thursday, February 19th at 9:30 a.m. As usual, all of those meetings will be conducted in this chamber and will be broadcast and livereamed in real time from our public access channels and our city website. With that, I will call to order today's meeting of the super committee of whole for Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the role and verify the presence of a quorum. Council member Payne, >> present. >> Wsley, >> present. >> Rainville, >> present. >> Vtop >> present. >> Warren, >> present. >> Osman is absent. Schaefer >> present. >> Stevenson >> present. >> Chavez is absent. Whiting >> present. >> Palmisano >> present. >> Vice chair Chuktai >> present. >> And chair Chowry >> present. There are 11 members present. >> Let the record reflect that we have a quorum. Colleagues, I'd like to start by grounding us in where we are as a community today. We as a council have taken this extraordinary step to consolidate our meeting to and to adjust our normal cadence of meeting so that we can respond to our communities and constituents because that's what this moment demands of us as local government. Under this ICE occupation, each part of our city is gripped in the daily hardship faced by people in our neighborhoods. We must be able to show up for them. Minneapolis has been forced to respond to a crisis created by the federal government. Our city has been targeted by by the federal government and has experienced the heavy-handed presence of immigration and border control agents at unprecedented levels. ICE agents outside of our schools, circling apartment buildings, waiting for our neighbors to leave for work, racing through our city streets, staging in our neighborhood parks. Our community has seen firsthand the racial profiling of our neighbors and the intimidation of those who use their constitutional rights to document the egregious actions that unfold in front of us. We have seen kids be taken from our community and families torn apart. We are not okay. The people of Minneapolis are not okay. Yet, while every person in this city is asked more than they should ever be asked to do, they keep rising to the moment with an unprecedented level of courage and commitment to their neighbor. Surely something the history books will remember of the people of Minneapolis. That is who we are. a welcoming city, one that bends towards justice and says, "We love our immigrant neighbors and they make our city great." It's been allconsuming. Council members have been responding to an unprecedented level of constituent need by prioritizing being with people in our community and the the people in our community that we are interested to represent. But it's more than just us as council members that have been impacted. our entire city organization, all of our departments, each of the thousands of professionals who work in our departments and deliver essential city services and public programs. We've all been impacted. And on behalf of the city council, we thank each and every one of you that has been working day in and day out to do this incredibly important work of public service. We see your solidarity with each other and with our entire Minneapolis community and to my colleagues on the city council. This is not how we anticipated to start our term uh for our returning members and of course our new members, but I am really proud of us in the ways that we have been trying to come together and showing up for each other without even the consideration of the boundaries of our ward. Three of our neighbors have died as a direct result of the aggressive posturing by federal agents through egregious lethal force or the horror inflicted in the detention process. Renee Good, Victor Manuel Diaz, Alex Prey should still be with us today. They should be alive here with their families. Their deaths were tragic, unnecessary, and completely predictable. We mourn their deaths alongside our communities, the nation, and the world. And as we continue to push back against what we believe to be an unwarranted, overblown, and harmful presence by federal agents in our community and say collectively, ICE out immediately and for good. we should take time to pause to commemorate the lives that have been significantly impacted. So I'd like to ask everyone to join me in a moment of reflection to honor Renee Good, Victor Manuel Diaz, Alex Prey, and to express our solidarity with all our families, friends, and neighbors that have been affected. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. Those meetings include real-time captioning to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments of the broadcast. We ask all speakers to please moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. So, colleagues, today we have a very lengthy agenda process before us. That is why it's super cow. I've informed staff that we will start with items on our discussion agenda. Those items include matters where a formal presentation is either required or has been requested and where we anticipate potential for significant discussion before any action. Those items are listed as items 65 through 71 on the agenda. Once we've dispensed with those items, we'll res return to the consent agenda which has a total of 64 items. Additionally, I'm going to propose two changes to the agenda. Item number 60 related to human trafficking services at the South Minneapolis Community Center will be moved to discussion. We'll we'll work our way through the discussion items listed on the agenda 65 to 71 and then take up item number 60 at the end or actually I might have that before we take up um item uh number 71. And then additionally item number 70 which is a budget amendment related to immigration legal services was intended for a cons consent agenda and erroneously got included in discussion. So I will bypass that item during discussion. I also note the lead author uh council member Chavez had an appointment this morning that he had to make and he's uh when he's back for cons consent he will speak to that item. Um, I'll also note if this first part of discussion gets us to noon, I will be giving us a recess for lunch for about 45 minutes. Are there any questions about my proposal to reorder the agenda? All good. >> You have a question? Okay, you're good. >> Okay. I'll also recognize that uh council member Osman and council member Wanssley have joined us. Oh, you were here earlier. Okay. All right. Super cow. Um then we'll prop proceed with the agenda as I've reordered it. Okay. Our first items 65 and 66 on the agenda, both of which concern the city's 2026 legislative agenda and policy positions and an update on our federal issues. Here to present on those items is our intergovernmental relations director, Katie Topinka. Welcome, Miss Tinka. >> Uh thank you, Chair Chowry, and council members. Um we are happy to be here today to present on the city's 2026 legislative agenda and policy positions. Um and so before we dive into the content, just wanted to give a couple of reminders about um who the intergovernmental relations team is and what we are responsible for. Um so this is the overview of our presentation and we'll move right into it. Um so um half of our team is in the room right now and uh uh Mr. Huer and Miss Fano will be assisting with the presentation a little bit later on when we get into the items on the legislative agenda that they're responsible for. But uh we have a small but mighty team. Um and our role is to represent the city uh with other levels of government and try to advance the uh legislative agenda and policy positions that you all uh approve with our state and federal partners. And we also work closely with county, school, parkboard partners on a regular basis as well. Um, so just an overview of IGR. This is our mission. We partner across governments and organizations on behalf of Minneapolis residents and the city enterprise to advance their needs, strengthen collaboration, and create lasting improvements in quality of life. And so today, we're talking primarily about uh this first bullet here of developing and advocating the city's policy agenda. Uh, and this slide is pretty hard to read, but it's meant more as as a reference tool for you all. Um this is the way we divide up our work. So we assign different issues to different team members um so that team members can work closely with the relevant departments and develop subject matter expertise um to work on advancing uh policy priorities under those agenda items. We have reworked this a little bit going into this year's legislative session given the um amount of activity happening around federal issues. Um Lauren Olsen has primarily been our lead on federal and will continue to be but I'm going to be um doing more around federal relations as well and uh Miss Fana and Mr. Huer will be um taking the lead at the state and with that in mind is taking on a couple of the issues I uh typically cover around economic development and taxes and workforce. So we are adapting as needed given the current uh environment that we're in. Um and so now just a brief preview of what to expect this legislative session. It starts two weeks from today on February 17th. Um we are going into a session where they um the state passed a bianial budget last year. So they do not have to pass a new budget. Um there may be some discussions about budget adjustments based on changes at the federal level through um the one big beautiful bill act. Last year there were uh there are going to be a number of cuts to Medicaid that go into effect next year. Um so we expect there will be some discussion about potential budget modifications to address future holes in state budgets as a result of that. Um there is a projected deficit for the state in the outy years but there is a bit of a surplus of one-time money this year. Um the legislature remains very evenly divided. It's that's a split down the middle between uh DFL members and Republican members in the House. Um there are two new DFL members who won special elections last week in St. Paul and Maplewood. Um and so they are evenly divided again in the Senate. There's a one seat DFL majority. Um it's also an election year for the governor, the House, and the Senate. And so that dynamic will just play into um how things go during session. So we anticipate there'll be uh a lot of debates potentially not a ton of action. Um we shall see we hope there is but but we'll see in term and by action I mean you know bills passing just because of the closely divided nature. Um some of the topics we anticipate that a lot of discussion around are um federal immigration enforcement activity uh which of course is affecting all of us very um deeply and and thank you for your your remarks about that earlier Chair Chowry um and but it's affecting uh communities across the state. Um and so we anticipate we'll be hearing uh there will be a lot of discussion about that. Um we also anticipate discussion about gun violence prevention um particularly in response to the um shooting at Annunciation last fall. Um and you'll see both of these items elevated on our agenda and we'll get to that um a couple in a few slides. Um we also anticipate there'll continue to be discussion about fraud. Um uh and then we are hopeful there will be a lot of discussion about capital investment and a bonding bill. Um and those the council last October approved the city's bonding priorities through a resolution. Um that's the state's requirement going into an even numbered year that we get a resolution from our governing body in the fall prior going into the session. And so um those items that were approved last fall are reflected in the legislative agenda as well. Um, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Fana to just talk about um our internal process through which we seek updates to the agenda from staff. Um, and you did receive a presentation on this uh for returning council members, you received a presentation on this last November and that is linked to the limbs file. But um, Miss Fana, I'll just give a brief recap of that. >> Uh, Chair Chattery, Vice Chair Rainville, and council members, good morning. My name is Indira Felana. I'm with the Intergovernmental Relations Department as a government relations representative. Um, and I'll be continuing on with the presentation covering the next two slides here. Um, so an overview of our policy liaison team. Um, otherwise known as PLT. Um, it's coordinated by us, the IGR department, and is our annual process in which city staff evaluate and propose changes for possible inclusion on the city's legislative policy positions and agenda. Um this begins in the summer and concludes in the fall. Um the proposed changes include policy, technical and language updates. Um the policy liaison team itself is made up of interdep departmental city staff. So each department head selects a few staff members um from their department to be uh policy leaison team members and this is what makes up the policy liaison team. Um so the team uh they bring proposals they re they review proposals and and uh suggested policies for inclusion. Um this year we had 10 recommendations um which you will see on the next slide. Um, so these recommendations have been added to our uh existing policy positions platform and is underlined as new language in the markedup version that you all have received of the 2026 legislative agenda and policy positions packet. And I will call back up Director Topinga. Um, thank you Miss Fana. Um and so um now we're going to go into what's in the legislative agenda document. Um and just wanted to give a couple reminders as we go into that. So the um the document that's attached to the limbs file called 2026 legislative agenda and policy positions is made up of kind of two components. Um we're going to talk about the first couple of pages after the table of contents which is the legislative agenda. Those are the items that we anticipate um spending, you know, being most proactive about as we move into the legislative session. Um and the way we get to those recommendations is through a couple of different uh ways. One is through the policy liaison team process um that you just heard about. Another is through um both council actions and conversations with council members um and and the mayor um so the city policy makers. Um and then also just an understanding of the dynamics going into session. So what we know will be sub um topics of conversation um and thinking through how the city should be positioned to weigh in on those topics. Um the the rest of the document, the policy positions document is um updated every year um and you'll see the changes in underline. So those policy liaison team proposals are all reflected and underlined um in the policy positions document. That document helps guide the team's work throughout the session as well as topics come up at the capital. Um um gives us the ability to weigh in accordingly based on the policy positions that the city has adopted. Um so with that, I'm going to to go into the next few slides about the legislative agenda. Um this uh first item that you will see on under the legislative agenda is about what we are experiencing in our city from um federal immigration enforcement activities. Um we uh this is a a new position of course because we hadn't anticipated this even last fall when we came to present to you or anticipated it at this level at this time. Um, so our emergency management department is in the process of working across city departments and with outside stakeholders to really measure the impact that we're feeling from this federal immigration enforcement. Um, but we know already that there's been tremendous cost to the city as an enterprise just from um unanticipated things like um public safety, overtime costs, public works uh costs, just um across the board work that the city was not anticipating having to take on and that we now um are needing to take on in response to what's going on into our city. Beyond that though, the economic impact to residents and businesses is also we know very very large. Um it's been extremely challenging for our residents and community members. We have been um the CPAD business development team has been reading reaching out to business owners. Um and we anticipate that businesses may be losing as much as 10 to 20 million in revenue a week um as this has been going on. Um, we also know that residents are nervous about being able to make their rent payments. Um, and you've all recognized that already through actions you've taken. Um, but we also know there's going to be a need for rental assistance. Um, I know that's another discussion item for you later, but that is something that we have added here on the um, legislative agenda because um, the needs are going to be great. Um, we also know that there's just going to be ongoing recovery needs um for months and probably years into the future around mental health supports um for community. Um, and so um that's what this ask is about is is seeking assistance from the state um for helping to address those long-term those immediate recovery needs and also long-term recovery needs. Um, so this will continue to be fleshed out over the next couple of weeks as um we're gathering data um and have more um to share with all of you and with our partners at the state and federal levels. Um but uh we are seeking your support for um adding this as an agenda item going into the legislative session and I will turn it back over to Miss Volana for the next Oh no, sorry, Mr. Huser for the next one. >> Welcome. >> Uh thank you chair, members of the committee of the whole. Uh my name is Steve Huer. I'm the senior government relations representative for the IGR department. I'm going to cover the community safety agenda items for this session. Um the first one is uh we will we've elevated from um some policy positions we had already in our legislative policies to elevate them up to our legislative agenda after the tragedy at Enunciation Church. Um so the city will be advocating for gun violence prevention measures including assault weapons ban and a high-capacity uh magazine ban. Um, so we'll be looking to we are aware of legislation that's already been introduced and um we'll be hitting the ground running with uh those advocates and collaborating with them in order to see what is possible at the legislature this legislative session on that front. The next is to support policies that are ensuring the safety for public officials um including local governments to uh have a ban for weapons in city buildings. Um the we anticipate that there will be the topic of elected official safety uh given the assassination of uh Speaker Ammerita Hortman uh the attempted assassination of Senator Hoffman and the the the knowledge of the threat that was posed by uh that assassin. Um we anticipate that being a discussion for the legislators about their own safety. uh we antic we intend to remind them that they are not the only level of government that is facing that kind of a threat and so we will be bringing that to their attention and hoping to collaborate with them on any law changes that could potentially be done to increase the safety for all elected officials in the state. Um we'll also be looking at whether they would be willing to give us the authority to also have restrictions on what weapons we allow into city-owned buildings. Um and so there is uh talk of legislation to that effect that we will be working with others to hopefully get across the finish line this session. And the last bullet is support for local community safety initiatives. Uh this is a pretty broad statement, but it basically just means that if there were to be a supplemental budget or any kind of policy bills that are moved in the community safety space this legislative session, you know, we we intend to look for ways to expand things like our behavior crisis response uh teams, our violence interrupterss programs or other public safety programs that the are city initiatives that we could potentially be collaborating with the state on uh to further that work. And I think the next slide >> it's Miss Fana. Thank you. >> Before we actually have Miss Fana come up, uh, Council President Payne had a question, I believe, for the part Director Topinka presented on, so I'll ask her to come back up. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, you'd mentioned uh estimated5 to$10 million a week of revenue loss for our businesses. Uh I've had some preliminary conversations with uh our LRO team about uh doing a more formal study on these federal impacts and I'm wondering uh if any initiative like that is being thought of at the state level because we know this is going to have a statewide economic impact and it's a question that you might have an answer for or it might be a can can you make sure to connect with Director Hawkins to make sure that we're collaborating with the the legislative resources uh the research resources at the state to answer that question more formally. >> Uh Cher Chowy, Council President Payne, uh yes, I know uh that there are state agencies who are in the process of gathering that type of data as well to understand the impacts statewide and also yes, we can work with um uh Director Hawkins and make sure we're connecting the city and the state as those um that work is being done. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, I'll recognize Council Member Rainville. >> Thank you. Uh, Director Topinka, you had mentioned the public safety costs that were being burdened with, fire, police, public works, emergency. Do we have any idea? Is that mostly overtime? >> Uh, Chair Chowry, Council Member Rainville. Um, I know we're still pulling, uh, numbers together. Uh, I do know there are significant overtime costs specifically for police. Um, I but I can't put a number on it in this moment or speak to whether other departments are also experiencing that, but we can get back to you with more information as those numbers are being pulled together. I think a lot of the data is still being gathered. >> Great. So, and there's no rush on that, but I think that would be a very powerful uh piece of information to put before the state legislature. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Thank you. We don't have any other questions, so we can continue. >> Um, continuing on with the presentation, um, economic growth and property tax relief. Um, so we will continue to advocate um, for the support of tax credits, tiff or other tools to convert vacant commercial space to residential or other uses. Um so we had a bill that we introduced last session um related to this and we plan to work on it again. Um essentially it would just provide tax credits for the conversions of other under underutilized buildings or use tiff as a tool for the same purpose. Um our bill last year moved a lot and received a lot of hearings. Um so we'll continue to just have conversations with legislators about that. Um the next one is updating down the downtown taxing boundary to include North Loop and maintain the current rates. Um, so we just really want to expand the downtown taxing uh boundary area to encompass a geography that would bring it more in line with the scope of uh downtown activity as it exists today. And as it says there um it's to include the north loop uh neighborhood and then support for entertainment districts, public art and signage social district. So um this is a proposal that was introduced to us during the PLT process this year. Um, and it aims to create an entertainment district that captures excess revenue and value from the introduction uh and permitting of newly authorized digital outdoor signage. Um, and then these funds would be earmarked to fund or enhance the city's public art initiatives or safety improvements. Um, and then there's other juris other jurisdictions that do this including Atlanta, Baltimore, um, and then Denver. Um, so state law prevents us from simply charging a fee. So that's why we would be going to the legislature to um ask for um the authority to be able to do this um through special legislation. Um and then we also um had legislation last session um that would uh that that would need that that so we would we're going to the state to uh ask for the authority to have a social district um and then the boundaries would be defined by the council and it would allow individuals to be able to open carry alcohol within that defined area. So that's what we be that's what we would be going to the capital to continue having those conversations. um this year. Um and the last bullet point there, um increase local government aid or other property tax relief. Um this is something that we advocate for every single year. It's an increase. Um and then we would also be working against cuts cuts to the formula as well. Um and this is uh a perennial issue. Um and then affordable housing and homelessness. So funding to address the fiscal cliff, disabilize existing homeless services in Henipin County, and changes to federal funding for homelessness response. Um, so we worked with the county last year to advocate for the importance of the bridge to shelter legislation. Um, and then this was legislation that provided funding for specific services such as 247 operations at existing shelters and shelter diversion programming and housing focused case management. And there's often gaps in the funding. So, which is why we were asking for um some state funding for these services. Um unfortunately with the lack of of available funding last session um it didn't receive any funding um for the upcoming session. We will continue to work with the county um as they continue to have their conversations and advocate um for funding for this bill. And I'll pause for questions. >> Yes, I have a question, Miss Fana. um would you just be able to share a little bit more context about um this fiscal cliff and where it's at currently? I think it'd be valuable for us to kind of reset, let the new members know about what we've been advocating for the last legislative session. And then um I'm kind of wondering given the uh challenges at the federal level if we're expecting the ask at the legislature to shift this time around and if you've heard anything from Henipin County about that. >> Yes. Um so I'll start with the last question first. Um I haven't heard anything recently from Henipin County in terms of a change in their strategy to advocate for bridge to shelter. Um there is a um in the out years there is um just some state funding I guess more of a deficit I would say in the out years. Um however they still plan to advocate for the funding that like they need to continue services um for homelessness um response. Um and then in terms of the fiscal cliff the fiscal cliff was uh unfortunately made possible by um ARPA funds that um had expired essentially. Um, so us along with the county, we put a lot of money towards um, homelessness response and services. Um, and as a result of ARPA funds no longer being able to be used, that's where the fiscal the fiscal cliff um, presented itself. So >> yeah, thank you. And I'll just I'll just highlight um for my colleagues the this fiscal cliff I think last legislative session it was like 13 million and um on heading home Henipin where the mayor is a co-chair I serve served we still have to select um who's going to be on our upcoming boards and commissions. This has been a really pressing issue for us as a county because if we hit this fiscal cliff and if we don't fill these services, we lose critical services that are available um for our communities, especially shelters. Um and that would be pretty catastrophic for the city of Minneapolis and account and the county as a whole. And like it colored a lot of what we had to tackle in our city budget. the mayor proposed $1 million to go over to Henipin County for um win emergency winter beds and extending that. And then we as a council passed an additional $1 million for shelter operations. And I think it's really important to state that it's good that we did those things, but that's not sustainable for us to take on as local government alone, and that's why we need the state to act. And it was really hard. um to move our state legisl legislators from my perspective uh when me and council member Allison actually went and um tried to talk to them to get that funding. And so my hope is that we we pursue uh a more collective strategy. We would love to see more council members engaged in that and talking to the members in their district because this is just uh a really big issue that we're kind of delaying the pay pain on and seeing parts of it right now. So, those are my remarks and I'm not seeing any other questions. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, so the next slide is uh our resilient infrastructure uh kind of package of agenda items. Uh the first is transit funding and policies that meet the needs of the region and city. Um we are anticipating that if there is any supplemental transportation budget bill that there could be discussion around transit at least that is our hope. Um, we will be advocating for the needs of Minneapolis, our um, especially our transit dependent residents, but uh, everybody just to ensure that the state is doing its part to invest in that system in our city and to make sure that any of the governance around the funding and those pots of money includes the the city and and takes us into account. The next bullet is uh, state funding to address ADA infrastructure improvements. Um, this is an ask we've had over several years now. uh we have about a $400 million um you know backlog of work to update our city streets uh to be ADA compliant and so we do usually we every year we have recently have been asking for state partnership to address those needs. The next bullet is funding for complete streets and traffic calming. This is also a carryover from last session. Um again any other any supplemental transportation budget we will be again asking for complete streets and traffic calming funding. We did get a onetime appropriation last session. Um it was a small amount of money, but it is meaningful amount of money to allow public works to do some of that work to uh improve the safety of intersections for both uh pedestrians, bicyclists, and uh those driving on our streets. Uh the next bullet is funding for local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Um we will be asking the state to partner with that. Any other details or questions you have about that um I might direct to Miss Fana. Um and then the next is also uh support for zero waste initiatives uh related to what the city does with its waste and how we can reduce uh what we are putting in uh landfills or are incinerating. And if you have any questions about that bullet as well, I would direct you to Miss Volana. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. We're not seeing any questions. Oh, thank you. All right, Council President Payne. >> Uh thank you, Chair Chowry. Uh, I'll have the city attorney feel free to butt in on this if it's inappropriate, but I'm wondering given the federal funding climate, how that might be shaping, um, how the state legislature is addressing some of these infrastructure investments. >> Madam Chair, uh, Council President Payne, um, I don't know that the federal, well, two things. the amount of federal pass through dollars that would be coming to the state that would be a potential for infrastructure is not what it was what we saw in the last few years with the previous administration. So there is that part of it. Um I wouldn't say that it would that that climate is necessarily impacting then what the state is doing with state dollars for transportation and in infrastructure. I think what will be driving that this session is more the political climate within the legislature itself and the divide that we see the divided 6767 house and a one vote majority in the in the Senate um makes those negotiations for especially this year for a supplemental budget bill but also for a bonding bill where you could fund infrastructure improvements including road and bridge funding. Um a little bit more of a challenge. Um, I have heard cautious optimism about a bonding bill. The governor did bring out a $700 million proposal um with then I think an additional with go bonds and then another 200 million in other types of bonds. Um, so they there's work being done there, but I don't know that the federal climate is necessarily impacting that. It's just more of the reality of who the the complexion of the legislature as it is today. Hope that answers your question. >> Yep. >> Thank you. Next, I'll recognize Vice Chair Chug Thai. >> Thank you, Madame Chair. Um, thank you to the IGR team and u, Mr. Huser for for um, your presentation so far. Um, I'm just wondering if you can, and I think this might be a question for Miss Fana, but I'm wondering if you can speak to um potential zero waste initiatives that are going to be coming up and um which whether those things are priorities for us at the at the capital. Chair Tedy, uh, Council Member Chuck Tai. Yes, I can speak to a couple of bills that are that may like that we may see. Um, so one the first bill I would highlight is a plastic bag bill. Um, so that uh is in response to um a bill that was um passed into law in 2017 2018 that preempted local governments from being able to um enact um a fee in terms of the like the usage of plastic bags. Um, and that bill was in direct response to the Minneapolis City Council in 2017 or 2018 trying to do that. Um, so, uh, we were working with, uh, Representative Jordan in the state, uh, House to, uh, reverse that preemptive, uh, bill. Um, another bill is the battery and electronic waste or e-waste bill. Um, and then those two bills were moving as one last year. It almost made it across the finish line, but for a number of reasons it did not. Um, so we anticipate that it'll be brought back again up for discussion um and then moving separately this session. And the bill would essentially um put the onus on um manufacturers in terms of charging them instead of having consumers pay. So right now as it um as it currently is um residents have to bring their um unused cell phones, laptops, electronics um to recycle and they have to pay a fee for that. So this bill if passed into law would then um no longer have the pe like the fee passed onto the onto the consumer and it would be the responsibility of the manufacturer for the end of life of their own products. So, that's another bill that we uh anticipate that that will hopefully become law this year. So, >> thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. That's all the questions we have right now. >> Oh, Council Member Wansley, I'll recognize you. >> Thank you. Actually, a followup on that question. Um, curious to know related to the her closure. I thought there were legislative actions that have been moved either last session or the session beforehand around addressing um either uh what would be needed from the state in order to contribute towards the closure or a law uh me mandating certain like terms and conditions before the her can be closed but interested in knowing some of the legislative work tied to that. Uh, Chair Chattery, Council Member Wanssley, I can't think of anything the top of my head right now. Um, but I will follow up with you in a written memo to get you specific details on that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Great. We'll note that as administrative followup for the IGR team. >> Thank you chair and members of the committee. Uh the next slide is our capital investment priorities slide. Um these this was a resolution that the council did uh consider and pass I believe in October of last year. Um this is not different. Um and so we do have the community safety training and wellness facility ask on this list. The structural renewal of 36inch water man um connecting downtown to near north. Uh the ADA transition plan implementation. So this is a different bonding ask. So this is an ask of state dollars for five million um which is different than what we have in our agenda item which is for the under our um kind of infrastructure bullet that's for asking the state to actually budget state um general fund dollars for that purpose. This is a bonding ask for a similar type of improvement in the city. Um and then the next three are our flood mitigation and sanitary sewer projects. Um the 13th Avenue Northeast storm water improvements project. uh 35th Avenue North flood mitigation project and the Aldrich Avenue South Sanitary Rehabilitation. Um we did do a presentation a little bit more fleshed out last last year on these, but happy to answer any questions. >> I'll recognize Vice Chair Chug Thai. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. Um Mr. Huer, I I'm wondering I cannot recall the um the presentation in October um if I'm being completely honest. So, um, you'll have to refresh my memory, but can you speak a little bit more about the the first item on the capital investment priorities, the community safety training and wellness facility, the $19 million request? Is this um the is is this community safety training and wellness facility the same that was discussed as part of the capital budget um last year? Madame Chair uh and Chair Chug or Chugtai. Yes, it's um I believe we're recalling the same discussion. It was part of that there was I think there was two meetings maybe where this project was discussed. The one I'm recalling and was actually a part of was the one in October where we brought forward the resolution ranking the city's um capital investment projects. The purpose of doing that was we were trying to get our projects to the governor and through the MMB, the Minnesota management and budget office process to have that these projects considered for the governor's recommended budget. Only uh no local projects were included in the governor's proposal. There is a placeholder of $35 million which will likely uh if there is a capital investment bill will likely need to be much larger for a bill like that to pass the legislature. Um, so that that was the the October meeting I remember speaking to. So I think we maybe are talking about the same meeting. >> Awesome. Perfect. So, um, I know there are some some questions about how we move forward um, with this training and wellness facility um, and you know that played out over the course of the budget process last year. um and I would imagine is going to continue um as as the capital budget is formulated for this upcoming year through the click process and the mayor's recommended budget. So, I'm wondering um you know, I I I understand that no local projects were included in the governor's recommended budget, but as we continue to, you know, push for these um priorities, if there's an opportunity um to refine that that budget request based on any changes that may be made to that um that capital um project within the city scope first, you know. >> Um, Madam Chair, Council Member Chugai, if I'm if I'm if I'm understanding your question correctly, um, yes, I think we do rank these projects in a resolution. I would say though that um, often we put more in our bonding ask of the state than we reasonably expect to get in a given year. Um, often it is useful to add them into our list or have these discussions over many years with legislators to inform not only our Minneapolis delegation members on the merits of the project, the specifics of the projects um, and the need, but also to have that opportunity to talk to other members of the legislature from other parts of the state. Um, I would say that when we get to the reality of how this ends up getting into a bill, we have to make a judgment call as a city then and as your IGR staff to figure out what is possible to get included in in any given bonding bill. Each year that the technic on paper it looks like a very similar process. Every year it is a little bit different though because you are dealing with uh different needs of the state, different personalities involved at the capital. Um, and so I would say that it is a I think if I'm answering your question now more directly, this can become a little bit of a flexible list in terms of how we prioritize it to um, but that is the kind of thing that we will come back to the council and the mayor and other members of the city enterprise to try to figure out what is our best ask at any given moment assuming that we've got a good opportunity to get something included in a capital investment bill. >> That is so helpful, Mr. Herer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. But we don't have any other questions. So we can continue. >> Yeah. Thank um so that um uh Chair Chowry, that concludes our presentation. Um and so if there are further questions, we're happy to address them, but uh we have no no more slides on this at this time. >> Great. We have uh Council Member Wanley in Q. Thank you, Chair Chowgerie. Um, no questions, but more so comments around some of the priorities that didn't get a chance to be highlighted that I think is really important and also um are included in this legislative agenda as a result of a lot of the leadership and efforts um made by city council over the past couple years. Of course, just further amplifying which will be related to an item we take up uh later in today's discussion regarding rental assistance can't overemphasize the need that we need to see uh state leaders move uh substantial amount of money to be responsive to the looming eviction crisis that is going to impact not just Minneapolis but cities all across the state which is why we also unanimously adopted a resolution um urging Governor Waltz to declare eviction moratorum. Um it is now February 3rd and rent was due on Sunday and clearly that moratorum isn't in place. Um so we need our state leaders not only to be moving resources but also um something that we're advocating for and might bring some more specific or specified language ahead of Thursday is then if Governor Waltz will not act and if we're anticipating further state of emergencies like we're experiencing right now um through attacks by the Trump administration, we should as a city be able to be u more nimble and proactive in passing ordinances that protect our residents. we should have the ability to then pass our own eviction moratoriums as opposed to waiting on the timeline of the governor's political will or the state uh sessions, legislative sessions. So, um I would like to see more language related to that. Um we have some suggestions around what that local authority language could include. I know we do have a general uh local authority section in our agenda, but I think it's very important to make it attuned to also those federal impacts and specifically the limitations of our state government in assisting us right now. Um that said, also I I know we steer away from listing um specific fiscal figures in our our resolutions, but just even thinking about the rental assistance piece. Um just to talk about the scale of need as we're in conversations with our state leaders is just thinking of Henipin County right now has a backlog that goes through August. They haven't even looked at applications from August of last year. And the um figure attached to those applications that's currently backlogged from August of 2025 is $50 million. That is the baseline that we're talking about um in terms of the need for making sure residents prior to this crisis can remain housed. And so we should imagine that that is just again extremely higher um considering August all the way through now too with operation um metro surge being in full effect here. Um so really looking forward to talking to state uh lawmakers around we don't need 10 million we don't need to at a base level it's 50. Um that said, also wanted to emphasize some community safety projects that this body um has also either spearheaded um that's allowing for uh a statewide embrace of these type of uh alternative or non-traditional public safety measures. Uh one of which is um related to pedestrian lighting. As you all know, this body um also allocated funds last budget session um to actually install pedestrian lighting to enhance safety because we recognize safety isn't just confined to someone wearing a gun and badge. Um it's also around the conditions of your environment. Same with traffic calming. Um are we making sure our streets are safer? Can people walk down their neighborhoods um and have illumination of their sidewalks in addition to their streets which we automatically guarantee for cars? Um and I know this is a priority that came out of my war specifically in Dinky Town that has been asking for this for many years. I think even uh Chair Chowry, you talked about this during your time as a U of M student. This was something that students asked for to support their safety needs on campus and was very proud of the fact that this body made initial investments. um of over a million to see the first half of pedestrian lighting beal installed around that area, but there are still um more needed. And I'm sorry, it wasn't a a million, it was about half a million. Um but excited to see that this is part of the legislative agenda. I absolutely see this is like part of capital investments of like how we're enhancing infrastructure and specifically from a pedestrian um point of view. Um, also big piece of work that this body uplifted last year that actually was led by our partners in St. Paul was the inclusion of a non-fatal task force. Um, and we had tons of deliberation and discussion last year of of knowing that Minneapolis have some of the worst clearance rates. And by clearance, we mean the rates of of cases being solved by our police department. We have some of the worst rates in the country. And really, we're looking at what are some innovative ways in which we can strengthen investigations of cases because we currently have a a backlog of 5,000 cases um that are not solved right now. And this range from homicides to domestic violence um to crimes that impacting children and that 5,000 figure represents 5,000 families and individuals in our cities who have not received some level of closure or justice. Um so our non-fatal task force um allocation that we made at the end of budget last year um really was a solidifying factor that we want to try innovative means and revamping what does law enforcement resources um look like to actually enhance and improve and increase that uh clearance rate. And we know it's possible because folks across the river did it. And they saw their clearance rates um more than double by implementing the same initiative. So I'm really excited to see that we're also aiming to have support statewide for this um and and showing that again we need to be rethinking how law enforcement resources are utilized to actually um foster greater safety for our communities and and investigations is one of those critical pieces. Um, another thing that I think is important to emphasize in our current climate in this in this legislative agenda also includes um, state legislators to ban the use of masks by state and federal law enforcements. Um we know right now the impediment to actually arresting and prosecuting or even identifying the officers who've even shot and killed um our residents most recently that being of Renee Good and Alice Petri and the dozens more that they've harmed over the course of Operation Metro Surge. The impediment to identifying them is they literally come in as mass thugs and harm our communities. And we don't allow that standard for any other law enforcement agency. the reform efforts has really prried itself on we need to identify the officers. Yeah, you can wear a body cam and possibly still shoot people, but at least we have a body cam to trace that saying you should not be going into communities as a law enforcement agency in full disguise and then evade consequences when you brutalize residents. So, I'm really proud of the fact that this is also part of it and I hope this is something that is adopted um by our state legislature regardless of splits and divides amongst the political spectrum there. And then lastly, something else that we'll have further conversation on um and that we definitely just, you know, dipped our toe in a little bit is this issue which I think is also tied to public safety is the autonomous self-driving cars um that specifically Whimo which I will name learn I learned they're testing all across the state. they've tested in my ward. There was no permission or anything given. And just as we saw with the blowback from Uber and Lift of these tech companies coming in when there is no baseline of regulation and then being able to use that to their advantage to exploit workers and also lead divestments in public infrastructure like public transportation to route further profits and concentration within their own business model. Um this is something that we have the opportunity to get ahead of. It took 10 years to finally catch up to regulation on Uber and Lift and it shouldn't take 10 years to do this with Whimo and other self uh driving uh or autonomous driving vehicles. Um there should absolutely be massive pushes for regulation in which how they operate in our cities and also with a special focus on protecting our workers which in other cities that has not been the case. Um, so we already saw what happened when the cab industry was decimated and how that created opening for predatory companies like Uber and Lyft. We don't want to be in that same predicament. We have the ability to avoid that. And I'm I'm hopeful even these it's very kind of broad strokes of what's included related to autonomous uh driving vehicles in the legislative agenda. But I at least want to say I'm I'm grateful for that. I would like to see more consideration around stronger regulatory language um by the state legislature and to be proactive about this and that it doesn't come with further preeemption um that is also tied to local authority. Once again, if the state doesn't want to hold corporations accountable, don't penalize cities who actually want to do the work and protect their workers and protect our infrastructure. So, just want to share those thoughts on some key priorities that didn't get some air time, but just want to say thank you to our IGR staff for working with our offices to at least have them be reflected in our agenda. >> Thank you so much, Council Member Wanley. Um, there aren't any others in Q. I'll just quick uh state that I think this legislative agenda and going into the legislature this year feels really really important to get resources into our city. Like that's just we were we were already in need of resources, but with the occupation of ICE and how it's been decimating our community in more ways than one, but especially economically, like we need our state legislature to give Minneapolis and other cities resources back. Um, and I I'm really interested in us kind of linking arms with other municipalities, whether it's through Metro Cities or League of Minnesota Cities, and having like a shared agenda to push for that, a shared agenda to push for more uh local government aid because we have three years of this federal administration in front of us and then God knows what's after that. Um, and I also see that a huge priority of us as a city is continuing to maintain local authority in many shapes and forms, protecting our community members, our workers, and then also ensuring that even while we're in a crisis, even when while we're in tough times, the city of Minneapolis is still able to be a leader in all issue areas from the environment to housing to safety. Um so thank you so much for the state presentation and now we can move to the federal presentation. Thanks for helping me make sure it's displayed properly. Okay. Um, good morning, Madame Chair, council members. I'm Lauren Olsen, also a member of the intergovernmental relations team. Um, I'm a senior government relations representative. And today, I've been asked to focus on just giving you an update on the status of the federal budget. And I know there's obviously a lot going on federally, but the but my presentation today is focused on the 2026 budget. And there's um potential discussion taking place in context of the 2026 budget affecting um Department of Homeland Security policies. So we'll get into that. So first just to remind you where we are with the the fiscal year 2026 budget. Um, a few bills passed back in November and so that included the agriculture bill, military construction, veterans affairs, and legislative branch funding that Congress and their staff rely on to keep working because the agriculture bill um passed earlier this year and funded programs like SNAP and WIC. There's not a risk during the shutdown that that those payments will not be made. Um, I can't say if it happened to be a long-term shutdown, whether there ends up being any administrative hiccups, but in general, SNAP and Wick are not really um considered a concern for a potential or the shutdown that we're in right now, actually. Um, so at the time that Congress approved a few bills for the full budget year, they also funded some other parts of the government just through January 30th, as you know. Um you can see the list here and we'll be going discussing each of these further. Um so these are the bills that were going to expire on January 30th without action by Congress. So on the 30th, the Senate passed a package that would take five of those bills and approve them for fiscal year 2026 and would um would fund the Department of Homeland Security through February 13th to allow more time for discussion about potential reforms um to agencies or policies within DHS. Right now, all of these um six pieces are still one bundle as they go forward. And now the House needs to vote on that package. Uh they adopted some rules yesterday that would allow them to potentially take this up today for a vote. And so the vote that they would be taking today is whether to accept that entire package and therefore move five of those uh areas forward and move DHS forward for two more weeks funding. Um the idea of moving this package forward had the support of uh Democratic leadership as well as the White House. Um however, there are some hurdles ahead and it will be interesting to see what transpires today and income or in coming days depending on how it goes. Um there are members of the House Freedom Caucus that did not want to separate out Department of Homeland Security for separate discussion but you know wanted them all funded. Uh there are also uh Democrats that don't want to support vote in favor of uh Department of Homeland Security funding even if it's a two-week extension and then there's others who want to move move this forward in order to have that discussion about potential reforms. So there's a lot of interesting dynamics at play and um we'll see what transpires potentially today. Um, as I think you all have been hearing, some potential topics that um, Democratic leaders have said that they want to discuss um, about reforms within Homeland Security and specifically um, immigration and customs enforcement is to end what they call roving patrols. You know, to make sure that you have a judicial warrant to enter home or make an arrest. uh to require body cameras, to uh require people to potentially not wear masks, and also show identification that is outwardly clear to people, um a code of conduct and uh adopt specific use of force standards. So, these are some of the ideas that are floating around. Um, and then, uh, Republicans like Senator Graham have said, you know, well, maybe if we're talking about changes, this is a time to talk about so-called sanctuary city policies. So, we shall see. So, again, we are in a shutdown right now that began very early on Saturday morning. Again, it's partial since some bills, some parts of the government are funded and some parts are not funded. Um, as usual, essential services and essential employees generally stay on during a shutdown. Um, communication with agencies on administrative tasks, you know, can get gummed up and the city's work with our agencies can sometimes get slowed down during a shutdown, but in other cases, things continue to flow. So, tends to be kind of case by case. So, just to look at if the um if Congress does move forward with this budget that's in front of them now, I'll just give you some highlights of what's in this budget. Um for those of you who are here last term, we kind of had a preview of what the White House wanted, what the House of Representatives wanted, and what the Senate wanted. And so I think we should follow up on that conversation because there are some pretty draconian cuts proposed. I want to show you where that is landing at the moment. Um so in the realm and again I just pulled examples that might be of interest here and there. Um and happy to follow up on any specific programs later if you'd like. But um in health and human services for example the lie he program for lowincome um heating and cooling is slightly increased. Title 10 planning, which um helps support things like our school-based clinics and help people prevent pregnancy or disease, um is kept flat, which is better than um some of the initial proposals. Um there, you know, the White House wanted dramatic cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health, but in fact, they're kept pretty level. Now, we'll we'll also be addressing the fact that sometime sometimes what Congress appropriates is not necessarily how the program gets administered or we could talk about that further, but we'll let's talk about what this reflects about what Congress is willing to do here. Um, so an increase to Head Start. Um there is a decrease to resources that help refugees and asyles with some resources. Um it's still funded at 5.2 billion, but that is a decrease. There's um funding for community health centers which helps community based clinics. Um, in the education and labor area, um, PEL grant funding remains the same, job core funding the same, youth training slightly up, adult training slightly down, title one funding, very important resource for schools with a lot of lowincome students um, is increased. So, that's good. And then there were some other um, programs that the White House had proposed eliminating entirely which remain in existence and funded. and you can see the list there. Now, regarding um what is in the current homeland security bill, that is also part of the package right now. Um so, there's $32 million, $ 32 billion, which is an increase over the 2025 funding levels for FEMA. Um, and there is an increase in funding for the urban area securities initiatives grant, which is a grant that urban areas like us tend to tend to use. Um, there's also an increase in the safer grant, which helps supplement um support more firefighters, another grant that we have received in the past. Uh they're also um implementing some penalties uh for FEMA for the office of the secretary if they are late in reporting on the disaster relief fund status or if there's too many requests for a declaration of emergency that are sitting too long. Um and then also there's a new initiative that Congress must be notified before any grants or training funds are paused. in the Customs and Border Protection area. Um there is a reduction in the annual um amount of annual funding from the 2025 spending levels um a little bit. However, we will acknowledge that the reconciliation bill last July um added a lot of money into this bucket already. So we'll but there's a reduction in compared to the 2025 spending levels um an increase to field operations you know money to maintain the uh patrol agents. There was a program that reimbursed cities and local governments for um services that non-citizens who are in the midst of an immigration proceeding may need to help them get by. And that was a $650 million program that that particular program is eliminated. Um again, so uh even though the funding levels are just a little bit less than like a normal fiscal year 2025 budget, um again the one big beautiful bill infused a lot of these agencies with large one-time funds. So I think Customs and Border Patrol received about 66 billion in that bill alone. So when you think about their annual budget being roughly 18 billion and last July they got an additional 66 tell they have a lot of a lot of funding um immigration and customs enforcement they're also kept level funding for like their just general fiscal year appropriation of about 10 billion 5.5 billion is for enforcement and removal operations which is an increase to that bucket. Um the there is that provision that is supposed to allow members of Congress to access detention facilities and that's in there. There's been a lot of nuances involved with whether or not rules can be put on on that um their ability to go in and whether you can require them to wait seven days and so on. But um but again the reconciliation bill that was passed in July provided 75 billion for ICE. So that's you know 7.5 times what their normal annual appropriation is. So even though we're talk you know acknowledging that their their funding is flat they have recently received that infusion. And then I wanted I chose to end on some slightly more positive notes. Um so the transportation and housing area um so there's a sign very significant investment in the FAA. People obviously believe there needs to be some investment there. Um capital investment grants that support a lot of our like light rail and and um bus rapid transit type of projects. That amount is decreased but it's still there. There's been an increase in highway money. the build grant which can build build a variety of infrastructure projects still exists too but with less funding. Um when it comes to HUD the community block grant is funded at the same level which is good because you know the white house originally wanted to propose to eliminate that. Um the home program also allows us to to produce a very deeply affordable helps produce that deeply affordable housing. The funding is the same which is good. there's an increase to the homeless assistance grants which includes programs like emergency solutions grants and continuum of care. So it is a very important tool to help us address homelessness and so that is a positive sign there as well. Um I'm not quite done. Let me um conclude or explain some thoughts about this budget. So, um, well, one thing this shows, this partially shows that these programs do have support generally that the public probably does like these programs and that members of Congress across the aisle um, would have a hard having a hard time cutting these programs. It also shows you that the power that the Senate also is a very influential part of this negotiation because the Senate was always closer to these numbers. The House was had much more draconian cuts. So the fact that the filibuster exists in the Senate and requires that 60 vote threshold to even take up the budget, I think helps them land in a place where the uh where we avoided draconian cuts here. Um, but I I will I want to acknowledge that we have seen some challenges with Congress appropriates funds and kind of expresses some intent with their appropriations, but when the uh administration actually administers programs, we've run into problems where they uh for whatever reason they decide the criteria of the program has changed or that certain people aren't eligible for the funds and so on. And so there have been significant impediments to actually carrying out those programs in the way that there you might think that they're going to be carried out based on funding. So I'm just being cautious about that. And I also want to acknowledge that um this uh administration and budget office has been open to using some pretty unique budgetary tools um including like recision where the white house can later say that they want to strip some funding that is yet not yet fully obligated and that's a procedure that requires a simple majority of votes. So there's a variety of things um that you know could change these programs. Um so again this is the package that's on the table right now and has not you know not yet fully passed and we will find out today um how they proceed. Most likely we'll find out today. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you so much, Miss Olsen. We have a couple council members in queue. First, I'll recognize council member Stevenson. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, thank you for the presentation. I just had a couple of questions seeing as I'm new around here. Um, what does our federal advocacy look like? >> That That's a big question. >> Um, >> important. >> Excuse me. Um, Madame Chair, Council Member Stevenson, I'm not sure I know how to answer that, but um, and the director is welcome to join me as well. Um, trying to figure out how to answer such a big question. >> Maybe uh, you could start with how we lobby the federal government and communicate with them. I know we have a contract that's in place and then >> Thanks. Thanks for the assist. Um yeah, I mean well certainly we're in regular communication with our federal delegation and we also have the support of our federal lobbying team primacy strategy group. Um we the mayor was just in DC and we helped support that trip. He actually talked to Schumer and Jeff about his concerns about what's happening here. Um, we are members of organizations that we've been working hard to influence, um, including the National League of Cities and the League of Minnesota Cities and Metro Cities. We've been working a lot with partners all across from cities locally to cities nationally. Um, we're also part of the um, joint information center. part of my portfolio besides kind of keeping an eye on money which has been under threat since January 21st. A lot of that has been um required a legal strategy by by the ways that you know they're trying to withhold money based on claims of you know because we have equity here or sanctuary city there. So, we've been fight battling threats to uh different funding sources and that are coming in at different ways since January 21st. We coordinate with the city attorney's office and make sure that one way or another we're strategizing about the best way to support the funding. Um I also work very closely with the office of immigrant refugee affairs. We need I need to understand a lot about our policies that affect those communities. So again, we can kind of strategize and work with federal folks, think what are the best ways to try to tackle these issues. And then sometimes if we don't if there's not there's not always a great path forward um through Congress, let's say, to reform some of these things. So then we work on how do we communicate effectively to our residents to help them navigate these challenges. So I know I'm very involved in that and and right now it's all hands on deck essentially across the enterprise. IGR is part of the you know team that of course is working on tackling addressing all the different challenges that we're facing. And did you want to add anything? I mean >> um follow-up question. Do we have like we have a a list of priorities for our our state legislative. Do we have the same for the federal government? >> We do not have a formal agenda for the federal government. No. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I think it's a really good question to ask uh Council Member Stevenson. I'll just I'll say that uh pretty annually the last few years there's been a pretty significant amount of council members that have gone to the National League of Cities where we have met with our um congressional elected leaders and we've directly shared um what's going on in our city and what our priorities are from our community and that's like shifted pretty dramatically from year to year on what those priorities look like. And then I'll just like say and give uh Miss Olsen a lot of credit. She manages and oversees the basically the entire federal portfolio and I think has one of the t really really tough jobs uh on the IGR team. She always is delivering us bad news but important news. And so she's just an excellent resource to just connect get connected into anything regarding federal level advocacy whether it's from your office or kind of just thinking through things that you might want to advocate for. Um the IGR team's been instrumental in the conversations in past years around uh earmarks from the senator's office, Tina Smith and Amy Clolobashar and then our congresswoman Ilhan Omar as well and has been successful in getting resources back to the city for a number of different projects whether it's infrastructure or housing projects. >> Thank you. Um, we have council member Wansley next in queue. >> Thank you, Chair Chow. And I just want to preface my comments. This is not at all reflective on you. You're reporting the bad news, but more so for um our federal delegation. Um, and I'm thinking and responding particularly to what's articulated on slide four in terms of the reforms that um, our Democratic leaders have um, really rallied around um, as they're negotiating um, DHS's um, funding package. And I just have to say these proposals truly set the bar below hell of what should be expected and demanded of regarding immigration affairs in our country right now. I do not believe how you could live through multiple moments related to policing after hundreds of black people lost their lives and saw these same proposals, similar proposals be used as a response and see the lack of effectiveness in saving black lives from law enforcement at the local level and say, "Let's apply that to this agency under the Trump administration and be like, that's a good idea." The idea that body cams, which didn't save George Floyd in 2020, was somehow through documentation that we already have, would have saved Alex Petri or Renee Good just a week ago or three weeks ago is insulting. The idea that an enforcable code of conduct would have somehow prevented little Liam, 5-year-old Liam, from being abducted and being used as a pawn to lure his family out to also be detained is also preposterous. and the fact that this is where our bets are being hinged on for continuing funding this agency that essentially his goal is to get resources to be equipped to go to war with other local cities and states that refuse to bend the knee to this cruel and fascist agenda of the Trump administration and to then go pay the salaries of border patrol agents who use horrible horrible tact horrible and gross tactics on immigrants at the border to then be able to use those same skills and tactics on civilians in their local neighborhood as was done with Alex Petri just a week and a half ago. The fact that they believe that these are the saving grace of this moment just shows how Democratic leadership nationally is so disconnected from workingclass people from the realities that's being experienced not just here in Minneapolis but the fact that these realities are coming to a city near you and it essentially allows and funds this machinery to bring it to a city near you. It does not allow for the elimination of any of these campaigns of cruelty, terrorism, domestic terrorism to end. And the only thing that will get there is, and I get it's scary. Abolition is scary for our democratic leaders. But that is what it will take. Full abolition of ICE. And I can say that with my full chest because I know most of us up here actually lived lives where ICE did not exist. most of us for and that's rare are actually older than ICE. Um so we know that there is a possibility if there was much political will, creativity, innovation by our elected leaders at the federal level to say let's figure out how to build a governing agency that actually treats immigration with the humanity, dignity, and constitutionality that it deserves. that they could actually make and move mountains around how immigrants are not just treated at the borders but then how that's used to weaponize to then target 5-year-olds to target black people to target nurses um in metropolitan cities. So that is where I would like to see the imagination of our national leaders move towards as opposed to again basic reforms that do not actually help to save lives that does not mitigate damage that's already been caused and that will just allow this domestic war machinery to just go and traumatize and destroy other local cities um for the remaining time of this Trump administration. So just wanted to share that again. No beef with y'all. You You just did your job. But this is so angering and the fact that they are likely still poised to pass funding um and then go on to use these as potential wins for the midterms to say, "See what we delivered for you." Ridiculous. Just ridiculous. So, I just wanted to name that, get that off my chest because I was like, "This is a joke slide." And it's not. is reality. So, thank you for always giving us the hard truth. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Wanley. Next, I'll recognize uh Council Member Warren. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a question with the effects of the partial shutdown. Does that include um the DHS agencies that are paying individual personal care providers or things like that? because I'm getting a lot of calls from constituents who are providing home health care services through multiple different agencies that are stating that they have not been paid since December from those agencies and that there is a hold on pay that they're not able to pay their bills and and take care of their families, but they're still providing these essential services as you know essential workers for individuals who cannot ultimately care for themselves. those. >> Um, Madame Chair and Council Member Warren, I think I would need want to look into the specifics to answer your questions. I'm sorry that I can't answer now, but I'm happy to follow up on that and get the details. >> Um, >> yeah, Chair Chowy and Council Member Warren, we will follow up with you on that because I think this may also have something to do with actions taken at the state level as well around some of these programs. So, we will get some clarification um on that question and and get back to you. >> Thank you so much. Yeah, it's it's important that they get paid. People are they're working. They I understand that there's holes underneath all of the investigation of fraud and what have you, but they're still taking care of our elderly and senior communities and individuals who are not able to, you know, care for themselves and provide for themselves. They're putting in the work. They're putting in the time, but they're suffering at home and they're showing up every day amidst all of the chaos and confusion that we're having in our city to make sure that those individuals are being properly cared for and they're not being paid. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. I'll ask my colleagues if there are any other questions for our IGR team. Okay. So seeing none, thank you so much to the intergovernmental relations team. We do have to take a vote on the 2026 legislative agenda. So may I get a motion, please? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Clerk, will you please call the role? >> Council member Payne, >> I. >> Wsley, >> I. >> Greenville, >> I. Vita is absent. Warren >> I >> Osman >> I >> Schaefer >> I >> Stevenson >> I >> Chavez is absent. Whiting >> I >> Palmisano >> I >> vice chair Chai >> I >> and chair Chowry >> I >> there are 11 eyes. That carries and those items have been approved and will be forwarded to the full city council for its consideration at our regular meeting in two days on Thursday. Next, we have item number 67, which is the fourth quarter encampment closure report, which will be presented by director of regulatory services, director Enrique Velasquez. Um, before I welcome you, director, I will ask council member Vita if she would like to uh give a affirmative vote for the legislative agenda and policy. >> Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Great. We'll have the clerks note that. And with that, welcome, Director Velasquez. >> Thank you very much, Chair Chowry, Vice Chair Chugai, Supercow members. I'm Enrique Velasquez, the director of regulatory services for the city of Minneapolis, presenting the fourth quarter encampment closure report for 2025. So in our encampment closure reporting ordinance, it requires some different elements that we bring forward as part of this process. closures over the specific time frame. Our inter agency collaboration, what our outreach and engagement looks like with respect to those those encampments that were closed during the period. What are the housing outcomes over each one of those um that time frame for those different encampments? What were some of the health and safety outcomes? community impacts and then documentation of the disposition of residents's personal belongings for those that are in the encampments that were uh removed from the encampments or that left the encampments. In terms of the data collection process, it involves multiple different uh entities within the city as well as outside of uh within the city. It's regulatory services. It's uh public works, Minneapolis 311, police department, 911, and then also Henipin County, they provide some assistance with respect to shelter and housing outcomes. And about this specific report, we include an overview memo. Uh a data dictionary covering the different elements within the memo or within the the report itself, shelter availability, encampment closure data for this specific period, and then housing outcomes. our decision to close. We really look at four specific factors with respect to closing. Number one is public health. Number two is public safety and life safety. Number three is community livability. And that fourth one is a little bit more uh a little bit more gray, environmental and other factors. So we look at what are some of those externalities that could influence the decision to close. So it could be environmental in nature, extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme haze, or there could be some other vulnerabilities, vulnerable populations in the immediate vicinity or adjacent to that encampment that would prompt us to move forward with a closure. So for this specific specific time frame fourth quarter u the short summary is there were zero closures in fourth quarter of 2024 that were city supported. Uh we did engage with a lot of different residents. So I did incorporate that information into this report just so that we could talk about engagement outcomes and what that looks like whether there's a closure or even not a closure. In terms of outreach and engagement, the homeless response team, they engaged at encampments 433 times, 659 overall, but 433 specific to encampments, 59 at vehicle only sites and then hotspots 34 times. So hotspots are defined as places where people congregate and gather uh either during the daytime or the nighttime, but they're not resident there. There are no tents. There are no structures whatsoever. It's a place where people are gathering. So, we do send homeless response team members. We do connect with other outreach partners to uh go to those locations as well uh for the purpose of providing service to those individuals. Uh provided supplies 125 times benefiting about 300 individuals with an estimate of about three people at each one of the different sites where they've requested supplies. socks, underwear, food, snacks, water, things of that nature. Uh the mobile medical unit, they also engaged um at community events. They have a calendar of events where people can request for the mobile medical unit to be present. So they've appeared at eight of those, perform street outreach 35 times, sometimes in partnership with the homeless response team, um and have not been deployed for emergencies in this specific quarter. You'll note that in the previous quarter, we did dispatch the mobile medical unit for um a shooting that occurred at an encampment and leading up to that shooting. Um in terms of mobile medical unit engagements, they engaged with just over 1100 individuals at each one of these different events. So pretty successful. Um they distributed 207 they distributed Narcan 207 times. Each package that they deliver is two doses. So really it's over 400 doses that were provided and provided medical assistance 161 times. In terms of housing outcomes for the individuals that the homeless response team engaged with the 247, we were able to provide 66 housing referrals and successfully made 10 shelter reservations. We did not identify any individuals that wanted to go to shelter that were denied access or that shelter was full at those times when they requested shelter. And we were able to complete two housing intake assessments. We'll note that towards the middle of the year in 2025, the homeless response team started doing intake assessments as part of the coordinated entry system. So now we're able to uh basically engage in a similar fashion as a lot of our housing providers are um by uh qualifying those individuals and getting them on the list versus identifying a need and calling another third party over to try and engage and find that individual again uh to help them work through that process. We're able to eliminate one of those different process steps and do that directly ourselves. Hampton County reported that 133 individuals moved from unsheltered homelessness into stable housing over the course of the past quarter. Um so a little bit down from the prior quarter, but 133 is still a really good number. Um and one additional piece of note, um I'll continue to add this in here until it's no longer true. Henipin County is not able to link their housing outcomes with specific encampment sites. They do not ask the question of where did you stay the night before before that individual moves into stable permanent housing. They just uh inquire were you unsheltered and flag it that way but they're not able to link it. So we can't see what's the correlation between our actions here at the city when it comes to encampments or encampment closures and that outcome of moving somebody into permanent stable housing. So some of the learnings uh Henipin County and the city are working in partnership together on refining our data collection practices. One of the things that we have identified is specific similar to what I'm just mentioned is we have not been successful at mapping the journey of an individual from their pathway from unsheltered homelessness in whatever capacity that looks like into permanent stable housing. So, the county has made some changes over the course of the last quarter to two quarters that we hope to see some dividend in this next quarter to two um after they've made some changes and then also refined their intake process to help us see what that journey looks like for individuals so that we can get down to that granular level of which services and which supports are really working, which ones aren't. How do we continue to refine our approaches so that we can meet people exactly where they are and provide them what they're looking for? Um, and just more of an internal focused opportunity is how we communicate internally with respect to when an encampment is going to be closed. It's more of word of mouth. it's text messaging. Incorporating more of a system systematized approach where it's easier to track and hold ourselves accountable is an important part of what I'm looking at right now. Uh and also not on this slide, just kind of wanted to call this out with respect to all of the federal um actions that we see happening presently and the impact to our unsheltered community. We're looking at how we can partner with other organizations to provide additional um warming spaces or shelter opportunities so that our unsheltered residents who are already the target of so much activity do not become the unwitting targets for federal action. So that's something we're we're starting up. We're looking at how we can partner together, which partners are willing to come alongside us and take care of our people. That's really what it's about. This concludes my presentation. I'll stand for any comments or questions. >> Thank you so much, Director Velasquez. I'll recognize Council Vice President Osman. >> Uh thank you, Dr. Velasquez. Appreciate your presentation. Uh we're seeing you know less encampments than last few years. Uh um could you just explain is it people that are getting housed or are we like enforcing and being um I guess you know super enforcing not having camements on the street or or city own lots or or that and how many encampments are active right now in our city. All right. Through the chair Chowry. Thank you, Council Vice President Osman. Um, thank you for the question. So, there's a combination of factors that we've seen take place over the past year and a half. Uh, we have the police chief's special order that directed patrol on how to respond when they see encampments and see people attempting either break into city property, cutting through the fence, or attempt to set up an encampment. And those actions have kind of changed the behaviors and changed the mindsets for uh unsheltered residents where they might congregate more, we see encampments less. We've also, as I mentioned previously, started doing intake assessments. So instead of having that handoff when we already have that relationship and have been able to connect with that individual only to hand it off to somebody else that might return at a different time when that resident might no longer be in a mindset where they wish to go into housing um that creates risk. So by pulling that process into our work that helps us mitigate the risk and helps us engage with them right then on the spot make the reservation on the spot do the assessment right there on the spot. So we have a couple of different factors like that mobile medical unit and the partnership with homeless response team that's been successful u utilizing mobile medical as an engagement mechanism um because sometimes people are not thinking beyond the immediate need the immediate injury or whatever the health concern is to think about or even get clear about what their journey looks like as they as we try to engage with them on housing. I'm not worried about housing right now. I'm worried about the infected fingers. I'm worried about my feet. I'm worried about the most immediate need. So, being able to address those needs helps us reduce that um barrier so that we can engage with people and help them on their pathway. Um and we are seeing more people move into housing. I believe it was about 2600 people that the county reported last year that moved into stable supportive housing. And we're seeing quarter over quarter people in the aside from Q4, it's been consistent between two and 300 people have moved and transitioned from unsheltered homelessness into stable housing. So, it's a number of different factors that all all contributing. And for the last part, how many encampments do we have presently? It's about 13 encampments and about um 30 vehicles. In total, we estimate about 97 individuals. So, still down from what we've seen in prior years, >> but 97 too many. >> No, I sorry. No, no. I I really have to give credit to our staff. Um listen, um having encampments, having individuals, you know, come to a place that is not healthy for them or like it's not livable condition. And if the frigid frigid wind uh temperature having um folks that are you know um really exploding this uh individuals that are already struggling with mental health with a lot of challenges and you know having a shooting there having a fire you know I in in in the previous last few years it's been very difficult if you have a large pe amount of people gathered in one place there's always a disaster that end up and we always react by either closing down and making those people their life even more miserable you know kicking them out what they have built so far but um I really welcome the prevention of gathering place that is not suitable for human being to live um and you know continue to do the uh the resource and and and the outreach we need building that relationship as you mentioned is very important for the for those individuals s and but I'm still also seeing um you know other governments like county land and mad own land are we like is it a hands off on our in our side of it of the city is that's like their problem because I I'm I'm looking and I have one place an example that is you know in Haywat Avenue it's right there it's a it's like a three different government own it uh own bridge over there, a city owns 17th and also we have a metro transit who has not done I emailed multiple times to really do something about that. We had an individual who lost his life, a young East African um man who was trying to, you know, cross one side of the bridge to other and he he got hit, lost his life. and um that we still have like 50 people a day just you know hanging out and and staying under that bridge which creates safety for themsel which creates safety for the public and traffic which creates a lot of challenges in the neighborhood sewer neighborhood area and nothing has been done. I contact to the mayor. I contact to uh directors of public works and and CEO and and finally was able to u have met transit u uh reach out to them. They were like oh something is is being done on the summer. I don't think we can wait uh the summer has to be done otherwise disaster will happen. So in your work that you've been doing dealing with the city owned lands and dealing with you know helping those folks get the resource they need what are we doing and do we even have any plan of working with uh other government agencies like county and mindot to get this issue solved right away. Yes, through the chair, council vice president Osman, that specific location that you mentioned is extremely challenging. Uh, as you mentioned, Metro Transit owns the top part of the deck. The underside is owned by Mindot. Then certain sections are owned either by Metro Transit, by the county, by Hickra, um, by who am I missing? Mindot city. Uh, regardless of the ownership, the homeless response team engages. We don't we do look at the map only to identify who owns the property so we know who to connect. Other than that we are agnostic. If there is an unsheltered person out there we will engage. If there are unsheltered people we will look and find the resources to try and connect them in that specific area. It's been reoccupied multiple times. Multiple times. Even when it gets cleared out they return sometimes the same day. uh Metroransit, they clean out the location at least once a day and people will just flock back. Um so we're looking at a variety of different things to try and figure out how to make it less attractive for people to keep on congregating above and beyond that. It's about how do we engage with these individuals so that there are other outlets for them versus just looking for a different place to continue to congregate. That's my focus so that we can uh restore that community livability, reopen that corridor so that as you mentioned so that people do not feel unsafe trying to cross the bridge because they have to step out into traffic to be able to make that happen. Um so it is yeah it's a multiaceted problem. I don't have an answer. >> Sure. No, >> but we are we are looking at it every single day. >> I completely understand. know you you you are doing a phenomenal job and I'm proud of the work you're doing but uh overall I think I'm going to call the administration and say listen we have to have a plan with outside government mindots I remember house of balls uh you know having a couple people lost their lives and there's always a way some kind of road map how to deal with this kind of issues especially if it's Mindot on well we're going to email Mindot well that's not that's not a plan we need the administration who is the spokesperson for the city to really put a plan together and say, "Hey, when we are taking care of our own lands, we also need the mindats and the county or any others to step it up and there should be some kind of uh uh task force to address this and this kind of challenges in our city. and I'm I'm going to call out and say that something has to be done on Hwath and and Franklin because um a disaster is just around the corner. Thank you so much. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I'll just note for everyone we have several members in Q and so uh want to be conscious of that. If you have if you have more than three questions at a time, I ask that you just get back into Q to ask it again. So, everyone can have the ability to ask what they need to ask with the limited time we have before lunch. So, I'll recognize Council Member Stevenson. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, uh, director for being here. We haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet, but I'm I'm excited to meet. Um, I have met some of the on the ground homeless response team uh in my previous work and so I have met them and know they have good hearts and and they're working hard. Um, as uh people were talking about earlier maybe before you came in the the um person staff who was reporting on federal uh legislative priorities, it was referred to as they always bring us bad news. Um, I unfortunately have to bring us some bad news from the streets about uh about this whole situation. Um, but I want to first acknowledge that um I know that that the staff on the ground are working very hard and they are attempting to do their best. The first bad news I have to give is that our staff, our homeless response team are seen in the community as snitches. Um, it I I understand that that's that's very difficult to hear, but because it says the city of Minneapolis on it and because our data is accessible to MPD, when people on the streets see our homeless response team, they go, "Oh, we're about to be cleared. We're about to be pushed out of here." and and so that I I just want to acknowledge that for my colleagues that um uh our staff do not have a strong reputation and it is not because of them and their character. It is because um because MPD and because the administration have been uh ruthless, honestly ruthless at uh sweeping people out of where they are. Uh you you mentioned the special directive from a couple of years ago that has been a catastrophe for people sleeping on the streets. Um and so this is what leads into our staff being seen so poorly. Um, you mentioned why why are the sorry my my colleague me asked why there are no encampments and it really is that policy of uh the the police have not allowed people to stay in one spot for really any meaningful amount of time which is has been an unmitigated disaster for people's health. Um it it has also meant that there are less encampments and a lot of that is because so many tents have been thrown away. people have run out of out of tents and supplies. Um, I would just like to call out that you mentioned um that sometimes enclosures are considered when there's extreme heat and extreme cold. And I just want to call out that uh closing an encampment during extreme heat and extreme cold is a recipe for killing people. Um because social cohesion, having people to look out for each other is how we're keeping ourselves safe in this time with ICE. Um, and the same is true for our homeless neighbors. They they need to look out for each other. Um, and in times of extreme cold and extreme heat, they should not be outside. We completely agree about that. We are in total agreement and they are outside. Uh, and so that I'd just like to to call that out. Um, we'll be talking about much more of this in public health and safety. I know that we will. Um, and so I I I won't be able to get to everything, but I I wanted to call out one other thing in the report. Um I know my colleagues uh on on this dis understand this but maybe some folks in the the audience or at home may not fully understand but I'm looking at some of the the encampment reclosure Q4 report and I'm specifically looking at um the shelter information about when beds were available um and how many beds were available. And I just want to call out that it would be very easy to read this chart. No one else is seeing this chart except me. So I'll just try and explain. Available at 10:00 a.m. the totals there's a certain number. Available at 7:30 p.m. totals there's a certain number. And then available at 1000 p.m. there's a certain number. It would be very easy to read this chart as saying you would add those totals up and that would be the total number of beds available that night. But it's it's actually the opposite of in the morning just as an example. I'm just going to pick a random day. Um November 8th, in the morning there were 74 beds. Uh and then by the evening there were 65 beds and then by the night there were 52 beds. That meant that beds were getting filled not that beds were being added to. Um, this is a an actually extremely high day, which makes me think that a shelter opened on that day as like a winter shelter or that there was some kind of like major clearance because previous days there would be, you know, November 6 or something would be 27 and then 11 and then zero. And so I just wanted people who may be looking at these reports to know that uh these are not escalating numbers, these are declining numbers. Um, I'm really excited to look much more into these reports and talk much more about how we can uh improve Minneapolis's uh uh reputation among people on the streets. As someone who worked in homeless outreach, we did not work with the homeless response team um because of that. Uh now we met with them and we were kind to each other but we specifically did not work with them because of the reputation that uh they are a harbinger of bad things for uh people on the streets. So very excited to get into this work. I know you've been working very hard on this. I know our staff has been working incredibly hard. Um and so there is so much more work to be done. Um, I apologize that this was a smattering of many different things, but I I I couldn't let not one of these reports go by without highlighting that this is this is a deep emergency. These numbers are showing a deep emergency that we're in. Um and while we are projecting confidence and projecting um a sense of optimism, I do I don't want anyone to leave here thinking that we are in a good place. Um and I I know that you understand that and that um you're working very hard to correct that. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, council member. Next, I'll recognize council member Whiting. >> Yes. Thank you, uh Madam Chair, and thank you, director. Velasquez and thank you for your presentation. I think it's really helpful especially for us that are that are new to this role. Uh and very simple question at least it probably should be kind of for my own edification here. How does the city how are we as an as an office as an enterprise uh defining what constitutes an encampment? Uh I'm trying to just figure out when we say encampment, what does that actually mean and and what does that look like? Is it size? Is it individuals that are uh present at an encampment? uh just kind of uh that's really it's my own question for curiosity reasons. >> Through the chair, council member Whiting, thank you for the question. So our definition is simple. It's a structure. So one person, one structure, that's an encampment. Um if there are many people congregating, but there are no structures and we don't see that they're staying resident, we would consider that a hot spot and not an encampment. If they're in a vehicle, then we flag that as a vehicle only site. Thank you. Certainly. >> Thank you. And then I have myself next in Q. Just have a couple questions here. Director, thank you for the presentation as always. Um, first is like a really short question. So the vehicle only spots, could you help define that a little bit further because it's the first time I'm hearing that type of verbiage myself. Um, so it's something that over the course of the past year we identified that not everybody experiencing unsheltered homelessness resides in an encampment. Yet our data still reflected just encampments. So when we look at the internal dashboard or the public facing dashboard, all of the numbers continue to speak to encampments. I wanted to flesh that out further and be able to identify where are people congregating, where are they living, where are they in these spaces that are unfit for human habitation. So, as um homeless response team receives these reports and traffic control, we started to flag which ones are yes, we recognize people are unsheltered. Where are they living? What's the type of situation? What are the conditions? So that we can continue to dig deeper. So vehicle only is simply that it's individuals who are living in their vehicle, in their cars, trucks, RVs. Um, so that's what that specifically refers to. >> Thank you so much. And I I I see that it says vehicle only sites 59 visits. Do we have a number on how many individual vehicle only sites there are? Um, checking the dashboard this morning, there are 34. >> It could be one vehicle, it could be two. We typically don't see more than two vehicles at a specific location. >> Okay. So, there could be multiple vehicles at one site and then multiple individuals per vehicle, >> right? Typically one to two people per vehicle. >> Okay. >> Maybe an animal as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and I'll just like call out to my colleagues. Um, uh, legislation that, uh, me and Council Member Chavez and Council Member Chug Thai were working on last year was really trying to envision safe outdoor spaces for community members that are facing unsheltered homelessness. And one version of safe outdoor spaces that we were working on is safe parking really modeled after uh the safe bay model in duth where they have like a safe secure parking space for people with vehicles that are living in their vehicles with a loved one or a pet where they have like kind of like a one-stop shop to resources but also safety. um they do a variety of different programming there and that's something that I really hope to bring forward this next year and further. I think like this data point is really of interest to me because it shows in our city that there is a really clear need and it could be a successful pathway to help a number of individuals get better connected into resources and get to permanent housing. Um, so just wanted to call that out. And then I have a second question just in regards to the compounding crises that we're facing as a city right now. So January was a terribly cold month. We had uh weather that was I think the furthest it went was like what 26 25 something like that just bitterly cold. And I had heard from so many different community members and service providers that there were unhoused residents facing this bitter cold at the same time um facing uh targeting by ICE agents. And I I wanted to kind of see like I know that it's not about this fourth quarter report but I think it's important to cover. Um, I wanted to see kind of how uh how the homeless response team and your department have been engaging with unhoused individuals with this increased presence of federal agents and then how have you all been working with folks this last month too in the bitter cold amidst the occupation? >> Yeah, thank you church. Yes, bitter cold. And just to give a little bit of a a preview, um, Henipin County, they stand up emergency warming centers from during the low heat, no heat season, so middle of November through middle of April. And they also have contracts with providers for additional emergency warming spaces when the temperatures go below zero. So Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center is one of those locations. AICDC um cola is another location where once that temperature reaches zero they will open up and expand for additional capacity. So when we we watch the weather we keep track and as we see that uh temperatures are going to be dangerously cold or that we're approaching that type of season. the homeless response team kind of shifts from uh just providing snacks and other things as part of engagement to okay, it's going to be really cold. Let's talk about your plan to get indoors. Here's some different places you can go to. Here are the numbers to call and just being out there and being present to be able to provide that information. And not everybody chooses to take us up on those offers. um maybe for a variety of different reasons including what uh Council Member Stevenson mentioned before. Um but we do make that that effort. We communicate as as much as we can uh both verbally as well as in writing, engage with uh community partners to make sure that we're all doing the same kind of work to make sure people get indoors and get stay safe. We provide hot hands which provides a temporary immediate relief, but it's not a solution. Um, indoor shelter is definitely the solution. And with what we're seeing in terms of just kind of the buildup of the federal government and the targeting of of our unsheltered residents, we have changed and just try to be mindful of how we come across in community. So, they're cold, our staff are cold. There will be no neck gators, nothing covering your face. wear plain clothes, wear street clothes, wear something that shows that you are not part of any of those federal actions happening because we do have a variety of different bodies on our homeless response team. Some can give the appearance that oh this could be somebody on uh you know one of those one of those uh agents if you want to call them that uh from the federal government. Just trying to be very mindful of how we show up in community. How do we represent ourselves? And if it feels unsafe, not just for our staff, but also for the person that we're engaging with. If they are reading their body language, if they are uncomfortable, then okay, that person needs to separate because the focus isn't on our staff, it's on helping those individuals progress along their journey towards stable housing. So if my presence is causing a con conflict for that person, I will tag out and allow others to continue. >> Thank you. I don't have any other questions. I'll just close uh with the fact that I just really concur with Council Member Stevenson that we are really in a tough bad place when it comes to homelessness in our city. Even as there's been places of progress, it still remains to be a public health emergency. Um, you can see that really clearly when you go to different parts of our our city. Um, where community members are just doing their best to just make it alive through this winter. And several unhoused residents this year have died due to the bitter cold in our re region. And that's a reality that we face every year. And that's why it's so important for us, I would say. And then in the the as we as we get through this winter and go into the warmer months to better plan for the colder months um with with the with the ICE agents in our streets. I've heard of so many like indigenous neighbors anyone that looks brown and black that are outside being indiscriminately targeted. And there's like an extra level of this set of our community members being even more vulnerable because they were already vulnerable to begin with. And the only few things that have kind of stood between those in in discriminate attacks and like kidnapping of community members has been residents doing observing and rapid response. And then for the service providers like MIWRC, Avivo Village, other shelters, they've had to just really quickly uh try to attain funding really from fundraising from our community and seeing if there's any possibility from philanthropy to just expand their operations so they can bring people inside so they can seek safety as this targeting is going on. And so I just really want us as an organization as we have all of February before us, no real commitments on a number of agents um being withdrawn or an end to a metro surge that we have a really strong plan to protect our unhoused neighbors and give them additional ways to know where to go and check in with the service providers that are um building up additional services to get through this period of time. um because it is having a significant impact economically on them, but also I know mentally it's having a huge impact on all of the people that do the work right now of caring for our unhoused neighbors. With that, I will go to the next council member in Q and that's council member Wansley. >> Thank you, Chair. Uh thank you, director uh Velasquez. I just had a question regarding um also a potential contributing factor factor to what is the perception of shrinking encampments in Minneapolis. Wanted to know if we all or at the city level connect with St. Paul's um equivalent encampment responses or homeless response team. Reason why I mentioned that is um while we might have saw a decrease in encampment closures or the number of them in our last quarter, St. Paul experienced a slight uptick and there's been lots of information on the ground around our continuous dis or eviction policy around encampments also pushed um unhoused and unsheltered neighbors just across the river. Um and St. Paul is experiencing the the byproducts of that and also having to contend with how they also uh respond to that. But just wanted to see if we did any particular tracking. I know you mentioned the county doesn't track location-wise, but are we in conversation with St. Paul around kind of migration patterns as well? >> Certainly through the chair, council member Wanley, thank you for the question. We are in direct contact with I'm in contact with my counterpart at the city of St. Paul as well as our our homeless response team is connected to St. Paul's homeless action response team. And anytime that we have a closure that's occurring either on the border or along transit in either city, we were sure to we're sure to notify each other in case that any of those unsheltered individuals do migrate over across the border, if you will. Um, and as we do engagement in both cities, we do identify where people came from if if they don't appear familiar because our our teams are in the field every single day. So, they recognize people who are part of that that transient environment with their unsheltered residents. So, if they see people that are less familiar, ask questions of which site did you come from? Did were you at an encampment? Uh so if we see that happening in either either case uh we do communicate with each other to find out okay what happened how did why is this person over here versus in Minneapolis or why are they in in Minneapolis instead of in St. Paul and what's what's the trigger? What's the mechanism? Just so that we can make sure that we're not only tracking but also making sure that we're providing the right level of services um because our homeless management information systems are not necessarily connected. We're in two different um continuums continuums of care. So, we want to make sure that whichever city they arrive in, that they are getting connected to the services, if they're not already connected, that they're connected with their case management, and that we're sharing that information back and forth. >> Is there a way to have that or I'm not seeing in the memo that was attached to have those uh figures be included in the next uh reporting just so we can have a sense of what that that looks like numerically? >> Certainly. >> Thank you. Yeah, it's very rare, but but we will include that. >> Thank you, council member. Next, we'll go to council member Chuck Tai. Council vice chair. >> You're good. You're good. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I've got a few questions and I I see that uh there's another council member in Q, so I'm going to get back in queue. So, you you'll hear from me a couple times. Director Velasquez, um, it's wonderful to see you in chambers. It's always a pleasure um when when you come to speak to us and update us on on the work that regulatory services is doing every single day um to support residents of our city. Um I have a few questions I want to try to kind of be a little bit logical about them. So in something that caught my attention um in your presentation was um I think it was like slide eight. It was near the end you were talking about housing outcomes and um that there were um you know of the 247 engagements that led to 66 housing referrals, 10 shelter reservations, two in intake assessments. Um, it caught my attention that I thought you may have mentioned that um, HR the the homelessness response team did not engage with individuals who were unable to successfully have a shelter reservation made. But as I'm looking through the memo that you shared with us, I I do see in the housing and shelter outcome section that there were six individuals that um were unable. I think the it's it's listed as additional individuals unable to secure reservations six. So I'm trying to understand does that mean is that data set looking at you know when our homeless response team is out and they're talking to someone who is ready to go into shelter and you know they call um adult shelter connect are trying to get them a reservation made and there are no beds available. Am I understanding that correctly? >> Yes, that's correct. >> Okay, awesome. Um yeah, I mean I I just think it it catches it's very stark right of the number total number of people we're talking to 247 um that you know about as many people were able to successfully get into shelter as were unable to get a reservation because of shelter capacity in our entire region. Um and you know I I that's an impact that that first and foremost affects uh those six individuals that we we spoke to um who wanted to to get into shelter and were unable to um and then it has this you know compounding or or ripple effect impact on on the broader community when um when when our neighbors um are um you know trying to do every single thing um and and just are not able to get the the level of care that they need and and are so deserving and worthy of. Um my next question is around um the mobile medical unit. So I've got a couple questions around around that. So um can you help me understand this um of the of the 1100 or almost 1,200 total encounters at events through the mobile medical unit um I see referrals made as as a subset of that data. Can you just help me understand what that means? Where what are these referrals and where are they being made to? >> Right. Yeah, thank you for the question. So the mobile medical unit they were also uh we've been doing some cross trainining with the homeless response team and the mobile medical unit. So they are also providing some housing referrals and you utilizing that as an opportunity. Got >> so we've had the homeless response team engage and do co- visits with MMU staff. Uh and when HRT is not able to be there, they're at least able to provide information, help them connect. They have the same contact information and phone numbers. So, we're just trying to amplify that connection opportunity for people experiencing homelessness. >> Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's such a a big deal that um that that crossraining um is really awesome to hear, you know, like if um when we catch the right person at the right time and we can take care of several of their needs all at once, um that that's the ideal um that that we should aspire to. So big that thank you for for highlighting that. Um and then my last question before I come back to you in a little bit is um you know thinking about the bitter winter um cold weather that we've had this year so far. Um, and you know, based on in our partnership with Henipin County and Healthcare for the Homeless, HCMC, things like that, are we is there a figure out there um or one that we could access that helps us understand um the impact of of the the cold weather on people who are experiencing homelessness. So, in particular, I'm trying to understand um you know, how severe is this is the uptick in amputations as a result of um people being outside in sub-zero temperatures that that is unsafe for everybody. Um yeah, if you can speak to that at all. Yes, through the chair, vice chair Chuck Thai. That is an excellent question and it's one that I've been pondering myself recently um because it is bitter cold um where I have this morbid curiosity to find out how many people are freezing to death or dying of carbon monoxide esphyxiation from whatever heating element they're utilizing in their tents or amputations or uptakes in frostbite. I don't have that data for you yet, though it's something that I aspire to be able to uh work in partnership with the county and Henipin Henipin Health to be able to get that granular level of detail so that we can know exactly how we need to shift our operation and just continue to evolve what we're doing. >> Yeah, I really appreciate that. I I I mean one thing I'll note from uh the very first time you presented uh one of these reports to today, right? like I see um I see so much growth and you know at the very first one it was we were still working out data sharing with with Henipin County and today um a number of these data sets are available and we're we're getting a more clear picture and I really appreciate that you're always more curious and want to paint a more wholesome picture of what is happening um in our community and I want to commend you for for going out of um for continuing to chase down um and and figure out new ways for us to to better collect data to understand it and then um ultimately so that we can act on it and and eradicate homelessness in our in our city and our state. Um thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, Vice Chair. Next, we'll go to Council Member Warren. >> Thank you, Madame Chair, and Director for your um your time and and for your presentation. I just have a couple of questions as it relates to the homeless information management system and the reservations for individuals in shelter. Um you stated that there is a um increase in stabilized housing and individuals being able to sustain housing. Is that within independent living or in group living conditions or is that in chemical dependency treatment? And what is the recidivism rate look like for individuals returning back to the street um should they not be able to maintain their housing? Like what is that what is that looking like at this time? >> Thank you through the chair, Council Member Warren. Thank you for the questions. Um so it's primarily focused on housing is focused not on uh group settings or uh recovery or treatment. That's still another data set that we're knocking on the door on trying to get into. Um it's purely stable housing, supportive supportive housing. Uh and the recidivism rate, uh I believe it's 86% remain stably housed. I believe that's the figure that I've seen from Henipin County, but I would have to double check that. >> Thank you for that clarification. My question, my reason for asking that question is because from my experience in the time that I've spent working in housing and housing our unsheltered um residents is that when they go into shelter or shelter environments, if they are moved from shelter into stable housing, if they do need to seek other treatments or other services of that nature, then that counts as stabilized housing. But once they leave those places, they're not able to go back into the stable housing environment where they were before, which then pushes them back out into the streets and reintroduces whatever the condition was that they were experiencing when they were homeless to begin with. So, I'm trying to see where that connection can be made with individuals receiving services and housing and then creating that, you know, seamless transition for them to stabilize themselves and maintain that support in that housing setting so they don't go back into the streets. >> Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that. Um, that's that information I have available now. Though I think it would probably be worthwhile to also pull in Henman County to be able to share that complete picture and provide that assessment of how they help residents progress from, you know, the overall goal is to make unsheltered homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. And what does that specifically look like look like with each one of these different types of uh housing settings? and how and to be able to articulate that more clearly than than I could. >> Yeah. Because if they're un if they're in housing and there is a crisis and they're removed from their housing more than 30 days, then they're no longer have that housing because they can't dual service with being in, you know, whether it be mental health or chemical health treatment, whatever their crisis then becomes. So they can't do a service where they have someone to help support them paying their rent in stability in one place and then receiving services in another place. So then they lose the place of stability because they're in there, but then they go back to the bottom of the picking list of when they get housed at that time and then you know because they're it's a measure of long-term homelessness. Right. >> Right. So with the measurement of LTH being disrupted because of services, then they're back at the bottom of the list and wait to get picked back up, which then makes them at risk of being back out in the streets and community and finding other means of housing, which is then not measured if they go and crash on their brother's couch or whatever the case may be. Right. That's right. So, I'm trying to understand how we can merge that connection to make it seamless that if I'm getting help, I can go back to the place of stability for me so that the recidivism ends and I'm not back out into the streets left to be, you know, put into the same predicament that caused me to be unsheltered to begin with. >> Right. >> Okay. I'll wait for that report. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Council Member Warren. Um, we'll go back to Vice Chair Chug Tai, and then I'm going to actually have us, if there's no objection, close with, uh, Council Member Stevenson, and then we can recess for lunch. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Director Velasquez, I want to talk a little bit about uh, the impact of the federal government and, um, Operation Metro Surge on this body of work. Um you highlighted several examples. Um and you know I think it it has it continues to strike me that um you know indigenous people who disproportionately make up our um homeless population um in in this city in the state and and certainly across the country as well um are are being targeted by federal agents on on like land that is that is indigenous to their peoples. um and and you know being harassed, abused, um abducted. Um all of those are examples I know that have have come to us through community. Um and so I think there's two aspects that I I want to touch on. First, starting with the directly impacted um people, folks who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness. Um are you can you can you give us any insight into conversations with other jurisdictions, other service providers, um what have you about how um how we are uniquely working to pair um like our our immigration legal assistance work with folks who are experiencing homelessness as well, right? like those are two bodies of work that exist in separate places within this enterprise um and exist in separate places in the county and and other jurisdictions as well. So, um, you know, I'm thinking about in particular, uh, you know, folks who are experiencing homelessness, folks who've lived in encampments, have lived through encampment, uh, closures or evictions, um, will often, uh, highlight losing critical paperwork like passports, birth certificates, um, things that prove their identity and their legal status in this country. Um, and I'm thinking about how uh our folks who are experiencing homelessness are right now are existing in this unique intersection of um not having a place to go ex, you know, just the cold weather, the o like overburdened um shelters and not having critical documentation to prove their identity. That's that's a a scary recipe. Um, are there conversations happening about how we kind of are directing resources or expediting how quickly we're trying to make sure like every person has their documentation accounted for? Does that make sense? >> Um, yes. Yes. Thank you. Through the chair, council vice president or sorry, vice chair Chuck Tai. Um, so yes, our homeless response team, they're able to also um because they're also kind of in that provider space, they're able to apply and work with that individual who might have lost their documentation, they're able to apply for documentation on their behalf so that we can do that right there on the scene. Soon as we discover that somebody has lost their documentation, we can work with them and apply. Uh in other instances where we've heard of a rash of individuals who lost their documentation, we had contacted um uh DPS to inquire about their mobile their mobile unit so they could bring that out and just work through the process of doing the intake and distribute documentation, distribute identification right there on the spot. >> That's awesome. And as as council members, if we're hearing of um of constituents or um if it's coming to us through uh the network of community folk service providers, is the correct is the appropriate action for us to like flag that for you right away so that you can, you know, activate that that ecosystem you're talking about to to >> Yes, absolutely. And our homeless response team, they're connected with all of the other service providers as well. Um, everybody keeps kind of their ear to the ground of what's happening all around the city. Um, not just with our homeless population, but then also keeping track of what's happening with Operation Metro Surge >> so that we know how to pivot and make some course adjustments wherever appropriate. >> Awesome. And then my my the second aspect of um the impact of operation metro surge and and the federal occupation we're living through right now is around um the impact to uh the homelessness response team and this the staff that are out every day um working directly with vulnerable populations. Now I have done uh a ride along um and I spent a day with the homelessness response team uh myself. I know that these are are also people who are um targets of our our federal government right now. And so, um can you just help us get some insight into how you are thinking about safety for your team and for city staff in this moment? um so that you know we can we can while we're working with vulnerable populations that are also targeted we're protecting um the the people who are providing um that persontoperson frontline response. >> Absolutely. So I think the best weapon that we have available is communication. just having that advanced awareness of where uh federal authorities are showing up so that we know we can kind of overlay that with where our unsheltered population is and where we need to be to be able to support staff. So in the instance where I believe it was the day that um and in the aftermath of Renee Good being killed u there was a lot of buildup in South Minneapolis. So, we focused our efforts more on North and Northeast and just trying to shift our approach so that we're still out there. We're still providing services while also keeping our diverse staff safe and ensuring that yes, all of our unsheltered residents, they need the support, too. Um, it's not it's not all about us. >> Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you so much, Vice Chair. Next, we'll go to Council Member Stevenson. >> Yeah. Thank you, uh, Madam Chair. Thank you, director. I'll be brief. I know you've been up here for a while now. Um, yeah, I wanted to to say that, uh, good data on this issue is is very much lacking, as you know, and as, um, Council Member Warren, uh, was pointing out. Um, I'm glad that Council Member Warren was raising what counts as homeless um, because that's that's a huge issue, particularly on the north side. Um, if you are staying with your cousin and then your friend and then your brother, you are stably housed according to the federal government. Uh, when really you're one month away from sleeping outside. Um, I'm a director. I'm excited to hear that that you have seen a figure that uh 86% of people are staying housed after a year. When I spoke with Henipin County last year, they said they weren't tracking that. So, I'm excited to hear that they are now tracking that. Um, and I'm I'm when we meet, as I'm sure we will soon, um, I'm I I'd love to hear more about where that comes from. Um, yeah. And so, Director Council Member Warren, uh, very much looking forward to, uh, getting clear data from HMIS and the the homeless management information system. Sorry, that's the HMIS is its um, acronym. and Henipin County because uh this data is super important and they they don't track it well. Um they're doing their best. Oh god, love them out there. But the federal government has done everything to to not collect the right data. >> Um and and so I'm excited to work with the the two of you on on getting better data. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Um, we do not have anyone else in queue, which means I'll direct the clerk to file that report and thank you again for the presentation and just the robust discussion with us in this moment. Um, I without objection, I will recess us for lunch and why don't we just come back at 1 p.m. >> All right. Thank you. Tech tape one. I got back. >> All right, we are back at the super committee of the whole. I will ask the clerks to call the role to verify a presence of a quorum. Council member Payne >> present. >> Wonsley >> present. >> Rainville is absent. It >> present. >> Warren >> present. >> Osman >> present. >> Schaefer >> present. Stevenson >> present. >> Chavez >> present. >> Whiteing >> present. >> Homosano >> present. >> Vice chair Chug >> is absent. Chair Chowry >> present. >> And Rainville >> present. There are 12 members present. Let the record reflect we have a quorum. Um before we go into our next item, I if there's no objection, I wanted to ask council member Chavez if he wanted to be recorded in the affirmative for one item we voted on for the legislative agenda. >> Yes, I would chair. Thank you. >> Great. All right, colleagues. Our next item is item number 68, which is a proposed lease agreement with the University of Minnesota for a one-year term for a training site for the police department. Here to lead the staff presentation is Director of Property Services, Barbara O'Brien. Welcome, director. >> Thank you. I'm just going to do a quick adjustment. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madame Chair, council members. My name is Barbara O'Brien. I have the privilege of serving as the director of property services for the city of Minneapolis. Before I begin, I'd like to recognize that Matt Hannon, real estate manager from property services division overseeing leasing for the city, is with me. Also here with me today are colleagues from the city's office of public safety as well as the Minneapolis Police Department to seek authorization of a lease agreement with the University of Minnesota in the amount of $1 perom for the use of a portion of the university's 32.3 acre research center in Rosemont, Minnesota. The space is used for temporary storage and detonation of potentially explosive materials and also training activities for MPD and other local law enforcement agencies around the handling of such materials both uh of which require ample dedicated space that is void of population populated areas. is so a wide open space. This lease is a modernization formalization of a partnership between the University of Minnesota and the city that has been in place since 1986. So this year marks four decades of this collaboration. Since the original lease, the city of St. Paul has also entered into an agreement with the university for shared use of this space with Minneapolis. In 2025, the university delivered a termination notice of the aged lease to both cities for for use of this facility. The university would like to continue leasing space to Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments for this purpose but wanted to do so under a new lease agreement which is what is in front of you today. The new lease would run for one year with an unlimited number of automatic one-year renewals. In exchange for use of the Rosemont facility, both cities police departments agree to provide timely removal of potential explosive materials from university property should the need arise. I am happy to stand for any questions related to this lease or share the podium with my colleagues to address any questions that you may have. Thank you so much, director. I'll recognize Council President Payne. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just curious if we have any cost estimates for that material removal budgeted or an understanding of it. >> So, um I I think that is a question that would best be answered by the subject matter experts and so I would defer that question to MPD MPD staff Sergeant Sta Standard. Welcome. >> Welcome, Council President. Madam Chair, thank you. Um, the cost associated with getting rid of something like that the University of Minnesota wants to get rid of. So, there would be a a slight charge. I mean, it would be the cost of using counter explosives to do that work. We also are reimbursed from a non-responsible party fund if we respond to a call outside of our jurisdiction and then we would get reimbured $400 an hour to do that work. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you colleagues. Are there any other questions on this item? >> Okay, seeing none. Thank you for that first presentation. Is there a motion on this item? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Great. Um, all those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed say nay. Any abstensions? That carries. And that item has been approved and will be referred to the full city council for its consideration on Thursday. I'll recognize Vice Chair Chug Thai has joined us. Vice Chair, would you like to be recorded in the affirmative for this item number 68? >> Yes, please, Madam Chair. Wonderful. All right, Director O'Brien, we're going to have you right back up this time um to present on the bid by Roshan Corporation for the MPD training annex project. >> Thank you. And good afternoon, Madam Chair. Once again, as noted, my name is Barbara O'Brien. I am the director of property services for the city of Minneapolis. The RCA in front of you today is to authorize a contract with Roshan Corporation, who has submitted the low responsive bid for minor demolition and construction in an effort to create open flexible spaces within a cityowned facility at 19 North Fourth Street, formerly known as the First Precinct. In late fall of 2025, the first precinct operations and staff relocated to a newly renovated space within the Sentry Plaza facility. Cityowned and unprogrammed since the precinct relocation, 19 North Fourth Street has been reviewed by property services against the many and varied space demands that our city departments have. During our analysis, we considered types of space needs, centralized location, parking and access needs, financial implications, as well as scalability, departmental priority, codes, zones, safe and thriving community report, as well as condition assessments and settlement agreements. A temporary auxiliary space for MPD training and wellness was identified for this unprogrammed space. This location will serve as a relief valve for the extremely tasked training space within the SOC, also known as the Hamilton School. a facility that was designed and built as an elementary school and has been stretched to serve the Minneapolis Police Department's training needs. This contract will result in open spaces on separate floors that will allow training and wellness activities to be programmed simultaneously to continued space use at the SOC SOC. As some of you may recall, 19 North 4th Street was once a Minneapolis fire station with equipment storage and garage space on the ground floor and personnel space on the upper floor. The original structure lends itself ideally to be converted back to an open concept floor that will allow maximum flexibility for training needs. Demolition and construction will be minimal for this th this temporary use of space and will not impede future use considerations for this facility. Here with me today are colleagues from the city's office of public safety as well as Minneapolis Police Department who can address operational details related to a temporary auxiliary space. I am happy to stand for any questions related to the contract um and share the podium with my colleagues who may address specific operational questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you so much, director. We have a few council members in queue. I'll recognize council member Wanley. >> Thank you, Chair Chowry. Uh just some initial comments first. Uh I requested the presentation on item 68 and 69 which were originally a part of the climate and infrastructure agenda because these items uh relate to the city's current wellness and training plans for uh MPD. and they also demonstrate that we can fulfill this uh one department's needs in more efficient and affordable ways. Um, as we somewhat touched on during our legislative agenda discussion, but also very thoroughly during um, budget deliberations last uh, December, um, we've become very clear on the fact that the Fry administration has proposed uh, the solution to MPD's uh, needs for facilities or wellness and training um, is through the development of what is almost a $40 million uh, training and wellness center. And for our newer colleagues, again, had robust conversations regarding the logic and value of building a $38 million training facility and whether there were opportunities to utilize space and training from other agencies in the state. Um, at the time of those conversations, MPD and the administration claimed that this massive expenditure uh was both the only way to fulfill the settlement agreement and was the most costefficient way uh for taxpayers uh to also fulfill these training needs um or and wellness needs. And the proposal before us uh today that we're considering I I believe reveals that those claims are are actually not true. MPD utilizing a space by partners like the University of Minnesota as we considered that does have um some longevity in its renewal process um as well as leveraging uh contracts with other government agencies is a type of uh efficient and effective use of resources that I'm more than happy to support and like I stated in December I do not believe we've exa exhausted all uh efforts and options um in solving MPD's training needs and I hope that office of community safety and the Minneapolis Police Department leadership is taking this time to seriously examine uh ways in which we can be working with other agencies uh to leverage uh fulfillment of those needs and I look forward to further conversations around their plans uh related to public safety facilities um during our uh further deliberations in the appropriate committees. But that said too, again, I just want to emphasize the justification or part of the justification for this wellness center, wellness and training center has been really pointed by MPD leadership as well as our city attorneys uh to the settlement agreement um as a pretext for this proposal. But that same settlement agreement does not require us to build essentially a cop city. um the Fry administration. Again, I implore you all to work with leadership of public health and safety, this body, um especially as we made changes in capital planning appropriations related to this center, um and move those to other critical needed uh priorities. like this is a really good time to work with this body to really look at some of the more fiscally and logically sound alternatives that was also reflected in the assessment report that uh the administration actually uh essentially you know contracted and and brought forward for this body's uh consideration. So there's other options that we could be pursuing that could also again leverage the city's existing resources and current partnerships. Um, this is a really great opportunity also for the FRI administration to embrace cost effective strategies to fulfill MPD's training and wellness needs instead of having to rally around the creation of again a $40 million local cop city and especially when we're weighing the fact that we just came off of a financial year where uh MPD also ran over $20 million. Also, we had other departments that overspent. We are facing some financially um challenging times ahead of us. Also, as noted in earlier's conversations around the federal impact on our funding. Um so, we need to be critical of what infrastructure projects we're we're really investing in and if there's ways to do it in a more costefficient way. And I think 68 and 69 really shows um us some options on how to do that and why I'm particularly supportive of both. >> Thank you, Council Member Wanley. Next, we'll go to Council Member Whiting. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh thank you, director. Uh just a a few quick questions here, I think specifically around uh how this repurpose uh fits the the version of of settlement agreement, consent decree requirement training. Is this repurpose of the space? Will this kind of if if you can speak to or others as well, um will this kind of uh rebuild out of the space kind of make this more efficient? uh make the training that we are seeing at at the sock uh actually able to expand and have some more efficient kind of process there as well. >> So um thankfully I have colleagues uh with me today that can really address the operational piece and so I would invite um Commander Brown to the podium with me. Thank you. >> Welcome Commander Brown. U Madame Chair uh President Council and council members uh thank you um specifically to the operational uh needs that our department has for um uh we run into a little bit of a problem when it comes to uh so specifically to the settlement agreement. Settlement agreement requires nowadays uh um us to really get out of the classroom and do hands-on uh um large group exercises. So your scenarios, your exercises, your tabletops and stuff that takes us out of a classroom, no longer um no longer teaching to but facilitating um in that in that kind of classroom structure is gone now out to the scenarios and doing the hands-on and demonstrating the skills that you're learning. Both of which is uh an expectation from Alifa and MDHR and that's where we run into a little bit of the problem when it comes to the space. So, um I actually uh approached Barbara um uh was it might even been 2024 and I said we're running into a problem because all these great ideas all of these things that are expectations of our department um are requiring us to have more large group space. So the large group space are like your gym and your auditorium which is the only large space that we have in the uh sock. So Hamilton school and uh it has forced us to find unique ways. Um but because Hamilton just happens to be in in a community that's surrounded by residents, we've gotten some push back from moving outside, which I completely understand. I mean, not everybody wants to see police training going on outside their thing. You can put as many signs up as you want out there that says police training, but it still triggers people. People still have that effect and that's real. So, we make those considerations. So, um with having limited space, it has put us in a position where um we need we need to consider moving some some people to a night training where we otherwise wouldn't be able to facil would be able to facilitate it with more large group space. Um the unique thing when they uh this project was brought to me was saying for this auxiliary training space how could you util or could you utilize how what are your needs? And I said I need large group space. We measured it out and we said okay we could lay mats down and use that for mat space. We could put up temporary walls, modular walls to create like a scenario space. So that um the so our current use with the academy which is right now is a started yesterday. It's a 35 uh recruits are currently here um at the sock um we have over 70 community service officers. Those community service officers they they they rely on that continued training and guidance. So they also have need for the large space. Um and then we have uh a cadet group. The credit group is uh roughly 30 people that um they come in they do two three weeks before they go to HTC to finish the clichure school um as well as all the other different um things like inservice training that puts us in in a need where we have to get them in a large group space too. So we have lots of needs. Uh we just don't have the facility to do it. And training is year round now. We don't have the luxury of having I mean historically before the settlement agreement we would have um we'd have an fall and a spring inservice. Now literally uh if you look at the calendar on my wall we have one or two trainings and we try desperately and that's my job to try to navigate all that training so that there's minimal overlap because that's the problem space we have. The space we need isn't classroom. It's the large group space which uh um the auxiliary location would would suffice for that. >> Yeah. Thank you, commander. And then uh just kind of following up a second question here. It sounds like from your understanding uh and explanation that this uh this facility is helping our our specific uh training requirements that are are are required throughout the settlement agreement and consent decree. But and and maybe this is something I see uh Deputy Commissioner Jeff is here and maybe a question for Director O'Brien as well. Um but it sounds like this specific facility does not meet the requirements uh within the settlement agreement and consent decree for uh our facilities agreement assessment that has come through. Is that am I correct in that understanding? >> Good afternoon Chair Showry, uh Council Member Whiting. I'm Jared Jeff. I'm the deputy commissioner of community safety for the city of Minneapolis. Uh council member whining to your question of does the additional um ancillary facility that director O'Brien presented on cover the set agreement requirements. Um the setman agreement requires that we did a facility several facility assessments. Um those came back that several of our facilities including our training um facility at the Sock was deficient. Um, in reaction to that and as required in the settlement agreement, we have to submit a facilities plan that Alifa as our monitor would actually approve. In that plan, we had proposed building a comprehensive community safety training and wellness facility that meets the needs of not just police but fire, BCR, 911, etc. Um, and they uh, Alifa actually approved that plan. So whether or not this or other solutions would actually be approved by LEIFA, we don't know that for sure, but we do know the new comprehensive facility was approved. >> Perfect. And then and and to again to re reiterate as well. So the current facilities plan that has been proposed has been approved uh by LEFA for compliance with the with the settlement agreement. >> Correct. Council Member Wedding. Perfect. >> Thank you. Y >> thanks. We'll go to council member Stevenson. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for uh speaking to this. I just had a couple of questions. Um I'm new and so I'm I'm still getting my bearings of this project and and other related projects. Um you kept referring to this as temporary. Why is it temporary? Madame Chair, council members, um council member um Stevenson, um it is has been identified as temporary while we uh collectively evaluate uh the Hamilton school. um the the overall needs, the programmatic needs that are required to meet the the modern um training needs for MPD. And so um the the the idea of just creating large spaces, large open spaces um to augment uh the space at the SOC affords us the ability to do it rapidly. It can happen now. We don't have to wait for the evaluation of the program needs um to be complete to do so. So it's taking action so that we are actually uh um moving forward taking steps forward to do to do that. I hope that answers your question. >> Yeah. So it sounds like by temporary you more mean uh immediate and less of you have a plan to phase this out. >> I I think that is a really accurate way of saying that. It's an immediate response because we have space that can be easily converted to meet those large um uh training needs. not classroom but otherwise as described. And so um we can do that now with this contract. Um and then have those training needs be met more expeditiously as opposed to waiting for a full program to be developed and um and then waiting for uh additional space to be built specifically. So we're using what we have to make a difference now. >> Yeah. Well, that that sounds great. This sounds like a great plan. I hope you continue to to find these types of things in the facilities that we have already. >> Thank you, >> Council Member Vita. >> Thank you, Chair. U Thank you, Director O'Brien and Commander um Brown, for the comments. I I still have a couple questions, though. I'm a little confused on um what will be removed from the Hamilton School. the Hamilton school is in Ward 4 and as Commander Brown uh said that it causes a lot of trauma and harm in the community. So that is why I was a fan of a new facility being built for all of these things we know we need outside of residential neighborhoods. I wouldn't want to inflict that on anyone. So the idea of a site that was outside of this seems good to me. We're not there anymore. So, I'm trying to understand exactly what is going to continue to happen at the Hamilton School, like what services are going to be removed. Can we look to people not having trauma in this neighborhood with this new facility? >> I would look to Commander Brown to address that question specifically. My comment would be that um that uh it isn't necessarily a uh a removal. it is to facilitate uh multiple trainings happening simultaneously to meet the overall training need. But I will I will hand that to you. Thank you, >> Madam Chair and uh Councilwoman Vita. Uh yeah, Barbara's correct. So we aren't um my job is to find uh creative ways to um continue to provide the services to training our officers and the new recruits that we have. Um so um when we run into a problem where um historically we did do some uh activity outside of our building and um the community had said that they didn't feel comfortable with that. So then we move it inside. So um some so the options we have for out outdoor or open more open space to do training has pushed us to having it exclusively indoors or at a place that's no longer um within the city limits. So for us um specifically to the um uh what are we going to be doing in the um auxiliary space um in the large space um my particular plan as long as it's approved by my bosses is that we would um uh it's a lot easier to have an academy of 35 people when we have uh space conflicts uh to have my academy move uh to to the uh um the auxiliary space when they need their large group trainings. um than it is to uh spread the word to 618 people and to let them know that if you're have training on Monday, you show up to downtown position and but if you have training on Wednesday, you go to the sock. So to avoid those issues of my plan is when we do have conflicts in space that we would move the academy training, the pre-ervice training, those officers um who um are very quick and good and um they're all in the same location so communication can go well. uh we would move them to those to the auxiliary space um where we would have the the equipment there so they could continue the training uh uninterrupted as well as um our community service officers. Right now we have over like I said I we have over 70 community service officers and they do similar training when it comes to just helping develop their um their interest and their career and education in law enforcement. and uh they do a lot of uh uh physical training in the open spaces that we have and and they're forced to come in earlier than 8:00 in order to have it because we have training that starts at 8. So um we won't be cutting off any training. What we'll just be doing is um uh using the space as it as it's needed to uh continue to do what we're doing. >> Yep. Thank you, Commander. I mean, I really appreciate how thoughtful you are. I I know you've answered questions for folks and went out and talked to neighbors, but what I'm looking for in this project is relief for this community, right? Like I'm and I'm really not into these short-term fixes because people that that facility has been there for a long time. That's an area with a lot of homeowners who've lived there without it and with it and it matters to them that it's not there. So, I appreciate the work that you all are doing to try to move some things out of this community, but I'm not going to be okay with this until we're not using that school for training for MPD officers in a residential neighborhood where kids are coming out every day, where um the noise that some of this stuff makes, the presence, I mean, there's just so many things that you hear from residents in this community that is traumatizing to them. And and this has nothing to do with you, Commander, but I really am looking forward to the day when this body takes North Side as serious as they do on the south side. To have this school still be in this community is actually a big slap in the face to north side residents who have been asking for it to be taken out. And I was hoping we were going to do some things on this council to give folks that relief. They don't deserve this. They don't want this. It's not to like make you feel bad about the training you have to do. you're doing your job, but us as a body, we can do a lot better to make sure that this isn't happening in this residential neighborhood. Again, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but it's just not good enough. It's not good enough until this facility is closed down and this is not happening on that block 42nd and DuPont, then it's not good enough for me. So, thank you. >> Thank you, ma'am. >> Thank you, Council Member. Next, we'll go to Council Member Wanley. >> Thank you, Chair Chadri. Um, I want to note, uh, Council Member Widing's question did make me consider something, um, and this might be related to Deputy Jared, uh, Jeff, but I just wanted clarity on whether or not, uh, or does the settlement agreement permit alternative proposals to be brought forward for consideration to meet compliance with the terms and conditions that's included in it even after a proposal has been accepted. I mean really >> chair Showry, Council Member Wanley, thank you for the question. Uh I would say yes, it does allow for proposals. The thing that was noted in the assessments was how logistically difficult, as Commander Brown uh described, having the Sock and other um I think kind of other smaller facilities spread out um is to conduct training and have wellness um opportunities for our first responders. So it it is possible. >> First question. So it is possible and then we could dig into the actual report in the contents where it also notes that same dynamic but gives you additional options like what we're considering or in alignment with what we're considering and does not just lead to the purchasing or acquisition of a building. That's part of the options but I at least want to understand the premise is we do have the ability to legally go back and provide alternative considerations. Thank you. And then uh Director O'Brien, quick question. Uh you mentioned something related to fire um specifically and in your internal assessments for other you know existing facility needs. I I >> just a little bit more clarity on what did that look like in terms of when you assess um the the former first precinct with their needs for a new fire station also need for training. I I did want clarity on that. Yeah. So, um it starts with us looking at um really basic things um to begin with. >> So, where are we leasing space? Where is a city paying uh for spa space? And can can those needs be met by a city-owned facility essentially to um reduce costs? Right? So, that's a pretty basic look. And then the next um and then beyond that um so looking at our leases then it's where do we have um space needs um projects that have been on the capital program for a number of years and we have um been up against um a number of challenges to try to provide that. I'd use like animal care and control as an example. Um and so then those are things that we look at. Um and then look at the prioritizations within each department and try to determine do we have uh needs that are a that are a good fit. >> And again I kind of mentioned a pretty big laundry list of things like >> parking. Maybe the need it doesn't require a great deal of parking but perhaps it does. So you kind of have to balance those things out. um specifically for fire. Um a lot of the needs that they have are are not necessarily um sized um appropriately or are more administrative in nature. And it's not to say that we can't revisit that particular building um should we choose to uh should this be just a short-term temporary solution. In fact, the contract again uh today is just to remove walls, open space up, >> absolutely does not close us as a city to making decisions about that building in the future. >> Yes, thank you for that. Um especially I would love to get more clarity and this might just be a followup then of like the sizing needs for and I'm I'm thinking of fire and their particular capital request for a new station. Um, and that's been on the >> roster for a while now, >> right? And I'd be happy to go over that in more detail with you. Um, it there's a lot around the size, structure, and turning radiuses that exist at that location that do not meet those needs. >> Awesome. Thank you for that. And I did want to offer just a correction to this is not related to you, director Bryant, but this was related I believe to also something deputy director Jeff mentioned earlier um which is also verified in the capital request. You mentioned that the wellness and training facility will also meet the needs or training needs for BCR fire. That is not what is included in the capital request. We had a thorough debate about that last budget cycle um to which in the actual capital request and also verbal confirmation was noted this will be only for police. So I think a number of us would love to see maximization of space. We have been pushing for that for years now to make sure we have training or just even space for violence interrupterss VCR like as we're expanding our nonmppd team. But I at least wanted to note that because there is nowhere on the capital request form or anything that actually says that and we had thorough debate to get clarification on that in December and that was affirmed that this center has been to solely intended for use by MPD. So just want to offer that clarification. But those are all things I had. >> Thank you. Next we'll go to council member Palmisano. >> Thank you madam chair. Um, I want to point out that this action today, this rebuild out, add some features, if you would, to the old fire station so that we can do more hours of training is meant to be very temporary in the grand scope of things. There are far too many needs to handle our training at the Hamilton School. Far more hours of training than we have ever before required. Having one place to train is what the lowest cost and most efficient option is for our police department and for us as a city from a financial perspective. This training center need though is not new and it has been a need long before it was required by a settlement agreement. In fact, I might say I helped to get it in a settlement agreement to help it continue along the capital improvement plan back in 2018 when I began working on an improved training facility. I first spent time in what we had. It's an old school that we continue to lease from Minneapolis public schools. It has every downside that council member VTO mentioned and many, many more. Also, I went to look at other police training facilities in Minnesota. Some were older like St. Paul's and some were newer like at the time Cottage Groves had just opened. A couple things about them. They all had modern ways to walk through situational training. That's not something that exists at the Hamilton School. They had virtual reality scenarios that it just a few years ago were particularly new, but nowadays have grown ever more so sophisticated. And they don't require a lot, but they do probably require a dedicated differentiz room than anything that we have. There were movable walls in some places to create different scenarios, different um maybe like housing setups from an apartment looking setup to um like a building like a manufacturing facility setup. Those were important because it literally helps people walk through situations that they are going to encounter in real life. Importantly, they all had an ability to train with other first responders, right? Because because that's reality. We we don't show up with police alone most of the time. We show up with other first responders. Things I saw were things like the ability for a fire truck to back into a facility or EMS to be on scene and to really walk through those scenarios. There's no reason though that it wouldn't also be and be very appropriate for us to be working with others in collaborative ways like BCR, like some of our other non um badged kinds of alternatives to policing. I think that that's important. But you know what? None of them had space for us. None of them had enough space for the training needs of the MPD. space to partner together is a requirement of getting bonding money from the state. We tried. There are a host of things required for bonding from the state for a training facility. Nearly everyone that I visited used that bonding money. We will need to and have a real opportunity to I think partner with other jurisdictions and I think that's a good thing. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, Council Member. We'll go to Council Member Vita. Thank you. Um, just another quick question about expenses. You know, I see here that there's a dollar to use the UN, the previous action was a dollar to use the university's um facility, but now we have this bid for the the um the other facility. How much is the ongoing expenses? Like what are we going to be paying yearly for this? Do we know yet? Or are we just saying like it's this one-time expense for this the facility to be ready and then there's no more expenses associated with this? >> Madame Chair, council member and specifically council member Vita. Um so it because it is our facility and we own it. Um the contract that is in front of you today will cover the demolition and construction required to get it ready for the temporary use that we've defined for training. Um the there would be ongoing expenses such as electricity, obviously water, um utilities that we na that we normally would absorb um as this building would be used. um and that is accounted for through the city's rent model and is absorbed by um the occupants and in this case it would be MPD. >> Okay. So, you're just expecting it to be just basic correct utilities or whatever to um continue using this facility. And then do we I I'm sure I've seen it somewhere, but what are the expenses with the Hamilton school? >> Like how much are we paying for that? Uh, madame uh, Madame Chair and, uh, Council Member Vita, I would need to follow up with a memo. I do not have the >> Okay. So, since we're going to do a memo, can we just do that for what all the trainings cost, not just at the Hamilton school, but to train our officers, including facilities, like how much are we spending for that yearly? So I think that would be uh that's kind of two different things and we be happy to divide it up. So um property services can represent the cost for uh utilities and operations um whereas MPD and the office of community safety would have to represent the cost for um uh training outside of our >> I would love that. Thank you. >> Okay, great. We'll note that for administrative followup and I'll I'll just add I think it'd be really helpful to aggregate as much as possible what the different costs are. Um next we'll go to Council Member Whiting. >> Thank you Madame Chair. Uh I think just and to council member uh Wanssley's I think question as well. I think I'm trying to find some clarification on this as well. uh I think particularly around uh what the facilities need is um both for for training uh and that what also can be required uh in that building and so uh like is there a possibility I think you know council member Wu right we weren't here first what four weeks on the job still figuring things out still uh but I think for training wise I went and took a peek at the facilities assessment uh page 50 of that assessment says the the midterms actions that have been required uh by the facilities assessment which is obviously required by our settlement agreement and I will I will read it verbatim. Uh build a new dedicated one-stop shop for all training activities classroom scenario virtual driving track firing range capacities. Uh just having that understanding but does that negate the fact uh of including other departments other capacities in that building itself in that buildout? Thank you >> chair shrier. Council member Whiting, thank you for the question. Uh, in our initial proposal for the plan, the facilities plan back to Alifa, we did frame it as a comprehensive community safety training wellness facility, meaning that it addressed the training needs of all five of our safety departments. Um, and I did double check that was actually in the capital request for this year as well as the bonding request to the state as well. Um I I think just offhand um fire department has several needs that are not being met by the EOTF, emergency operations training wellness facility. 911 has inadequate training space here in city hall which is their only space available. Um as well as other contracted vendors such as BCR, Violence Interruptors, etc. So yes, that has been openly discussed with Alifa and they are um very much in favor of that and I think you'll see that reflected as well in the concepts in the consent decree which require joint training be between 911 police BCR EMS etc. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Thank you. And uh Council Member Whiting, just so I have the clarification, what were you reading from? >> Uh the Oops. Sorry, >> Madam Chair. uh particularly the uh the w facilities assessment. >> Okay. >> Yep. 2024 I believe facilities assessment. >> Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate the clarification. Um I am not seeing any other members in Q. Um and just seeing Great. I was pausing to see if anyone else was going to jump in. Council member Wanley. >> Yeah, thanks for the u acknowledgement. Uh, I will ask for the staff memo to include Deputy Jeff where in the capital improvement you see that listed and then yeah, I would love to to see that piece. Thank you. >> Okay, we'll add that for administrative followup and um I think it'd be just helpful where in the capital plan and then also where in the bonding requests too. Um, okay. I'm not seeing anyone else in the queue. So, thank you so much staff for the presentation. Really, really appreciate it. Um, can I get a motion on this item? So, move. >> Second. >> Awesome. Um, I will have the clerk call the role. >> Council member Payne, >> I. >> Wsley. >> I. >> Rainville. >> I. >> Bev. No >> Warren. >> I >> Osman. >> I >> Schaefer. >> I >> Stevenson. >> I >> Chavez. >> I >> Whiting. >> I >> Palmisano. >> I >> Vice Chair Chict >> I >> and Chair Chowry >> I. >> There are 12 eyes and one name. >> That motion carries and we'll be at full counsel for final consideration. Okay. So, members, um, couple things have shifted around. So, if there's no objection, this is the way in which we'll take things. We'll have the human trafficking services for the Southside Safety Center presentation. Then we will go to um Council Member Chavez's resolution on uh legal services and then we will go to the final one in discussion before we go to consent from Council Member Wanley on rental assistance. So with that, I will call up Director Harrington for the presentation on human trafficking services at the Southside Safety Center. This is number 60 for folks that are looking for it in their packets. >> Good afternoon, council members. My name is Amanda Harrington. I'm the director for the neighborhood safety department. I want to provide a little bit of background about the um RCA that's in front of you today. In November 20 um 23, city council and the mayor authorized the purchase of 2633 Minihaha Avenue for a new community safety center. At that same time, a resolution was passed that the center would include both community safety and police functions. Um, we have explained uh over the last couple of years our vision for a community safety center that really involves a mix of city staff and community organizations collaborating in the same space available for community members who walk in or need services out in community to fund the community uh partners in that space. And during the budget process in the end of 2023, $4 million was set aside for pilot programs in that safety center. To figure out what services were put in the safety center, we did extensive community engagement in South Minneapolis from March to May of 2024. The um information that we received from community is broken down on the slide in front of you into the three categories reflected from the safe and thriving communities report. prevention, response, and restoration. One of the um services that you can see under restoration is human trafficking services. We are requesting that money be moved from the original $4 million public safety aid that was set aside for pilots to be used for this contract, which was previously approved by this body. You can see how the Office of Community Safety is budgeting out the remaining public safety aid that's set aside for pilots. We are asking for $500,000 of that remaining public safety aid to be moved to the neighborhood safety department to pay for the contract that we've already executed. I think it's important to reflect on how this is really a collaboration of the office of community safety and the neighborhood safety department working together. We utilize the expertise and wisdom of Sunnu Shrussa to determine what services make sense in connection with human trafficking prevention and intervention services in the safety center. She had also done extensive community engagement before we came along and all of that is culminated into the contract that was previously executed. The ask before you today is really just to pass the resolution allowing us to move the money that was set aside in the finance department to neighborhood safety. The contract is already complete. So really this is just a budgetary request. Without these funds, neighborhood safety cannot absorb the costs of this contract and would not be able to fund these services that we have already contracted to provide. I'm available for any questions. >> Thank you so much, Director Harrington. I'm going to look to my colleagues to see if they have any questions. I know that there was interest in this item. Okay. Council Vice President Osman, >> I'll be court. Thank you, uh, Dr. Harrington. And my question is, those are great, um, services that we contracted. Are those actively working now or are we going to wait the center to open? I'm kind of a little confused on >> Chair Chowry, Council, um, Vice President Osman, these services, um, are intended to start when the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center started. So we did execute the contract but within that execution it was clear that the services would not start until the center was open. So we expect the center to be open during 2026 which is why we need the money to be moved in 2026. >> We don't have a specific date when the center will be open. >> I will defer to director Christensen to answer that question. >> Thank you uh Chair Chowry. Uh, Council Vice President Osman, um, we have an anticipated opening date at the end of 2026. That's our plan right now. I can tell you right now that the bid period for general contractors closed on January 22nd. Um, and then bids will be evaluated by procurement civil rights. So, we'll have uh more updates for you. The c the office of community safety will update the council on any milestones or timelines related to this project. >> No, no. I I I I really appreciate one of the first thing we argue a few years ago was about you know not having a standard alone precinct but more like service included and now we are ahead of the schedule so I appreciate your service and work. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we'll go to Council Member Wanley. >> Thank you. And this might require actually a staff memo, not for you, Director Harrington, but I would like to know what is the remaining balance of the public safety aid. Um, I know this total package appropriates about two almost nearly 2 and a.5 million and we originally set aside 4 million. I know we've cut into that, but we really like to know what the balance of that um overall fund is. >> Chair Chowry, Council Member Wley, I appreciate the request for a memo following up on that. The slides that I gave to you did show a little under um 2.5 million remaining which was my best estimate based on the information I had. So it would be good to get um clarity about the exact number remaining. >> Okay. So then we'll have that for administrative followup. I heard that correctly. Okay. Perfect. Right. And then we will go to council member Warren. >> Thank you madam chairs dupine. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so my question is around the community engagement and how individuals will be brought into um this facility and what that looks like. So, are you taking the referrals in then from the county? Are individuals mandated to this place? What does the the stay of adjudication look like for individuals who are receiving treatment within this in this facility? Like are they referred there because there's you know um I don't understand how people are here and then what you're talking about unsheltered homelessness resources. How are people referred here? Does this come from a coordinated entry assessment? Are you picking people up off the streets? Like what is this? What does this look like? How do people get here? How do they stay here? And then how do we prove the effectiveness of this? >> Chair Chowry, Council Member Warren, thank you for that question. The um services that you are reflecting on were the services that we heard from community engagement. It was not our plan to execute um all of those services to be it was not our plan for all of those services to immediately be activated in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center. Human trafficking is one of the services that we believed that we could pilot in the center which is why we have executed that contract but it does not anticipate anybody staying at the center. It's not a shelter in any way. The contract that was previously um approved by this body is really for case management services as well as training for the community and city um folks including fire, police, and then other community organizations that are partnering in the safety center. So people will reach these services either by coming in off the street and actually talking to somebody who is officed in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center, but the contract also considers that people will be engaged in other ways. There would be staff from the link perhaps or one of their partner organizations that may go out into community where um victims could be found and engage with them that way as well. We have Breaking Free shelter which is located in St. Paul which is one of our sex trafficking shelters that is located here within the Twin Cities metropolitan area that has about 15 beds in there that does not have the capacity to house individuals or women or those who um identify as you know such or other in these spaces for safe housing. We need a safe housing facility that is going to have somewhere for these individuals to go because the domestic violence shelters beds are constantly full with respect to this. I don't see that this is a very logical space for someone to sit behind a desk and hope that someone comes in so they can tell them about a resource. But where are these people going to actually go to receive realistic support? When my team was out during the Super Bowl here in the Twin Cities, we had 12-year-old kids that we were coming into contact with that were being trafficked for sex here in the Twin Cities. We don't have a space that is going to allow for individuals to come in there or even to be mandated into those spaces once you learn through coordinated entry or other sources of support that this is a need or a deficit for those individuals. So there really needs to be some designated space that is specifically for them. With respect to that, I'm also ultra concerned with the fact that um I mean you're not I don't if if one of my council colleagues said that they're looking at the city or individuals that are out there as navigators with around these services as um as police or snitches or what have you. like how are you how are you getting this information out of these individuals in order to provide them with the with the supportive services that they need and then maintaining and retaining those relationships if it's just a one-stop shop from time to time when you feel like you need it. >> Chair Chowdery, Council Member Warren, I'm happy to provide you with the scope of service for the human trafficking contract. I think that might answer some of your questions about how some of these services are being provided. It is never intended to be strictly somebody sitting inside the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center waiting to talk to people, but that certainly is one component and it's um based on the information that we've heard from community members. I definitely don't disagree with you that we need more beds to house people, but the funding for pilots in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center isn't an appropriate use of those funds because people um in community would not want to use that site as a shelter. And so if we were to look at that type of service, we would need to look at a different funding source. >> Thank you so much. >> Next, we have Council Member Schaefer. Thank you, Madame Chair, and thank you, Director Harrington. One clarifying question. You mentioned you were bringing forward the contract now, but it would not begin until the community safety center was open in late 2026. Um, is that correct? Did I understand that clearly? Okay. Thank you for clarifying. >> Chair Chowry, Council Member Schaefer. The contract has already been executed. It was approved by this body in 2025. The only thing we're asking for today is to move the money that was set aside for pilots from finance to neighborhood safety so that when the safety center is open, we can utilize that funding to pay on the contract that's already executed. >> Great. So, it'll sit until that starts. Thank you for the clarification. Great. Next, we'll go to council vice president Osman. >> Yeah. Just quick question. Can you remind us uh which organization will be housed um in this center that will do the work? >> Chair Chowry, Council Member Osman, the um contract for human trafficking prevention and intervention is with the link. I believe that their contract partners with two organizations um and the name escapes me right now. I can follow up on an email, but they did do their proposal as kind of a conglomerate or a combined proposal to um utilize three different organizations resources to address this community need. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Great. I'm curious about those names, too. So, let's add that for administrative followup for the one that we already have. Um, colleagues, are there any other questions? Otherwise, I'll just Oh, Council Member Warren, >> I just have one more. Thank you. Uh, chair, madam chair, I just have one quick question. We had about 51 different agencies across Minneapolis, uh, north and south that were given over $3 million for addiction services and all of this domestic violence, human trafficking, and things all of these nature. What is setting you apart completely from all the rest of these different agencies that is going to highlight some emphasis on the work that you're going to do to prove its effectiveness? Church, Council Member Warren. Um, again, I'm not trying to argue the efficacy of the contract. I I believe that's already been approved by this body, but the money that we're trying to access is specifically for services that make the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center a community safety center and not just a police department. >> Do you have any other questions, Council Member Warren? >> No, I don't. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, >> director. >> Um, yeah, thank you so much, director, for the presentation. I really appreciate just personally the extra transparency as we're talking about these um human trafficking services. I know that there's an interest for the public in that. Um, so, oh, thank you, Vice Chair. We have one more, Council Member Wanley. >> And this is more to tea up for Council Member Chavez and Stevenson who oversee public health and safety. I mean, we spent um last term and actually over two years really debating out um and having contentious fights on the community level around the what this project is, which will be in my ward um and what services will go in there, what shouldn't be in there. Um, and the at least place that we got to where there was shared agreement was especially in light of just the horrible response we've seen in many ways from the city when it's come to domestic violence and that also was reflected in the community engagement on the ground. People want to see that be reflected in human trafficking and antihuman trafficking services in the center. And after a massive scandal regarding us actually potentially uh partnering with uh human trafficking organization that actually did trafficking of humans. Um we we actually got to a place where we had a very transparent and credible process to work with a vendor as you even noted in your comments has been doing esteemed work for decades. >> Um and they will be the ministers of those services. So we're not even trying to replicate the will. we're we're over here being like, let's bring the experts in as we should have done in the first place instead of working with very suspect organizations and trying to route them and circumvent them through a procurement process. Again, massive scandal. Um, and we're actually excited to bring this partnership forward to show like, oh, we actually can honor the great work that existing organizations are doing in our communities to meet a need. Um, but I I think this will probably need a refresher in public health and safety and some of the other comm committees around just like the amount of work even the two and a half million that is appropriated to these um resources was all with the goal of not just making this a traditional precinct or third precinct and being cognizant of the services that's actually needed in the community and make sure there's funding a available to like see those through because we know if the money was not there there was no trust that the administration would have like done anything differently. So, I at least want to name it's been three and a half years of of a long fight to try to get to actually some of the things that you're pointing out in in your comments. And I just think it would be good to have a refresher and appropriate committee to talk about some of that more in depth. >> Thank you, Council Member Wisman. >> I put myself in quue really quick just to get from you, Director Harrington. What is the current timeline on the Southside Safety Center opening? If you mentioned it already, I apologize. I just can't recall it. >> Um, I will bring back up Director Christensen. >> Uh, Chair Chow, I think you may have stepped away just briefly. Um, uh, our anticipated opening date of the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center is the end of 2026. Um, the the, uh, update I provide is that, um, the bid period closed for general contractors on January 22nd. uh January 22nd. So, we have um some progress here. We're got some momentum forward here in terms of getting a contractor, getting construction started in the spring and then eventually opening. >> Okay. Do we have an idea if it's like fall or are we talking like December 31st is like the hope? >> We're certainly committed to providing updates as soon as we know the construction timeline. >> Great. Yeah, I think that's like something just to share as a council member that rep represents a significant portion well entire ward that's serviced by the third precinct and will be serviced by the Southside Community Safety Center. Like it's a top priority for community members to have this be open um as soon as possible. It's like the thing that I have been hearing now for uh four years. 2022. Yeah. 2022. Uh for four years I've been hearing that. And um the other thing is I think it's really important too that this isn't just a standalone police uh precinct. like community members really appreciated the engagement that you did at the Ncomomas Community Center that had a huge turnout. There was uh several others that community members attended um and shared that feedback with me and appreciated just being a part of the process. And I think like um to the point that council member Warren brought up of how do you ensure that this is effective that's going to be really key because we don't want to just have services to have services like we want to see them actually serve the community and so super excited to see it come online and then very excited to evaluate the services and how they're doing. Um I'm not seeing anyone else in queue. I'm going to pause for a second, see if anyone jumps in. Okay, great. Seeing no further discussion, is there a motion on this item? >> Second. >> Uh, >> all right. So, we have that motion before us. Uh, will the clerks please call the role? >> Council member Payne, >> I. Wanssley >> I >> Rainville >> I >> VA >> I >> Warren >> I >> Osman >> I >> Schaefer >> I >> Stevenson >> I >> Chavez >> I >> Whiting >> Iano >> I >> vice chair Chuktai >> I >> and chair Chowry >> I >> there are 13 eyes's >> that motion carries and has been approved um next we will we agreed to skip around a little bit and have an order. So, we're actually going to go to number 70, which is the immigration legal services resolution. Um, if council member Chavez would like to speak to that item, we'll recognize you. >> Thank you, Chair Chowi. I'm excited to bring this item forward with you and many of our colleagues on the day today. Uh, this is the immigration legal services uh funding. As you all know, Minneapolis families and neighbors are seeing a significant impact from ICE activity targeting our communities here in Minneapolis. We continue to see ICE separate families, neighbors, and our kids. It's very clear that the federal government has been breaking the law, which is why we need to use the law to keep families together. This resolution will fund an additional half a million dollars in immigration legal services, which will improve the stability and safety for our residents, protect our students ability to attend school, improve our business's ability to retain trusted workers, and increase the safety of our communities by ensuring that our residents have access to legal services in Minneapolis. The ongoing occupation of Minneapolis has been ongoing for three months now. My neighbors, particularly loved ones and community, have been many of those who have been kidnapped by ICE. These lives will forever be changed no matter what happens. Many of these instances where discrimination based on the color of someone's skin, the way someone talks, and the way someone looks. And I believe that it is our responsibility as a city government to do everything that we can to keep families together. Most recently, there was a 2-year-old in Ward 9 that was kidnapped by ICE. She was flown to Texas despite a court order saying otherwise. She was then flown back to Minneapolis and reunited with her mom because of the incredible lawyers that we have in our community. This was a success story and with more support and funding like the the vote we're about to take today can help continue to reunite many of our families here in Minneapolis. It's clear that we need to continue to build capacity for habius corpus and legal assistance so that our neighbors do not end in inhumane camps for long periods of time. We have heard very loud and clear that there is not enough money in the city of Minneapolis to continue to keep families together. This funding is meant to expand capacity. particularly would love to make sure that we can do everything that we can to make sure that more families could put in habius corpus forms to keep families together so they're not in these detention camps for a very long time. I don't really need to explain to all of you what has been happening in Minneapolis, but it's very clear that what is happening to our neighbors is just plainly wrong. And this is an action that we can take today to say that we should be doing more and this vote allows us to do more. Thank you. >> Council member Chavez, are you making a motion? >> I would like to move this for approval. >> Second. >> Great. Now to discussion. I'll go to Council Member Vita. >> Thank you, Chair. Thank you, uh, Council Member Chavez for bringing this forward. I just have a couple questions. Um, I have heard more than anything that legal services is what residents are looking for for many reasons. Um, I just had a really long conversation with some folks yesterday about how um, attorneys that they're hiring and spending their money on aren't even showing up for them. They don't know um, who like their court dates or what's going to happen in court because the immigration attorneys that they've hired aren't following up. So, my first question is around that. How do we make sure that these funds get to lawyers that are actually helping our families and not harming them? Like is there um some mechanism mechanisms in place to make sure that we have uh good representation for our families? >> Sorry, chair. >> Unless you want to respond to it, otherwise I'm going to call up Director Rivero from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to answer that question. >> Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Um thank you council member. So um our immigration legal service provider partners there are five service provider partners. Um we interact with them very regularly throughout the year. Um so we have in addition to quarterly conversations to check on the status of the work that they perform. Um we also have uh a midyear as well as an endofear report. In addition to that, um we're in regular communication with our service providers in order to identify any issues of concern. Um some of our legal service providers are hosting community hours in collaboration with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs. And so when we hear back from individuals, if there is a challenge in terms of being able to connect with a provider, we're able to connect with them afterwards and identify um what the issue is, what the challenge is. I hope that's responsive to the question and I'm sorry that I came in a little bit late. >> No, thank you so much for that answer, uh, Director Rivera. And then my second question is about the source. I guess I'm a little confused on that. Can you please explain um the source, Council Member Chavez? Council member Chavez. >> Yep. We're using the fire department and then refilling that with public safety aid. So >> Oh, okay. So, we're taking the money out of um the fire department, but then we can put it back. So, we won't be losing any services in the department. >> We will not be losing any services. Sorry, Council Vita. We won't be losing any services except for just taking money from the public safety aid that was remaining and unallocated >> and the full amount. >> Uh the half a million. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. Um council member Chavez, my last thing is I would really like to be added on to this please. Thank you. >> Yes. Would love that. Council member Utah. >> Wonderful. Um next we'll go to Council Member Pomisano. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I think this also might be a question for council member Chavez. Um, we certainly appreciate the idea here. We're trying to get aid to the people that need it the most and as fast as possible. I see there is an item on consent later on authorizing ORA, the Office of Immigration and Refugee Affairs, to increase the contract amounts with our current legal service providers by roughly 250K. Um, I think that comes from a budget amendment. Um, and then we have this resolution for an additional $500,000. So, I'm curious if you see that to be additive instead of a replacement. And then do you know or is there somebody probably director Rivero that could tell us how much funding remains in the current contracts that would be in addition to the $250,000 from a budget amendment plus this proposed $500,000? I'm just trying to get a handle on this. Um, and so between the two of you, I don't know. Uh we'll welcome up director Rivero, right? >> Yeah, I can try to answer the first question and then also if director Vero would be great. Chair Chowry. Yes. >> Super. Thank you very much. Um Madame Chair, council member. Uh we have allocated funding for 2026 out of the 2026 budget. Um there was an original anticipated amount of $275,000 and then for 2026 there was an additional 246,000 allocated. So we have contracts that um are in process for the initial um anticipated amount, the amount that we knew was going to be ongoing um for 2026 or had a feeling was going to be ongoing. the additional 246,000 um which is identified in uh one of the items earlier today we are working towards um moving that uh funding amount forward with our service providers. So my understanding with regard to the additional 500 is that that is an additional amount of money beyond the 246. So then, if I may, it sounds as though there's almost a million dollars to be dedicated to this cause for legal services for this year. And do we know how much of it has already been spent for this year? So with regard to um 2026 and the services that have been provided, we know that our legal service providers are working um uh in a situation where there are additional um challenges that people are experiencing. um individuals who uh um are becoming undocumented not because they lack immigration status but because of the fact that the federal government is engaging in actions to remove status or to call into question their valid status. So um we have uh contracts in place with with several of the providers who are engaged in work right now. Um and in our conversations with our legal service providers, there is a recognition and acknowledgment that there is an a greater degree of work necessary in order to be able to meet the needs in community um including in the area of litigation from the standpoint of people who are in immigration detention who otherwise would not be including children. And so um in in answering your question, yes, our legal service providers are definitely um currently working under the contract extensions and we are um working to identify additional ways in which they can serve community um uh especially given the reality that people don't feel safe being in public and the need to transition to additional ways of serving community including through virtual means. Thank you. I I do appreciate all of these things. Is it fair to say then where normally under normal times or normal circumstances there is a need for about $250,000 of this service which we kind of do in an ongoing way and this year we are quadrupling that amount because of the need in front of us right now. Is that an accurate statement? >> Um chair childhur council. Hi my name is Nick Mill. the deputy director for neighborhood and community relations. Uh we're happy to provide uh kind of where we are at with current funding and spend down with our uh order contracts and a staff memo. Um my understanding is we are currently spending those down at the moment. We just we are past the first month of January. So we're receiving those invoices coming in and we anticipate more coming in as well. As of right now, as director Rivero has pointed out, we originally last cycle or at the end of um the year, we increased the contracts with the anticipated funding and that is to ongoing current services right now. Our is in conversation based off of our current climate around expanding and growing those services to still meet what uh we originally laid out in the contracts and our understanding is they're able to absorb that in. So, we are able to identify the uh last round of contract amendments and the increases and what those service costs will be. We are working on the $246,000 uh that's currently in orders budget right now and what that uh uh how that would go into their current service levels too. And once we have a better understanding, we could provide that information to all of our uh city council members here. >> Yeah, thank you. I would like that staff memo if to just figure out how do we size this appropriately for the moment. Um I hope that these providers that we are currently using have all this additional capacity. If not, we're going to try and I'm sure quickly find other ones that might um given the current climate. So I just also want to point out that it would mean we are quadrupling our effort in terms of free legal services provided. Um, and I've had some challenges trying to get people to be interested in using that kind of help because they think it would require identifying information kept at the city. >> So, we we're going to need to be able to message that um in really positive ways and and continue to get the message out in ways that people will will use it. So, thank you. >> Yep. Thank you. So, we have an administrative followup on the financials regarding that spending currently. Next, we'll go to council vice president Osman. >> Thank you. Uh, thank you, Council Member Chavez. You have been really uh amazing to our residents, our immigrants community. You have been there and I appreciate you bringing this forward and love to be added as a as a co-author. Also, it doesn't matter how much money we put forward as a city, it's never enough. is only covering farction of people. People are being terrorized and it's not just the so-cal undocumented people that are documented have been detained and they're in Texas. Um, you might want to look it up. Uh, operation pyrus they call it. um which is post admission refugee reication and integrity strengthening. basically folks that have been in in the refugee camp for this long for 15 12 years um went through all the process necessary came here uh they were picked up they were brought here and uh now they are in jail and that's what we're dealing with at the moment not every resident know there are resource available for city Minneapolis but um I think whatever we can do uh uh it's never going to be enough for people that have been affecting our city. So, I appreciate this staff for putting the word out and and council members for really supporting um this effort that we're doing and I'm hoping uh other government agencies like the county and the state are also putting money organizations that are existing that are continue to fight for for for immigration um folks. And let's just say this, one of the things I was reading here at RCA was that nearly 90% of the people that win their cases or fight against removal have representation. Opposite also nearly 90% of the folks that lose their case or are deported uh and separated by their own families don't have a representation. So that's that's just a clear uh picture of understanding what's happening on the ground. Um director, I don't know if you know anything about what the effort we're doing. Is there any any other government agency that are that are u matching or even is the state putting out money to organizations that are legally um fighting for these folks? Has there been any any action from the governor's office, from uh other government agencies that are supporting these organizations the same way we are? Thank you. So, u madame chair, council member, uh there are initiatives at the state level certainly to offer immigration legal services to um people who are trying to obtain secure or more secure immigration status. I'm sorry, president, I don't have an exact figure with regard to the amount of the funding, but there is information that is available on the internet. Um there is an immigration law hub that represents uh the work that is being funded at the state level. >> Thank you. I have myself in Q next. I just wanted to say I'm really proud to be a co-author on this. Thank you, Council Member Chavez, for working on this. Um it's just I mean I I don't I don't even think there's just like words We we all keep on saying what this is. It's absolutely disgusting what's happening in our city. It's absolutely agre egregious the the indiscriminate attacks from ICE agents, families being torn apart, seeing little children being taken from their families, and knowing that they are shipped to a completely different state miles and miles and miles away. And you're just on the phone or in person in the living room with the family. and you're you're just trying to hope that you get legal assistance as soon as possible before it's too late and you and you don't know what's happening. And I I I've heard from so many community members that they they feel like in this moment, like there's not enough support from government, that it feels like they're on their own. And the ways that I've been able to show up and the ways that I've seen so many of my colleagues show up is just like with our feet and our bodies and our voices and our platforms because that's what we have to give. And it it feels really hard to share in that help helplessness when you're in a position to do something about it, but you're like, this is the entire weight of the federal government. And our community can't even process trauma because it continues to just remain in trauma. The one one of the things that I feel like I've been holding on to and have just like been like, "Wow, I'm so grateful that we did." um in the city of Minneapolis is investing in the office of immigrant rights and refugee affairs. The fact that we have this department and the fact that this department just used to be director Roberto just one person and we were able to bring it up to another staff member that made well thank god we did that. Uh I think there's a very large case for why we need more people. Um, thank God we put more money last budget cycle and just had a little bit of foresight for what was coming towards legal services. Um, that's been the one thing that I'm like, yep, like we have this tool. We we built it. It could be stronger. And I think that's what this is achieving. I don't think we're we're we're even going to understand the scale in which the legal services and the demand on the office of uh immigrant and refugee affairs are until like we have a little bit of time to look back at everything um because we're still under fire. And I think what we'll find is that this has been the the peak amount in which this office has had requests of service. Um, and I think it's really important knowing that we aren't done with this occupation. Again, no commitments and actual numbers or timelines on this quote unquote draw down, right? Like I'm I'm getting text messages today about ICE agents circling around schools. We saw ICE agents staging in Powder Horn Park using chemical munitions just the other day. Like it's not things haven't drawn down. Knowing that this could last longer, we need to continue to build up this resiliency. And it's important that the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs builds its trust with this community and becomes that trusted place where it's like, yeah, like I actually can go to this office and feel safe to be there or I can refer another community member or family member that's struggling just like me to go and access these services. And that's how all of all of the resources are being accessed right now is trusted networks and word of mouth. And it's really important that this office builds its reputation and also has um the financial ability to meet the need. Um so just thank you so much to our staff in ORA and NCR for all of your hard work. Um and also just being on the front line. It's not easy to be the intake person and the person that has to be a lawyer, uh the arbiter of resources, the counselor, all of these hats that you have to wear in this moment. Next, we'll go to Council Member Stevenson. >> Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Um I just you really laid out what's happening very very um succinctly. So I'll just add one other thing that uh Council Member uh Vice President Osman was talking about and that's that other people who are being targeted are uh refugees who have been lawfully permitted into this country. Um I am working specifically with a family who uh the father was uh working with the US Army in Afghanistan and there are uh US vets and soldiers who are alive today because of his work and yet he is having to shelter in place uh because there is a constant threat that he will be sent to Texas even though he is here perfectly legally and um and is someone who has been a great friend to our country. Um, so anyways, we desperately need this because uh his his refugee case with this Paris operation is going to have to be renegotiated and they need an attorney to be sent in theirstead so that they are not arrested and sent to Texas. Uh they don't speak English, they speak Pashtu and so how would they ever get back to Minnesota? Um so yes, this is desperately needed. Thank you. >> Next we'll go to Council Member Whiting. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I just have have two questions and and first again I'd like to thank uh Council Member Chavez for for bringing this forward. I think uh the need is here and I think it's a purely applicable applicable to what is is going on now and would would love to be added as a co-author as well if that is something. >> Yes, please. >> Thank you. Um I think first question uh is around I think it's just budgetary and so with the the piece of of making sure that we are pulling it and that we aren't harming others in that process since we are using public safety aid dollars here uh that is being I think replenishing that 500 does that need to go to the I guess let me rephrase that is the public safety aid dollars that we are pulling going to a specific expenses for fire emergency response uh in that process. >> Yeah. Council me um chair chowdery council member Whiting. So this would be taking uh so one the fire department is okay with this just to because it's not going to have an impact on any services. Uh two it would be one time for base salary expenses for fire emergency response and then it would be replenished by the public safety aid. So it is from a specific account in the fire department specifically for base salary expenses for fire emergency response that would have no impact because it would be replenished by public safety aid. >> Perfect. So it is a specific component that is eligible for this use. >> Perfect. That's helpful. Yeah. I think just and and maybe too confirming that you know the only reason I'm asked I I've used it before previously on in another project um but the specific uses are that goify are helpful which is good sounding like that is the case the other thing is is a comment and so uh however we can help I've had uh my alma mater and I think other law schools have reached out as well of how we can help in a proono legal aspect uh if there is ways that uh some of these proono legal clinics can be helpful uh would love to connect and figure out how we can send some of those uh services your way as well. Yeah. Thank you. >> Next, I'll recognize Council Member Rain Bell. >> Thank you. I I too want to pass on my compliments to Council Member Chavez. Uh especially uh not only just the thought of this and the need for this, but how you're financing it. That's a very smart way to do that. So, I I'll be voting yes on this and I I would like to be add as author if if you agree. Yes, everybody can be an author without objection. >> All right. If there's no objection or if some then everyone's added as an author, >> speed it up. Vice Chair Chug Thai. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. Just um a couple quick things to add to the discussion. First, I just want to point out that year after year, um in in my, you know, this is the beginning of my fifth year on this council. Um but year after year, the um the amount of money that is appropriated for immigration legal services to the neighborhood and community relations department via the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs gets used in full. Um and that kind of that that I think as a baseline speaks to that the fact that this level of need is always um existing in our community and and that in this moment of crisis the need um is appropriately elevated and increased. Um, I think, uh, you know, working with council member Chavez through the last budget cycle on immigrant on immigration legal services. Um, you know, I'm thrilled that we were able to find some more money for this that that's really important. But um you know I think something that him and and local immigrants rights um activists and organizations that work on this, you know, brought to our attention um late last year uh in in community meetings and conversations was um how little the city of Minneapolis invests in immigration legal services compared to our peer cities. looking at Portland, looking at Seattle, looking at Denver and the amount of resources that they year overyear appropriate towards immigration legal services and how little we do by comparison, how little we do per capita and in in like overall investment. Um, so I think I hope that as we are approaching um, you know, it seems a little early, it's just the beginning of February, but um, the work of the budget is a year- round um, beast. And as we are approaching um, this this fall and uh, the recommended budget and and ultimate uh, and subsequent deliberations, I hope that we can keep in mind that um, you know, the need for these one-time fixes is there are multiple, right? Um but one of them is the systemic underfunding of this um important resource um within our enterprise. Um you know I want to just quick speak to uh the real life impact on immigration lawyers right now. Every single immigration lawyer I know is working 15 hours a day right now minimum. And and like people are working around the clock. They are stretched beyond capacity. we do not have enough im immigration lawyers to deal with the influx of cases um and some of the more complicated things that we are seeing come before us. That is just a fact. And so yes, absolutely there are people that are not hearing back um at the at the rate at which they need representation certainly. Um but that is that is a product of how few resources exist, how few lawyers in our state are trained to practice this type of law. Um and and you know that we can't as a city enterprise like as as a local government, we can't produce a 100 new immigration lawyers tomorrow. What we can do though is fund this work so the people who are experts can continue to provide that service to those who need it the most to those who are going through this process before they are detained and taken to Texas or or somewhere else um while they're still here. That is the best time for us to be able to get them the legal services that they need. And this is one small piece that we can do um to contribute to that. Um, and then I'll end with just uh reiterating um what what uh council member um Chavez has has mentioned too, that this is a budgetneutral decision for the fire department and that this is an appropriate use of public safety aid as given to us by the state. Um and and so and it like that's it's not like a stretch. This is like a clear-cut appropriate use of public safety aid. Um thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Lastly, we have Council Member Vita. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I just quickly wanted Director Rivera to put on the record how people access this service and who can access this service, please. >> Great idea, Director Rivera. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Council member, thank you for the opportunity to share this information. Our legal service providers offer in-person and virtual opportunities to meet for consultation. um their service hours are in community in spaces that people recognize and trust. And as I've referenced, they have also moved to online service delivery. So people are able to call in or schedule a virtual consultation in order to be able to find out about how they can obtain assistance, how they can engage in preparedness in the event that they're concerned about immigration enforcement. In addition to that, our legal service providers also offer full representation to individuals, including people who are in detention. So, one service provider, for example, has detention line hours four days a week. So, if people are in immigration detention, their family members are able to call and the legal service providers actually visit uh folks who are detained in immigration detention facilities. Given the reality that people are being transferred outside of our jurisdiction rapidly, sometimes within 24 hours to Texas, our service providers are working even more quickly. So there is a direct pathway um through ORA. So if we connect with our service providers about an individual or resident who comes to our attention, we're able to connect with our service providers directly to identify ways for the person to obtain a consultation immediately. So those are some of the ways um our service providers also apart from OERA host their own community hours um go to different institutions community- based organizations um schools uh faith-based institutions and more um where they offer services they do know your rights information sessions and offer consultations afterwards. So those are some of the ways in which people are able to access services through our five legal service provider partners. >> Thank you. And can people just like contact you or are the five uh service providers on the city's website or is there you know like what is the basic way of a person finding out if they're eligible for the service and who they need to contact for the service? Madam Chair, council member, um there is a robust amount of information on the city's office of immigrant and refugee affairs web page which is accessible by typing in o Minneapolis. There's also a know your rights page which provides information about all the legal service providers that people can connect with directly. It also links the community hours for two of our service providers that offer community hours in person and virtually. In addition to that, people can come directly to Oira. Our also hosts inperson and virtual community hours in person three days a week and virtually on Mondays or people can call directly into a >> Thank you, director. The north side appreciates you. You've been doing fantastic work. I mean, under dire circumstances, especially this year, but we had conversation about this year a year ago. And so, I appreciate everything you're doing and continue to do and your team and um NCR and all the folks who are working to make sure that the information gets out and that people are protected and safe. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Member. And if I can just say thank you all so, so very much for this robust conversation. Um, I know this will make a huge difference for impacted communities and I'm so grateful for all that you've done. So, thank you. >> Thank you. So, the motion is before us. All those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed say nay. Abstensions. That motion carries and has been approved and will be referred to full counsel on Thursday. All right, members. We are chipping our way through this. So we have item number 71 which is a passage of a resolution regarding rental assistance. I will call on the principal author council member Wansley to present on this and give a motion. >> Yes. Thank you Chair Chadgerie. So colleagues, I'm bringing forward this proposal to allocate $1 million to Henipin County for rental assistance for families impacted by ISIS federal occupation of our city. Uh the occupation of Minneapolis by federal ra uh agents has made it much more difficult for many families to go to work. For thousands of residents, simply leaving the house to go to work means facing harassment, violence, or abduction by ICE. And some workplaces have closed or reduced hours and some workers have lost access to child care as a result of this. Um, some families have lost breadwinners who have been abducted by ICE. And it's very clear that no family shall have to choose between keeping a roof over their heads and risking a family member being kidnapped by ICE on their way to work. And for all these re reasons, uh, many families have lost income and need assistance paying their rent. And based on estimates from Homeline and other community organizations and what we're hearing from community, we're estimating tens of millions of dollars in need for rental assistance at the current moment. And the city obviously cannot meet this need alone. But the proposal before us today to allocate $1 million would make it the first government entity to take action on a response and recovery plan related to this looming housing crisis. And as was shared again earlier um in IGR's uh presentation around you know how the next uh legislation or legislative session will proceed. Um I know my office and a number of my colleagues are in conversations with state legislators about the need for significant rental assistance um to be appropriated at this the state level and for that to uh be set up as soon as possible. uh once the legislative session begins in early February, philanthropy, community fundraising, and rent forgiveness can also be part of the solution. But in reality, it will take multiple partners at all levels to contribute to keep our community housed. That said, the proposal that I and my co-authors have brought forward today allocates $1 million from the contingency fund. And the contingency fund is explicitly set up to cover unanticipated urgent costs and an occupation by the federal government clearly was not an anticipated event that we were planning for. So this source feels like the correct action or correct source to take from. And I've heard from many of my colleagues that um there also is no interest in cutting services or programs to also fund critical and urgent needs. And I I fully agree with that position. Um I will note that using the contingency fund means that we are not cutting from any other programs that support our residents, especially our most vulnerable residents. And the need for rental assistance perfectly fits the eligibility criteria for contingency and for the transparency um that many of my co-authors um have also asked for in terms of how this funding will be dispersed. Um, and also having some intentionality around um, how we select the sources. I do want to share also that my uh, office as well as um, a few of my co-authors on this motion met with the mayor's office to discuss our proposal and inquire about alternative funding proposals. And in response, the mayor proposed that we use funding for emergency housing vouchers, which provides permanent housing and wraparound services to 50 families and 50 individuals experiencing chronic unsheltered homelessness. And it's completely illogical to fund a eviction prevention program by cutting resources to house unsheltered people. And the goal should be to reduce the number of families who are unsheltered, not pitting vulnerable populations against each other for funding. And that's exactly why we have the contingency fund. Um, so that being said, again, I have heard from some of my colleagues about the hesitancy uh using contingency dollars. So I will actually make the motion to forward this without recommendation to Thursday's council me. Um, if other council members would like to bring forward potential new sources for the $1 million that will be needed in rental assistance as noted by this proposal and that will not cut services, especially services that are already underresourced and support many of our communities in great need. I welcome that discussion and debate on Thursday. Otherwise, I will hope that this will be a unanimous vote. >> Sorry. >> Second. >> Oh, thank you. Uh that said, as you know, I I want to also be clear, this proposal is grounded in the reality that we cannot um for the indefinite future continue deferring our power to um the community who is doing tremendous amount of work again to do fundraising, mutual aid, all sorts of initiatives to keep our residents um safe, protected, and housed while we're experiencing this occupation. Um, and also we're very aware that Governor Wals has still not chosen to enact the eviction moratorum. Um, but we also know rental assistance would likely not be available by the state legislature for several weeks and this is not something that we will GoFundMe our way out of. Um and again, this is our way of showing as a government entity um that we will not be complicit in the countless of looming evictions that will be um fouled in the coming weeks um that will put us in more or put our residents specifically in more contact with this deadly force that is ICE in our communities. Um, so this is one of the measures in addition to the measure we just passed supporting immigration services where we can show up in our own local authority and in our own u way to protect our residents. So um, my motion has been seconded. I'm open to questions and any additional thoughts. >> Council member Stevenson. >> Yeah, I I couldn't agree more with what you just said. I just wanted to offer a couple of stories just to highlight the situation that we're in. Um, recently I showed up for a patrol uh an afternoon patrol at Green Central uh elementary and just before I got there uh an attempted abduction happened uh ICE followed one of my neighbors home from work and then crashed into his car and chased him with guns around this the area of this elementary school. Um and so uh this gentleman thankfully got away but um clearly cannot go back to work and so if he can't go back to work he can't afford rent. He can't he can't make the money for rent. Um similar stories also from that school but I'm using just this one school to highlight something that's happening all over this city as everyone here knows. um single mother who has a kid that goes to the same school uh has confirmation that ICE knows where she works and cannot go back to that place otherwise they will follow her home and take her and her children will be left or her child will be left um or they'll take the child as well and put another child in detention. So this is the type of situation that our neighbors are in. It's entirely unacceptable. uh and the community has fundraised so many hundreds of thousands of dollars and it is not enough. And so it's time for their government to step up and and help them. So this is our chance to step up and do what's right for our residents. And frankly, my residents are banging down my door demanding that we do this as well. And so with that, I'll I'll leave it. >> Thank you. I'm going to just take myself off of queue because I will speak to this item on Thursday and then I will go to council vice president Osman. >> Yeah, just to highlight um what council member Wley say and you know the stories uh it's it's out there. We could talk about it all day long. Friends, family members, residents who had the harsh time last few weeks. Uh living in a in a different place that doesn't look like uh the America that that I came into and many immigrants dream about being here. So um I don't think there's any more emergency um uh real emergency than what we are facing today. the contingent funding that everyone I'm sure will have a question about it. It's it's the approp appropriate way to use this this funding. Our communities are being targeted, harassed and taken off out on the streets. You know, we already uh seen what happened on the streets. Um two people have been killed. Hundreds of more are being afraid to leave their jobs. They are going to um immigrant owned businesses. Uh they I have seen Sab Sabinas Sabinas uh uh telling the owners to provide all the list of your employees uh the people that work for you. I have seen those my own eyes is um they are being restaurants on in our communities uh people cannot go is using technologies that we have no idea what it is. It's this um face recognition thing that they're using. They know where you are. They're not just listening to your phone or knowing they they will they will find you wherever you are. So, um the neighbors have step step in of course help those folks to really uh make them feel welcome. Families are afraid to go pick up uh their kids from bus schools because eyes are out there with unmarked vehicles. Um I can talk about these horrible stories that our community are facing. So I encourage my colleagues that I don't think we'll ever face anything more emergency than we're facing today. City of Minneapolis, I don't know what else we call emergency definition of emergency than what we or we face today. So um our community is asking to act. You know, they have been acting. There are brave individuals that swallow all kind of gas and really, you know, did not go to their work to protect their neighbors and they are putting their money in and within neighborhood communities that are trying to meet the basic needs for those families, single moms that lost their father or the parents. Um, so it's our duty as a government, as elected officials. It's their tax money. We should use it wisely and we should fund this rent assistant um proposal. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Vice President, Council Member Vita. >> Thank you. I just have a a couple quick questions just so um I know over the next couple of days what we're dealing with here. So, Council Member Wanley, you said earlier that the county has a $50 million backlog on um rental assistance. So, I'm I guess I'm trying to understand is there going to be a new program developed specifically for our million dollars or will our million dollars be the first million dollars they use after the $50 million backlog? I mean, I'm trying to, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm trying to understand how us giving them $1 million is going to help the families that we need to help right now in the city of Minneapolis. >> Yep. >> Uh, council member >> Wley, thank you. Uh, thank you for that question, Council Member Vita. So, the county has multiple programs. um one of which includes rental assistance. And they are able to move uh these dollars that we will appropriate to one of the programs that will respond directly to those impacted by um the occupation. And we're working to make sure that the county uh sends over a letter articulating that. Also, once this is appropriated, our city attorneys and their attorneys, the county attorneys will have to sit in a room and draft a financial agreement that outlines those type of parameters too and like criteria for dispersement and things of that nature. So, where the money will be uh situated on the county side and how it's tied to impacted families, that will be in a joint agreement. We're asking for a letter to also solidify that for this body's understanding. Um, but it will not be going to their general 50 million backlog rental assistance program. >> Okay. I mean, I guess I need to see that. It it just it's not making sense to me that like our families are going to get this money right now who are in a crisis um with paying their rent. And if there's something more that shows that, I'm extremely open to this. And then also um just how the county oversees these programs are that's really important to me too. I just hear a lot of conversations in my ward about waste, fraud, and abuse. And so I would like to know like what is happening with the county services. How why the $50 million backlog is about. Is it the need or is it misappropriating funds to people and now there's a backlog? I mean, that's a large number. If the need is there, I get it. we're going to go ask for it, but why is the need there and what families are getting that money? And I get what you're saying about like there could be some protections put in place, but I also um I mean I just have very specific families in my ward that are asking for rental assistance and I don't understand one protection that we could put into place that would stop the family next door to them that really doesn't need it for applying for the money too and for Henipin County to say they can't have it versus they I mean that that doesn't exist. like you apply for a program, you either, you know, you show your income, you get it, you don't. I mean, there was a lot of that during COVID where people were getting large amounts of money for rental assistance and other things and they were still going to work, they were still doing things. So, I'm also trying to understand like what protections are going to be put in place to make sure that this program isn't abused by people who really don't need it, but that the families who are in need right now can get this money. >> Yeah. Thank you, Council Member Vita. I will name I just straight up I've never heard of any concerns around fraud, waste, and abuse. Uh the county and that's right, you can, but I have not and I have not seen the county operate as a distrusted partner um or government partner around meeting specifically eviction, you know, needs. And that is what their emergency rental assistance fund is for. That is completely separate. And that backlog is tied to applications all the way through August of 2025. Ours is specifying this is during the duration of the occupation and I'm more than happy I believe director Hansen is also in the back. They have familiarity with joint power agreements that we've entered into the county on multitude of issues related to housing programs um where there isn't overlapping, there isn't misappropriation. So, if director Hansen would like to talk to that piece um to show that we there's a president for this, there is that nimleness amongst the county to be able to move this funding separately from that pool. Um but I want to name again, they have the ability to do this and this will be hashed out as per our legal president in our joint uh agreement that will still be brought by this council for review and approval to name those parameters. And then my last question is how many families do we think that this million dollars could impact? Our goal is the most. >> Well, I don't I don't know that the most is the answer I'm looking for. I mean, I'm looking for where is there a list of people who we know needs this money at the county or wherever? Like how how what's the impact of this? >> I'm pretty sure the county does have existing systems because people are reaching out for rental assistance. has been since the start of the occupation. Um, and they are keeping detailed I'm I'm sure tracking of that and can then provide those figures. And I've been in conversations with council member Widen. This is something that you're more than welcome to do on Thursday. If it's a legislative director where you would like to hear reporting on how they're dispersing it, how it's going into effect, I think we always welcome that transparency and we've done that before. >> Typically, you welcome that before you give somebody a million dollars. I don't think right now say >> we're going to No, no, no. Hold on. >> We're not talking over each other. >> So, Council Member Wanley, why don't you finish your remarks and then if there's a response back, we'll go to Council Member VTO. >> Yes. I will name again, this is about at least forwarding this to Thursday with our recommendation. If you want to vote no on Thursday, you have that will. I think there's a number of us and thousands of people in the community who absolutely want to see the city, if it was 10 people, 100 people would like to see these resources be moved to keep people housed. And then I also see Director Hansen uh here to speak to some of the programmatic pieces on the county side of how we usually do joint agreements um with the county to make sure that we get out. This is my time. >> Yes. >> Just so we're clear. This is my time. Chair, >> you're right. You're correct. >> Okay. So you can >> so I can finish. >> Yes, you can absolutely finish. >> I know how I can vote on any day, not just Thursday. >> And secondly, the problem with these sort of situations is council member Wanssley doesn't like to answer questions. And so my right and what I get to do as a council member representing Ward 4 is ask questions on behalf of my constituents. If you don't want to answer the question, don't bring it forward. Period. Don't bring it forward. I have questions. If you want to be combative, I can get with it. But answer my questions or just don't say anything. Would you like >> We're not going to go into another four years of this. >> I asked the question. If she don't want to answer it, just say I don't want to answer it. >> So, I am not as chair. I am not going to be doing the thing where I get to pick and choose who's obscribing motive or not. No. No. I am just using my privilege as chair to speak because we have a conflict right now and I see it as a conflict. So if people want to call it themselves, I will decide if it is. But we are the minute you do start talking about an individual council member, a person that is abscribing a personality and it is in their prerogative to call that out or another members and then I will decide. But I'm not going to be the one that says abscribing motive ascribing motive because I don't think that's the place that is best suited for me. Council member Vita, >> would you like to finish your remarks? And I would just just for the >> I would like to finish my understanding of >> uh we have director Hansen in the room. Do you have a desire to ask him questions? >> I did not ask for him. He did not bring this forward. I do not have a question for him. My question was specifically to the author of this. That's it. I don't need him for anything. I know how to find him and I can ask him questions if I wanted to. >> Thank you. All right, Council Member Stevenson, >> before all that, um, uh, Madame Chair, uh, Council Member, >> maybe hang back. >> Yeah, >> just in case. >> All right, Council Member Stevenson, apologies. >> Council member Vita brought up an excellent question at the beginning of her remarks um, about is there a need and where is that need coming from? uh the need is immense. Um and you were specifically talk you were talking about the $50 million backlog. As someone who has used this for many a person uh as as a homeless outreach worker, the way that this happens is that you apply for these funds when there is some sort of rental disturbance or when you need first last month's rent. So, this $50 million backlog, there's not $50 million that could be dispersed right away uh because a lot of people have already lost their housing or they have found their first last month's rent somewhere else or they have not and they're still outside. So, um, if we put $50 million in, we would not be able to disperse $50 million because this is an ongoing need that that time time changes people's need because the rent the rent is due every month. Um, I have worked pretty closely with Henipin County staff, uh, including on this and I know they are excellent and I know they will be very judicious in being able to get this to the folks who actually need it and the money that we've intended. and I've spoken with um uh the lead author and um yes the agreements between the city and county I have the full faith that they will be able to appropriately use this money. >> Thank you. Next we will go to council member Warren. >> Thank you madam chair. Um I have the question that I have with respect to this are concerns for um the constituents who are definitely residents of Ward 5 and individuals who as I stated before have been employed by multiple different home health care facilities in lie of all of the fraud that has been underneath investigation in the city of Minneapolis and St. Paul state of Minnesota as a whole. Council member Warren, I'm I really do apologize. If we could just if we're going to have some side conversations, just bringing the noise level down a bit. It's hard to understand what she's saying on this side. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, in lie of all the fraud, there's been a number of individuals who have not been able to even receive their paychecks. So, I understand that you were saying that there will be funding that'll go directly to immigrated families, but there are individuals who have not been able to receive their paychecks. My uncle has stage 4 cancer, drove for Metropolitan Transit for over five, six years on a bus. now that he is at stage 4 cancer, waiting for a caddy waiver to come forth for him, needing to have emergency rental assistance in order to help him to transition from one situation to another with real day-to-day needs. Those individuals are still not being serviced. So, I don't want to see a million dollars go and then it's a pick and choose and whatever else the case is because everybody's situation is imminent and everybody's situation throughout all of these things are very important and very valid. There's not a you don't get to pick and choose that. And I don't know if you've ever received welfare from the county or whatever else the case is, but I have. I was a 437 recipient. And in the time of emergency assistance, one thing that the county does is they ask you very specifically, do you have the means to continue to pay going forward beyond the level of help that we give you? And if you do not and you don't have the ability to sa sustain yourself beyond that point, they will not extend that assistance to you. So, it's not so much of a backlog as much as it is an a group of individuals that are not eligible to receive those fundings because they don't have the ability to sustain themselves. So, what the county won't do is waste those funds. And if you go to housing court, housing um um um rent help is available in housing court. I was just in housing court with people last last year, November, December. My uncle is one of those people included that I went there. We went and guess what? Housing um the housing link or housing line or home help or whatever the name of those people are who was doing all the help during COVID, those people are still alive and well. And guess what they did? Paid his back rent so that we could get him out of that leasing agreement. Remove that housing barrier so that he could move forward into a place that was sustainable for him. So you can't say that these places or these people don't exist, but there are guidelines and ramifications for individuals who would be eligible for those services. And if they're not eligible for those services, then they got to choose something else. But we can't say that the county has to soften their lines of eligibility and only open it up for a specific one person when there is a multitude of people who have been affected by the fraud, the disenfranchisement, all kinds of slum lords and everything else that are experiencing grave deficits, especially in my community who need this assistance just as much as anybody else. So, what I won't do is do the cherrypick game. If we're going to allocate this funding, then it's open to everybody and it's not pick, choose, pick, choose, pick, choose because that's how we got in this whole fraud stuff to begin with. The end. Thank you, Council Member. Next, we'll go to Council Member Whiting. And I'll just note we have several members in queue. We do have time. Uh, but we do have we will go to our consent agenda, but there are a couple items there that will warrant some discussion. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will be brief. Uh and I think just an understanding I think with all of our colleagues uh I think all of us know that we are in an e situation. I think all 13 of us know that we are in an emergency at the moment uh and that there is need there is need for rental assistance for all of our individuals as we've all been inundated uh with requests for that level of assistance. Uh I think what we are trying to figure out is how best to move this forward. Uh in a version uh where we understand that this is an emergency then I think the things that we need to do if we know that contingency funds are not the avenue for which is going to move forward in an emergency figure out how we should get there. Uh and I know all of us are trying to work on that and I appreciate uh council member Wanley forwarding this on so we don't have to have the discussion now as there are large quest discussions and questions that I think can be answered between now and Thursday. Uh and I think that the only other point maybe it would be a point for for director Hansen as well uh particular to these joint agreements. Uh and I thinking as we are are figuring out how to to direct and target um funds and how to help how how to help best help uh those funds uh hit the hands and hit the pockets of the people that need them. Uh I see the vehicle of that uh being this version of of a joint agreement. And so, uh, maybe the best question, whether it's for Director Hansen or or city attorney, is how do we best as a council help measure and direct that joint agreement so that we target, uh, the individuals that need it in a way that is is quick and meaningful? >> Welcome. >> Good afternoon. Um, my name is Eric Hansen. I'm the director of community planning and economic development, and it's a joy to be in the chambers again. Uh, Council Member Chadri and Council Member Whiting. Uh, we have a Joan Powers agreement with the county. We we could use utilize that existing agreement. It would go into their standard program for rental assistance. They typically have about $10 million in that fund to help. When we talked to the county on Sunday on Friday, they help about 2500 people with rental assistance. The backlog you were talking about is really an articulation of the need. It's about $50 million in in rental assistance need in the county. The county then directs it towards folks that are uh families with children, people with living with disabilities, and seniors. Um and that's that's where they target their funding. Uh the million dollars you're discussing would fill into that program and we still haven't talked about the specifics about how to get it to a specific thing. We have to be very mindful of the um the demand for the program and we have to be mindful of the the um the qualifications that the county already has for them. And then we have to be mindful about protected classes and all those sort of things and and disperate treatment with folks. And so that has not been negotiated, but you know, waiting for after the council acts and the mayor acts and then we will be talking about that with the county. So that means there would be some lawyers from our side and lawyers from their side and some policy people. So it's not just an immediate that the money is ready and available, but we would work it out because it's it you're the intent I hear from the council is to earmark it towards people in a certain situation and we'd have to work that out. >> Perfect. Thank you, director. And then just confirmation again. So once that agreement is is hashed out with uh both within the city enterprise uh and the county that will come back to council for us to then >> vote on the acceptance of that. >> Yeah. Chair Chowry, Council Member Whiting, I'd have to look into that. We have an existing contract. I don't know if I'd have to come back for approval, but I we will we would we would keep you informed. Um whether or not that's an action, I I would have to check in. I didn't I didn't check that one out. >> That's okay. As long as you have it for Thursday, I think >> for Thursday. Yeah. I'll have that question ready for you for Thursday. That's when you were going to discuss it, too. So, that's why they open the door. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um, so, council members, I'm just going to note to you that we have captioners until 4 p.m. The motion before us is a motion to forward it without recommendation, meaning we are not giving it a vote on the actual item, which means it will go to Thursday and we will be able to have discussion. So if members are able to either save their comments for Thursday or shorten their comments, it would be greatly appreciated because we still have work to get through before. Okay, Vice Chair Chuckai. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just really quickly um to address some of the questions and concerns that have come up about eligibility and how people apply and all of this. So the mechanism through which a person who needs rental assistance broadly speaking receives that through the county is by visiting the county website. There's uh it's called um rent help henibin. Um that's like the specific pre-screening eligibility criteria that you have to fill out. Right from there the very first question you're asked is is your first name, your last name, your zip code. Then you have to like the second the after that is your making sure that you meet the income eligibility. So that is your gross earnings if you're a household of one is uh 20 $2,317 which means that you're making minimum wage. That's that's how you end up at that income level. For a household of two it's $2,600. If you don't meet that income eligibility, as in you you are you you exceed that amount um in your gross income per month, uh you are automatically screened out. you at that point you can no longer continue applying for um receiving rental assistance. Now let's say you meet income eligibility. The next question is have you been served your court summons for uh for an eviction filing? So in order to then do that they they have you put in your court um your uh court filing ID or you cannot like continue submitting your uh application. That means the only people that are able to access this pot of money are people who are making approximately minimum wage and their uh property owner, their landlord has filed uh for an eviction, right? So we this is not people who are um you know like are making more than that that baseline and might be jumping the queue from someone who needs it more. uh relatively speaking, it's safe to say that all of these are people who have a tremendous amount of need and are going to be homeless without a systemic intervention. Um so I I just wanted to clear that up um in in in regard to how people go about um receiving this um this assistance. Um thank you, Madame Chair, and I will um just request to be added as a co-author to this item. getting a thumbs up and of of course from council member Wanssley. Um, Council Member Schaefer. >> Yeah, I just have a request wondering if CPAD or someone from the county could give us a brief overview of what these joint agreements have looked like before on Thursday so that we get a sense of what we would be getting if it's not going to come back for a council vote. Um, some kind of overview. I mean, I guess the main thing is we want to really try to target people that are ICE impacted and oftentimes these people don't have leases. Um, a lot of undocumented folks. I I want us to be really thoughtful. If we're going to do this, I want it to be strategic and I want there to be rigor in the thinking about how we're doing this. And so, that would be really helpful to me to be able to support this if we could have an understanding of what, especially as a new person, what does that joint agreement look like? That's my request if possible for Thursday. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Yes, thank you. And if I just may. Uh this is this is why a two-eek cycle is helpful, right? Because then you can have some time uh between committee. But I think one thing that maybe if council member Wanssley uh would be able to coordinate my office is happy to support is seeing if we can have a county representative come on Thursday and just give a brief overview to answer some questions because I think yeah, the more transparency the better. Um, I think they feel fairly confident about their operations and would be happy to share with us. >> Okay, Council Member Chavez. >> Thank you, Chair Chowder. I just want to reset this conversation a little bit ago, a little bit. Rent was due two days ago. Um, and many families are literally going to face evictions because they no longer can afford the rent. My time in office has been spent helping connect families, helping reunite families, helping uh alert my neighbors about immigration enforcement, and literally helping coordinate rent for my neighbors, not only in W 9, but in North Minneapolis, Northeast, and yes, even in Southwest because immigrant neighbors are not just our community members. They live in every single Ward and every corner of our city. They are our constituents. They are our neighbors. They are the people we also represent. and they are our constituents regardless of their immigration status. So, I just want to challenge the notion that they are not our community members because they are. Immigrants are our community members and they deserve the help. We're reading the resolution that I'm also authoring and it literally says it's to support funding for onetime rental assistance for residents impacted by Operation Metro Surge in Need. Right? And that's being changed to now just one-time rental assistance for residents in need. Right? That is obviously vague. It is going to be able to help families who have been impacted severely in our city. It is not just saying that it is going to be directly for immigrants. It is for our neighbors. And it is very clear that many of our neighbors are being impacted. We have even seen citizens being questioned on bus stops to later then be dropped off by ICE themselves and kicked to the street because they realized that they were citizens. Those individuals are also living in fear because now the color of their skin is also being impacted. So, I just wanted to challenge a notion that what I felt I heard at times today was that immigrant neighbors aren't in our community and they are. They are our neighbors and they deserve this help. And in fact, $1 million is nothing. It is not enough to help the families that are in desperate need. The amount of families I have to connect with every single day from across the city to rent is disturbing. Folks are like, "Jason, can you help me with rent here? Can you help me with rent here? Can you help me with rent there?" And you know what I can't tell them today? I can't tell them that the city has their back with rental assistance because the city is not providing rental assistance. It's just not. So, what I am able to do though is fundra for the community, connect them to resources that community members in Minneapolis have done. And that is how we are able to keep some community members afloat. But we cannot rely on the backs of residents to literally fund raise this operation out of Minneapolis. That's just not sustainable. It's not going to work out and it's not going to help the neighbors that are being impacted tremendously here in the city of Minneapolis. So $1 million to me, this motion, I'm ready to vote for it. We'll obviously move it forward with our recommendation. We'll have a vote on Thursday. And even $1 million, I'll be honest, is not enough to actually meet the need that we're dealing with right now because our community members in Minneapolis and across the country are fundraising as much as they can for our neighbors here. And we should be willing to match the amount of the work that our community members are actually doing. So this is an easy vote for me. I'm very proud of the work that went into this. really want to thank Councilor Wansley for her due diligence on this motion to actually bring tangible resources to our neighbors. And again, we can always and should be doing more and I hope that this vote is unanimous come Thursday. >> Thank you, Council Member Warren. >> Thank you, Madame Chair. I just want to add a um a comment to this. Um, in order to receive rental assistance also to when applying with the county, you don't necessarily have to put in information about a leasing agreement, any emergency deemed. So, be it a utility bill, um, your electric bill, your gas bill, any shut off notice, or anything that you have when you go and apply will trigger an emergency assistance application. you have between 30 to 45 days after that application has been ignited in the system to add additional items to that. So, if you receive an eviction letter after the fact once you've applied, you can then resubmit that into the case number that they've already provided you for. So, if you don't have a leasing agreement or you get a letter from your landlord that's handwritten on a piece of a a back of an envelope that from a a notice from Globe, whoever in the mail and he writes on there, you got to be out by whatever. You can submit that and they will still have to take that information from said landlord or whatever else the case is. You don't have to have a leasing agreement or whatever. And you don't have to have an eviction notice. All you have to do is have any deemed emergency to trigger that application underneath that scope with it online or what have you and upload those documents right onto the portal there. I just want to make sure that there is not anything discriminatory that is being done with respect to the support that we are providing to all community members because we have all stated time and time again that a lot of everybody in the community has been impacted by this. So I don't want us to pick and choose and look for ways to eliminate some and only prevent others. I want this to be across the board. and that's the way that I'll support it. >> Thank you. Um, so we have the motion before us to move without recommendation. I will ask the clerks to call the role. Council member Payne >> I >> Wanssley >> I >> Rainville >> I >> Vita >> I >> Warren >> I >> Osman >> I >> Schaefer >> I >> Stevenson >> I >> Chavez >> I >> Whiten >> I >> pomisano >> I >> vice chair chai >> I >> and chair chowdery >> I >> there are 13 eyes's >> that motion carries and we will take that up on Thursday so with that colleagues we've completed items on our discussion agenda. We'll now take up our consent agenda. There are items that we will discuss which the vice chair will help pull the the ones at least that were highlighted to us. Uh the the consent agenda includes items 1 through 64 um on the agenda for this meeting. The agenda for this meeting was posted for public access this past Friday. So I won't be reading every item. Instead, in the interest of time, I'm going to briefly summarize the items on the consent agenda. And this is kind of how we will also move forward in the uh next cycle cycles we'll see of super cow. So, I really encourage members um to thoroughly read through the consent agenda ahead of the future super cow meetings. First, items one to six were originally intended to be considered by the Enterprise and Labor Relations Committee. Items one and two are both collective bargaining agreements. Items three through five are legal settlements related to workers compensation claims. Item six is accepting a grant for the Minneapolis Democracy Center Minihaha 3000. Items 7-6 were intended to be considered by the business housing and zoning committee. Items 7 through 10 are liquor liquor liquor and gamble license approver approvals and renewals. Items 11 through 16 include various contract amendments and appointment, various grants, bid and appropriation for demolition. Items 17 through 34 were submitted for public health safety and equity committee. Items 17 through 19 are gift acceptances. Items 20 through 32 are contracts, contract amendments, funding redistribution, grant acceptances, and one grant extension. Items 33 and 34 are quarterly updates from the Office of Community Safety and the Summer Safety Plan. Items 35 to 58 were considered by the Climate and Infrastructure Committee. Items 35 through 38 are street reconstruction projects and related appropriation. Item items 39 through 45 are various grants and agreements for services. Items 46 through 51 are various bids for projects and services. Items 52 through 58 are various contract amendments and grant acceptance. Items 59 50 sorry there's a little typo in the script is a budget amendment that would have normally gone through our budget committee. Um item 60 was dispensed during our discussion agenda. So no no further action is needed. Item 61 is a gift acceptance for President Payne. Item 62 is a contract that would normally be heard through the committee's settlement agreement and consent decree subcommittee. I've discussed with our subcommittee chair and he is okay with allowing us to proceed on this consent agenda. Um, lastly, items 63 and 64, ordinance introductions from our organizational meeting that are being referred to staff in order to expedite routine actions related to salaries and wages and zoning text amendments. Um, and finally, we already took uh item number 70, which is the resolution for immigrant immigration legal services. So, no, no action is needed. That completes my quick summary of the consent agenda. Before I move approval of the consent agenda, I'll first go to uh Vice Chair Chug Thai to see if there are items that she would like to remove for further discussion. Thank you, Madame Chair. Um as you mentioned uh just items that have been uh flagged from for us by members of the committee. I just want to go through and pull those all together at once. Hopefully we can in the interest of time uh work our way through this quickly. So first I'd like to pull item number five. That's uh a legal settlement workers compensation claim for Tracy McDougall. Um this is just for a separate vote. Not hoping to have further discussion on this. The second two items I'd like to pull together are um item number 8.18. That's the liquor license renewal for Canopy by Hilton Minneapolis in the mill district. And then item number 8.100, which is the liquor license renewal for the depot um Minneapolis, the Renaissance Hotel um here in in um downtown as well. Uh and for that, I I want to pull those for a separate motion um and uh a different set of course of actions. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, council members. Are there any other items that we need to pull off the consent agenda? Great. I am not seeing that. Clerks, I will be taking up the vote on the consent agenda excluding the three items that the vice chair laid out. Okay. Uh with that, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Great. Um all those in favor say I. I I >> those opposed say nay abstensions. Okay, that motion carries and we have approved and forwarded the consent agenda to Thursday and we will start by taking up item number five. I do want to offer if there is any discussion. Um I'm seeing a head nod from council member Palmisano and I will recognize you. >> Thank you madam chair. Um, we spoke a little bit about this in agenda setting for what would have been the ELR committee and so I just want this characterized appropriately. Um, Ms. McDougall is a civilian in the forensic lab. She's a civilian, not a sworn. She has over 30 years of service and serves our city as a forensic scientist. This worker's comp claim is for a physical injury. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there any other further discussion? Council member Chavez. >> Yeah, thank you, Chair Chry. That was communicated to me by uh Council Member Chuck Tai. We were going to ask to redo that vote. >> Okay. >> We haven't taken a vote on it, so you're all good. >> Okay. I thought we did earlier today. >> Nope, >> we did not. Um on that, I will have the clerk call the role. >> Council member Payne, >> I. >> Wsley. I >> Rainville. >> I >> bet. >> I >> Warren. >> I >> Osman. >> I >> Schaefer. >> I >> Stevenson. >> I >> Chavez. >> I >> Whiting. >> I >> Palmisano. >> I >> vice chair Chai >> I. >> And chair Chowry >> I. >> There are 13 eyes. >> All right. With that the motion carries forwarded to Thursday. And next we're taking up the liquor license renewals. Um I I am just going to quick be I'm going to let others speak before me and give their remarks. I have a set of remarks, but I I am going to put a motion forward just given the amount of constituent outreach uh questions from council members about um the the holders of these liquor licenses uh having ICE stay at their hotel as as we're getting reports from community members and civil disturbance. Uh I'm going to move that we delay this one cycle to the next committee of the whole. Um I think it's really important that we get to have some further discussions amongst each other and I also think it's important that the public has an opportunity to share the stories that are coming out of uh hotels that have ICE agents within them. I'll say for myself, my younger sister, she lives on the University of Minnesota campus. She lives very close to two hotels and it has really disrupted her life and the life of other students. Um, and she's seen a significant impact along with many other community members across Minneapolis, St. Paul, uh, other cities. And so I will just give everyone a heads up. I'm planning on putting a public comment period on that agenda. >> Second. >> Thank you. We can go to Council Member Rainbow. >> Thank you. I'm wondering if our attorney could tell us our legal obligations on these liquor licenses, please. >> Attorney Quinn, I don't know your last name, so I just called you by your first name. >> It's O'Reilly. Um but uh thank you uh Madame Chair, council member Rainville. Uh these items are were on the consent agenda because uh CPED staff has found that the licences comply with all applicable uh liquor licensing laws and ordinances and regulations. Uh and and therefore uh they are eligible to have the license renewed. Uh and and so at this point that is the request before council um is to renew the licenses. Uh and and beyond that um there is no other action being considered right now just the renewal of the license. Um and and I will certainly defer to uh licensing staff in terms of kind of timelines on uh the renewal of the license and what uh practical ramifications there could be uh if these in in terms of what date we need to get the these would need to be renewed by in order for the uh operations to continue. So that was my second uh question was will this delay affect uh their liquor license >> call up Amy Lingo. >> Good afternoon. Thank you Chadre Council Member Rainville. This will not delay the implementation and the effect of that liquor license because as part of the renewal process they may continue operations until the license has either been withdrawn or denied. um has already been certified with the state and so this is just a continuation process. >> Miss Lingo, will you just state your uh position for the record? >> My apologies. Amy Lingo, manager for business licensing. >> Thank you. And one last uh question. In fact, uh uh attorney O'Reilly, was it O'Reilly? So, are you going to be in the St. Patrick's Day parade? >> To be determined. >> Okay. But so would it be safe to say that under our oath of office that if we disobey uh the law by denying this liquor license that we would in fact be uh violating our oath of office? At this point we're not considering denial. Uh and so I'd have to look into that uh a bit further uh because at at this point there aren't any grounds that have been raised to deny a liquor license. Uh and and so this is because this the question is solely about the renewal and whether that's going to be approved. We'd have to uh follow the process and ordinance uh in order to deny or in this case revoke um an active liquor license. >> Thank you, >> Council Member Vita. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I guess I'm trying to understand what the conversation is here. I have got um a lot of emails from folks talking about these licenses and the few that live in Ward 4, I've responded back and said that the liquor license has nothing to do with um who stays in the hotel. And so I guess I'm trying to understand what we need a public hearing for. Why would we delay this? I I mean I I didn't count, but there's a lot of liquor licenses on here. And I don't know if ICE agents ate at the restaurants. I don't know where they slept. I don't know anything. So, outside of um picking out two businesses to discriminate against, I'm trying to understand why we would continue a conversation about this. Why are we setting ourselves up for another legal settlement or legal something if we're going to continue to have conversations? I'm extremely afraid that the wrong thing is going to be said publicly and it's going to backfire and these two businesses will own the city of Minneapolis after we finish these conversations. I I just don't know why we're not responding to our constituents and actually stating the law that that is that the liquor license is not tied into um what they're asking in those form emails that we've been getting for a couple of weeks. I mean, I really don't I I don't I don't see this as being a smart strategy with uh moving this to another cycle and then having public comment come in. I know I I say this a lot, but like giving people this false hope of if they come here and tell us, which they've told us in emails that they don't think we should renew the license for us to then have a public comment period for them to tell us that and then what are we going to do? Not well, it's not a I don't want to say that, but like not vote for it when you can just answer your phone or reply to the email and say there's no there's no legal basis for us to not renew their liquor license. I really think we're setting oursel up so for something really bad to pick to single out these two companies and then prolong a conversation, have public comment, do whatever it is that's going to happen in the next cycle for for nothing for us to then still like vote on giving them a liquor license. >> Thank you. I'm gonna go to council vice chair Chug Tai. I'm sure she'll have some thoughts that will answer some of your questions. >> Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, few things to lift up here. So, starting with why these two businesses and uh why these two specific um renewals were were picked uh why why it pulled those and and I'm going to be supporting the motion to continue this item and add a public comment period. Um both of these uh hotels have contracts with the Department of Homeland Security through which um ICE agents and Border Patrol agents that are deployed to uh Minnesota and the Twin Cities. Um you know, we have 3,000 4,000 agents here right now. They they're all staying in hotels somewhere. These are two hotels that have um contracts with the federal government that allows for um the housing of agents as they're coming in and while they're here for their during their stay. In addition to to that, um, you know, I can think of one specific example just from last year where we had a liquor license renewal that came before the body, right? As in, it had met um, at least on paper all of the requirements as Mr. O'Reilly um, described, it had met all of all of these said requirements, had been vetted through um, uh, business licensing, and was before us for approval. that liquor license ended up getting pulled because of conversations we were able to have with business licensing, the city attorney's office, CPAD to um determine the legal findings necessary in order to deny a license. So, just because we see something on an agenda for approval does not mean no legal basis exists to deny a a liquor license. That requires some time for us to continue working through with business licensing and with the city attorney's office. I want to thank both of uh these groups of staff who have actually been working with us very diligently on um figuring out alternative paths forward. Now, let's talk about why a liquor license renewal is attached to ICE agents staying at a hotel. What we are seeing happen in real time in hotels that have these types of contracts with the federal government is um at night when agents come back from their their like being out and about and uh you know beating people up and uh separating families and abducting people for fun all day. They drink heavily at the bar and have weapons on them and have there have been a couple of instances where like a drunk agent who is not on duty has pulled a weapon on a resident of our city. That is dangerous. that is a like real danger to public safety in our community and so necessitates us having further conversations to try to figure out how we can ensure greater public safety for the residents that we serve. This is this is I'm not making this stuff up like this is in real life has happened in our city right now attached to these hotels that that that we need to figure out how to move forward with. So with that, Madame Chair, um I am um excited to support this this motion to delay this item a cycle. >> Thank you. I really uh appreciate that. I will speak for myself. I mean, I think we all are entitled to the votes that we get to make. I I certainly am very much considering my vote and I I do think it's worthwhile for us to see if there is a legal basis that is possible and yeah clearly communicate to the public that there may not be a legal basis for a denial and council members will need to make choices based off of that. But I think in this unprecedented moment where we have never experienced this as a city of Minneapolis, ICE agents staying in our hotels and causing mass disruption um for our community members and leaving from them while they're attacking our community members. It it is deeply concerning. And so this is I think it deserves more time. And listen, maybe maybe there a denial isn't made. We I don't know where the votes are up here. I don't know what we're going to find out by the delay, but sure as hell, I'm going to fight for accountability. And accountability happens in the public square. It happens in the public square. And it's not I I don't as a individual council member feel comfortable at all just moving past this on a consent agenda when hundreds and hundreds of my constituents have reached out. when there are constituents who can't reach out or don't know how to reach out or don't feel safe to reach out about the negative harmful impact our city is facing and the hurt that our city is facing when there are hotels that are a part of our beloved hospitality community putting them in danger putting their workers in danger I think that accountability is 100% warranted um and that's why I believe in a public comment I think it's important to get the stories of our constituents, not only to tell the story to us, but to tell the hospitality industry across the nation. Right? We're nation leading right now in this moment. And to say that these like multi-million dollar billion dollar corporations in hospitality can just like sit aside and not answer for it is is wild to me. So, I feel like that's why the public comment period, the public square is so so key. Um, as a as a as a city like we have been emphasizing this need for downtown revitalization. Um, and we we clearly see this diametrically opposed to that revitalization. That's like a core value. We clearly see that our constituents and our community members feel betrayed by the businesses that they used to frequent that are supporting or being complicit in this. And yeah, it has to do with a liquor license. There there was a case of uh an ICE officer who was staying at a hotel, got really drunk, went drunk driving, puked all over himself, and caused a public nuisance. And I think there are other stories that I think our community members can tell us that I think is worthwhile to put into the record. Um I'll have more remarks uh come come the next cycle, but I just wanted to state like I think there's value in this um in this moment. I see that uh council vice president has raised a priority motion. Yeah, I just want to listen to the attorney and I think for us to be in a safe place, I'm like to call the question. >> Second. >> All right, clerks, will you call the role on the motion to call the question? >> Council member Payne, >> I. >> Wsley, >> I. Rainville, >> no. Vita, >> no. End debate. >> Warren, >> no. >> Osman, >> I >> Schaefer, >> no. >> There's one more. >> Stevenson, >> no. >> Is Epson Chavez, >> hi. >> Whiting. >> Hi. >> Palmisano. >> No. >> Vice Chair Chai. >> I chair Chowry. >> I. There are seven eyes's and five nazs. The motion fails, so we will continue discussion. Um, Council Member Vita. >> Oh, okay. Um, my question was about So, um, Council Member Chuck Tai, you said that these um that ICE has contracts with the with these hotel like certain hotel chains or whatever. So, I'm just wondering if we have a policy that says that we don't issue a license to places where ICE agents stay or eat. Like, is there some type of policy here at the city of Minneapolis that um that we have that says that? >> Um I'm I'm certain that Miss Lingo will correct me if I'm wrong, but no, we do not have such a policy. >> Okay. So to the lawyers then, like if we don't have that contract in place, how does that have anything to do with the liquor license or like what what we're doing here? without straying too far into providing privileged legal advice uh in a public setting. I I I think to comments that have been echoed before, the the idea would be there there has to be sufficient factf finding to support um a license revocation. Uh and and and so at this point again staff has found that all of the requirements of the renewal have been met. uh and and if there is additional factf finding, I'm not sure what that might turn up and what the the legal basis could be at at that point in time, but uh based on the facts available to staff, they've determined that these licenses meet the requirements for renewal. >> So the the comments about looking for legal standing over the next couple of weeks per the lawyers is there is no legal grounds to >> no >> not renew the license. So, like what are we going to find for I mean like how could the legal opinion be different if the lawyer has just given us a legal opinion saying there are no grounds to not renew it >> is my question. >> Council member Vita, um are you directing your question to Vice Chair Chugai or anyone >> whoever? I don't know. I >> I'll I'll speak for myself. I mean, I I think there there without divulging too much information because I don't want to in a public setting. There are uh individuals that I would like to communicate with. I haven't been able to sit down robustly with our city attorney's office to talk about some of the thoughts that I've had. Um this is not only occurring in our city. There are other cities where this is occurring. And so I think it's a worthwhile effort to do some more factf finding as our city attorney stated is is something that we can do to find a basis. >> Okay, >> Council Member Warren. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. This just smells real discriminatory to me. I've booked hotels and they just ask me, "When am I checking in? when am I checking out and how can I pay? So therefore, I don't understand how you can say if you're employed by or whatever in the Sam Smith Adale doesn't even make any kind of sense at all whatsoever. You can't discriminate against people, they'll have more lawsuits on them um for discriminating against who's staying in said hotel or not. I mean, there's prostitutes that stay in hotel, get drunk, and cause a whole bunch of problems, too. I mean, so we can look at this in a multiple different ways. And I think our downtown business district has suffered enough disenfranchisement through all of the closing of buildings, buildings selling for pennies on a dollar. We don't have time to be playing around in people's face with foolishness. I really think that we should just continue to move forward. You know, we could say, "Oh, well, we'll make it an ordinance that no one who practices law enforcement should be allowed to drink alcohol." People drink alcohol and make all kind of decisions. You know, that's we can't control what somebody consumes when and how they consume it. We only hope that they do it responsibly. And if they don't, there's consequences to cover underneath that. But that's not even our job to enforce those consequences. That's somebody else's responsibility. So, I don't want to take this. I want to stay in my lane in jobs that are within my pay grade and mind the business that pays me. And this is not that. So, I don't want to do that. I want us to just move forward. Let these people have what they need to have to move forward, carry on their business, go on with their day, and we focus on the things that are indicative of this council. That's it. And that's all. >> Amen. >> All right. Thank you. Um, I actually had comments that were kind of related to those, so it's a good segue. Um, I think I I think one thing to state is that it is the lane of the city of Minneapolis to revoke licenses if there are violent incidents that occur related to liquor licenses. It's happened to several different businesses. I'm thinking of Bullwinkle Saloon as one. Um we do have enforcement and we do have mechanisms and we do spend a lot of time um with certain problem businesses that community raises up having community meetings and having conversations. I know there have been several there have been some in my ward there's been several in the third ward. Um, so I respectfully I believe that this is within our lane. And the other remark I was going to make is like I I invite the license holders to come and speak at the public comment and talk about how they are planning on keeping our community safe and serving our community safely. Um, if they have a safety plan, if there's any public commitments they would like to make, I invite them to to come before us. It's a it's a forum for everyone. And with that, we will go to uh Council President Payne. I will note I did say that um captioning ends at 4. We have gotten it extended to 5. I request to my colleagues we don't spend that entire amount of time. But if that is the wish of the body, that's the wish of the body. Uh Council President Payne. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. you you spoke to some of my sentiments, but I just wanted to also emphasize I recalled supporting council member Rainville's amendment for night inspectors because we have a number of neighborhood bars where um it's the kind of same story that the owner says, "Hey, not no violations are happening on my premises, but it's it's the activity that's happening around the premises that it ends up being the problem and it ends up being noise, it ends up being fights, it ends up being violence. Um, it's a fairly routine thing for us to take a look at the facts with our city attorney's office and evaluate whether or not there ought to be some conditions on that license to try to uh remediate some of those behaviors or whether or not um they're egregious enough to have a license revoked. And that's not something that we can decide on the deis. That's something that requires factf finding so that there's a legal basis for it. And that's why the motion before us is to hold this a cycle so that we can actually have a fact-based conversation about this. This is not a we're not debating about whether or not this license should be revoked. We're debating whether or not we should hold this a cycle so that we can do the factf finding so that there's a legal basis to either approve it as is approve it with conditions or deny it based on the facts. So >> thank you President Payne. Next we'll go to Council Member Whiting. >> Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think I I have the same comments that that Council President Elliot Payne just just mentioned. Uh I think, you know, I'm in support of of of finding a factual basis uh for a violation of these liquor licenses. I think if we do not in this period of time uh whether this to the next cycle uh I think absent a violation of any level of of of for these liquor license or these approvals of these liquor license I I think to to council um council member Vita's point we do have a responsibility I think everybody on the on this council has a responsibility to our constituents uh to explain that we do not have uh legal and factual basis to deny these these claims and I think that is something that we need to communicate uh I think openly and and broadly to our constituents uh if that is the case and that does does happen. So thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member Warren. >> Thank you so much, Madame Chair. Um I'm just wondering if anybody has ever heard the saying, don't nudge that shell if you don't want to know what's in it. Because of the simple fact that, you know, these hotels were violently destroyed by agitators. There was a lot of damage that was done to these hotels too. And the letters that I received from thousands of community members saying that they want to, you know, urge you to reject the Canopy by Hilton's liquor license renewal. They list the license number and the depot Minneapolis renaissance hotels liquor license renewal. They list that number at the February 3rd committee of the whole meeting. Selling liquor in Minneapolis is a privilege. They talk about our city must refuse to accept ICE ongoing lawless surge in our city. ICE, you know, and and I understand what ICE has done is sickening. It's disgusting. It's ridiculous. It makes absolutely no sense. But then we have to ask ourselves the question as a community, who's more fool, a fool or a fool who follows a fool? Why would you follow a fool up into a hotel and start tearing up somebody else's stuff? Because then that just shows you as being unlawless, too. I think we would nudge a shell and open ourselves up for far more lawsuits and far more problems telling people what they can't have. Somebody got to pay for all of that stuff, too. I mean, like, this is just ridiculous. This is a wasted conversation. I just don't understand this. We take action against ICE. Let's take action against ICE. But let's not punish our businesses and our business community members here in our city that are suffering enough as it is. Let's just deal with the perpetrators themselves. That's it. >> Council member Rainville. Council member Warren, you're a tough act to follow, but I just want uh my colleagues to know that the Saturday of the damage to to go on your point, Council Member Warren, 6:45 a.m. I got a call from the general manager of the Depot Hotel. So, I went over there and to look for myself because I didn't believe him. And after I saw the damage there and the and I went over to the canopy to talk to them to see the damage. There wasn't a lot of damage there, but their staff had been beaten by the activists as they tried to force their way in. Both hotels are now losing a lot of money. In fact, the night uh the Saturday night uh a banquet canled at the deep hotel resulting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of loss. So, as you uh set the stage for people to come in and criticize these hotels, I just want you to remember how much they have suffered. And really, it's their employees because they are laying people off. So, the very people that we try to protect are getting laid off because of the damage and the and the problems that are are befalling these hotels by the protesters. >> There you go. >> All right. Council member Chavez, >> a hotel is not going to need rental assistance. So, I want to start with that part. >> Now, when it comes to this, I'll be supporting the motion to set up a public hearing. Obviously, we have heard so many complaints from our constituents about public nuisance regarding this hotel. So, I think it's important that we hear from those constituents when it comes to a public nuisance and the concerns about public nuisances. So, I can't wait to hear from constituents at the next committee, the whole meeting to hear about their concerns about this establishment and the concerns about public nuisance that they keep bringing up because that is that needs to be part of the record as we make a final decision. Um, I want to talk about how unsafe many folks felt next to the hotel and by the hotel by these agents coming up with their weapons. Like, can we talk about the safety aspect of our constituents where now they have to walk down a block with ICE agents on their street with uh chaos and fear and public nuisance concerns that our constituents have literally brought up. I think that needs to be heard. I can't wait to hear from our constituents that we're not saying what the establishment did. We're saying neighbors have the right to give their opinion and their thoughts about public nuisance that they are complaining about. That's all we're saying. >> Council member Osman, I'm sorry. Council Vice President, we're getting there. >> I know. I know. I called the question uh but it didn't work out last time. But I do want to I do want to thank the people that we're calling agitators. They're fighting for our people. They out there on the cold sniffing a gas, dealing all kind of stuff. People die and lost their lives because of us, because of his immigrants, someone like me, someone like Chavez, someone like Latino and Somali. Our president call us garbage. And he sent troops here to terrorize us. So don't talk about those people. Those people are our heroes. People you call agitators are our heroes. They put their life for us in the middle of the night protecting us. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Osman. I'm not seeing any more discussion. So, on that motion, I will call the role or ask the clerks to call the role. There we go. >> Council member Payne, >> I >> Wsley, >> I Rainville, >> no. >> Vita, >> no. >> Warren, >> no. >> Osman, >> hi. >> Schaefer, no. >> Stevenson, >> hi. Chavez >> I. >> Whiting. >> Hi. >> Palmasano. >> No. >> Vice Chair Chuktai. >> Hi. >> And chair Chowy. >> I. >> There are nine eyes's and five names. That motion carries. Okay. Colleagues, I just have a few more remarks and then we will be adjourning. So with that, we've completed all items on our first Super Cow agenda. I want to thank all of you for your patience and cooperation as we quickly transitioned into this condensed structure. Um, again, this is obviously allowing us to be flexible in responding to our community and to our constituents. Um, the next condensed oneweek cycle will be Tuesday, February 17th at 9:30 a.m., followed by that regular full city council, Thursday, February 19th, also at 9:30 a.m. U, I know that Council President Payne will also be connecting with council leadership and city clerk on timing of a potential return to our normal twoe cycle with all of our standing committees reactivated. Um, I understand that we'll have a decision by next Monday at the latest and that decision will be shared with all departments internal to the city enterprise and with the public as well. I know that we are all eager to get into this normal cycle. I am excited to hand you back your gables. Uh I also uh appreciate all of the work that our city staff put together um to make this meeting happen, the super agenda setting and the the one that's forthcoming. Um thank you all for your trust in uh me and our vice chair in getting us through this first super cow. And with that, colleagues, hearing no objection, this meeting is adjourned. Here we go.