So the affordable housing trust fund, the objective of this fund is to fund programs and projects that create new affordable rental and home ownership opportunities. Uh, this fund is only supported through this H levy and state la funds.

The objective is to help new and existing businesses thrive in St. Louis Park. Um the EDA levy is the main funding source for the operations of this fund.

The prelim preliminary levy is not the final levy. We are approving the highest amount that the final levy will be allowed to go. The public hearing for truth and taxation is scheduled for our city council's meeting on December 7, 2026. And the council and EDA will adopt the final budget and the final levy amount for December 14th, 2026.

I am a father of two boys with disabilities. They both have Tourette's syndrome and they don't identify as being disabled and they're mainstreamed and doing great, but they got the help of St. parks educational system, the special education programs and other resources to assist them on being able to deal with their disabilities and that u there's a lot more than 600,000 I think out there and and it's really important for employers to be aware of that and make reasonable accommodations and provide support services as necessary for that and I'm happy that we're supportive of that effort too.

Personally, as a father to someone who suffers from bipolar, um my son has had some very serious challenges in employment. Um because of that specifically, um employers who have seen him in a manic phase or even a hypomomanic phase have refused to hire him or let him go or any stuff like that. So, it's a very real real deal um in terms of equity around hiring practices and things like that. So, I appreciate this proclamation.

Whereas food waste prevention week is a publicly is a is a publicity and education uh initiative to showcase food waste reduction. And whereas wasted food has significant climate impacts from the energy and resulting greenhouse gas emissions used to grow, produce, transport, and store food to the methane generated when food is when food wasted is landfilled.

And whereas the city is a partner organization in the save food spend less challenge led by Henipin Ramsey and Washington counties. And whereas food waste prevention week aligns with the EPA, USDA, and FDA's winning on reducing food waste initiative, which aims to cut food waste by 50% by 2030.

Her motto used to be you can't waste uh food just because people are dying out there. You can't waste the food here. So that's what she used to say. Um and that's what you have containers for. So please th don't throw away the food. Make sure that you just put it in the fridge and uh reuse it.

They noted that I said the parks and wreck advisory commission settled on a single fall cleanup event instead of two. There's a misunderstanding or maybe I just misspoke, but um they this should be changed to reflect that the PR hosted a fall cleanup event for two years before returning to a single spring event. Although the commission floated the idea of having both the fall and spring, um they decided to prioritize the spring event and wait for further staff direction before deciding on if they were doing a fall event.

The balance budget consists of an all-inclusive levy increase of 6.9% based upon the following. general levies of just over 49 million. Debt service levy of just shy of seven million, HA levy of 1 million, EDA levy of 375,000.

So we are suggesting that we levy for that at $250,000. Um we have backed off the affordable housing trust fund to $1 million. This was another way for us to kind of balance our priorities with the effect of the levy on residents. Um, and so we slid that extra 194,000 up to climate investments.

It's a really responsible bud budget and levy proposal this time around. I appreciate the fact that my colleagues want to keep the levy increase 7% or less. And uh personally, I feel like we should spend more money on the climate investment fund, but there may be opportunity to find other revenues for that in the future. So, I'm uh fully supportive of this proposed levy.

I do think to uh Tim's point from a couple of weeks ago, climate is the existential issue of our time and to know that we're funding this. Obviously, this is not necessarily something that's in the city's control. There's federal funding that has dried up and I understand, mayor, that you are concerned about passing those costs on to everyday people. Um, but I do think that um it is unfortunate that that money is also coming out of affordable housing.