St. Paul City Council — Transcript
Wednesday, September 2, 2026
Story
Council rejects library director's plan to close Dayton's Bluff branch
Library Fund Balance and Budget Variance
Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Update and Descertification
Small-Scale Development Program Overview
Votes (6)
Resolution Public Hearing 26-243: Accepting a gift of $309,000 from the friends of the St. Paul Public Library and amending the libraries 2026 financing and spending plans.
Dissent: None
Moved by Council Member Kim [2:36]
This item involved a public hearing for accepting a significant gift from the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library. No public speakers came forward. The item was quickly moved to a vote and adopted.
Staff Report 26-176: 2027 Library Board Proposal (Mayor's Proposed Library Budget)
Dissent: Council members expressed strong opposition to the proposed closure of Dayton's Bluff Library.
Director Hartman presented the Mayor's proposed 2027 budget, focusing on the proposed closure of Dayton's Bluff Library to achieve $148,274 in lease savings and fund 4.1 FTE for library safety specialists through attrition. Council members strongly questioned the basis for closure, arguing that usage data was incomplete and inequitable, and pointed to the library's healthy fund balance as a potential alternative funding source. The intertwined nature of the Dayton's Bluff closure and safety specialist funding was a key point of contention. The discussion also touched on new visit count technology and minor fee increases.
Staff Report SR26-172: Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Update
Dissent: Commissioner Yang expressed support for descertifying all possible TIF districts, which may differ from staff recommendations for some housing TIFs.
Miss Wolf presented an update on HRA TIF districts, explaining descertification requirements, pooling for affordable housing, and identifying districts eligible for early descertification. Staff recommended keeping Shepard Davern Rental Housing and Highland Point housing TIF districts open to generate an estimated $1.5 million every two years for ongoing affordable housing needs. Concerns were raised about the clarity of the financial information provided and the balance between returning tax capacity to taxpayers and maintaining funding for affordable housing projects.
Staff Report SR26-181: Introduction to the amendment and deemed reissuance of conduit revenue bonds for Nelly Francis Court and Emma Norton Restoring Waters Projects District 15, Ward Three
Dissent: None
Miss Saurin introduced a request for a 12-month extension of the bond maturity date for conduit revenue bonds issued for two affordable housing projects, Nelly Francis Court and Restoring Waters, both located at Highland Bridge. These projects opened in 2024. The extension is needed to allow Project for Pride and Living (PPL) to complete financing with Greater Minnesota Housing Fund. There is no financial impact on the city.
Staff Report SR26-182: Introduction to the sale and conveyance of property to Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services and authorization to amend the development agreement for the Village on Ravoli project District 5 W 2
Dissent: None
Miss Saurin introduced the land sale of nine HRA-owned parcels to Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services for the final phase of residential development at the Village on Ravoli. This phase will consist of nine single-family homes. The project is financed primarily through grant funding from MHFA and requires no city dollars for this phase. The total development at this site, spanning decades, will result in 38 homes.
Staff Report SR26-184: Small-Scale Development Update
Dissent: None
Danielle Loren provided a comprehensive update on the city's small-scale development program, outlining its evolution since 2006, from the Invest St. Paul initiative and foreclosure crisis response to current developer-led projects focusing on increased density. The report detailed funding sources (Housing Trust Fund, LAA, CDBG), disposition policies for HRA land, and the team's efforts in marketing and supporting developers. The presentation showcased significant outcomes, including 257 properties rehabbed or redeveloped for over 300 units, representing about $45 million in investment.
Notable Quotes (13)
Um, well, I'm really excited to accept this gift. This is also a public hearing um on this item.
Presenting this budget today is very painful. No library director ever wants to be in a situation where where we might are talking about closing a library or reducing hours.
If you build a smaller store on a storefront and you have less hours and less inventory and then you measure it against a bigger store somewhere else across the city and then you go, "Wow, this small store with a smaller inventory has less usage than anywhere else in the city and you're surprised that it has less visitors." I just want to share with you that that doesn't necessarily tell you the real data. It also doesn't communicate whether or not a a neighborhood deserves a library.
I think that's a really important point to make I I want to also bring up the um when the library doesn't spend uh it's budgeted amount at the end of the year. Whatever's left over goes into our library fund balance. We have our own library fund balance because we are the li separate library agency and we have our own levy.
There is not an alternative at all for increasing library services for that neighborhood. Um, and I've mentioned at the table here, if we were to do something really drastic and big like this, it must come it must be married with like a plan on how we do ensure especially like our our communities of um communities that are from marginalized areas to areas of concentrated poverty, low-income families, working-class families to continue to have that access.
I do agree that I I don't think that there is um an appetite at this table to move forward with a budget that includes the closure of the Dayton's Bluff Library. I'll say that I am fully committed. I've appreciated working in partnership with Council Johnson, Director Hartman, and with all of you on a matter of what this does that look like.
Should we elect to descertify a tiff district early? Uh first and foremost, I just want to confirm that the HRA only keeps the district open to pool for affordable housing.
Um, first of all, I just want to say it's wonderful to be having this conversation and I want to thank Vice President Yang in particular and all of our colleagues for um bringing this bringing this discussion to light because I think it's important to be these were not discussions we had at this table before.
I also really want to recognize um every time we've had conversations about TIFF, we have had community members from Insight St. Paul here. Um, also like you know the the conversations about the state of the city in terms of our finances and the the property tax burden has really prompted for even um community members that don't do any sort of work around financing or navigate city systems. You know, it's prompted them to actually get engaged.
Just to confirm, there's no financial just like there's no financial impact on the city to issue conduit revenue bonds, I assume there's none to extend a maturity date?
And the fifth phase, which is the subject of this land sale and the final phase of residential development on this site, just want to pause for a minute because that's huge. It's been a long road.
I am the uh economic development supervisor in peed and I get the distinct pleasure of managing our folks that do our small scale development work at the city.
So since 2013, we've run seven inspiring communities RFPs. We're continuing to do those as we're winnowing down our NSP properties. You will continue to hear about that in the coming weeks. Actually, we have um RFP8 that we're we're prepping now um to get published before the end of the year and then we'll probably do two or three more of those.
Ordinances & Resolutions (7)
Accepting a gift of $309,000 from the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library and amending 2026 financing and spending plans.
Presentation of the Mayor's proposed 2027 library budget.
Tax Increment Financing (TIF) update and descertification discussion.
Introduction to the amendment and deemed reissuance of conduit revenue bonds for Nelly Francis Court and Emma Norton Restoring Waters Projects.
Introduction to the sale and conveyance of property to Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services and authorization to amend the development agreement for the Village on Ravoli project.
Small-scale development update.
Adopted in 2023, indicating a shift in prioritizing density on HRA-owned lots for small-scale development.