[Music] yay and um next up we're going to have Joe scantlebury who is the president and CEO of living cities in conversation with mayor Melvin Carter uh mayor Carter has said before that he wants um St Paul to be the Cooperative capital of the world and so I'm really excited for all the work that's happening in the city and to hear from Joe and mayor Carter and with that Joe turn it over to you thank you very much I apologize that I was not able to hear everything you all talked about this morning my colleagues were here colleagues raise your hand and so they've been asking you all a bunch of questions just like last night getting together with so many of you I had a chance to ask a lot of questions as well um I have to say first of all what is living cities let me just start there cuz even my mother doesn't know what the hell I'm doing um so living cities is a funer and member collaborative what does that mean means that some time ago a group of folks who have a lot of money got together and said how do we make a difference and at that time they thought they could solve poverty by just fixing the built Community if you fix the buildings poverty solved done we're good and they spent about 10 years and did some really cool things they really power put Power investments into Lisk and Enterprise Corp and you guys know those organizations do great work but somewhere along the lines they discovered poverty wasn't solved and so they tried lots of other things how do we weigh in on policy can we need reinvestment act let's lean in on this let's what can financial institutions do in a better in a better way how do we deal with procurement policies that City governments could do how do we help City governments think about inequities and help them look at their data and how do we be to share Prosperity plans across regions and cities we tried all of that really cool stuff and then they asked the question and truly the members were asking this question why does poverty persist to have a brown and black face the matter where we do really cool stuff and there are some of these foundations you know they couldn't talk about race some of them were really uncomfortable you might be doing all the work in the world for people who are struggling financially and they happen to be in a community that's all black but we're not going to talk about Blackness or race that's right cuz that's uncomfortable so we're not going to do that and I yes I'm a leader of color running a financial institution but I don't want to lose my good job so I don't talk about race right I don't talk about La laan community members or immigration or you know I could do it as a project I don't talk about it this board decided it was going to talk about it so they got real deep on racial Equity Real deep hurt hurt each other's feelings from time that time deep but they stayed around the table together having this conversation and so when I walk into a this organization three years ago as a CEO I'm walking in to a group of members who survived the pandemic gone through internal struggles in their own organizations looked at the internal struggles in living cities and said okay this is worthy of continued investment this is worthy of continued effort and so where we find ourselves today is we're an organization that believes in a couple of things that in order to get after racial equity in America and to address inequity overall we have to get after the question of inclusive Capital the people who were once Capital need to be partners in the use of capital the people whose land generated the capital had to be part of the conversation around Capital the people who immigrated here and who find themselves strangely not as privileged because of whiteness as they thought they should be and who are now angry and upset need to be in the conversation around inclusive Capital the people who we don't want to see because they built the railroads or are currently taking care of everybody's mama and children and in every Kitchen in America they are the lava Platos and the cooks and the Coos and they're doing every other job there that we don't want to see and recognize and we want to build walls to prevent them from being here all of those people they should be part of the capital conversation too because you know what they do they build businesses they build hold economies and so I come to St Paul and I have to say my team knows this I've been on the road for like months it feels like talking to people everywhere and even though we make some grants we're not a fund we're we're not a we're not a grant making organization we make some grants we so I got to go out and hustle just like all of you do to get capital and resources in so I understand the Chase and I know Mark's going to write me a big check at some point but that's okay Mark that's right that's right but all said across the country this conversation is happening in this town a different conversation is happening I don't know if you guys know that this conversation around collaboration and coming together is not the conversation I hear in Birmingham it's not the conversation in little rack I tell you that it's not the conversation in Jackson Baltimore New York I'm not saying there aren't people who are thinking about these things and who are attempting these things but there isn't a whole community of folks trying to figure it out I hate going into a city and saying you are unique so I'm going to say y'all are special in a good way and there's very few places where you have public leaders who are standing shoulder toh shoulder with you in the effort in fact I can't think of any place where this is the conversation can't I'm from Brooklyn New York and we got indictments going on in New York City everybody resigning right that's not St Paul this is not even the conversation across the river with respect so my hope is to interview your mayor our mayor and to have a conversation that uh helps me walk away and share all that you are doing in a way that inspires others to join in with you because you are the movement for the inclusive Capital that we need that may Carter your floor and I don't even know how I'm introducing you to your own house come on I appreciate it I'll take it you set me up though cuz now all I can do is disappoint so so Mar Carter I am really curious here's a city here's a city here's the initiatives that are happening here around um collaboration inclusion shared ownership how's this happening here from your perspective what makes this fertile ground for this kind of work you know I I appreciate the question I think all ground is fertile ground for this kind of work um you start off talking about stuff and our obsession with like stuff at the expense of people and you know people in this room know that know the name Rondo right I'm from a neighborhood called Rondo yes and I tell folks all the time I don't know what city you from but you have the Rondo neighborhood it just different has a different name correct but Rondo is the Once striving vibrant historic African-American Community here in St Paul was uprooted to build the freeway and all that means is that somebody in all of our seats somebody at the city somebody at the federal government somebody at a nonprofit organization somebody at a foundation all looked at a strip of 700 people's homes 700 families homes and said hey we could have a strip of concrete there said you know what you know what progress would be is if these homeowners and these business owners and these real estate owners all of these children here if if if we bulldozed all these family's homes and put a slab of concrete down that would be progress right and so it's it's it's not just to me that the our our our addiction to stuff um has slowed our progress to helping people it's that our addiction to stuff has literally buried people um to the extent that the reason I decided I wanted to run for City Council in the first place 15 years ago was cuz we were Building light rail on University Avenue and I kid like look at the history if you weren't there like we had this kind fight about these three missing stations that should have been on the line right people would always say you know look um people our our our studies show that people are going to be willing to walk a half a mile to a quarter a mile to get to one of the stations and I always asked and nobody ever answered are these August miles [Laughter] makes a difference these January miles like what are we talking about cuz the math is different you got a you know your calculator um you look at the whole stretch of that line and the station spacing was all half mile to a quarter mile apart you get to the boundaries of the area I used to represent literally the boundaries of the area I used to represent the city council and the boundaries skip to a mile and then to help fund the thing we said well we got to you know reduce the bus service here so the neighborhood that I grew up in the intersection closest to that where the train is that I grew up on by the like met council's own numbers would have had less access to Transit Service as a result of this billion dooll Transit investment that we were putting in right like less net access between not having a train stop there and having the bus come less but all of the cost of construction all the business Interruption all of the inconen all of it and so so so this like fixation I'm I'm stuck on this fixation with stuff that you were talking about keep going keep going because it's it's super super real and it continues to act today so when I ran for mayor the first time you know we spent two years just like in living rooms and coffee shops just asking people like like tell me about like what are you thinking what's your vision what are you feeling and I think the two biggest themes that we heard the two biggest things that I heard is one I heard people all over the city say like you know we have more to offer you know we're not being asked to like we're being asked sometimes what we think but we're not being asked to help pitch in and put our hands on I just heard that go ahead okay good good and the second piece was like we're used to cities sort of um investing to create the like General Dynamics in which success is like theoretically possible for people who understand the navigation map right um but we're not really used to cities like helping people and that's a different thing right if you if you just need help feeding your family you go to the county right if you need help with homework you go to the school board right we're you to like if you need help with like resoning a parcel of land so that you can do development that's that's when you go to the city right but we're not we didn't really have a body of work just saying we're going to we're going to help people and so those are the two things that that that and and they end up working together because we always talk about and you know it's good to be be in this space so project Equity um Equity is a word we use a lot in my bio it says that I'm a uh a some Champion for Equity or something like that and um the first thing we have to understand is what the word Equity means and it's astounding we were talking about this yesterday at city house only when we start that conversation about black and brown people right like I went to business school the only time Equity doesn't mean money is when we're talking about brown and black people like fight me some I'll give you the microphone like when we're talking about brown and black people we talk about like how we feel when we do it right right right that's right you know what I'm saying like that's right that's the only time like Equity literally means shared economics that's correct but when it when we started connecting it with like racial Justice and racial fairness and I recognize what you said really early on we are always bringing race implicit solutions to solve race EXP it problems even when we don't talk about it always you know what these kids in this you know we notice the black and brown kids um are less likely this and more likely this and so we're going to uh Target this resource to low-income kids wait that's not what you said we know that black and brown women are more likely to experience X Y and Z and child birth so we're going to Target this solution to these uh uh ZIP codes that's that's not what you said right that's like the answer is in the question that's not even what you said and so we launched the St Paul promise neighborhood when I was in the city council there were people sounds like you're just talking about focusing on you know black children and I would say listen I want to focus on the data and let me tell you when the data says that we can move our Focus away from young black boys from black and brown young girls when the data says we can move our Focus somewhere else I'll make the motion right so all I had to say is I I think what ends up happening is is a lot of stuff we do people look at me go oh that's that's so brave and that's a crazy thing to hear sometimes oh it's better than you're so articulate that is that is that is inside but obvious joke his his wife is my uh is my big sister right uh in community big sister I just texted her I texted a picture you doing my in and I said he talk good and she I'll show you she responded he's so articulate yes he is yes he is so you're right on time with that here's the answer I become convinced that every decision in the history of humankind has been made to benefit who the decision maker and every decision that will be made is like I I try to be as altruistic as POS possible but I really make decisions that I think are just going to like screw me over right and so at some level if we want City Hall we want the resources the policies the decisions we make in City Hall to benefit a wider set of people the only real option like on a sustainable systemic level is to build a wider set of decision makers right if we if we want our policies to to benefit young people the young people have to be at the table if we want our policies to benefit communties of color community of color have to be at seniors whatever whoever it is if they're not at the table we will not we I promise you you cannot build a system you cannot build inclusive uh uh you cannot get inclusive outcomes with exclusive systems and so what ends up happening is we get a chance to sort of detach St Paul from the traditional risk calculus that says doing something like taking a million dollar in American Rescue plan funding and using it to purchase and eliminate a $100 million in medical debts that our residents owe inside City Hall that feels risky right like politically risky or like a lightning rod or something right everywhere else it feels like a great investment it feels like the absolute best like I tell people all the time like if this is a family right if I was going to say uh we're going to take uh the scandle bbery family and um just get them all together and we're g to take a a100 million that the scandle bbery family owes in debt not me and if we can come up with a million dollars we'll make the Scandal bberry family $100 million doll better off I guarantee our first question is cosign is this real right our second question is is this legal and I just want to know like you know like that doesn't necessarily end the conversation but I just want to be clear you know what I'm saying and the third question is how can we make sure how can we do everything we can possibly do to make that happen that's right and so this is where you know our our Mantra is like what would happen if we look at a city and just say this city is built not on a love of the stuff but on a pure love of the people and driven by this sense that like the the the unsheltered neighbors that we have uh the children in every school in every neighborhood the families that we talk about in campaign speeches all the time like pretend we love them the same way we love the people we kiss every morning when we walk out the door what will we do so let me just say first of all I love that opening long that was no it was long but not a pin I could not hear I could hear you could hear a pin drop they may have heard all this before in many different ways but it's always good to hear it again so fanthropy love of humanity that's what you just described how has philanthropy been helpful and how has it been less than helpful and and and present company accepted Mark I'll tell you mcnight has been just fantastic every step along the way uh and they really have they've been a great partner um I I'll go the opposite direction you know Tanya's a mad truth teller so here's the thing we wouldn't be able to be where we are without philanthropy right the truth is we have so I mean people look it's like oh yeah you run a a billion dollar budget every year it's like yeah but all of that money is like bought and sold before we ever see it right and there's so little that we have that we can be flexible and like Innovative and entrepreneurial with and like come up with like a new idea to do something you know um and people always looking oh you're wasting money on this or you're doing and the truth is most of the things that like people tweet you know you shouldn't spent money is it's a grant money from somewhere right um because and you know that's because we just don't have the ability a lot of times right and so one of the things that we've been really proud of is our ability to use you know we call we call um City's a laboratory democracy you ever heard that before the problem is we are a laboratory without our D budget right that's right that's right most most cities have no flexibility to try anything that's exactly right because we're always like behind the aall and inflation always kicks our butt like this like every year this year the number was $9.4 Million right from this year to next year I could increase our Sal our our our City's budget by $19.4 million that' be a double digit property tax increase just to pay for all the same stuff we PID paid for last year right now without anything new so even just not even just this year's budget being tight we're always like trying to figure out what we're going to you know which which arms we're going to cut off for next year's budget and so we have no R&D budget I'll say this I think philanthropy has uh come a long way like in the time that I've been working in this space I remember when we were starting the promised neighborhood and everybody's you know the buzz word was always uh um what's the word um evidence-based best practices oh yeah that was a fun fact my question was always like how do you solve a problem that no one's ever solved before using only evidencebased best practices which are by definition things we've already tried over and over and over and over and over again right but that was our fat that was our you know everything had to fit in the kind of evidence-based best practices bucket I think I've seen areas where it felt like philanthropy was um giving uh for um um I criticize politics that are about you know there's politics and there's policy there's a real subtle but important difference right um Public Safety politics are the problem in America right Public Safety politics are about how people perceive the public safety work that we're doing public safety policy is about fewer kids getting shot right Public Safety politics would make me try to make you feel comfortable despite the fact that kids are still getting shot public safety policy makes me go all in to try to get fewer kids shot and then try to help you understand what we're doing kind of as a as a as a you following me as a backup to that and so I say just to say I think we've had um philanthropy historically that has operated in the politics world right uh who are the folks in the black that we can't Lobby what you say that we can't Lobby that there's no accountability on right um who are the folks who are the most visible who are the folks who are most likely to get quoted in the paper who are the organizations that we don't want to be on the bad side of um and one of the things that I've that I that I internalized really quickly one of my mentors was like listen like if like that's that's that's that's just a different form of like poverty pimping right yeah and so that's it's one of the reasons and you know our office of financial empowerment um uh is is is a real Pioneer in terms of evidence and independent evaluation and you know the whole body of work that director Kaliso leads um she can tell you I I tell folks all the time like when it comes to like the the sacred work that we do if an article doesn't include the word standard deviation I don't need it like don't send it to me right but she can tell you what the independent third party professional evaluators say like this is what the result that we're achieving because of this work that we're doing because it's crazy how little we talk about outcomes in politics we always talk about the process we always talking about what we're going to try we always talking about our new proposals and ideas it's crazy how many billions of dollars we spend without ever dis so I to say is I think philanthropy is helping these days to fund um to to help us do the type of um experimental work right um which you can't do experimental work without the like space to fail right uh and and to fail forward right um politicians always have to prove that they're like King Midas everything I touched T of gold look at I'm perfect again that's amazing right um but that's not the real world you can't right like you're risking nothing you don't fail now and then that's right if you're bad in a thousand you're not swinging enough right and so you know I think I think a lot of our foundation Partners have have have have done a much better job helping us to be able to do that uh to stick in with us with you know for for results and not just the sort of uh politics um and um I think to put us in the driver seat right we've had different uh grants that we've done with different foundations and sometimes you go down a road and you find out the road is different than you thought it was with the with the with the grant maker with the grant maker right like um and we might have I mean one example is in our public I keep talking about Public Safety but in our Public Safety work uh we started this notion of alternative responses to 911 call and as we got halfway in we realized we really talking about optimal responses to 911 calls right which doesn't always mean alternative like the police doesn't come sometimes it means we're coming together sometimes it means we're doing a tag off sometimes it means you know what I mean um and you know we ended up having a conversation with the funer who was like well that's not what you know your proposal said to us at the beginning and we talked through it we walked through it and they said okay got it that makes sense like keep keep doing that so I mean I think that type of uh leeway is important so you just described a powerful relationship between yourself as a city leader and philanthropy and the funders who have trusted you and you trust to have a real Dynamic conversation I wasn't here this morning but I was here last night and I was asking a lot of questions around sustaining the work how it gets sustained the challenges around the work access to Capital right and I know Mark where are you right I know there's some voices who might say well we don't need that kind of capital but financial institutions have a responsibility to cities etc etc they they hold your notes okay I'm curious what you would say to this room of folks who are trying different things to build employee ownership in business figuring out different ways of thinking about shared capital and around real estate and how to claim land and build that land for the use of people for the love of people and doing it together and the Together part will come to that's a hard thing to do it's a hard thing to sustain and people to people but I'm curious about the relationship with financial institutions and specifically since I sit on a board well I don't sit on the board anymore well I guess I am on the board but I have a board decide we go with it either way I have a board I'm I'm going through double Consciousness right now um we have a board of financial institutions and Foundations and you know they kind of tasked me to go out in the world and learn how they can be even better at what they do what would you tell financial institutions who are looking at a community like this and wondering what's their entry point what's their responsibility to this group of folks who are innovating right we said we want Innovation they're innovating they're testing they're trying they put Sweat Equity brain Equity int Capital they're doing it all what's the role of financial institutions to either grow this sustain this or to create new ways of um growing it it's an intriguing question you know our financial institutions have historically been uh the The Gatekeepers of all of this they're The Gatekeepers of wealth right they get to decide who gets in and who gets out who's risky who's not who's risky who's not right I mean the the the the crazy thing when we talk about like um uh tenants being able to pull their money and buy the building they live in people go oh wow that's that's that's incredible and I say it's not it's really not incredible like like their rent pays every single bill for this building already that's right right this is not incredible like this is not an incredible idea these 10 families already pay every single penny they like like there's not somebody out there like just you know let's chip in for these families and you know like these families already pay every cent that needs to be paid to facilitate this building and some in a financial institution gets to decide whether the person who doesn't live there who might live across town or like you know what I mean somewhere else um or those people who are like actually the lifeblood of that building who are actually paying for I mean same is true when we talk about worker on cooperatives right like the front line workers are who are doing I I tell folks all the time like my job is to heroically sign papers and give speeches while other people do all of the real work right like the Frontline work they're the ones who are making the money go right and then you learn the phrase like Leverage buyout right I'm buying this company I'm financing it off the future returns of what they're going to do of the work that the front line black and brown workers are doing in the first play I'm Not financing off of the money I have in my bank account already but some decides who gets to come through those Gates and who doesn't right and we get so stuck listen the most important question anybody ever asked me this is a weird story but stick with me I promise um when I first got like the mayor somebody said hey are you going to um move the furniture in the mayor's office and like the question like blew my mind when I tell you I was like whoa right cuz I've been around city hall for so long and like people come and people go but the desk is still in the same spot and it was like printed on my brain and I kid you not I got elected mayor not knowing that it was within my power to move the desk from one side of the room to the other and that's a silly anecdote but like think about the ways in which we become married to we become the enforcers of the status like accidental enforcers of the status quo just because it's what we inherited you know what I'm talking about like we become the ones who you know what I'm saying um and so like that's been something me but but then so so so something that's been on my mind a lot lately is I asked people to help me Define different words right we need a functional definition of the word Equity it's got to be about money when my business school dean said Equity she was talking about money she was talking about um appreciating assets uh she was talking about being able to trans in transferable assets I can pass on to my child if I want to she was talking about decision- making power which is why we do all this stuff we do through you know look at Twitter is full of people laughing at the the task forces and the commissions that we build for this or that of other um and she was talking about a shared economy CU if I own equity in a Company the company has a good quarter I have a good quarter too that's right um we need a definition of the word precedent because particularly as public leaders uh banks financial institutions or courts like we operate like we operate on precedent in so many aspects of our country somebody gave me a quick definition of the word precedent happened before the way things are usually done right the way things are done somebody give me a quick definition of the word Insanity see what I'm talking about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result right but that's what precedent is so people look at why are you doing that different because we we need a definition of poverty we didn't know what we so St Paul we're I'm one of the national coach of this organization called mirrors for a guaranteed income we're the first American city to use Public Funding to launch a guaranteed income pilot it was accident I didn't know that until like two years later they're like you're the first I like we were we're just trying to do the work um again I don't know where you grew up but there was some uncle there was somebody who told if you give poor people money they they'll just oh hell yeah they'll just what they going waste it yeah it's been on drugs and alcohol since onset of pandemic 60 plus Pilots across the country we've distributed over $250 million in unconditional cash to low-income families across this country country does not matter the city 90% of the money goes to basic necessities absolutely less than 1% of the money goes to Vices I would argue the PPP was higher than 1% and check this out families you know it's it's not a surprise that families who have some money so $500 a month for a period of two years right uh we just launched we just finished this pilot we were doing it's not surprising the families have a little bit more money at the end of the month are a little bit happier they have a little less stress they can absorb a financial emergency a little bit better what surprises some people is again I've got a handful of like double blind you know randomized control studies um that will show you that when Lo and Capo have money they don't use it as an excuse to work less they use as an opportunity to work more that's correct and what occurs to me is we've built a war on poverty you know and I always joke I'm like we're 60 years in a war on poverty and we just thought of giveing poor people money [Laughter] we just can't like oh I have an idea right um but here's why we built a whole war on poverty on stupid lies somewhere along the way me and you and we had to unlearn it yes we did and if you were in this room you probably unlearn this but somewhere along the way we believed somebody when they told us that like hardworking people who never see a penny in their life without punching and a pay pay clock are lazy and people who live off of like dividends they're the industrious ones that's right that's right don't like you believed it too don't act like I'm the only one in the room like we let somebody to say you see that single mom over there she's working minimum wage paying the rent and feeding four children putting them through school she don't know how to manage her money what like these they're not even good lies right but but but what they really were telling us is that when people are live in poverty it's because they lack character and we bought it and we built generations of public policy on the basis of that belief which is why it's all failing what we learned is when people live in poverty it means they don't have money and it means they don't have tools to make that money work for them they don't have the vehicles right and it suddenly turns from some it turns poverty to me from some God inspired phenomenon to just a machine that we built in City Hall that we can rewire in City Hall too I'm just ranting I don't even know what the question you ask me but but you ranting well though what was the question you asked me did I even get close to it no no no I'm I'm actually I'm G to go a little different here because in this room and in your city you've had people of all different Persuasions who've decided to come together I'm not saying that that's always peaceful I'm not saying that's not always shouldn't be peaceful hang on hang on stay with me that there there should be phys there there that there aren't disagreements and different points of view generational views lots of different Dynamics but somehow they've decided to work together for Mutual benefit and and at this time the narrative because as you were laying out the narrative about you know the single mom cu the narrative is she failed that's right right um but many of us who have had those moms my sister's a judge that's right I'm doing what I do my mother still don't know what I do but she knows one out of two but she knew she got me out the house and I didn't come back right right and now I can take care of her my point though is the narratives are that we can't do what these people are doing the narratives are that we're at each other's throats the narratives are that someone's going to lose if we abandon Zero Sum economics and policy so oh you set me up good yeah yeah yeah that's right so that's what you narrative so you know speaking of what we should say to financial institutions to get them engaged and Beyond and Beyond what is the narrative that because you've got some evidence of something different no you're right I mean and and and that is this and uh brother Rapa we were at a dinner what was that 2016 2017 and brother Raa was talking about shared ownership models and it was like the clouds opened up to me you I was I sat down like I don't know what are you talking about you know and it was like the clouds open up to me not only do I think this is a way I think this is the way you know as we think about the impact that the Boomers have had on our I mean the the question at some point is going to be who are the next investors who are the next business owners who's the next generation of homeowners who's the next generation of developers who's the next generation and we're very clear living cities ownership is a pathway to wealth Building without you got to own part of owning without a doubt hands down ownership is still the number one like route to wealth creation in correct right and um so at some level and we spent a lot of time talking to Banks about this off of financial empowerment our goal is to get you more customers we got whole we got whole neighborhoods full of people who don't know that their money be better off in your accounts that's true like you we got racism is is is crazy like I think about like um Colin Kaepernick you know Colin Kaepernick is you got people who like I'm investing billions of dollars in this football team and I'd rather a less talented quarterback throw the ball than put it in the hands of Colin kaern right racism is so self-defeating like I feel bad for racist you know I I won't say that but but I saw it though saw I saw the B it's so self-defeating it it it blocks you from seeing like I said there was a there was a point in time where we're too racist to let black people on our basketball teams you know what I'm saying and I think that there's a there's a there's a there's a version of what we see fromi historically from financial institutions that are that same that exact same Phenom that are just as ridiculous as being like H nope LeBron James is black he can't come play with us because there's so much Innovation out there and again that's what our goal is in St Paul that's why I say I think every place is fertile place for this type of work I want to scale up this because there's but let me finish because there's there's underinvested under realized potential right that exist in so many neighborhoods across St Paul that exist in so many places across the country and therein lies our I think most potent opportunities for economic growth that this country has to offer I hear the hope but I want to go to the challenge the challenge is I'm prepared to see that Community lay fallow nothing growing minimal growth rather than shift my point of view on who I invest in 1.56 trillion well EXC 1. 1.56% 1.6 let me round it up percent of private Capital Global 1.6% of $68 trillion in private Capital are in the hands of all black people all people of color all women being managed by that that percentage country that by 2045 is going to look like this room and only handful of white men figuring out what are the Innovations they should be invested in so we ain't G to grow and we're comfortable with that we're comfortable with that status quo now what St Paul is doing is challenging that status quo in a very public hands on the ground 10 is young people say 10 toes down doing it 10 toes down you got it so my question is how does that get lifted what is the evidence that we need to actually not just propound what's successful but frankly the shift in value because you started with the shift in value you started with the story of Paving paradise and putting in a parking lot that's right okay that's right I heard the song as you were saying that's what it is that's exactly what it is and now you're doing different let me say it this way you know a picture you know you know that picture the equity picture yeah of the kids watching the baseball game I hate that picture I'm serious I absolutely hate that picture and I think that picture takes us the wrong way and you guys know the picture I'm talking about it's a picture sure kids watching a baseball game and there's a fence and they have to see over the fence and you know some kids have the different blocks and one kid has is the taller kid so he needs fewer blocks and one kid's a you know medium and one kid's a short kid so he needs all the blocks you know what I mean and I think we've made the mistake of telling people with power influence and access to Capital that the answer for our communities is uh your kid having fewer blocks and listen I'm I try to be like I try to be as altruistic as possible and lead with the sense of like pH harmonic love if the answer for the world is melena and Naomi and amila and AR is we have a lot of kids if the answer for the world is my kids having less I'm out that's not racist I think that's logic common sense right and that's why I hate that picture because it creates a zero sum notion of what we're trying to do meaning if you have today you need to lose in order to you have to lose in order for somebody like I don't think that's the truth I think if St Paul figures out that these folks who come in this city from another country are opening up New Frontiers of Economics that aren't accessible to just the Vikings right um the the people who come in at St Paul who speak different languages open up like channels of business that we can't have access to otherwise right that's not taking blocks from from somewhere that's like manufacturing new blocks right right and and that's the approach that we need to take I I'll give you an example and so so so I think it's about not trying to get people to do a a a a charity and one of the things I've learned about my work is if we can get our city to the place where we do something because it's the right thing to do it might last as long as I am in the room right we got to figure out how these are solid Investments That generate a return so my first year as uh on the city council when I was working in the St Paul promise neighborhood there's a group of folks and i' I'd say probably most young black and brown elected officials have this Dynamic right where the side of town you go to to um uh get your sense of purpose may not necessarily be the side of town you go to get your uh votes and campaign contributions and uh there was a group of folks who brought me into a room and said Hey listen we see you spending a lot of time in Frogtown and some of you if you know St Paul we see you spending all your time over there and you know that work is cool but like what do we get out of this and again that's not I don't that's not racist oh no and you're their M I'm there I was their city councilman at the time right that's not race and I end up saying well tell me this what's your biggest challenge what's your biggest frustration their biggest frustration was their property taxes kept going up and they're like well you know what my my my my property value stayed still but my property tax went up I said oh well that's because property values somewhere else are going down so if that's your biggest problem then what we need is a strategy that will help stabilize property value somewhere else by the way there's an education initiative and the number one thing that impacts property values is well number one and two is always Public Safety and school quality exactly and they went oh get back over there so I think that's the way we have to approach it I don't think we can expect financial institutions to do it because it's in the best entrance of you know my children or because you know we're you know whatever I don't think we can I don't think we should expect them to go beyond kind of the basic kind of CRA type of kind of requirements I think as we uh deliver a vision for uh the the the shareholder returns that they can have act that they can plug into that they don't otherwise uh the Championships you can win once you figure out to let LeBron James on your team you know what I mean like once we figure out the like Financial like that that value proposition there that's where I I think and I think it's on us to be able to demonstrate that Financial proposition which is where we need those Laboratories of democracy I'm going to throw an audible here uh the the organizing team did not give me authorization to do this but I do want to open up for questions because I see lots of questions and I see faces who are like locked in um so I want to make sure we do that because one of our missions is to share the wealth and to share the ideas around the work and to give credit to where the creativity is happening right we're a national in mediary we learn from so many people everywhere and we're trying to figure out how do we just still in share that so that others can pick up like I want you get a call from Birmingham and Jackson you know saying how are you doing this and how can I do this in a context where I am so ready for questions please and I'm going to run to you if you don't mind tell us who you are hi everyone my name is tamy and I'm with Urban homeworks um I loved what you were talking about um mayor Carter and I guess I'm curious to know know like earlier when you talked about um needing to make a bigger room of decision makers like how you as mayor and how city council is being intentional to one remove barriers and make space for community members that single mom the hard workers that were talking about the work 9 to-5 you know they can't speak or they can't come to a city council meeting and testify at 2: in the afternoon when they're at work they can't come to this round table cuz they're at work how are you making space to be intentional to bring those decision makers to the table I love that question and I really appreciate it so one is everything we do we do through public engagement right so every member of my cabinet every single member of my cabinet I've ever appointed has been appointed through what we call a community- based hiring process right where we have literally hundreds of people who get together and help kind of think through people who might make a good Library director they you know recruit candidates they sort through the resumes they decide who they want to interview they do the first round of interviews and send me a couple of finalists uh who they think would be good people right the first time we did it like the newspaper like wow this is the like most diverse cabinet we've ever seen in the history of City how did you do that right and what I end up telling the Press is like in a diverse City like St Paul you don't have to like how did you get a diverse cabinet you have to how did you get a white cabinet you know I mean it's true you know like you have to like I mean just basic probability and statistics right like you have to like do something special to get a allh cabinet not to get the type of diverse cabinet that we landed on uh so whether it's minimum wage or whatever it is like I said we're always kind of launching task forces we have a a set of like task forces and commissions uh that help us kind of bring the uh recommendations to the city council and to the mayor to make decisions on um we um launched a policy to put at least two young people on every single one of those task forces and commissions um and we pay them to be on there um and it's two because I was that kid when I was a kid it'd be like put Melvin on the board right and I'd be sitting at this board table like lawyer what do you think mayor what do you think doctor what do you think right so and so like representative what do you think Melvin what do High School St students think and I'd be like yeah right and so we was trying to build a critical mask to make sure they're not we're not just kicking them all so we say we did it right um and so we do a lot of we do a lot of public engagement with the the city the um every budget that I bring to the city council we do what we call call our city budget engagement games right which we go to community so like I'm sitting in Johnson High School right I'm sitting in Central High School uh in the lunchroom or in the cafeteria you know in in a math class just talking to people like this how the city budget Works tell me like how you how you think that's through uh or U senior senior homes or like the boards of directors or neighborhood groups um some of them are 10: a.m. on a Monday some of them are 6 p.m. on a Thursday some are on a Saturday you know so trying to VAR stuff around so that it we we're able to accommodate and some of them are virtual so we can accommodate the way different people's lives work but none of that actually gets to the heart of the question that you just asked um the best uh uh example of good governance I've ever seen is that you guys know Central High School there's a spot on the side of the grass at Central High School my High School class of 97 woo woop um there's a spot inside the grass where for like 30 years there's been a a a a shortcut a little Trail worn in the grass and you know it always struck me that if we were to you know put an announcement there's 2,000 students at Central you know uh listen at uh 5:30 next Wednesday there will be a public hearing at City Hall on optimal sidewalk alignment uh the optimal sidewalk alignment public hearing is 5:30 next Wednesday at City Hall right um you know how those students would respond right but every morning for like 20 years 2,000 students know and show that it makes more sense to walk across the grass right here then they go up around kind of these you know geometric shapes that we create right um and what I was going to say as a good example of of of of good government is eventually the school district paved a sidewalk right where that shortcut was and so we got to know that people are literally always telling us what they think people are always talking with their feet like like every moment of every day our residents are trying to tell us something right on their way to work on their way to school like on their with their shopping CH like everything our residents do is trying to tell us something and so that's the the challenge that we all give we always give our team is like I need you to tap into not just what people at some point what people said at 5:30 on a Wednesday is less important because let me tell you that enormous amazing beautiful plans I've seen die because seven people said something into the microphone and at 5:30 on a Wednesday and pretended they spoke for a community right look I'm telling Secrets right now I don't like when people say the community this and I'm like the community like at what meeting did the community decide this or you just saying you talked to like four people at a coffee shop yesterday right and and this is something I get really passionate about because we we we have a neighborhood in St Paul right now H Midway has a old library library is 100 years old it's inaccessible bathrooms are downstairs the building is you know terrible From perspective like there there's a group of maybe 15 to 20 people who want to convince us that this neighborhood does not want like the community right does not want a brand new state-of-the-art multi-million dollar public library and if that's true it's probably the first in the history of the planet neighborhood that does not just does not want a brand new state-ofthe-art multi-million dollar public library for their kids to play at right but but 12 people have a megaphone and they can be super loud and so all I had to say is my task for my team is always like find the places where people are voting with our feet and that's what's led us to like some of the things I'm most proud of is things like uh fine free libraries we don't do late fines in our public libraries anymore uh we don't charge people for swim for swim lessons council member we haven't even got this report to you guys we just this is the first year of that policy um 70% of the kids who came to swim lessons are free swim lessons this year did not know how to swim and never had a swim lesson before in their life 80% of the kids who came to swim lessons this year their parents don't know how to swim right and so like identifying those Lanes eliminating um uh uh participation fees for school for uh Youth Sports things like that the the to me the coolest things that our Administration is doing is not because somebody said something in the microphone at a public hearing but it's because we heard something that people weren't saying in the microphone gra for a second because I know we've got at least time for maybe two more questions I'm looking here I'm I'm I'm be brief watch two more okay well then if not I'm going to ask this ultimate question ultimate ultimate question when you think about sustainability of this work and the Ingenuity that's happening here and the potential for the St Paul to educate inform and Inspire other cities other leaders the financial sector and maybe some folks in philanthropy who frankly can take a bigger risk what would you tell them what would you tell them I mean you've been telling us for a long time but now that I'm three years in I think I know a little bit more about how do you leverage the organization that I'm in and I really want to walk away with a charge for living cities a charge for this field and it's grounded in what I know is happening in this room and grounded in what you just shared this afternoon both on the policy side the practice side The Human Side and the value side so I'm curious what you would tell us that we need to do better going forward what's our Challenge and call to action that's a good question you know um I'm really proud of if you can't tell I'm really proud and fired up about about the the things that we're doing in St Paul about some of the policies and some of the initiatives that we' put place um largely many of the things in particular that we're doing through our office of financial empowerment I tell people every day that even more proud even even more than I'm proud of the what I'm proud of the how the the the secret sauce is really the how um because when we do stuff sometimes people are like how how what are you going to do to make sure you know some future mayor in city council can't you know undo this and the answer is nothing like I can't do anything to make sure like to keep a future like if the next mayor will have all the same powers that I had like what are you talking about the only way to make this stuff sustainable over time is to ensure that there's a community demand for it literally the only way and so this like concept of like really engage and I spend a lot of time telling people this like whether it's a bank your foundation your organization your business your government whatever it is when you say we need to do better by whoever those people are right uh we we we think we can be more impactful among young people we think we could be more impactful among people of color and Indigenous American what what whoever the Teena whoever the people who've experienced homelessness whoever the population is that you deci that you that you want to serve my guess is if you're in this room it's cuz you're like desperate like you're you're the ones who are up at you know 11:00 uh your spouse is going to sleep and you're sitting there looking on your phone trying to figure out like what are new ways or thinking through kind of what are new am I right I don't know anything about that right that's right that's right and my my my my task for you is stop like free yourself from that right my my task is like I I what what I love to see us all do is stop trying to figure out new ways to help those people you see what I'm going those people you understand what I'm saying like I know it's hard like like we want to help those people stop trying to figure out how we can help them cuz we can't help them if we're stuck with the wall between we and them a cognitive wall there and so my question is like whoever they are are they on our board whoever they are are they involved in our decision-making processes whoever they are until they are included in what who we mean when we say we we're going to be like super limited I think that's my biggest and that to me is my biggest challenge on in terms of like how we sustain the work that we're doing uh how we uh change the risk uh calculus I was talking about the risk the risk calculus you know people say like Public Safety you know you know Alternatives and optimal responses and you know this public safety policy versus politics I was talking about and I got mad one day CU someone was like you know all you know you're changing things and that's that's risky and it's like look I'm honest God my my nephew got robbed at gunpoint a couple years ago in St Paul like and then on the on the Block I grew up in and when they say like that's risky to change our approaches to Public Safety what what you're saying is that me getting as many votes next year as I did three years ago should be more important to me than making sure my nephew never gets right like my my sister spent a year driving around the block so my nephew could have the courage to walk his dog on his own block like and it like it kills me to even say that out loud and I don't give a who people vote for it's not worth it to have this job if we're not going to do everything that we can to make sure none of those young people kind of experience that and so here's the final thing I want to say to you and I I promise you I'll get out of your way because I know you have a lot to do is this all the stuff that I'm proudest of that we've done as a city all the stuff I've proudest of that I've done in my career um are things that at one point in time I thought felt impossible um and that was the like most dangerous moment for them like that was the most perilous moment for U college savings accounts for guaranteed income for the St Paul PR all all the stuff I'm bragging on like the most like Shaky Ground it's ever stood on was not a public hearing was not a City Council vote was not you know some conservative tweet monster you know what I mean it was like me in my mind ready to destroy this and send it to the trash can of impossibility and my my so my my my second biggest challenge to you is to make them a part of us my biggest challenge for you is my guess is everybody in this room has something in that back drawer something in your back pocket your bottom drawer on your desk somewhere that you know would be amazing but you also know would be impossible I'm give you a second to just gather which one that is like you like we've already tried running the world without that idea give us a chance to try running the world with it ladies and gentlemen thank your [Applause] mayor that's what we're leaving for today okay app I'm sorry my hospital I think