[Music] Hi, I'm the cable company. You can go whenever 11. >> All right. Good afternoon everyone. It is September 11, 2025. The time now is 609. We'll call the meeting to order. >> Hi, Chris. Uh, roll call, please. >> Commissioner Agua, Commissioner Ahmed, >> here. >> Commissioner John Grass >> here. >> Chair Lewis Miller. >> Commissioner Msias. Commissioner Mukulo >> here. >> Commissioner Nelson >> here. >> Commissioner Schultz >> here. or acting chair Schultz. >> Thank you. All right. Can you uh if you can please stand if you will for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Next item. Um any additions, deletions or modifications to the um agenda? >> Madam Chair and Commissioner, there is no additions, deletions, or modifications to the agenda. >> All right. Um >> chair and commissioner, we'll need a motion to adopt the agenda. >> Okay. Um anybody? >> Commissioner Nelson, I move to adopt the agenda. >> Commissioner Mal seconded. >> All right. Commissioner Nelson approves the agenda. Seconded by Commissioner Mal. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any nays. All right. Motion has been adopted. All right. We'll now proceed to approval of the minutes from the August 14th, 2025. Any um any concerns with uh the meetings? All right. Um, we'll approve the uh any motion to approve the meetings minutes. >> Commissioner Nelson, I move to approve the meeting minutes. >> Commissioner Mel second it. >> I had to say that again twice. >> All right, Commissioner Nelson. Uh, seconded by Commissioner Mal. All right, we'll proceed with the business. Uh, first item is discussion on equity lens for council reports. >> Chair and commission. Um, we need to call for eyes's and nays. >> I did have one thing on the minutes from last time. Sorry, I've raised my hand, but I didn't say anything. >> Okay. I was actually here for the minutes, and it says I was not last time. >> Oh, and I voted on the minutes. I came in after the roll call, which is is noted, so I voted on afterwards. >> Got it. Isn't your name on there? >> So, yeah, it says I arrived after the roll call, which is correct, but then it doesn't have me voting afterwards. >> Thank you, Chair Commission. I will make those changes. All right. So we have I think just to we have a motion in a second with the changes and then we'll do the eyes. Right. >> Right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Oppose say nay. All right. The minutes have been approved. >> Okay. So uh now to business discussion on equity lens for council reports. Chris, I'll hand it over to you. >> Madam chair commission. Thank you. Um so we're going to have a continued discussion of the proposed equity lens review. Um just kind of again why an equity lens. Um Savage is committed to inclusion, equity, and transparency. And equity lens helps assess impacts of decisions on diverse communities. Particularly we're making policy decisions kind of broad decisions like that. Um we also have this included in the 2020 2025 CC work plan. Uh it's goal four connection to the community. Um so why use an equity lens? Uh this prevents unintended harm and exclusion or hopes to present unintended harm and exclusion. It helps retort more fair access to representation. Promotes thoughtful informed decision-m um helps us create a shared uniform language uh for all of our staff and community members. Um embeds this into our processes. Um and just makes equity kind of a core part of our um process. We have same stuff for financial considerations as we are making decisions. It's something we must all think about. Um, one of the things that kind of drives what we have for the equity lens is, you know, who benefits, who may be burdened, are there unintended consequences? Um, has groups, particularly under represented or historically underrepresented groups, been engaged, and does this reduce disparities or increase access? Um, one of the things too that I've always found is really helpful for staff for kind of these more broader goals is that it's easy for them to comprehend and it's easy for them to respond to. Um, particularly we're looking for answers that are short and effective. Um, stuff that is, you know, a 12page select A, go to B, then go to Q gets confusing and becomes ownorous on it. So, we want this to as easy as possible for staff to effectively use. Um and again kind of what's driving us is that equality versus equity um sort of lens as mentioned before uh we had initial discussions at the leadership team on this lens. Um just to start kind of talking through what they feel their staff may have in terms of responses or thoughts or worries. Um I think that helps sort of guide kind of what our discussions has been and will help us when we look at rolling it out across the organization. Um, one of the things we heard was difficult identifying who's impacted and how there was some conversation around some of the work we do, you know, particularly the financial stuff, um, and other examples like that. We don't there's really not an equity consideration because there's a very clear statutory requirement for how we need to do this stuff. If I'm going to sell a used truck, there could be a reach for equity considerations, but basically there's A, B, and C, and D, and that's how we have to do it. So just being mindful of that as we look at those responses. Um there's also there's concerns over subjectivity and responses. One of the things we talked about is staff will particularly um me in this process will help staff as they're submitting those reports to review and provide maybe some good language or help them think a little broader about kind of some of those impacts there. Staff al rec recognizes there's limited resources. We'd like to reach everybody all the time every day. we don't have the staffing capacity or the financial ability to do that. So recognizing that there will be times where we'd like to talk to more people or we may need more time. We just can't do that all the time, which is something I think we need to acknowledge, but also doesn't limit us and we can continue to try to do better. There's also um as part of this process, there's uncertainty about when to apply the lens in the policy process. I think that kind of leads into our conversation later on about kind of where the CC feels this should be utilized by our staff. There's also fear of encountering problems that can't be addressed by equity assessments which I think is a really really great response from our staff to say look there's these big big broad problems that we can't we don't know how to address right now. So one of the things that we do is we start working at it like small bits by small bits by small bits and someday we may accomplish those. So just being acknowledging that also continued challenge of reaching communities that we want to reach but time and time again we're just not hearing from. So that's something too that we also wanted to talk about but again kind of with that broader scope if after a certain point we may reach that tipping point and then we'll get contacts that will help us um get inroads on those communities. So, racial equity lens review worksheet. What you see now is the kind of fourth iteration of the worksheet. Fourth or third, third or fourth, one of those two. Um, we've been talking about kind of who some of the things we want staff to be mindful of as they sort of work through these big policy pro um ideas is community impact and inclusion. Who is most impacted or affected? We want to be mindful of equitable outcomes. So, does this improve or does this worsen disparities? Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. So, just being mindful of that, too. Um, what revisions and mitigations like what can we change or what can we adjust in the process that will actually improve the equity outcome there? Also, what about the long-term impact? So that's something we tend to cities are pretty good at thinking sort of long term in terms of what we're doing but generally that's with just some focus of will we have the infrastructure or will we be like financially okay to do this stuff. So bringing in equity and those considerations there. This worksheet is based on priorities identified in the ready report. Um, and it has been updated to include language that is directly from the ready report and also has updated demographic information uh, so we can better sort of help our staff think about who they should be mindful of as we continue those as they sort of consider those policy questions. At our last meeting, we kind of talked about some of the broader questions that come from this. I think we had a really good discussion there about like when we choose and who we choose in terms of contractors and such. I think this equity worksheet still meets what we're looking for. Um, something else that we talked about too was there was the addition of the demographics last time that was Savage, Scott County, and then Minnesota generally, excuse me. There was a request from one of the commissioners to just um as kind of a additional interesting information to get what our surrounding communities are. So, I have that in front of everyone too. That is our neighborhood neighboring communities comparison data. The one thing I did not include Credit River. Um it's such a new city that they did not have a lot of their specific information. So I don't know if the commission wants to sort of chat through this for a period of time um and see if there's anything additional they want to talk about here. I do think it's really interesting information just to see how we relate to our neighbors. Um so I'll open it up to the commission at this time. Thank you, Chris. This was um this was wonderful. >> I just have a question. Um can you go back to the previous slide, please? Yep. So here, um the last second to last bullet point, uh fear of encountering problems that can be addressed with equity assessments. Can you give some examples of what that might look like? chair and commission. I think that's a great question. I think one of the things you think about is like poverty or um health disparities or inaccessibility to um educational support. So, it's kind of the stuff that's adjacent to these issues we were talking about, but the city can't directly influence. There's a lot of stuff like that that we bump into doing, you know, day-to-day city work. Like I think health disparities is a really great example of that or like mental health support that we can do some stuff but kind of as we're structured and kind of what a city does we don't have a lot of additional ways to support people. Um a lot of times that can just be saying well we can help direct people to you know Scott County, Minnesota, etc. But there are those big things that we need to acknowledge sometimes as we're having these conversations that exist put pressure on the system but we can't directly acknowledge through our day-to-day work. >> Okay. Yeah, that's helpful because I was trying to think like do we need some examples spelled out like for instance XYZ that might help bring clarity. So, um, thank you for that. >> Yeah, chair and commission. I think that's one of the things we kind of talked about. was really interesting in those conversations is kind of these big level things and I'm I'm trying to work to keep it kind of >> something that a general line staff can kind of handle and work through because again all those things if you start saying well like hunger and >> health disparities and poverty it's like oh we're just going to people are going to lose people if we have them start focusing on that. So parts of that we can address as we're going through those the the equity lens, but just kind of being a resource to those staff to kind of redirect what they're focusing on for those specific policy impacts and projects. I think that's kind of where I will serve as that role for them. >> Okay. Any thoughts from the commissioners? Commissioner Nelson, >> I just want to reiterate what I said last month and that is I want to thank the staff for their courage to go forward with this. uh perfect is the enemy of good and I think uh speaking for myself moving forward on an equity journey can be um frightening for fear of misststepping and harm doing more harm than good. Um and I've also learned that if I'm can't get past that fear, I can't learn more and do better. And so I just want to thank um if you'd pass that along the staff for being willing to try this and emphasize that when I look at this worksheet and the efforts the fact that the team is willing to simply ask the questions I think is great movement forward you know less even if it feels like oh we're going to get bogged down in all of this just asking the questions makes you consider and can you remind me I know this is designed for staff but had we discussed at all possibly the commissions and city council having a single question on their agenda each month or something. >> Chair and commission. So that's one of the things we also want to talk about. Um so we have the equity lens worksheet that kind of help guides those discussions or sort of thinking of the staff. We also then have how we want to implement this. So there's a number of options. At the last meeting I had four. Uh the first one was the do nothing option. Just kind of keep working as we've been working. I would say I heard a pretty um uh unanimous approach to drop that one off future slides there. Um second option is I guess now our first option is to not include in the council reports but utilize the CC more as a advisory committee um or more of a review committee as opposed to an advisory committee much like in planning committee does. So if there's a project or some sort of major policy discussion bring it here have the CC give their equity input and that kind of serves an equity lens. Um second option is implementing equity lens for internal reviews but just don't include it on the council report. And the third option would be to um as part of this is have it as a council report item. I have examples of what our current council reports look like with the equity lens consideration included. Um, so as you see currently we have financial or budget information, fiscal impacts, alternates, action recommendations, and then we're proposing putting equity considerations as kind of that final question there. So that's what I've seen a number of other cities do. They call it different things. They call it like community impact, etc. But I think equity considerations is kind of what this commission seems to have wanted to put out there pushing that kind of it. This is an equity focused item. So I think that's something that we wanted to discuss tonight too. So we have kind of the two silos of discussion which is the um worksheet. See if there's anything else you want to add there. Any any language we want to change and then where the CC thinks this should be um inserted in the policy process kind of what the next steps of that too. So once we kind of finish those conversations, uh we will bring it to a council work session in the future and have that initial discussion with council about what their thoughts are on this, what would they would like to see, much like we did for the uh public display of flag policy. So bring them in as partner, talk through what they're comfortable with, talk through how they want to see this information, and go from there. So at that I would say I would open it up to discussion uh from the commission. >> Thank you for reviewing those. >> Thank you, Chris. Um any commissioners have any thoughts on what was shared or um before we go into discussion? >> Commissioner, >> I I have a u comment and a question. The u topic to me makes sense. What I'm struggling with is what are the what are the specifics? what specific goal do we have or what specific problem are we solving and and the reason I say that is anytime you do something new an easy answer is you know we don't have the resources or it's it's too much work and I'm thinking I'm looking for incremental steps I'm thinking that this is not an initiative but this is how we work and to me that's a difference between how we work versus you know this is an in this is an initiative I'm thinking for any change management the folks that are implementing the change should really be planning what is it that they see so without look getting into a lot of the details I'm thinking each of the departments within the city if we can provide them like you're doing with this form. let them identify what what does it look like and what's the pulse and and I don't want to go down the path of prescribing till we know what the pulse looks like and what is the status and the status might be different for different departments right I did read through the stuff that he sent for the for the other cities and that was very helpful so so that's what I'm thinking you know it's not a huge change but somehow we have to get to a point where this is how we work and more specifically while I'm thinking about that when changes like this become part of who we are and what we do it really sustains if it's an initiative then when the leadership changes it might get thrown out. >> Yeah. Chair and commission I think kind of my initial conversation with uh staff was kind of that checking in and getting their pulse for it. what my initial iteration to them looked like was different because I think that was one of the things is they're like I don't know how to measure this like this seems squishy what like what do I do I think one of the things is we do want this a little bit flexible and kind of like how we apply it how we interpret it would be nice if we can maybe determine some ways to measure what success looks like I think that's something that would be interesting as part of this conversation particularly with council to say what is what does success look like to you council So what and kind of the same options out here. What does success look like to the CC? We may we should probably continue moving down this line. I suspect this will be a couple there will be a couple months before this is actually an implementation phase because I think we'll probably have one or two back and forth with council on the um during work sessions on this just to sort of tailor what they want to see. But maybe that's one of the things that we start talking about too at a future meeting is what does success look like from the CC? How would we measure it? Um, one of the things we tend to do sometimes is, you know, how many people filled this out? How many times was was equity taken into consideration in these processes? It may seem simple because it should be always taken unless there's not kind of a you know, one of those statutory things or there's not much there, but that does start you start seeing it 140 times and it starts making an impact there in the organization. So, that could be something we also talk about. I don't know if that's something we want to talk about now or at a future meeting. Open for broader discussion on that. >> Commissioner Agonova. >> Um this is fantastic. Thank you for doing this. Um coming from my sort of educational perspective, um providing an example would be really helpful. I think just because if people have not done something like this and just you know gone through the process of evaluating a policy or program or whatever this might be helpful for them to refer to and say okay this is what it would look like. So that's just a suggestion to provide that >> chair and commission. So I we that's one of the things so I I helped implement this in Richfield. So we will have a number of examples. I'll do a couple trainings. I'm going to record some um so people can go and reference it too. It seems it's really interesting because it seems really scary to staff. They don't know it. They think they're going to be penalized by it. This is basically the organization community saying this is what we're going to do and we'll support and help you through this process. And I think what one of those things is we'll do some work session or work kind of workshops for staff on it. Talk them through what like a normal staff report would look like and just kind of what examples look like because I think initial conversations from particularly some leadership teams people are going to write paragraphs. Don't don't write paragraphs like be great. That's I love that you're considering it that much, but that's not really what we want here. Like there may be some specific projects that oh yeah, there is a bigger equity consideration that we should make sure we have it well documented, supported because council ultimately gets to make that policy level decision about here's the impacts. You make the choice. Some some of it we can remediate with additional costs. Again, council, you get to make that decision. So I love that. I think we will create quite a number of different examples. My plan are probably one for each department just so they feel some ownership on it in the process. >> Thank you, Commissioner. I think if I can add to um I really like how um Captain Sher you mentioned about like standard work like how do you apply this on a dayto-day and um and like giving those examples and what does success looks like. I know that we do when you do the annual I think is it an annual um survey that we do send out that can be a way of determining to like what does success look like in maybe how um like um I don't know if that that also goes to staff too like to see like when doing part of your annual review is some of the surveys that go to staff anonymous or not like um do you ask those questions in like how maybe they're viewing things now based on like how community is reporting you know these concerns or things of that nature that might be a a source of data um that you can prove for the community. And then something else too um I think I understand like the fear of like you know missing of giving the wrong information or having to like do so much documentation to cover the bases. I think it just it boils down to to humanity like if you were this person with for example a disability or like with a hearing impairment or with language barrier like how would you want someone to address your concern? And I think when it just boils down to like the basics that can be maybe that can be helpful into how these things are looked at because I think a lot of times we look at things on how we can how it contri um it affects the broader community and not those who are impacted. But if you look at that from if you look at maybe view someone who you know who is different than you and how they would that um um service or that um whatever you're providing that service or commodity would affect that individual can help you to start um changing your mindset which I know it can be hard because change is hard but I like that it's not punitive it's how can we just change our mindset so we can serve people better. >> Jerry commission I think that's that's a great point. And I think one of the cool parts you'll we will start seeing from this is initially so there's people we there's groups we have not been doing a great job in contacting with and communicating with but at a certain point you've you've written oh we haven't contacted this group or we haven't talked to them. You'll start taking that into consideration as you're planning what that project timeline looks like. So then you do have the time to reach out intentionally give them time and space to respond and have those conversations. So it's just it becomes something you're like, "Oh, I should build that into this project." I think you see really good results from that. >> Really want to appreciate uh the city's commitment on this as we progress you know proactively uh is there a way we could have the citizens aware of this progress ongoing basis. So you know in such a way that people feel more confident otherwise we do all this work and people are not aware of it. So you know we might have some articles >> but ongoing basis you know we use social media what are the news channels what is happening >> so that will build a lot of confidence in the citizens. >> Yeah. >> Commissioner. >> Yes. Um, so I just wanted to add to um, and I know this might be pushing it because I know we're small steps is good. Um, referencing the um, Harvard Chan School of Public Health document on the basic number one um, equity lens proposal six and seven I think would also be really good additions because um, that kind of gives an opportunity to do the next steps. what are we going to do about what we've observed um based on this you know looking through the equity lens. So six and seven say six says based on the above responses what are the possible revisions to the policy program or decision under review and then seven says what next step is recommended and how will it be advanced so it's just a suggestion maybe to think through that again I know that might be difficult you know we're starting first steps small steps um but this is something what what can we do about the problem if there is a problem >> thank you >> I had one more question if >> the uh I was looking at the comparison data and there are some some numbers that I was surprised so I'm thinking there's an element of in education and sharing this the uh median house on income really surprised me as we look at Savage I didn't know Savage was higher than Burnsville or Bloomington or or for that matter Shakipi uh per capita income was also surprising. So, so I guess what I'm getting at a lot of times if I was to take 10 people cross-section, um I would bet that they'd be surprised or savage >> chairing commission. think that's one of the one of the things that we will continue to tell as part of this story because I I think that's one of those things it I was surprised by the information and like I think I've pulled similar information for this group before and I was like really like it's I've we've really not done the comparison before so I think continuing to tell that I think staff would be really interested to see that too um kind of helps us understand our community better and kind of like what their needs are where they're at what they want from the So yeah, I I think I thought that was cool. >> Yeah. And if I could add one more point, um I think understanding these numbers might help with some breaking down some preconceptions. >> Mhm. So if you look at the foreign born there might be a preconception if your city has a more more foreign born there might be more of uh funding challenge or income challenge and that's not the case here. So so to me it says there are a fair amount of white that are struggling financially >> as I look at that. So it would be interesting to look at the reasons and the comparisons. I think this is a great tool. So thank you for for giving us that. >> Yeah, it would be interesting to see it broken down by race actually race and ethnicity. >> Yeah. >> Right. Um so Chris asked talking about the worksheet. So, um, is there anything in particular about the worksheet that, um, any commissioners have any input other than what's been shared? >> Okay. >> I think so. Uh, chair and commissioner, what I heard is I think commissioner Awamba wants as part of maybe our next review, we could add the Harvard um, six and seven questions and we can discuss at the next meeting. So, I plan to bring that back. Anything else? I know we This is one the neighboring communities comparison data. This is one I pulled as just kind of a something interesting for us to look at. I think this is great information. I think it'd be a little a lot for staff to work through um kind of at the level that we want. So, as of right now, I think we will just unless sort of the CC wants to explore this more, I don't think we need this additional supplemental information in the worksheet. Again, my intention is to keep it within one one to two pages. Um, if we want to continue to grow that, I think that's something we can check on after the first year and see how how we're doing. Um, but that's I hope I captured what the con the discussion was here. >> Okay. So then just to add on to the last point here, Chris, so for long-term impact then um is there can this question then be asked then to like um to the community during the survey? I can't recall if that's there's an equity questionnaire in the community survey that goes out. Is it annually? Can you some of these questions be included to see if we are capturing what the city is doing staff and what the community are >> chair and commission? We will look into that. Um we are currently evaluating when we do that communitywide survey. It is very expensive. Um and we're looking at options to do it. So see it's something we do in house but I do think one of the things that we've been limited by is if you use these survey companies you get I can't remember if it's two or three custom questions >> and they consider equity to be one of those custom questions. So I think we've had I think last year we had some unequity question but I think to add another one we'd we'd have to talk through what are the priorities of the city at that time recognizing we already have one. So that'd be something we can work with communications on in the future. I think we're scheduled to do the next community survey in 2027. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. So then we can um there's nothing further there then we can um go to the item number two discussion on Savage's welcome week plan. Chris, I'll hand it over to you. >> Chair and commission. Uh, I just wanted to take this time. We have welcome week, our tableabling scheduled for the farmers market this coming Sunday from, I think it's 8 to noon. I think we have shifts covered from 9 to noon. Uh, this is basically just an opportunity for us to talk in this public setting if there's anything else that we need to do. Uh, I think I have everything pulled together for the group. We have two signs for the welcome week. We have tables. We have swag. We have uh candies. I have the copy of the proclamation. Um so I think we have everything covered. Uh unless the CC uh individual commission members want to chat about any of the plans for that, but I think we have a good system in place. >> Okay. Um Commissioner Nelson, thank you Chris. >> Thank you for everything you did. We kind of shifted gears on on Chris halfway through to try and simplify. Did you mention you you had said something u to our smaller group about um brochures that would have a way to reach out to the city >> chair and commissioner. Let me show you the brochures I have. >> Oh, okay. Thank you. I didn't mean to make you get up. >> No, I'm proud of this. Just for context, we were um Commissioner John Grass had asked about if people want to be further kept up to speed on what we're doing with equity work or interest in future events, how would we capture that information? And apparently there's already an answer. >> Chair and commission, um we have our welcome to Savage brochure that we'll be handing out. Um so this is also the brochure that you gave input on and helped design. This goes to all our new utility rate or utility account folks. So any residential and commercial. So that not only has kind of a summary of the city, it has kind of like highlights of city amenities. We also have basically greetings from the mayor and then where to sort of find us and how to follow us. So I think this is a really great opportunity to hand residents that have a question about us. There's a URL here on the uh top that you can scan to make sure that you are sort of signed up for our updates. Something I also forgot to add, uh, we updated the Meet Savages Community Equity Commission brochure. So, I kind of printed it up, add kind of the summary of what the CEC is. I added information on successes in the past year, listed the current members, and then the purpose and how to get a hold of the CEC. So, we have two fun handouts for the CC members to uh have at the event. I'm so happy you reminded me about these. >> Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Anything any uh commission want to add about the welcome week? [Music] >> And Chris, I missed last meeting. So, remind me um did we uh did you all discuss about the proclamation? I know the previous year we that had gone through city council and that was handed to CC. Was there a discussion on that? >> Chair Commission. Yes, we had the welcome week proclamation at the first meeting in September. So, we have a copy here signed by the mayor. Um, I think we'll be doing um communications out about that, too. >> Okay. >> I'm going to put these back in. >> Chair, you know, there was a when Chris mentioned that there was a it start, you know, the shifts are covered from 9 to noon. >> So, 8 to 9. Is that something critical or is that some people don't show up during that time? chair and commission. Uh 8 to nine was we didn't have any signups. I would say it's if you can make it great. If you can't Okay. >> Sometimes it's better to have more people manning a table. Um it draws people in. So >> Okay. Thank you, Chris. I see there. I apologize for that. Um and so and do you have enough people signed up uh for the >> chair commission? We have enough people signed up um currently. So I think we have three people. I think if you are able to stop by and give some time, they would probably love the partnership too. >> Sure. >> Gotcha. >> If anyone's available for the 11 o'clock spot, we only have one person and for takedown, it would be great to have a helper. Um I believe that is Commissioner Lewis Miller. She graciously had switched spots with me. So, >> but you need to have somebody from 11 to noon or >> it's covered by one commissioner, but since it's a takeown time slot, I wondered if two might be helpful at that time. But I know everybody's schedules are very tight. So >> I can try to be there. >> That that'd be great. Thank you. >> Thank you so much M. >> All right. If there's nothing further, then we will go to the last item which is discussion of the Month King Jr. essay and poetry contest for youth and savages involvement in the MLK junior breakfast with the parallel league um Rotary. Chris, >> sharing commission, we have to start planning for well, we get to start planning for this event again this year. Um, so as a reminder, last year we did the first annual Martin Luther King Jr. essay um poetry contest. It was awesome. We had 66 submitts. Uh we had great participation from a number of schools. Um and basically the winners uh for two categories were selected and they both presented their um essays or poetry at the Prior Lake Rotary MLK event and then also received an award from the mayor. So I think the CEC intended to continue that program. So we wanted to start planning it now. Uh I think generally um we have the kind of the the the nice the program built out. So currently the plan is uh an essay contest for five fifth grade to 12th grade. One prize for each age category and then they'll be broken down into two categories fifth to 7th grade and 8th through 12th grade. Uh last year we initially started with fifth through 8th grade and then upon review of the essays we determined it was kind of a little too different in what the abilities were. So I think that fifth to 7th grade and 8th through 12th grade is kind of the right fit. Um we have the breakdown of the requirements for submission. So only one submission per individual. uh they select a quote and it's between their response can be between between four to 800 words or write a poem. Uh the work will be accepted in any language. Submissions must be their own work cannot be AI. Um the participants must reside or attend schools in Savage. Uh that is one thing we should talk about. One of the things we may that I think we should do is expand that to any of the surrounding school districts. I think that's something we should talk about here. I do think we had a lot of participation from a lot of people who did not live or reside in Savage but still were within the Savage area school districts. Um, new this year is this was uh, Chair Lewis Miller um, recommended this is if it is a school assignment, we're asking the teachers to review their student submissions and give us um, their top 10 or five or whatever you feel comfortable with because it was a big lift to get all those um, submitts and review them and Then yes and then I just have when they should be submitted by. Um so that should be in January. We'll kind of work out what those final timelines are based on the CC meetings there. Uh one of the things too that last year all participants got an MLK essay contest shirt. We had a lot of people not pick up their shirt which was unfortunate. Um, so I wanted to sort of explore what this group has in terms of thoughts about if we want to do a shirt again. Um, we could also just say we're going to do, you know, where we're going to buy X number shirts, first come, first serve. We could look at other things, too. So, we could just hand out Savage branded hats, something to that extent. So, I wanted to explore that with this group, too. And then kind of finally, the question is, do we want to uh partner with the Prior Lake Rotary again for that event um and work with them to be part of that MLK breakfast? One thing I do want to note is we did request an increase to $3,000 for the CC budget this year. Council is not recommending that. They're um having us stay at that 1500. Um, so we do have I think we had enough funds for last year because it was it went we we had a lot of participation, but just note we don't have additional money to work with for 2026. So at that I'll sort of open it up to the conversation. Again, I think the question of do we want to expand it to all the surrounding school districts is something that I would like a decision on. Um, I think >> Yeah. Thank you. Um Chris, yes Ahmed. >> Yeah, the the um last year was the first year we did this I think >> and and I thought it was very very very well. >> I really liked it. I I think the students were quite excited and I made a note of some of the challenges that I saw. one you already mentioned had to do with when we when we evaluated the the entries it was too much. So that would help. But a bigger question that I have has to do with the spirit of the contest or the event and how do we recognize and who do we include? In my opinion, it should really be students around the community, not just one school. And if I remember for last year, it got into a little bit of a tricky because I think the Prior Lake Rotary was only going to award if it came from the Prairie Lake High School and and that I don't think we're going to solve it here right now, but we need to think through that because that sends a very different message to the students because if you're going to have a conversation and four schools are sending in, why is it that only one school gets to all the glory wider glory. >> Mhm. >> So I think we got to talk and find a solution that makes sense because I don't want the kids to do this and at 16 or 17 learn the bitter lessons of of you know what's going on here. >> Yeah. Cherry commission I that's um that's a great point. So as in partnership with the Prior Lake and then Savage Rotary, uh the top I think I don't know if the winner and runnerup received a uh some financial award. Uh the city cannot provide that. Um, but I think that'd be as part of the conversation is if we want to partner with the Prior Lake Rotary, we'll probably reach out to the Savage Rotary and figure out how to >> Yeah. >> What what what the partnership brings to this equation >> and that my my comment is that I think we'll need some conversations and that'll take some time, but I'd like to get that solved if possible. Cherry Commission. I think this year recognizing that we now know of some of those um hiccups at the last second, I think it'll be an easier conversation than I think Friday at 4 p.m. we were on the phone trying to figure it out. >> Thank you, Commissioner Ahmed. Commissioner Abuna, >> I'm wondering if it would be helpful to have a direct conversation with someone from the Rotary because that way we can just be transparent with them prior to even making decisions. So, I think that would be really helpful if there's the chair. I'm not sure what the leader is called at the the Rotary. But the second question I had was the teachers. Um, a lot of the submissions were from a school or a couple of schools. Can we is it possible even though it was belated, can we deliver it to the schools and the teachers and then have them distribute them to the students who didn't get them? >> Sharing commission, that's ultimately what we did. >> Oh, you did? Okay. >> Um, because I didn't want 40 t-shirts in my office. Uh, so we worked to say, "You guys participated, here's the t-shirts, give them out to to your students who want them and go from there." So, >> cuz I al I love the idea of a t-shirt because I think it's just the visual of like people wearing it in the community and celebrating it together. I think that's I like the idea. So, make sure that they got their their reward or participation. >> And chair commission, I'm not saying we don't we we shouldn't do it. I think we just may want to talk about it. One of the things too is maybe we say students select if they want a t-shirt. It could just be as simple as that because you know not everybody's going to want a t-shirt given to them by the city. So if we want to continue down the t-shirt realm maybe that's an option we choose. >> Makes sense. >> Any other comments from any commissioners? >> Yes I would have >> Commissioner John. Um, I would also say if this was being assigned as a mandatory class assignment, uh, to me that feels maybe against the whole idea of a contest like this, uh, it feels more like, uh, kind of forced into entry. So, if a student doesn't necessarily want to enter a contest, they should have the option of not entering a contest if it's in a given class assignment where they have to do it. >> Chair and commission, if my memory serves me correct, I believe it was not a forced assignment. I think it was for extra credit, which I was like, well, >> I don't Yeah, I don't dislike it. Again, I I get it's if you don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. But I I think a lot of cho a lot of students chose to do it. And I do think from what we got, people did spend the time and put the effort in. So, I was very impressed with the level of um work that was submitted. >> I hear your spirit behind it. having four children my own sometimes I feel like you know actually sometimes kids want to do it but because their classmates or peers are like oh it's not a good idea or whatever they might not do it so on the other hand sometimes encouraging them with a little bit more um like the extra credit part I like that kind of just to give them that motivation and oh we have to do it oh but they actually enjoy doing it so that's my experience with my own children >> all right Okay. Anyone else? All right. Okay then. Um, so then next isformational updates. Chris, >> um, Cherish, just just to reiterate, so we want to continue with the MLK essay poetry contest. Sounds like there's still interest in exploring shirts um or something similar there. Uh, it seemed like there was some interest in making the sort of the surrounding school districts also be able to participate. And then we want to start having a conversation with the Rotary um sooner rather than later. So I think that's something that we already have some rot Rotary >> Yep. We have some folks on this uh group. So maybe we can have a meeting to sort of start those conversations and update the CC um at the next meeting. So >> Rotarians, >> one more addition. Um, I know last year we talked about having like a little book of all the, you know, submissions if that's a possibility. That'd be great if we could consider it. I know there's an expense with that, but um, and obviously we have to get consent to do that for each of the submissions. >> Very good idea. >> Yeah. >> Chair, can I add something? >> Yes, Commissioner Nelson. If we don't have the budget for some reason, we could do an electronic version that they could access and if that if anybody needs to request a written copy of it, then we could provide that. Just I'm not sure how our finances will turn out, but we would, you know, a QR code and a link. >> Yeah. >> Someone could download a real nice PDF, too. If if if we're depending what the cost would be. >> Chair and commission, I that's a that's a wonderful idea. So, just kind of because I want to start doing some research now. Would that be something that each participant gets a copy? Is that something we just want to keep a copy here and like at the library? What What does that look like? >> Oh, both of them sound great. >> I I think if it's digital, you just have a handout or a page on the site or something where people can access and download their PDF. Does that make sense? Did I cut you I cut you off? >> Oh, no. >> I was saying actually both sound good. So, like the electronic but then also a nice hard copy here and you know something to be able to see to Yeah, I think that's great. >> Yeah. you know, it could even be on a big poster board as you're walking in or something. >> Um, and or a blurb in the city, you know, in the city water bell, too, after the contest. But to see all the submissions, scan this code and take a look. >> Cherry Commission, we I'm 95% sure we did actually do that. So, I think in some of the marketing out once the competition, I think we did. We had a we had the the winners, then here was all the submissions. So, >> awesome. And I think also like being uh February is Black History Month too, like have I know that the library usually has a display of like books that you can check out too. So we could have you know maybe a copy there available for people who want to check out recommendation that go out the community as well. Cool. >> Um, and I think even as you look into like Black History Month today, do we want to have one of maybe the students want to come and say their poem or something as we kind of plan the Black History Month um in the months to come? So, >> great ideas. >> And then Chris, did you talk about consent for these students if they wanted this information out because they're minors? I'm I can't recall if we had that conversation last year. chair and commission. We did not have that conversation last year. I think by the the way we posted is if you submit it, it is giving us consent that we'll release it. I do think that's something I'll just have a note because I I think I'll want to just again clarify with the teachers or any teachers that are interested in that. So, >> okay. All right. Thank you, Chris. Um, so then we can go to informationational updates. You're ready. >> All right. >> All right. Sharing commission forformational updates. It is our last treats and tunes uh the 16th 5:00 p. p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Creek Hill Park. Uh just a reminder, welcome week tableabling. Uh this coming Sunday, 8:00 am to noon. Um Savage Farmers Market. We have the historical tour of Savage, which I believe is filled. >> Um so if you have interest, I think there's names on weight lists. Uh but yeah, that has been a very big hit, which is great. We have the Little Fall Fest in Apple Dash 9:27 2025 at the Wildflower Early Learning Center uh from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. All this information is on our wreck website. Uh just a reminder, we have the DEI Commission Forum 9:30 2025 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Minnotonka Community Center. Again, really great opportunity to meet other commissioners and staff doing this work in other cities. Uh I'm going to try to be there. I'm not entirely sure if I can make it yet. Um, so if you have an interest in going, please reach out to me. I believe, uh, Commissioner Amed is planning to go. Uh, so if there's an opportunity to carpool tool, I think he was willing to look into that. Uh, so send that to me if you want to go. Um, something also to note, it is National Suicide Prevention Month. So I think we're doing uh, communications around that. So I just want to note that. And then on the 15th begins the Hispanic Heritage Month. So we will also do some uh external communications around that too. And we had one final update that was sent to me kind of right before this meeting is we have the fire open house. Let me pull up my information. on October 11th from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I believe that's a Saturday. Um, our main firehouse was remodeled recently. So, it's a great opportunity for the community to come and see the new remodel. Um, play with an inflatable bounce house. There's fire extinguisher simulator. Just a fun time to hang out with the fire folk. So, I just sent that invite out, too. Um, so yeah, that's what I have forformational updates. >> Thank you, Chris. Any updates for any commissioners? Chris, if I may just add um that today it's 911. So um in honor of all those who um passed away on 911 24 years ago, I understand um from my memory and so just um honoring those who served to like during that time the firefighters, police officers and um acknowledging the loss that um was suff um that families experienced on that day. So >> go to acknowledgement. >> Okay. Well, if there's nothing else, then um our meeting is adjourned. >> Oh, I am so sorry. Do you need a motion to adjourn? >> Commissioner John Grass with motion to adjurnn. >> Commissioner, I second it. >> Commissioner Jungrass made a motion. Commissioner Ahmed second that. Um all in favor say I. >> I. >> I. Say n. All right. Motion has passed. Meeting is adjourned.