that's not what I'm saying oh that's what I thought okay all right i'm going to call our listening session to order it is 5:47 on Monday April 21st our listening session here in the H conference room we have three people who have signed up for a fivem minute slot to talk to the council
as part of our listening session we've got Parker is it Jenny jane Jane excuse me john Hitmaker and Lisa Watson so why don't we start with Parker and we will Parker you are up oh okay yes we
ask that uh you can sign in after you finish up but as you as you get up here way to turn off a few of the overhead lights i have a brain injury and it's pretty bad today just like a couple is that possible appreciate it thanks
i get up like this no I'm supposed to sit okay is that better no that's okay is it too okay cool i appreciate it um never done this before so it's okay take your time
take some breaths all right if you could Yeah everybody's gonna get five minutes to speak i'm gonna cut you off at five minutes not because I'm a mean guy just because everybody gets five minutes to speak awesome and uh and if you could just state your name for the record and off
we go okay sounds good um I'll probably close my eyes for most of this um it just helps me kind of focus on my words as my name my uh my name is Parker Jane i use she her pronouns um and I'm really honored to meet you all here thanks for
listening to me tonight um I'm a I'm an artist and a teacher but first and foremost I'm I'm a disabled person so for me that means that I've been neurodeivergent my whole life um I growing up in public education super overstimulated so as I I just offered
this and this is kind of like a sensory friendly moment to bring the lights down so I'm grateful for that um I also have a brain injury and um I I manage chronic pain so disability is a big part of who I am um it's also the work that I do i serve both disabled people and um older
adults in intergenerational community um and I've when I moved here almost three years ago I was just so uh struck by Creekide Community Center and amazed that something like that exists with like a day program especially during the last years with all all the senior
programs shutting down um and so I've been trying um this year to get to some of the listening sessions as we put together this new Creekide Community Center and because of my disability had not been able to get there uh the last one that I I guess happened at Creekide
I didn't get communication around um so I've been spending some time uh listening at Creekide and getting to know you know the woodworkers there the artists there's so many artists i feel like it's just rooted in art and um based on what I've been hearing and and
uh professionally I've been in spaces with Nick and been talking to Leah and Matt and Mark and then all these amazing artists in the you know the metal shop the rock shop and the artist store um I've been going to the Thursday gettogethers for the music and I sang
last week with a group of people which is amazing and um first and foremost I just want to say that the building that it's exists in is is really set up for older adults and people with disability it's very sensory friendly right it's got these kind of enclosed spaces the places with the music jam happened was
actually really amazing as somebody who's always having a hard time being in places with music um and so there seems to be a huge disconnect in my experience from what's going to happen to Creekide Community Center and what exists and um
you know disabled folks and older adults and families i'm also a mom to a kid with disability who's two and a half about to start you know special education at preschool at the public school this fall and um you know a lot of us have issues with access and being heard and even feeling like what we say
matters and what I've been hearing from people there and then kind of said but you know not said through some of the other public health folks that are not in charge of the dominant narrative what's going on is that they're very concerned that people like us are already in a public emergency right we already are in
experience of collective trauma because of COVID and I know those public health officials are some of the ones that got it the hardest in our community but what I'm learning is that 55,000 of us here in this community are signing up for you know food help for uh free food and you
know they're trying to take women's rights to vote right now it's my assumption that my wick um you know money that helps cover my groceries but it's not enough then that might close come September so as I'm listening to where we are and what's going on with my
people and I'm seeing what's to come I'm I'm scared to be honest i feel like it's a time where we need to be growing food and really actually watering and listening to the elders that have held that community for a long time you know I feel so honored to finally move to
another community of artists and I I see this space that we're in that is rooted in arts and yet hearing what Nick and Leah and Nick said that it's him and Leah and one of the heads that it's the architecture firm what their their ideas and what they've been working towards is
what's going to happen and I still feel like that folks like me the people who are the roots of Creekide are just not at the table and and honestly they don't I've I've been asking I asked other people other neighbors to come here today and folks are scared they don't
want to say what they feel i know that there's some online spaces like on Facebook my neighbor across the street that's was big part of the NL Creek project was saying that there's just a lot of nastiness towards older adults and folks with disability and I know looking at this room a lot of us carry a
lot of abil ability such you know in this culture ability is power and so I I ask you to look at how you're setting up this community center that you're building and realizing that you're not actually setting it up for
the folks that need it the most and who help really create the beauty that is Bloomington this place is rooted in arts and that's arts and science because of the indigenous intercultural community that's been here a long time i'm seeing what's going on and hearing about the
indigenous arburetum just which is very close to my neighborhood over over here on the east side parker excuse me i'm at five you're at five yes you are and I see that as a place for starting and and bringing us disabled folks and elders to the table as we move forward make these huge decisions so um thank you so much
for listening so honored thank you john you care turn the lights back up oh yeah you do appreciate it thanks so much make it easier on guys like me that need glasses to read
thank you uh evening Mr mayor council members um John Hooper been here since 1992 last time I sat in front of you was uh February 24th I think it was um I wanted to bring up one thing first and
foremost and it's probably I know it's been at the council meetings and I don't I'm sure it's been at the council meeting if it's tonight you can cut me off but there's some potential housing regulation changes that are being discussed about what I'm writing in my notes for like boarding houses or
hostiles of some sort and you know the biggest question is where are they going to be relo where they might be located um and I for one would probably lean towards being in favor of making that change and I think that gives us you know some more housing options for
people here as it is um the only caveat that I would put out to the council is that I don't think the council should be involved in the development or the financing or the managing of the development let's find somebody that does this for their career and what they do as a business let them find the right
place let them put it up let them manage it and let it become their problem not our problem okay but I think um it could be a good addition and I just wanted to make that statement as well um but I would just I would say the city just needs to keep its hands out of
it that's just again my opinion um last time I was here was like I said on February 24th I sent a follow-up email to all the council members i received two responses council member Mua you acknowledged it i appreciate that council member Reebos he uh gave me some
feedback as well i just wanted to come back and follow up on a couple of things that happened and I'll try to get through them quickly um I brought up overregulation within the city and I'm still uh believe that to be true one of the things that Mr mayor you and I kind of sparred about
for lack of a better term was about the smoking regulation and one of the statements that was made was you said something along the lines of "I haven't heard anybody say we need more smoking we need more smoking we need more smoking." So I wanted to be clear to everybody i did not come to the session to say we need more smoking that is not
what I said and it was not the intention so I don't want anybody to think that's what I was looking for my intention was we don't need extra regulations in the city when we already have them from the state because I also Mr mayor didn't hear anybody say "We need more alcohol we need more alcohol we need more
alcohol." But yet we have new al we have new liquor stores because I know Bobby and Steves didn't have one and they have one now and then on top you know and related to that again we haven't been able to not that I play at Dwan but I know we can't smoke at Dwan if somebody
wants a cigar or cigarette you're not allowed to smoke on the golf course but yet we can get a beer we can get a pop we can get potato chips we can get a Snickers bar so if the city c if this city council is intent on getting rid of
smoking then tell everybody that everybody should come out at the city council meeting and say "Our goal is to get rid of it." And why don't you just do it as opposed to this mey mouse stuff that happens and it just gets overregulated that's just the point I was making um and it goes back to the
ESL the early sick and safe earn sick and safe leave same thing the comment that m Mr mayor you had was we had a big debate about it whether to keep it whether get rid of it you said some people were on one side some people were on the other it'd be nice to know who was on which side because I'd really like to know how many people wanted to
get rid of it versus wanted to keep it because my guess is it was highly one way to keep it but again to my point you're overregulating the business owners they can have the state come in and say "How's your ESSL program?" And a week later they could have you guys come in and doing the same things so now they
waste their time their money their effort to do the same thing over again that's that's the only points that I've been trying to make about it um I brought up city sales tax i'm still I don't know what the final figure is right now for the new health and
wellness center and the big and the nine mile corridor my understanding was $155 million i'll be shocked if it's under $200 million by the time everybody's done we're buying up houses or allegedly buying up houses to build it so we're losing housing again for I'm just saying
it's on it's it's out there so if you're not purchasing those homes along there to expand it for the and it should be said I didn't see that i'm just saying what is the price tag going to be okay and the last thing I'm going to talk about is just permitting in the city
which again I think is overroought there's roofing permits there's siding permits electrical permits plumbing permits you can go on and on and on and on okay so but what I can tell you is that as a guy that owns a business that installs roofs and we've done some of
them in the city we pay $100 to go to Mr mayor go to your house put a roof in put a roof on we rip the roof off we take some pictures we pay $100 but if I have but if you say I didn't install it right I can't drag the city in and say the city said they inspected it and it
cleared so what is what are we paying for as business owners as homeowners when we buy permits and and have engineers sign off that roofs are done right electrical is done right plumbing is done right when the city isn't there to use as your defense when you're
saying it's installed right and finally I just think you guys got to keep working on the budget because I'm still hearing the figure 18% next year and that's that's it's not even close to acceptable five minutes thank you very much thanks Mr i say didn't we put out a
communications that we are not buying those houses it could be and I may have missed that so that's why I brought it up so if that was what it was true we definitely said no yeah i'm not If I missed that council councilwoman I I apologize i just I thanks for clarifying if just quick John
let's connect on the permits okay i'm a licensed building contractor i pull permits all the time so I understand your concerns and I don't understand your concerns so maybe maybe I can try to provide some clarification
sure just good evening council and Mr mayor um this is my first time being at a listening session so thank you um I am a resident of Bloomington i live here on the east side my name is Lisa Watson i am also a real estate manager for Quick
Trip and so I just want to give you a little insight about a potential project uh we're looking at bringing to the city um and many people don't know um a lot of the ins and outs and why we're different than every other sea store operator that you have currently in your
city so um we are looking at a major investment which includes purchasing land um and also building a brand new 7,000 to 90 square foot store um with a
potential car wash and uh 8 MPD what we call a 8 MPD which is basically double fuel stations for four rows so it' be double um our company is a family-owned company that was founded in 1966 65 by a
guy named Don Zebo um we are celebrating our 60th anniversary now in 2025 when Don bought the company he wanted to do things differently and so 25 years ago he bought out the partners and decided how do I make this company different
from all the other sea stores quitrip actually um has grown into a trusted name as you guys know in the retail business we serve over 12.5 million guests each week which if you were to look at the comparison probably not close for some
of the the brands okay um our stores we have a network of 900 stores between Quickstar so we are named Quickstar in Iowa and in some in North Dakota and South Dakota because of the the business name that was already taken of Quick
Trip um we do daily store deliveries 95% of our stores do recycling containers we have alternative fuel options we do LED lighting in all our stores inside and out um we use lowflow water systems and we actually this year created our own
quick charge program so along the 94 corridor going into Chicago we now have our own EV chargers um that were we got our first set in that were financed um and now we're waiting on our second um we make 80% of our products in Lacrosse
so our big um campus is in Lacrosse we do everything from dairy to bakery to um ice cream milk uh commissary so everything you guys see in the stores is made in Lacrosse and shipped out daily to the store so every store gets a daily
delivery so it's not sitting in the store waiting um to be put out um our co-workers we operate 217 stores here in Minnesota with 8,700 co-workers just in the state of Minnesota um we also have
44 Minnesota stores that have solar as a part of their um setup we promote a culture of caring and I think it aligns very well with the city of Bloomington based on my own experience living here based on what I know um when I read the
Bloomington briefing that comes out and so 40% of our pre-tax go to profit sharing so every co-orker of Quick Trip is actually uh co-orker who gets a bonus check at the end of the year whether you're full-time or part-time um we do
wellness snacks and drinks for co-workers we provide birthday anniversary wedding gifts um our co-orker number is anywhere from 40 to 60 employees per store so a Bloomington store would have 40 to 60 employees 40%
part-time um full-time 60% part-time and it could actually be more of a 50-50 split depending on really who we get as uh co-workers for this we also have the lowest turnover rate in our industry at 46.6% versus the industry average on
turnover is 100% in the sea store so it goes to show we care about our co-workers and how we treat our co-workers we also get involved in our community greatly we do sponsorship for local events and organizations so a lot of the things like even um whether it's
a parade whether it's farmers market whether it's Kennedy High School um Jefferson High School we will be there to support all the local needs of all the the community we also partner with Feeding for America food banks pick up our food two to three times a week um
from our stores that that we can't use and have made but we don't want it to go bad so we call local food banks we work with emergency managers in the city um a lot of times if there's fire if there's anything that comes up even a a a outage
of um electrical or water or something like that we'll work with emergency managers on giving away free water on giving away needs um for the community and so with that being said we also use local suppliers and farmers um we also have a retail helper program which many
people don't know which we hire 700 so far to date we have 777 co-workers with disabilities so they're called a retail helper and they are employed they love coming to work with us they are critical part of what we do in the store each day um we have
sorry you pass five minutes yes okay yeah and all I bring it to attention is we are still under consideration for the city i will let you know um based on an ordinance regulating tobacco um it is still under consideration but asked that that discussion be had because of THC
and cannabis sales in the city and would like that to be reopened for discussion so thank you thank you mayor can say something uh I just want to say I'm excited about this i went to W lacrosse but there's a
quick trip on every single corner and it is very different from the sea stores that we have currently today so hopefully we can work something out looking forward to hearing what happens thank you Mr mayor do you know what's currently is there a current discussion with the city on the regulations happening at the
moment uh I have I've talked with the Quick Trip people i understand what their their proposal is uh but they I know that Jan wanted to come forward and they wanted to at least wrote with the council whether or not we wanted to go down that road in terms of conversation
he had within the past three four five years about uh tobacco licensing uh new facilities ah okay the moratorium yes I just to clarify it's not a moratorum
sorry it just ended i understand sunset yes and council with uh with that those are our three speakers this evening thank you very much all for being here and with that we will adjourn our city council listening session and reconvene
here at the bottom of the hour look for a motion to adjourn the listening session so second motion and a second to adjourn our listening session all in favor we are adjourned we will reconvene here at uh 6:30 and here right here