you. Have a a lotff nic hrr.Erer Kimerere. Nacre h He..Eree. YaYang Here.Ohnsns,, here. Ereere s six p prentnt,nene absent. Tn b bng.. Commisononeranangndnd s s is excused.Tete numumber one ishehe staffepept.T. Sffff roror sr 116.Owntntown r revalalization strategy presention.Llll right.T.Ndnd bhh of these I imsms todayyhahat you ll be kind of hearing thrghgh trere litalal reposs t tt I I think b beded off of the feedbachahat w h hav received j jtt fmm all t mmmmisonerers, we all h hav downtown athehe t top o my when it ces to an economi deveveloenentngngin that weanan wewe can have hee innurur city. D so this preseatation and
overall jtt talkingbobout our downtown revalalizionn strategy, I tnknk is really important.Ndndoo I havesksked the dututy Mayor and Decector Newtwton teeblbl to gee u some more iigightntnto wtt I I going on aund downtnn a what effor w we re making and whwhat things we sulul b be a aware of as commissioners and as this body s So I ll hand it over to rerector Newton. Thank you. Aiair. Comssssioners. I m j just gogoing to go ahe andnd han I it er t to theepututy mayor. She s provided a presentation a and some h handos.S. Know you jtt hadrorobayyotot tmm lee yestery,y, but s ll walk through all of the a a tnn swswer questio, and I ll hand it o over to the deputy mayor. Welcome. Deputy mororininger. Hello. Thank you,hairir and
commsionerers. Thank you, Director Gooanan. Um, I I wilill ju rigightn.N. Um,oo ve orninize t thi as three ptsts. , w what I llll d I is jtt stop in each section sohatt if you want to ask questions, and then we canindd o k keep going. Um, not my first time at the rodeo, so I wante t totrtructure it a l litee b.. U our first part is jtt I g going t t tal ouout the partneripip t tha g go into thetrtrategy, um, andow a are aanancingur portion of that sharedririoritization. U Um, then I m going t talk autut howw w a at theitityre organizi our wkk a as a teterpri,, u um, and a agngning to
osose priororities. A thenhehe last seconon is just aitittle bit about, u uh,hehe enhanced efefforts ttt we re putting around telng o our story and sort of using our pos and our marketing capacities, u um, to enhance the stratyy.Oo our partnerships, it starts with ee Saint Paul Downtown Alliance. Uh, was created so atat we cou r recruit new plployers, attract n investmes,s, create positive downtown expieienc.. And so the city of s Saint Paulss the downtownllllncnce. We sit a at atat table. We a a co co member of that body. A uh, ourisission to create, create and mntntain a vibrant, economically scecessful, safe and attractive d downtown is literayy a partnership among
downtown busesesses, nonprofits, uh, goverentt enentities, which a are us, r Ramyy County and others, uh, sisidentss and entreprenrs.. I thatartntnership can continue to grow and expand, uh,hrhrough the Downtown Aiaiance infrastructure. Touough that partnership. Uh, in 2024, uh, the Downtown Alliance partners came t tetether and developed a downtown iesestment strategy. AnAn the straty,y, uh, had three ma pororitie converting underutilized office space into housing, investing in pederirian oriented streetscape improvements, and advanngng downtown Saint Paul s most strategi redevelopment poportunities. That partnersh comes together around those
thre m main priorities, which were the thing that, um, that body determined were going to be the things that would most directly impact our economic future Um, and so we come together in different configurations to advance each of those, um, strategies a as successfully as possible. Um, the other partners, um, I put sort of our public partners around this, but we work, um, as an enterprise really closely with, uh, Ramsey County, the Saint Paul Port Authority. Visit Saint Paul Metropolitan Council. Um, on all o those sort of public sector side, uh, uh, efforts to meet tho three prpriorities. I
m going to spp questions. Thoughts on that? Okay. Uh, going into our enterprise. So the way that we have structured the, uh, the administration s t that we can show up inhahat space and deliver on the things that we are responsible for as the public sector. We have determined that in the city of Satt p Paul, our most important priority is always going to be community first, public s safety. And our most urgent priority is downtownevevitalization. So across all departments, um, we sort of have some guiding principles for our teams that all of us, no matter which department you workoror and where you are in that department, we all serve Saint Paul and that right now we have an opportunity to focus our time and resources, uh, where
it matters most. And so we we are really clear with everybody in the administration, that community first, public safety in downtown revitalization are the things that we are going to focus on. And it s not just strategic goals. Um, it s the things that we know we have to do if we re going to move forward as a city. Um, we all know that right now we have bubudget reductions at the state and federal levels. We have lingering impacts from Covid, and we have a critical need to do this strategy in downtown to revitalize our economy. And one of the things that, um, that I ve reflected on as we were thinking about how we do our strategic planning and how we go into this year, is that, um,
my experience in, in, in Saint Paul has been that we as an adninistration get the best work done when we are in response mode to emergencies and to crisis. Um, that doesn t mean that we want to be in an emergency mode all the time. It just means that we can identify that there are strengths that we have, and that we have proven when we re in that space, and we re going to lean into those strengths as we organize around these priorities to get our work done. Um, which, you know, aligning around common goals, breaking down silos, collaborating toward those goals, and delivering fast results. Those are the things that we
re really taking in as we re, uh, aligning our work. Um, some other just guiding principles. Um, we are being really diligent about aligning to those, uh, key priorities so that we can focus on what matters most. And, um, that the other thing that we are doing is the purpose of a lot of these materials is we want to make sure that every member of Team Saint Paul knows where they fit in that structure and knows, you know, I am doing this work toward the priorities that we have, um, for our city and can can translate that strategy into the service that that they re doing. Um, the last one, the prioritization is really about we can all achieve all of the goals that we lay
out. We just can t do everything at the same time. And so as important to identifying that our top two goals and priorities are community first, public safety and downtown revitalization, as important as saying yes to that, in order to be able to say yes and get that done, we have to say no or not. Now to a number of things. And so, um, having that saying that is it doesn t mean that we don t want to achieve all the goals that we all lay out as a city. It just means that we need to prioritize and plan for them and do them in the sequence that makes the most sense. So the way that we have started talking about it is, um, being able to prioritize, sometimes
we have to be able to say, what type of work is this? And so, uh, we ve identified four types of work, our priorities, which we ve talked about. Um, and that s just the city identifying those, those top initiatives, the grind we talk about that as that s the core 9 to 5 work. So those essential services and operational work, we have to patrol the streets. We have to plow the streets. There s stuff that has to happen and that s our grind. That s our 9 to 5 work. What we ve added is um, a line of effort around federal response. And we ve coordinated our communications. So, um, I ll come back to that. Our drive,
um, those are strategic, innovative work that MAY be coming out of a department. Um, it MAY be an enterprise initiative. Um, it s a priority, but it s not one of the top priorities that we, um, that we re advancing. And then there s a ton of things that we spend time in resources on that we re calling vampires. It s time and resource drains because we need to figure out how to, um, cut red tape, create less inefficiencies, or redesign those processes. And so one of those things that we are spending time on is, uh, consolidating and realigning how we, um, spend time and resources responding to data,
practices, requests. The reason that s important is because we re choosing to spend time on that so that it will create more time that we can spend on our priorities and some of the other things. So, um, we re calling these lines of effort where, um, I can go through and explain that in a, in a minute. But we re being very intentional about saying community first. Public safety is an effort that has leadership around that. Um, we re creating work groups and task forces and planning teams of other people in the administration who are advancing those efforts. Um, and so for each of those that I have listed here, we re
creating a structure where the work gets driven. I m gonna stop there and see if there are any questions, because now I m just going to go into. The downtown strategy. Um, the first piece of the downtown strategy. So when we think about what do we need to do as the city of Saint Paul to respond to and to deliver on our piece of the downtown, uh, the downtown Alliance strategic plan, um, community first, public safety is, um, one of our first goals, um, addressing crime and quality of life issues. And so for us, community first, public safety, um, is a cross-departmental approach to improving public safety. Um, and it focuses on addressing root causes of
violence. Um, quality of life. I included this because we sometimes struggle with what do we mean by quality of life. And so this definition is really just a good reference. It s what we ve been using so that we can then plan and prioritize all of the work to address, um, the, the issues that we re seeing. Um, and at the core of it, quality of life is that objective condition. So there s the crime rates, mental health crisis, housing instability, homelessness responses. And then it s also about what are we doing to address the subjective experiences. So how people feel, their perceptions
of safety, all of those things. Um, and then these are just some examples of how the group, um, has organized so that we can be responding to those pieces that are going to advance the outcomes and the results that we want to see in our downtown strategy for downtown revitalization. So for all of the the efforts that we want to do around the public realm, revitalization, um, vitality work, um, this group, downtown revitalization, it is, um, organized as a leadership group. So we have directors, Newton, director, Kershaw, director, Rodriguez, and director Weiss, who formed that leadership group. And then they
have established various work groups. So we have a work group that is around increasing visitors, attracting and retaining businesses, improving the public realm, leveraging city assets, property risk management. And I have some examples of, um, how that has been spun up. The work groups then, um, in order to advance those efforts, um, those MAY have task forces on very specific, um, projects that need to happen under that goal. Um, that the work group has. So, for example, office utilization there task forces that um, are made up of city employees that are advancing, um, those pieces. So I wanted to talk a little bit about, um,
the property risk management task force. I wondered if I had let me just make sure. Um, before I go to that, um, I think I very quickly went past this, but the handout that has our goals. I ll just show it like that in the right spot. Um, the all in for Saint Paul. You can see on there that we ve for our portion of the downtown strategy, we ve identified three areas that we re focusing on our strategies to deliver the public side of that partnership. And so goal number one is safe, welcoming, vibrant
downtown experience. Um, our our first strategy under that is address crime and quality of life issues. So um, that shows up in that community first public safety work group. Um, the second one on that one is invest in, maintain and improve the public spaces. And so we have a list of tasks that are happening through that, uh, that line of effort. Uh. Design, um, goal number two, maximized use of city assets and people. So, uh, we have a number of tasks that are already identified that we are pursuing to achieve that goal. And then, uh, goal number three, around, uh, revitalization. And that is done primarily in partnership with Parks Department. And
visit Saint Paul. An example of how that work is being driven through the, uh, line of effort, property risk Management Task force, um, when the Madison Equities properties, uh, were, uh, failing, we had a team at the city and we weren t organized as a collective group, but we were responding to the safety concerns. Um, a number of the other issues that were happening, and we pulled that team together and now have a work group that meets on a regular basis. Um, they are managing those properties. They re monitoring those properties. Um, and we have developed a regular situation
report that is produced. And I think I m not sure if that was part of the handouts, but, um, one of the reasons that we re doing this is it allows us to streamline the work and then provide regular updates to the stakeholders that need it on each of those areas that that we have, uh, deliverables toward the strategic plan. Um, these are some of the, uh, specific actions that are happening under leveraging city assets. Um, so we re doing a space needs analysis of our entire cit operation and determining, um, where we would be able to increase those partnerships with our assets, um, towards some of the goals
that we have for, um, uh, redevelopment of some of the spaces downtown. Uh, for our public realm improvements, um, we have. A deputy mayor. We actually had a couple questions pop up. I see, uh, uh, Commissioner Nager and then I have a quick question for you as well. Thanks, MADAM Chair. Um, deputy mayor, thank you for this information. And I have a couple of questions. I m not sure exactly where they fit in, but as you mentioned, it s not your first rodeo, so they ll they ll I ll try to find the right side. Um, I think this one belongs on leveraging city assets. So I am really grateful for the way that we have been looking at the city, the city, as an employer and employee
base, as a way of revitalizing downtown. That makes all the sense in the world to me. One question I get often, um, and I know you get often in public spaces, is about, um, return to work and the city versus the county versus the state, etc. So can you just clarify, um, what is the city s return to work policy that we put in place on APRIL 1st, and do we have a sense yet of of compliance isn t really the right word, but how many of us are here downtown on a regular basis? Uh. Chair Johnson uh, Commissioner, uh, we we had, um, an increased policy. So coming back from Covid, we wanted to increase the in office requirement. And we are now at
at least three days. I can get you the specifics of it. What we struggled with, and I think everybody struggles with is that, um, hybrid work or the desire for hybrid work is probably here to stay. And what we ve been trying to figure out is, um, how do we do that? And then also maintain, um, competitiveness for some key, some, uh, key employment spaces. And so, uh, our situation, the vast majority of our employees were never remote just because, you know, the bulk of our employees are emergency responders and inspectors and things like that. Um, uh, but for our office workers, um, you know, we we wanted to be sensitive
to. And a lot of the conversations that we had, um, and I went to a number of staff meetings and talked to our employees. We really understand that as an employer and as, as a, as an entity that contributes to the economic vitality of downtown, it was important. It was imperative for us that our employees are back in the office. And so, um, really, our approach to it has been we have a lot of urgency and a lot of strategy behind the need to have our employees back. We ve also wanted to do that in a way that was respectful of and appreciative of. Um, the benefits that employees had during Covid of
like being able to be at home. And so, um, our, our approach to it is we need our employees back. I think a lot of our employees are, um, transitioning back and they are appreciating being back. Um, and our goal is to, um, have people back fully, um, as soon as possible. All righty. Thank you. Commissioner, thank you for the question. And I appreciate just kind of that clarification as well. Um, I guess my question is, is along the lines of just like the, uh, the rfp and developer selections, um, and like the space needed needs analysis. I m just kind of wondering the timelines and maybe some of those. So some of those actions that were, were taking I know there
s been a few different votes on some of the other items. So some of them I m aware of like moving along. But just could you clarify the rfp issuance and developer selection and then the space needed analysis and maybe if there s any other updates you think about that are relevant to just which actions are currently taking place. Because I know some of them have moved along, like some of these action items are in progress. Yes. Uh, Chair Johnson, I ll, I ll start with at a high level. We want to be strategic about our public assets and how we can deploy them in service to a joint public, private strategy. So the concept is,
um, for the annex, for example, it s a public building that we we don t have tax generation off of it. Um, and we are paying to maintain it. And it houses, um, you know, a large amount of our office employees. So the thought was in the strategy of how do we convert, uh, downtown office spaces to residential, because that achieves a couple of our goals. It, um, it increases residence. Um, and it MAY in some cases, it takes an underutilized building, converts it to a use in the case of the annex, the concept is, is there a way that we could do a higher and better
use for that building in a way that meets a number of strategic goals? At the same time? So our thought is the question. Our hypothesis is if we look at the annex, if we would convert it to housing, is it a good candidate for that use? Um, and then what would we do with our city assets? So the space that we pay for to have our employees work, can we use those resources in a more strategic way, um, and move our employees, um, to another space in a way that supports another goal. So in order to answer that, uh, first we need to
figure out and determine and confirm through that partnership with the Downtown Alliance and others, um, is it a good strategy? Is the annex a good candidate for that conversion? So if we say yes to that, um, Director Goodman and her team would be able to start an rfp process for that purpose. Right? So if we say yes, we all agree higher, better use would be to convert it to housing that that could that could advance on its own. The second piece, if we re going to do that, what do we do with our employees? Um, that has a different track to sort of answer those questions. And so that s why we needed a space needs analysis to sort of
determine what exactly do we need not to replace, but to say, what are we looking for so we can be competitive in the market? What do our employees want. So yes, it s a what do we have right now? How many, how many um desks do we need. How many computers do we need. What what do we need right now. But also how would we design it in the future? So that s one of the questions we re asking in that rfp. Then once we know that answer to the quantity, like what we have or what we would be looking to move, we need to have a conversation with our partners at the Downtown Alliance and a strategic conversation about if this is the asset that we have,
and we re going to move somewhere, do we move all as all together or do we separate departments out? And that strategy is going to be answered sort of in that partnership around what are the opportunities with different buildings and where would we create the most value? Um, in a partnership with a private investment. Thank you, I appreciate that. Okay. Public realm improvements. Um, there s a couple of handouts around, um, uh, investments. So our public realm work group, task force, they re looking at all of the ways in that strategic plan that we have in partnership with the Downtown Alliance. What are all the
things that we as the public sector, need to show up and do? Because we do those things that nobody else in the park in the partnership can do that. And so what are we doing? What investments do we need to make? Uh, what schedules and timelines do we need to be on so that we can, um, show up and respond? Uh, so this handout has a list of things that we re doing around investing in the infrastructure. And also, uh, things that we re investing in around, uh, cleanliness and beautification and then improvements to the public spaces. And one of the handouts that I wanted to bring was, for example, and this is happening
right now, I think you all saw it when you came in, um, our downtown sidewalk improvements. So there were resources in the 2025 budget that were passed that were one time investments so that we could make these public realm improvements. Um, and so I wanted to be able to show people that these are investments that were on top of the regular budget that public works would normally have for, uh, for downtown. And, uh, these are just the areas where we knew that in order to have a high quality experience for folks that live, work and play in Saint Paul, um, there were
key sidewalk improvements as well as, um, replacing trash cans, replacing trees. Um, a lot of those types of improvements that we did with those one time investments, um, to do those enhancements. On the back side, part of this group, um, what we re also thinking about is just the activation of public spaces. Um, so wayfinding signage, things like that, those are also things that that group, um, is looking at and figuring out how we can do more investments and how we make those, uh, make those things happen. Um, another piece that we are advancing is the
retaining and attracting businesses and corporations. And so, um, this is a list of some of those key initiatives that that work group is focused on. Um, and in that work group, we re constantly they re constantly working on how do we, um, how do we redesign, how do we process, improve, what are the things that we re going to need so that we can step into that space and have those intensive business outreach programs? Um, the pitch decks, the, uh, materials that we need so that we re engaging and helping our businesses in the ways that, um, uh, that help us reach those goals. Uh, Commissioner Nacre. Thanks,
MADAM Chair. Um, deputy mayor, and maybe this is a question for for you or Director Newton. I m not sure, but to the point about retaining and attracting businesses, we ve we ve lost, unfortunately, several businesses. Um, one quite recently. We know that bad news travels faster than good news. And there are also lots and lots of businesses that have opened their doors. Um, but it s it s tough every time we see a loss. So I would love to know more about the intensive business outreach program or just generally in specifics. What are we doing to make sure that we re retaining businesses and helping new ones come in? We can take it. Do you want to start? But why don t you start?
Because you had sort of the intensive outreach was something that you wanted to, okay, that you brought up for us. Um, I ll start and then maybe you can get into the weeds. The the concept was, um, when we think about what we need to do for our businesses, are we structured in the city? Are we are we organized in a way to most effectively and efficiently deliver that? And so, for example, the the high level concept is if we have a team of x number of people, if their mission, if their goal is the relationship with the business owner. So I have a relationship with Nicole and i m going and I m seeing her on
a regular basis and I know, okay, what are you working on? Where are you struggling with? Is it a is it a, public safety issue? Is it a permit issue? Do you have just an issue and you don t really know where it belongs in the city? Um, I m doing that check in. I m doing that relationship work. And then I bring back to our teams. I have a list of things, and I m going to take it to public safety team. I ll take it to dsi because it s a permit issue. We want to make sure we re doing is that we re resourcing that person with a lot of materials. Um, how tos like this is the form you need. If you need a liquor license,
if you need a sound permit variance, like if you need any of the things you need from the city. We want to have a team that is doing all of that relationship work. The the thought is we have inspectors and folks that are in dsi who are working on permits and and doing that work. Oftentimes they have to answer the questions for the business owner. Right. And so from a high level thought, it s could we streamline some of those functions in a way that the outcomes would be much more productive and faster, because we ve really kind of organized ourselves in a way, ourselves
in a way that is sort of delivering in the right ways. Um, and so those are some of the goals, and we have some, some specific, uh, things that we would need to do. So we could structure those teams in those ways. Um. But I ll pile on chair and commissioner. Um, and, and we love we love this idea. The challenge is, is resources, right. Um, and knowledge. So it s it s a wonderful idea that, that that each business owner has a person at the city who walks them through whatever it is that they need. Um, like one of the examples that we talked about was businesses will say like, there s there s a guy who
comes here every day and he like, lays down and does whatever he s he s trespassing, like, what do I do? And we want to be able to say, here s how, you know, here s a, here s a your resource sheet about how you trespass someone you re still going to have to work with the departments that do that. But at least we have that kind of information. The challenge is we have very, very few people available to do this. So we need humans and we need those, um, sort of some, you know, some resources and then coordination with other departments. Um, but the idea of having we, I feel like we re kind of the Department of Service and. Yes. And, and dsi and director really will
wouldn t argue with me. They re more the enforcers, right. They re they re not the touchy feely customer service people. That s not their job. Um, but we have we do not have enough humans in our, in our Ed team to, to be very effective in visiting each business very often and doing these things. So so this would this would involve more staff than we than we currently have. But the concept is fantastic. So put another way. Um, chair, I appreciate the discussion about sort of the plans and what might happen in the future in terms of just on the ground right now, what is our business outreach and retention look like? Yep. Chair. Commissioner, it s again, it s um, it s reactive right now because we,
we we don t have enough staff to be proactive. Um, so when someone has a concern, we re we re out there. We we do try to to outreach as much as we can in between crises or, or problems. Um, we would love to be able to be more proactive, but we re very much reactive at this point. Um, and, and as you mentioned, Commissioner, you know, we have a lot of businesses coming in. We have some that we re losing. We there are themes that we know as we as we talk to businesses that we have lost or are losing, an initiative that my team is looking at right now, that another city, um, employed was an exit interview, essentially, of businesses that we ve are losing or we ve lost
in the last couple of years. And, you know, just looking for those themes. We know what some of them are. We don t know what all of them are. Sometimes a business just runs its course. Um, and they get replaced quickly by another business. So, um, I d like for us to be able to be more proactive with limited resources. Right now. I would say just transparently, we re more reactive than I would like. I appreciate that final follow up. I promised her, um, just just a suggestion and offer. I mean, and I really appreciate and support the enterprise approach that the administration has taken. And I think the example that s often used about, like, um, I think it s parks clearing the snow from libraries or, um, somebody who already had a snowplow was
already clearing, did another, um, and I, I recognize that in the long term, having a consistent person who s your person requires more like the program you re describing, deputy mayor. But I wonder if in the short term, given the urgency, it might be the sort of thing where even a one touch approach, which could be sort of an all hands on deck. I know we ve done this before where like, you know, everyone kind of comes together and goes to all the businesses for the promise Grant or, um, and it wouldn t have to be ed folks necessarily. It could be us. It could be right if we all had our list and we just went and said, hi, I m from the city. I m here to help. Right? Like, um, and and then had a way of having those folks connected in for the long term. Happy to brainstorm that and just
offering it as a not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And again, something that I think in the short term could be really appreciated. And I would oh, go ahead, deputy mayor. Chair and Commissioner. I was just going to say I, I think one of the other tools that we need is, um, a crm, like just a technology so that we can manage those follow ups. And with the, uh, with the poly project that is coming in a couple months, the goal would be how do we put that data in a space where, um, the that Director Newton staff is going to see if a business applies for a permit. Her team can see, hey, do you need help with
this? I see that you went in, you know, do you know what the timelines are? Do you need any help or support? Um, so. So part of that is a technology integration too. But I really appreciate the what can we do right now sort of that crisis emergency response mentality that it MAY be that that s not what we plan for long term, but but we are in an emergency, urgent situation. And so I think we could create more materials and sort of that library of resources and, and have a lot more outreach that s happening in more streamlined ways, too. Yeah. I think that, you know, I appreciate just kind of the clarification and the questions. I think that it would be really helpful, especially, and something that
I feel like continues to be a theme that we can talk, we continue to talk up and bring about as we get into the mid-year, and even as we re just continuing to think about the downtown revitalization efforts and specifically responding to the needs, I just want to reiterate, like, I think it s important that we have a level of flexibility when it comes to how we are responding and what we are responding to. And so, like I, I know, um, this body like deputy Mayor and Director Newton, um, for your team and for your staff, like I think a lot of folks want to hear about just how we can continue to better address some of the needs, especially not just during the budget cycle, but as
we go through the year. Um, one of the things that I think that we should really normalize is like we thought this was the thing and now actually, this is the need that we need. And being open to be being able to revisit that, especially as it relates to just our next presentation, will be on the Housing Trust Fund for a reason, because I know that there are different efforts that we are currently using, and all of those things are important. I m just saying part of emergency response is sometimes responding to the what we need. Um, you know, for example, I think for a lot of us that right about the only major grocery store that was here leaving, that was a significant loss for the for
the downtown area and how we respond to that, how quickly we respond to that, but also with whom we speak to about potentially filling that gap and void for the families and for the residents who do currently live here downtown, I think is important. Um, and I think just like really being able to put resources, um, even in the now hiring the individuals that MAY need to be hired in order to do that work, um, or being able to talk about like what s necessary, especially from the teams. Like, if we don t if this body isn t able to hear about that, there s not much we can do as far as reactions or even just maybe being in alongside as a partner. Um, you know, as well. And just the efforts around downtown and how we respond to
them. And so often we are actively also reading about the changes and the emergencies with you in the media. And so how we respond to them can vary differing. But just whether we know they re they re happening or not. So, um, just really leave that open and like continuing conversations because I will just share that. I think it s really important that the Housing Redevelopment Authority view some of the downtown, responses as forever ongoing and sometimes being flexible in the time because we have, you know, I would say an opportunity, um, in the midst of a midst of an interesting situation, we do have an opportunity that we haven t had in a while to envision the downtown that we want to see
for the next several decades. And so I just really appreciate this conversation as well. Um, and I will have us continue, but I just yeah, I bring that back to just being able to say, like, I think a lot of us welcome the aspect of understanding, like what is the now? What is the more immediate things that we need. If there are ways that we can go from reactive to proactive with a couple more hands, all of that s very relevant to know. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Bowie, I m sorry, I. Um, I ll just. Because I know there s been a lot of questions around this slide. I did have something particularly around the retaining and attracting businesses. Um. Thank you, chair jobs. And, um, but I just want to also put out
there what, um, will be helpful because I think we, the, the administration in the city does a great job of, like, framing what we do and thinking really intentionally around, like, how we do it and approach. And while still just like, you know, swimming in the waters and responding to crisis, but then thinking, be more thoughtful. Um, and I know, um, um, I m director Newlin has heard from me in our check ins around, um, how we can invest more into our staff, um, and building out, like, um, economic development, you know, management team. And what does that look like? Proactive. How can we, you know, um, you know, put that rfp out there or that
call or response out there for, um, attracting more businesses. Um, but I ll just share real shortly. Um, I think also will be, um, helpful is to have like a persona of to know what the ranges of businesses are like, similar to when we had the, um, the personas of developers, like the artists and like, I think it was like developer Bob, um, you know, it would be nice to have like a persona of who are all our businesses, what is the landscape and what are the needs? Um, from more of like a personal sense and, um, and also I would want to know as well, like, what is the landscape of Saint Paul downtown Saint Paul when it
comes to headquarters? Because I remember growing up like the headquarters, um, base for Saint Paul s a lot different, you know, from where it s now and like, where it s going. Um, and now, like, especially with our larger corporations, um, they re not looking for space in the same way. They do not look for office space in the same way that they ve done in the past. And, you know, new opportunities that presents for some of these startup companies. I know we have, um, quite a few downtown with the full Stack program, building out those initiatives. Um, but yeah, that s just something. I mean, this is great, but I
think also to just once we get more centered around who are the businesses that we re serving and like how we can also identify the new and emerging businesses that s coming as well. Chair Johnson and Commissioner, that s, um, really appreciate all of those comments. Um, and one of the things that Director Newton and I talked about with this team is, um, doing a sort of an overview of what are the types of businesses. So for our engagement team, uh, you know, our bars and restaurants MAY need very different things from us on a regular basis than some of our other businesses. And
so, um, that is a deliverable that we re working on to sort of understand how do we need to respond? You know, our grocery store, our Walgreens, um, the things that are happening in that space, they, they need, um, some different resources from the city. Um, and so that s one of the pieces, uh, one of the big employers that has a huge impact on, uh, the city of Saint Paul and downtown in particular, is our state workforce. And so with the state workers coming back, we re really leaning into our partnerships with the state, with Metro Transit, um, with the Downtown Alliance, with Visit Saint Paul. Um, we really want to welcome them back. That was one of the handouts. Um, and we ll keep working on ways
that we can increase communication with that state workforce that is coming back to the office, um, to encourage them to come downtown for lunch, come downtown for breakfast. Um, stay for a wild game. Um, so a piece of it is, you know, getting around, helping them feel safe and secure and, um, you know, really communicating what s going on on the back of that sheet is, oh, there was a different handout. Um, just the events in downtown Saint Paul. And so that s another part of the the partnership with our Parks and Recreation department, as well as visit Saint Paul and Downtown Alliance, um, really doing a lot more, um, around the events and the activations that we
have. We know that that s a big piece of the employer retention and, and, uh, and recruitment piece. So we ll keep leaning into. That. Um, my last pieces were really on the messaging piece, and I think that s a good segue to, um, how we ve been thinking about how do we tell our story. Uh, we have a lot of communications and marketing expertise, uh, across the city, and, uh, our Pos are, uh, somewhat embedded in departments, and they re doing great work and telling stories for their department. What we re really leaning into is how do we pull all of that expertise together and tell a
citywide story? Um, and the first sort of element to that is we have been taking an approach of how do we not talk about the task and the strategy, but how do we talk about the vision that we have and how do we connect all of those when we re talking about each of those pieces? And so, for example, um, these directors, we could talk about these directors as the tasks that they do, they hire people, manage rec centers, manage libraries, make emergency plans. If we were talking strategically about it, um, the director newborn is tasked with recruiting and retaining skilled and highly engaged teammates who bring your goals to life. So with everything we do around the city, we re
trying to lean into our communications and marketing experts and really talk about how do we tell our story, connect the tasks that everybody does to the strategy that we have, because our vision is we re building a city that works for all of us. And so all of these things are, um, sort of that guiding principle. So we have our, uh, in order to meet this, this urgent, uh, moment that we re in, we ve coordinated our, uh, our communications and marketing experts and to a joint information system, which you all are familiar with from when we had Covid. Um, and it was really, uh, because we wanted
to be able to align messaging across departments and really drive and be able to produce materials like you have today and materials that we need, um, so that we can be communicating our story. And then this last one was just one of the other things. And we will, um, definitely look to you to help with this strategy. We know that, um, if we are being really strategic with everybody in the city of Saint Paul and if we re partnering with our partners, we actually have a really broad reach. And we can I think it was, uh, Commissioner Nacre who mentioned, you know, we have two bad news travels or, you know, it just it goes so quickly. And any good news, you
kind of have to, like, put on the rucksack. Right. Um, and so what we know is that if we all are really strategic about how do we help carry those good news stories. And so, um, from a communications planning perspective, you re going to see a lot more coming from our experts in the administration around how are we having message calendars, how are we being really thoughtful about social media and really carrying those good news stories in ways that meet those strategic goals? So look forward to partnering with you all on those efforts. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh, I did see Commissioner Vasquez hand,
so I will start there and then go to Commissioner Kim. Thanks. Chair Johnson, um, I appreciate the update that you MAY attend. And Director Newton, I think for me, um, I have so many thoughts and questions. I could talk about this stuff forever, but instead I ll stick to my niche role and talk about pedestrian stuff. So I the the piece in the downtown, um, the Downtown Alliance report that spoke to sort of the way they analyzed the possibility for downtown improvement included a few streets that could be sort of pedestrianised or, you know, essentially entirely removing car traffic and making it more of a pedestrian plaza. Um, I ll just continue to bang the drum for that. Only because there s
a lot of things to deal with. Proactive business engagement and economic development and reuse of buildings that s either complicated or expensive or requires sort of an incredible amount of coordination and strategy. And, um, except for getting yelled at by people who don t want it to happen. Pedestrianised, a street is actually incredibly straightforward, fairly inexpensive. Not that nuanced other than planning routes and whatever. You can use brick planters, you can use Jersey berries or whatever. So I ll just continue to mention that as sort of an underutilized tool or a not yet fully utilized tool. And this isn t even a message to either you necessarily, but just the idea
that, um, I think there are tools that historically are thought of as difficult because they politically get us yelled at. But it s not actually a difficult thing to do, and it s actually not that complicated of a thing to do. We just haven t done it a lot. But the truth is, it happens in every city in the world. It s actually fairly simple. Everyone likes places that are more pedestrian oriented. Every time you go to the state fair. It s just a street grid that happens out of no cars. Every time you go to Disneyland, Disney World, Disneyland. It s streets that have no cars. Like every time you go to a place that s pleasant to walk around, all you did is get rid of the cars. There s no different
design with the State Fair streets, other than the fact that there are no trucks driving by you at 45 miles an hour. So, um, that s my, uh, it s my token role to always bring that up. And so I m checking my box today. Commissioner, I feel like I have you figured out now. Um. I m like, what s pedestrian? Transit friendly? So I got in touch with you, but I think we echo your just interest in continuing to action. Allies like, to me, that s one of the role that the city can play. Just as part of our continued planning, um, efforts on doing the things that we ll need to do again to have a downtown that sustains and surpasses multiple decades of work, and
that can be as simple as and, you know, I say simple with a grain of salt, but as simple as making sure it s all real that we are. We have a walkable, uh, transit friendly downtown as well. Uh, Deputy Mayor Tinker, thank you so much for being able to come and present a little bit about this conversation as I shared, um, this is something that every council member in this capacity or even on the council, we continue to share and iterate is a priority for us. Um, I will share that. I think one of the things that I just, I think that are relevant to the Housing Redevelopment Authority is the continued efforts of prioritizing our actual unsheltered homelessness response as as a part of the community first public safety priority area. Um, a lot of us, we travel through downtown, we
work through downtown. We MAY or MAY not be here every other day. Um, and I think that a downtown strategy, without actually ensuring that we can also get folks that are currently on the streets, off the streets, into the into some of the homes that we are building, um, would be a misstep. And also, I hope, you know, for what it s worth, that we are also engaging with the residents who currently live here. Uh, the, the continued, you know, efforts to see the folks that are currently here, like what conditions they currently experience, but also for the businesses that are a part of this conversation, but MAY or MAY not be connected to the downtown Alliance to visit Saint Paul, um, for a variety of different reasons that we are continuing to do that outreach outside of the group that s moving on the strategy.
Um, because it s one thing to attract folks to come into the city, and it s another thing to keep the folks that are here, here. And so I m hoping to I think that that would really help with the, um, less reactionary things, if we know of entities moving, businesses, moving organizations, um, you know, that MAY or MAY not be thinking of of exiting, even if we know in advance of some of those conversations or residents that are having some struggle with their buildings, we can kind of foreshadow it. And it MAY not come as much of a surprise to us. Then we have that ability to. And so I know that that sometimes that effort and that engagement takes resources. But it s something that I also just reiterate,
because a lot of, uh, for the folks that I know who live downtown, they re Bipoc and they have different experiences and, and places, but they don t always hang out at, um, the city hall. They don t always hang out. They have their own individual hangouts in their buildings and like, invite people over for gatherings and birthday parties and different things. But I don t know if they re actively involved in the downtown revitalization strategy. Um, and so it s just something that like, as I pass folks on the sidewalks, like I m hoping that we are also engaging just the everyday person and what they want their neighborhood to be like. Similarly as to what I would do, um, in prioritizing major renovations or changes to the
East Side. And so that s just something that I would share, because I think the so much of the history of our downtown has been focused on working people, and folks that are here during the work. So many businesses closed before the evening. So residents that are here come back, and there s not much to do between five and the evening night besides. Yes, if you re going to an entertainment space or you re going to an event in the evening, but like, what is the strategy for folks that are occupying the space 24 over seven? Because they do live here already? Um, I think it s going to be really important to the next phase of this work. So just really appreciate your time. Um, we do have one presentation that s slightly short. Commissioner Kim, I see your hand, and this will be the
last question for this one. Just because we ll be heading into the Housing Trust Fund conversation. And I do want to get to that because Deputy Director Green spent multiple hours working on that. So I want to give her a chance to talk about it. So, Commissioner Kim. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Sorry. I ll be very quick. I, um, really appreciate the substantive information, and I, um, really appreciate kind of like, seeing where the successes are, um, in terms of, like, the strategy of increasing housing. Um, I, I also really appreciate the public realm improvements, like dropping it on that. We also have this really great tour where Joe Spencer walked backwards the entire time, and we walked the stretch between sort of like our downtown area over to Myers Park, and there
was even a point where we couldn t even walk side by side in pairs. And so thinking about how we re expanding it for the reasons that, um, Councilmember Porowski described, but it is sort of in that section in between that I m also really interested in, because it feels like there s a ton of obviously opportunity and attention around this part downtown, the farmers market section and the chs field feel really good, but there s sort of like that middle section and all these vacant buildings. So I m sort of wondering, like, and then I get the ios updates that kind of show like the, the, um, the progress reports on some of these buildings. And part of me is not you don t have to answer it in this moment, but it s how
are we connecting those opportunities of those buildings that are coming online or ones that, you know, are kind of in that stretch for us to invest in? Um, so that s kind of just one, one wondering, um, and then the other one for the public realm improvements, if I m, if I m not mistaken, when we had, uh, Joe Spencer come and present to the council, I think it was last year, there were dollar amounts that were connected to some of these things. So it d be actually really great to see them come. Uh, not necessarily back to council, but maybe we should refresh that presentation because some of these and all of these I would absolutely support and if I remember correctly, there were dollar amounts placed on them that like we re walking into the budget session, the
downtown revitalization was, um, definitely something that s on everyone s mind. So just trying to connect that dot to be like, well, I think there s very tangible things that we could even fund in this year s budget. So just offering that as a offering that up. Thank you, Commissioner Kim. Um, yeah. I just wanted to just share with that. I also noted this as well for Director Newton, and I do think that when planning an economic development team will be able to present, I think it ll be important. At that time, we were doing some of the budget conversations, but also like the updates to be able to provide the numbers behind that, because I think we re all trying to see like how much we re actually like the goals and the great and the goals
that we have and the plans that we have very important, very vital. The investment must match. So I think we re just trying to make sure that we re actually putting our money where our mouth is, basically. So we would appreciate that update for for that. And I know that that was something that I did flagged earlier and that was just I kind of I guess we ll be expecting to see it during the the updates. I understand. Thank you. Chair and chair and Commissioner, i would just say as we put those materials together, I think being able to show what the partnership is. So for example, um, uh, out front of Ecolab, that s park space. But Ecolab is putting a lot of investment
into that. And so I think being able to really go back to the downtown Investment or Development corporation, that that strategy around those buildings, we really have to like, work with our partners to figure out, well, what what is the public sector or what s the private sector, how are they going to react if we make a public sector investment in this way? And so really leaning into that partnership and sort of those conversations, I know that Director Newton spends a lot of time with those folks. Um, so I would just say what we ll work on is just making sure that we show not just our piece of it, but our piece oftentimes catalyzes a whole lot of other pieces. And so I think that will be, um, an
important thing that we make sure we keep thinking about. Great. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Item number two is a staff report. Sr 20. 5-117 Housing Trust. Fund presentation. All right. So you guys hear a lot about the housing trust fund because it s a it s a majority of our budgetary conversations. But also I just don t know if everybody takes the time to know exactly what comes in and or has come in and out of the housing trust fund. There were honestly a couple of surprises to me and the presentation as well. But the main goal of this is so you guys can kind of see what we re currently paying for out of the housing trust fund. Um, and maybe in some of the things that we ve paid for in
the past. And so I will hand it over to Director Newton and Deputy Director Green, who was presented in front of us. Deputy Director Green, is this your first time fully giving a presentation? And I think so. So welcome. Yay! That s exciting. I promised that you would be in front of us, and I keep my promises. So it s good to see you. Welcome. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, chair. Johnson and commissioners, it s great to be here this afternoon. I m always grateful to have an opportunity, uh, to, uh, present to the governing body and, discuss, uh, the operations and what s going on.
Uh, in my craft. Right. Uh, my area of expertise. So, first of all, I just want to acknowledge my housing colleagues who are all of them, jewels. And, Sarah Zorn and, uh, Danielle Sindelar. Uh, they are all at a housing conference in Chicago. So I just want to thank them and acknowledge, uh, the work that they have done, uh, and continue to do and ensuring that, uh, the work of, uh, housing operations for the city of Saint Paul, uh, continues. So thank you. Um, and I also want to acknowledge my accounting team, uh, Rhonda,
who is here today, uh, and Alex and Tim and Sharon and MAY, uh, and Chia working very, very closely with them. I can t do this work without them. I am learning a lot. Uh, in the last year and heavily dependent upon them and especially Rhonda s partnership. So I just want to acknowledge and thank you, Rhonda, for all of the support and, uh, learning here. So, uh, I will just keep going. Thank you. Uh, we were talking about the Housing Trust Fund and, uh, just this is started some years ago. And the purpose of any special fund is to ensure that, um, for this specific fund, uh, we have a ongoing, um, resource
to allow us to, uh, enjoy housing across the city of Saint Paul that we have something that allows us to flexibly support over the long term rather than an annual budget allocation. Um, plan projects leverage, uh, local and private uh, assets, uh, available to us, deploy housing needs, uh, over time and adjust, uh, to various climates. Um, and changing economic conditions, market conditions. And so that s the purpose of having any special fund, any municipal operation, will establish special funds for specific purposes. The purpose for the Housing Trust Fund is to ensure that we can adjust and supply, uh, housing needs across the city over time. And so, um, uh, this fund was established, uh, I don t know, seven, eight years ago sometimes, uh, and that has been the purpose, uh, I think initially providing support for 4d programs and down payment assistance. Uh, and this schedule is, uh, more of my, my bread and butter and where my expertise comes in. This just shows to date, uh, where we are. And I ll tell you, the top section shows our original investments, uh, coming from, um, a commitment of about $16,000 over the $16 million over their first few years. Um, and we met those investments largely through the loan enterprise Fund and the star, um, fund. And then, uh, there was a determination made to, uh, also make investments into the, uh, housing trust fund through bonds and World Trade Center parking. And so, to date, um, we ve made investments, uh, to the tune of about $21 million. And currently, um, the investment is coming solely from the World Trade Center parking fund. So. Uh, projected investment this year will be about $562,000 in 2025. And if you look below, um, uh, that schedule just shows the uses of the Housing Trust fund. And like I said initially for the, uh, significant contributions or uses, um, commitments to Rondo and down payment assistance, and we had our families first housing pilot, um, and, uh, we ve consistently, uh, utilized the fund for two staff positions as well. And, um, homeowner rehab. And then last year, I think we made a shift, right. The governing body, uh, decided to shift the funding, um, based on the availability of funds. So, uh, because of the availability of funds, we ve made some commitments to some one time, um, programming support to, um, our familiar families, pilot and, uh, office, office to housing, conversion fee waivers. Um, and then we ve got some items in contingency as well. So our streamline, um, permitting review process and our tenant tenant protections. And so
those, those items still need to be decided. So, uh, that s up for discussion. And we are still waiting and looking to this body to understand what your interest is on those items. And so, um. In terms of those investments. Uh, sorry, Deputy Director Green and I will hand it to Commissioner Baker. I also have a question on the previous slide before we move on. I guess yourself on the previous slide. Okay, Commissioner, naked, I assumed. Um, thanks, uh, so much, Doctor Green. So looking back at the previous slide, I m. Can you just clarify the projected 2025 actual grand total? I assume that
s the amount that we re projecting to have spent out of the Housing Trust Fund in 2025. So the total we would spend would be 4.4 million. And then the allocated balance, the next column over the 5.3 million is that then what would remain of the original? Of the total 21 million? Correct. If we spend that amount. Okay. So we would have after this year if we spend everything that we allocated, we would have 5 million remaining in the Housing Trust fund. If we don t add funding. Correct. Okay. Thank you. And then I uh so that s a good question. And as always, I think, uh, Commissioner Nager, you and I are on the similar wavelengths. Um, I guess one of the things that I was noting, there s a few there was a few different
things listed on here that I honestly had not heard of in the past. Um, and I don t know the context behind why they ended. I don t know if the program itself just stopped or if the fund itself is continuing. Um, so I had to look up quite a few of these things. Honestly, when I saw some of them, just because I wasn t here when the Bridge Fund for families was repurposed, um, I wasn t here at the time. Like pretty much anything that was not currently funded this year or last year that pre-existed or predated me had very little context. And i m sure that that is true, probably for both. Um, for quite a few of the members of the team. But I do think that it s like important and helpful context. Just know like what
that where that landed and why it was ended. Even if we have like a couple sentences of updates, just because some of the different programs they seemed when I looked them up, some of them seemed really cool, like cool pilots, cool endeavors. And it could be maybe just that that they were pilots and but then when I see some of the relocation dollar amounts and just the significant pieces in related to like the winter safe space, I m like, okay, so the 1.9 million that is slided there, like what happened? Like what happened to that? What, you know, is that still thing, um, maybe why we shifted from our overnight shelter shelters, investment from the county. Just some of these pieces where I have follow up questions for
you, but maybe it would just be helpful to have some context about when we started them, what happened to them, why we stopped. Uh, it would just be really helpful in future conversations. And if they exist anymore. So. Chair, do you want me to address that just a little bit right now, or you re just asking for future. That. Can be for sure. Okay, okay. It was just something that sparked my I was reading through news news articles about. I will I will say I have not been here the entire time. We ve had a housing trust fund, but longer than some of you. Um, and I will say that each year, as was last year, there are different priorities. The council members are different.
You know, in some cases or, um, sometimes a pilot, like you say, a pilot will will sunset just because it was a pilot and it had certain, um, you know, time, uh, timeline. Um, so and that happens pretty much every year. So we can always go back and talk to you about any of these. Sometimes there specific needs some. We had Covid, so we repurposed money. And sometimes when you look at these reallocations, they MAY be reallocating from one line to another because of, you know, demand. Or we decide that, look, we re really good at this and not so good at that. We should we should focus on this, you know, so there are multiple reasons. But anytime you want any kind of backstory on any of these, we can if if one of us isn t here who worked on it, we
can get you that information as well. Okay. And then I think to the piece of the balance that s related as well to the council, uh, PRESIDENT, but Commissioner point, I think there s always a continued interest in how we grow that fund and how we continue to grow the impact. So I will be looking for that as well. As far as recommendations on how to maintain we can continue to spend. And that s always fun. I just want to make sure we have a housing trust fund to come back to. So I really do look forward to kind of especially with some of the, um, the investments going down, um, from the the World Trade Center, um, parking funds, just certain things that I m seeing here. And I know it goes back to the cliff presentation, but
just something that I m considering as well in the future, as far as future planning to get us back into a place where our, um, housing trust fund can continue year after year and doesn t get to a place where we just spend it and there s nothing for that. Thank you. Well, and to. That point, Commissioner. Chair Johnson, thank you. I you gave me just enough time to realize that I actually don t understand what I thought I understood on the same slide. So, um, the math isn t adding up for me, so I think I m not understanding. So if we if we have the grand total of 21.4 million in the Housing Trust Fund, um, I think what I m not understanding is the amount that
s spent in 2021 through 2025, adding all of that up doesn t, um, doesn t get us. And subtracting that from 21 doesn t get us to 5 million. I guess I m not understanding what this budget allocated. 16 million column is. It seems like what you re saying is we have 21 million total, 16 million of which maybe was allocated. And of that, this is the amount that will be spent. But does that mean that we have like 5 million unallocated? Correct. So then the total in the housing trust fund at the end of this year, if we spend everything isn t 5 million, it s 5 million plus the other 5 million that was never allocated. And that s 10
million. I maybe you should explain it. Not avenue. Agreed, because I don t. That wasn t my understanding. So like looking I will just share looking at the column that we have here for the budget allocated. That s budget allocated over the entire course of the housing Trust fund investments. Correct. Great shout out to my husband, who s an accountant who explained some of this to me the day before. So Deputy Director Green, go ahead and explain it further. So, um, correct. So the top portion shows the contributions, um, and commitments to, to the fund, a total of $21 million going across the top and the bottom column to the 2025 Reallocations. Right. Um, those
shows, the actual numbers show, um, the actual amount spent in 2021, 2024, um, what you re not seeing in here is, um, in the bottom is 20 1920 and 2020. There are they are in there. They re just not visible on the screen for the ease of the reporting, um, visual of the reporting. But they are included in the calculation. Okay. And so then the 2025 allocations just shows that we the amounts that we were allocated total to zero. So that amount is not included in the total. Right. That s right. We re not adding that across. Right. Um, and then the
projected actual um, is um, just our estimate as to what would be spent. Um, and if you spend that, then that, that allocated balance shows you what remains in the fund. Right. But I guess what I m wondering is, does the column of 2021 actuals through allocated balance add up to 16.9 million? No. Because of the Reallocations um. So so the amounts anything in parentheses that would be taking away from the $16 million. So you d have to count that separately because the bottom line would not include them in their total. So the you
d have to basically start to subtract, um, everything you see in parentheses from the $16 million total. Okay. So the 21 million was the total, the 16.9 million is the amount that we will have spent by the end of 2025. And that s the brings us to the last column of the 5.3. Okay. Thank you. And we have rows missing. And that s why it adds column to that or columns missing okay I think that s why I was showing hidden costs. Yes. That was just because I m like we have not spent that much. Yes. Behind you as you were asking. Questions. Okay. I really appreciate you clarifying that. Thank you. I think we all now have found a new respect for your for your
role. Deputy Director Green. Um, and the numbers that you have continued to see, because. Yes, that was that. I was definitely like, wait a minute. Look at the totals, look at the space. And I m like, okay. But I think that s in part where I m like some of the things that were reallocated, like, that s where the context for me is going to be really important because I would like to know, like where and why and all the things, um, just because that s a significant amount of resources that were allocated originally that are no longer there. And so and then just thinking about futuristic things that we ll have to do in order to invest in something that is important. All right. We just as a time check, we re at about 312. I won t be giving
them ten minutes like, uh, like Commissioner Bowie was able to do for public safety. Sorry, uh, Commissioner, but we will get out of here before, uh, 325. So I do want to be able to give you a chance to just go through the next two slides. Um, maybe three, but no. Yeah, the next two slides. And then why don t we ask questions after that as we get ready? And so we just want to talk about is right budget to actual. This one is easy because to date we actually have not have not seen any processing of expenditures, uh, for any of these line items. And that s not unusual when you re standing up new programs. So the first six months of the year, we have
been, uh, our internal staff and, uh, the other departments, uh, which you ve heard, heard from Chris Michaels, uh, last week, they are all working diligently to stand up the staff, stand up their programs, establish the guidelines, communicate to the public what they can expect from these new one time programs. And so, uh, what we understand from our programs, and Rhonda and I and Director Newton and I have been working with the program leaders. We re reviewing the guidelines. Um, Chair Johnson, you found some of those calls to, as we are. Um, um, really deliberately moving through to make sure the programs we want to have, successful programs,
we want the programs to, uh, show up, uh, for the city in a strong manner. So we re working through those programs. Um, and we ve got new systems coming on board. We ve worked with offs and some certain cases, uh, to make sure we ve got, uh, ach payments available for our customers. And so we expect, uh, um, and some of that was on a previous slide. We expect, uh, to fully expend the dollars that we plan for this year by the end of the year. Uh, but to date, no spending. So, um, that s what you re seeing on this slide. Um, and the anticipated outcomes are, are what we anticipated, uh, when
we, uh, submitted the programs for your your approval last year. Any questions here? Get through your your last slide as well. So that way we can take the questions because yes, I have a few. All right. And, um, this, uh, you ve seen this information before. This should not be new either. So this is really quick as well. We ve just updated a little bit of the information on a couple of line items here. Uh, we ve completed a couple more projects and our long term affordable homeownership, uh, our, our down payment assistance. Um, we ve completed a couple more, um, of the projects. They re our family s first project. Uh, families
first pilot closed. Um, and the, uh, due to lack of funding. And because we have, uh, additional programs that are providing those services, um, our inspiring communities, um, is underway. Uh, again, a new program that we re standing up and, um, hope to get through about 13 to 20 of those homes this year. And I want to add to that, if you don t mind, because this this slide came from a previous presentation, and I think there were some, some numbers that probably could, could be, um, updated a little bit more. Also, I want to point out that these like the inspiring communities, for
example, the 13 to 20 units was before this year, you know, so some of these are numbers that aren t reflective of the allocations and the multiple projects and things that we have going on right now. So so I just want to clarify that. So you know that there there will be larger numbers as we keep updating this, this slide. I really feel like this both of these these two slides are I think are some a prerequisite to what I hope to also see in JULY when we have Deputy Director Green back to talk about some of the budget to actuals. Um, in that discussion, which, by the way, we re moving that from JULY 9th to JULY 16th. So we will update the hra calendars. But I think that a part of some of the housing trust fund investments
and the updates regarding like what is our planning for this? Um, I heard kind of through your questions around the contingency plans for, um, dsi, the contingency plans regarding their permitting process has always been like, can you tell us what you re actually going to utilize this for, what you re going to do that for? And we had conversations with folks prior to putting it into contingency. So if you want to let me know, Director Newton and Deputy Director Green, what, if anything, you need, uh, either from this body to spearhead that. I think we were pretty clear with the Department of Safety inspections that what we would like to see is for them to kind of share with us more about the
scope of these three FTEs, because the way that it was written, it was unclear if it was specifically for the office to housing fee waiver, um, or the office to like housing permitting process, or if it was for just overall add on FTEs for the department. And so that was the distinction that we needed to be having clarified as far as like what their roles were and what the jobs would be, because that was adding three additional FTEs to the Department of Safety and inspections. Without that clarity. And so that s one that we have addressed, um, to the tenant protection piece. Uh, since now the ordinance itself has passed unanimously and the council body, um, the question remains on who
s now working towards the implementation of that policy that would go into effect next MAY. And so I ve heard nothing about that. And I think that that s something that we would need to know, because I m very committed to ensuring that that those resources get allocated this year. But I have yet to see anything related to the implementation of it. And it does concern me. Um, and I would really like to know who is picking up that work. It s written in the ordinance right now is the Office of Financial Empowerment. I m sure the Department of Safety Inspections has a role as well. But the question would be on where would those three FTEs that are allocated in the
budget need to go, what the plan would be for them? And I think similarly to dsi, like their scope and what they d be working on, and that is something that as soon as we have either, I m happy to bring it to this body for further action. Chair I ll add that, um, I appreciate that and we will follow up with those departments. It s a little bit interesting for us because some of these programs we do implement and some of them we don t and we don t really have a lot of control over. We do work closely with the other teams. Of course, my we ll follow up witit directly, but my gut says the the three permit staff are not not just for
office housing conversions, but all of our development projects are slow and we re known around the region to be slow because we don t have enough staff to process these things. So I suspect that that s a department wide. But we ll we ll follow up on that. And on the other one as well. Uh, Commissioner, Commissioner nager thanks. Um, Chair Johnson and I think, director, one of the things that I would like to see as we re considering whether or not especially given the upcoming, um, tough budget that we re going to have, and I m once again grateful that we ve held items in contingency to make sure that they re really needed before we add new FTEs who become ongoing tales that are baked in, that we need
to cover and become part of that gap year over year. Um, we know that permitting is slow, and we know that we re known throughout the region for that. I think the question that we need to ask and have answered for us definitively is whether or not that is due to lack of staff, or whether that is due to processes or other things, that we could streamline, regulations that we could remove, etc.. I don t want to just jump to the conclusion that more bodies is going to yield different work. I think we need to be really smart about that. So not to you, because I know this is not your department, but um, as we hear from the Department of Safety inspections as part of this process, I want to make sure we re not we re asking those
questions. Chair Baker, I would say, um, for that and specifically, yes. Um, but for all of the new programs and those, including the ones that are for ped having this number of new programs, um, what we re learning in the six months, right, of training and establishing the guidelines is the lack of staffing, along with the volume of new programs. Um, really does impact our ability to implement. Well, right. And whether it s permanent staffing that is needed, ongoing or it s a temporary staff. Um, uh, temporary expertise that s needed for the implementation. And we are lacking that as well. And just as a quick follow up to that point, um, I think then the question we also
need to ask is, do we need so many programs? I mean, I m looking at the list of programs here, some of which sunset had, because there were other programs that could do the same work. And, um, yet we started them anyway. Right. So I just want to I just really wanted us to be lean as we go into this year, because I know we re going to have a tough budget conversation, and I know you know that. But just saying it out loud. Thank you, Commissioner Bowie. Thank you, MR. Johnson. Thank you so much, director. I also have a question around the inspiring communities. I know this is something a program I ve always highlighted and really enjoyed hearing about all the affordable housing units being brought forth. Um, but I am
interested in, like, the ratio of, like how the funding assigned to this program, um, actually covers staffing and what also covers subsidizing those affordable housing. I, um, I believe the inspiring communities correct me if I m wrong, but it s a partnership that s really ran and operated through Ramsey County. Um, but. Well, okay. Please correct me if I m wrong, but I do know it comes before us and we we do approve those projects. Um, I might be mixing it up with the emerging Developers program, I think, um, and if that does go hand in hand. But I m just curious around what is the staffing assigned to that
program? Um, and like, how is that in correlation with other departments or other staff? This is one of the programs that we have, uh, re-engineered and re-envisioned this year. So I ll let Director Newman talk a little bit more about our small scale development. Um, we ve we ve brought a few presentations about this chair and commissioner, the Inspiring Communities program. Um, was a way to help dispose of our hra owned land, but honestly, it was an rfp process that was kind of clunky. We had like, one staff person trying to manage, you know, 12 projects at once that would come in. And they and it was very prescribed. Um, and it really hasn t moved our hra on land
very fast. It has had positive outcomes. What we re doing now and we ve talked about this is we ve put together sort of a small scale development team, and we have so much expertise in our department, in planning and in housing and in economic development. So we ve pulled we ve we re working with, uh, deputy McMahon on the hra land. We have a whole interdisciplinary team looking at each of those parcels. Should we? They ve been up zoned. Now what can they support by. Right. What are the funding sources. How can we move these quickly and how can we all work together? Who can talk to public works? What do we need to do this. And it s moved. They re moving. They re meeting every week. Um, and going through these these projects together. And it s it
s going to I think when I say you re not seeing anything yet, but there s so many in flight because we re able to I think we ll be moving these much faster than you found with this sort of rfp process. I don t want to criticize the process. I wasn t here when it was envisioned and I appreciate it, but it it really made things slower and more clunky. And, um, I think this will be better. So. So that s what we hope to bring now in the in the question about staffing, Commissioner and, and uh, Deputy Green is really helped me even since she s been here to understand better. It s astounding. Like each of our staff people, they re different funding sources. Sometimes we have admin for a program, sometimes we don t. Sometimes
we have, you know, we have to look at all of our staffing. What are the funding sources. So we ll be able to give you a little better picture of that. Now that we have her here, and we have a little bit more capacity to dig into that. My goal this year is to be able to show you this is what we need to implement the programs we have. This is the staffing if you want more. Last year we got I asked for one more staff person and no new programs, and we got four new programs and no new staff people. But I appreciate that there MAY be programs that we can reallocate people from. So we ll do all of that first, and then we ll tell you this is what we need now to do. What you re asking us to do. Is that helpful? Okay. Yeah, I think I m looking
forward to that conversation as well, especially as we as it relates to ensuring that like one of the new programs, right, emergency rental assistance, very passionate about it. I still think it s really a good thing to do. Um, happy to address some of the continued, you know, conversations around like, what staffing needs would look like. Um, so appreciate that. Thank you so much for, um, just providing this clarity. I will say as a follow up item, I d like an update on the operational support for Catholic Charities. Peace. Um, from the Office of Neighborhood Safety. Uh, mostly because nothing has been spent from that. And I m not actually sure what where we landed on that. So, um, I would really this was one of those. Oh, I didn t, you
know, kind of surprising pieces for me because I know that there was some conversations towards the end of the budget cycle. So it s still mostly for clarity purposes. I d like to know where we re at with that. Um, and then any, like I said, any sort of, uh, I think we ll have an update on familiar Families pilot, too, because I don t actually believe that money has been spent. I think it s coming to heading home. Ramsey again for actual conversations around whether or not the pathway originally designed for family familiar families was going to be what they were going to do. And so I think we ll have an update on that as well. But I appreciate your guys s time, and I think
it would just be helpful to monitor this piece as we head into like there s a budget conversation for next year, but there s the budget conversations for this year. And I really want to make sure that we don t leave, um, dollars on the table that we could have repurposed to, for example, get the down payment assistance program back open now that it s paused. So certain things of that nature that I would really like for us to to kind of respond to in real time. So thank you for pulling that. I m assuming that this might have been pulled from the team manually. So I just want to say thank you for doing that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. See nothing before us I m going to give us. What is that? You re welcome. 30s