Budget Committee September 28, 2023   9/28/2023

Discussion

• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:25
    Good morning.
  • 00:00:26
    My name is Emily Koski and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:29
    I'm going to call to order a regular committee meeting for Thursday, September 28th.
  • 00:00:33
    At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:00:38
    Councilmember Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:00:40
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:00:42
    Wonsley is absent.
  • 00:00:43
    Rainville.
  • 00:00:46
    Present.
  • 00:00:46
    Vito.
  • 00:00:46
    Present.
  • 00:00:49
    Ellison.
  • 00:00:50
    Absent.
  • 00:00:51
    Osman.
  • 00:00:52
    Absent.
  • 00:00:53
    Goodman.
  • 00:00:55
    Jenkins Chavez present Chuktai Johnson Vice President Palmisano Chair Koski present There are eight members present
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:01:12
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
  • 00:01:14
    Today we will be continuing hearing presentations from city departments on the mayor's 2024 recommended budget.
  • 00:01:20
    On the agenda today is 311 Service Center Communications and Neighborhood Community Relations.
  • 00:01:25
    We will begin the presentations with 311 Service Center.
  • 00:01:28
    Here to present is Director Mwende Nzimbe.
  • 00:01:31
    Welcome.
• • Mwende Nzimbi
  • 00:01:33
    Thank you.
  • 00:01:34
    Good morning Chair Koski and members of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:01:37
    My name is Moin Densimbi and I am the 311 Service Centre Director.
  • 00:01:41
    I'm here to present to you the Mayor's recommended 2024 supplemental budget for the 311 Service Centre Department.
  • 00:01:49
    I will start by pointing out that our department has no new budget requests included in this presentation.
  • 00:01:57
    Prior to April of this year, there was no 311 service center department.
  • 00:02:02
    We had a 311 department and the service center.
  • 00:02:06
    In the last three years, watching the two areas in operation, it became apparent that merging the two groups was a great opportunity to effectively provide information sharing to constituents.
  • 00:02:17
    By aligning these two functions under one umbrella, service delivery to the public would be more efficient and consistent, as well as easier for Minneapolis residents and businesses to access services.
  • 00:02:30
    Non-emergency public information and customer engagement would be united and seamless.
  • 00:02:35
    This merger will also increase collaboration enterprise-wide by reducing redundancies and leveraging expertise such as training and data analytics.
  • 00:02:45
    As such, the vision for the new department is to aspire to be a leader in connecting Minneapolis' diverse, growing and thriving community to city services.
  • 00:02:57
    The department will assist the community through our employees and technology with a vibrant culture of innovation, transparency and ownership.
  • 00:03:07
    Our mission is to build a stronger community one interaction at a time by connecting internal city services and external customers through seamless service.
  • 00:03:21
    In the five months I have been in this position, I have seen what amazing work our department does, and I've also seen, felt, and experienced the frustration that our 311 agents, Minneapolis residents, city departments, and ward offices are facing with the current customer and constituent service process we have at the city.
  • 00:03:44
    On behalf of my department, and as a leader in this department, I am sorry.
  • 00:03:49
    We have a plan to do better, and we will do better.
  • 00:03:53
    We are committed to not just fix the current issues that we have, but to lead a city-wide collaboration to build an enterprise-wide structure for constituent and customer service delivery.
  • 00:04:05
    Our three priority objectives are as follows.
  • 00:04:08
    First is to ensure Minneapolis residents have access to reliable, timely, transparent, and accurate information.
  • 00:04:17
    Second is to provide city decision-makers with accurate relevant and timely information.
  • 00:04:24
    Our third priority objective is to improve responsiveness to cases submitted by working with city departments to review their service level agreements and communication across teams.
  • 00:04:38
    Next is our organization structure.
  • 00:04:40
    Before you is a new organization structure for our department.
  • 00:04:44
    Prior to the merger, 311 did not have manager positions assisting the director.
  • 00:04:50
    All the supervisors and analysts were reporting to the director, who was mainly overseeing the call center operations.
  • 00:04:58
    This resulted to the work being internally focused to the department without an enterprise-wide eye on the needs and follow-up needed by city departments.
  • 00:05:07
    This was no fault of 311, it is the culture, both internally and citywide, and we have started shifting this because it does not support success of what the new department ought to be.
  • 00:05:20
    With a new organization structure, we have created a new level of leadership, as you can see, the operations manager and support services manager.
  • 00:05:30
    Both of these positions are new.
  • 00:05:33
    A little over two months ago, Ms. Brianna Phelps, who is here with us today, accepted an offer to be our operations manager.
  • 00:05:42
    She came to us from CPED.
  • 00:05:44
    The position that she is in now manages and coordinates the daily operations and activities of the 311 call center and the service center.
  • 00:05:54
    The support services manager currently in the hiring process will manage and coordinate a training program
  • 00:06:01
    systems and technology work, quality assurance program, data analysis and reporting, and our newest initiative, the constituent and customer service delivery work.
  • 00:06:14
    This next slide shows our program and staffing summary.
  • 00:06:18
    We currently have two vacant positions.
  • 00:06:21
    As mentioned, the Support Services Manager position is in the process of hire.
  • 00:06:25
    We just concluded first interviews last week.
  • 00:06:29
    The second position is the Administrative Analyst position, which we intend to fill before the end of the year.
  • 00:06:36
    FTEs are remaining the same from 2023 to 2024.
  • 00:06:40
    I will talk about the point to FTE increase from 2023 to 2024 in a little bit under the administrative adjustment slide.
  • 00:06:49
    The jump you are seeing in budget from 2022 to 2023 is as a result of the merger and combining the budgets of the two divisions.
  • 00:07:02
    Before you, you can see the 2024 mayor's recommended budget is slightly higher than the 2023 current budget.
  • 00:07:10
    This is attributed to an increase in personnel costs and internal charges like rent and IT charges.
  • 00:07:17
    Also, our current expenses are coming in over budget in 2023 due to approved bell curve staffing levels.
  • 00:07:26
    And now we move on to the administrative FTE adjustment that I mentioned earlier.
  • 00:07:32
    While we do not have any 0.8 FTE currently, there has always been one budgeted as such in our employee roster.
  • 00:07:42
    But 311 had been hiring as a full FTE.
  • 00:07:47
    As you are evaluating positions for the merger, we realize this discrepancy and we are now correcting it to full FTE.
  • 00:07:59
    Now we'll move on to achievements and risks.
  • 00:08:02
    Our greatest achievement this year has been the merger of the 311 call center and the service center.
  • 00:08:07
    With respect to the service center specifically, in addition to the nine departments and divisions we started with, we're now proudly partnering with Civil Rights Office of Police Conduct Review.
  • 00:08:17
    Today, police complaints can be filed in person at the service center.
  • 00:08:23
    The Service Center has also been working with the City Clerk's Office over the last couple of months to onboard public data requests.
  • 00:08:30
    Starting October 16th, next month, the Service Center will begin assisting customers looking to request public data.
  • 00:08:39
    Our staff will be able to provide guidance on how to work through the city's public data request process, as well as assist them in picking up any printed documentation and paying any necessary fees.
  • 00:08:52
    This past Tuesday, you heard from my colleague Director Cameron from IT talk about the smart lockers near the Tech Hub on the 10th floor of the PSB and how IT has received a lot of positive feedback from city staff.
  • 00:09:06
    I am proud to say that we are in the process of rolling out smart lockers that are externally facing to the public.
  • 00:09:14
    This will provide a secure and more flexible way for city departments to deliver documents, especially those of a private nature.
  • 00:09:21
    Our service center staff will be available to provide basic assistance to customers with these lockers as well.
  • 00:09:27
    Two smart lockers have been ordered already and allocation for placement has been identified.
  • 00:09:34
    The service center is excited to start the planning process to onboard Metro Transit's transit assistance program which allows customers to use Metro Transit bus or light rail for just a dollar per ride even during rush hour including a two and a half hour transfer.
  • 00:09:50
    Previously, partners to City Counters and now the Service Center have primarily been city departments.
  • 00:09:57
    So this is the first time that we are exploring, taking on a service that is owned and operated by an entity outside of the city of Minneapolis.
  • 00:10:06
    The last bullet shows the numbers of visitors and transactions from 2022 and 2023 up until August 31st.
  • 00:10:17
    Up next are the achievements of our 311 call center.
  • 00:10:22
    A couple of weeks ago, a training class of 10 staff graduated to taking calls on their own.
  • 00:10:28
    It has had a positive impact on our wait times and response times.
  • 00:10:32
    Next, in July, we launched a new 311 call routing system, the interactive voice response system.
  • 00:10:40
    also earlier this year in collaboration with IT and the constituent services team in the city clerk's office we launched the 311 dashboard this dashboard provides a
  • 00:10:50
    real-time data based on the number and type of cases that come through a 311 software system.
  • 00:10:58
    The 311 constituent services shared mailbox has also been significant in providing a central location that has created visibility and elevated issues being faced by constituents and ward offices.
  • 00:11:11
    The information being gleaned from this mailbox has been instrumental in informing our next steps in streamlining processes.
  • 00:11:21
    The next slide shares some of our 311 data from 2022 and 2023 as at August 31st.
  • 00:11:35
    And now we will move on to the risks.
  • 00:11:37
    The first being our case record management system which is outdated and does not meet enterprise needs.
  • 00:11:43
    It also utilizes a cost per license model which is prohibitive and cumbersome to use.
  • 00:11:50
    Enterprise-wide follow-through and resolution of received cases is a problem.
  • 00:11:56
    These cases are the result of phone calls or emails that 311 agents cannot resolve because they require subject matter expertise from another city department.
  • 00:12:06
    Through the constituent services work underway, we will be working with departments to improve responsiveness, review their service level agreements, and communication across teams.
  • 00:12:18
    Enterprise need for 311 services has grown exponentially while the moderate capacity has remained unchanged since inception.
  • 00:12:27
    And lastly, services moved to 311 to assist during the pandemic have remained a 311 despite enterprise return to work and a new normal.
  • 00:12:41
    Being fairly new to this role, both Ms. Phelps and I and our management team have been doing an assessment
  • 00:12:48
    of our new department and have a recurring theme of lessons learned that are going to be an integral part of the strategy for our new 311 Service Center Department.
  • 00:12:58
    First, there's a need to establish and implement a citywide customer-focused strategy to provide accurate, timely information to constituents.
  • 00:13:08
    This will be achieved as our department takes the lead for the constituent services work group.
  • 00:13:14
    Second, and I cannot overemphasize this, the need to improve responsiveness to cases submitted by working with departments, again to review service level agreements.
  • 00:13:28
    Being the face of the city is not an easy task.
  • 00:13:32
    When people are frustrated with a service, program, or need answers, they most often don't think of specific city departments.
  • 00:13:39
    They see it as a city problem.
  • 00:13:41
    and 311 Service Center is the face of the city.
  • 00:13:45
    Albeit, despite the many challenges that our staff face, the resiliency, commitment, passion,
  • 00:13:54
    and desire to provide exceptional service to Minneapolis residents, businesses and visitors has been astounding.
  • 00:14:02
    We have a great team both at 311 and the Service Center that I am very proud of.
  • 00:14:08
    They are the heartbeat of our department.
  • 00:14:11
    As such, we are being very intentional about motivating our staff and recognizing them for outstanding performance.
  • 00:14:20
    we're also investing in supporting staff in dealing with trauma from calls and in-person interactions.
  • 00:14:27
    Lastly, transparency will drive accountability.
  • 00:14:30
    This is a mantra we are adopting in our work of streamlining and addressing the current issues and we are planning on using data to meet this goal.
  • 00:14:39
    We're already having successes with the 311 dashboard and are planning to do more.
  • 00:14:47
    We plan on using data to support informed decision-making, not just within our department but citywide.
  • 00:14:54
    One way we will do this is prioritizing customer concerns.
  • 00:14:58
    Through data, even with the 311 dashboard, we can see what our customers are concerned about and determine where resources are most needed.
  • 00:15:06
    This will also help us as an enterprise be proactive and anticipate our customers' needs.
  • 00:15:14
    We will use data to triage and problem-solve.
  • 00:15:17
    Data will inform when agents are getting questions they cannot answer or when volumes are higher than expected.
  • 00:15:25
    It will also notify departments when additional communication is needed or websites need to be updated with additional information.
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    Lastly, by tracking and analyzing 311 call data, we can measure effects like how customers are responding to city mailings and programs.
  • 00:15:45
    The last two slides are on race equity impacts.
  • 00:15:48
    Residents rely on our departments to provide high-quality customer services for a variety of reasons, from starting a business to building an addition to filing complaints.
  • 00:16:01
    The experience of assessing non-emergency government information and services has been reported as confusing, unclear, and complicated to navigate, especially for those without the necessary means like transportation, access to networks, previous knowledge of city functions, language barriers, just to name a few.
  • 00:16:23
    This tends to disproportionately impact the city's BIPOC communities and are perceived as a maze of pathways to obtain accurate information and services.
  • 00:16:42
    To address this issue, we will work towards developing a collective impact approach firmly grounded in inclusion and equity.
  • 00:16:51
    We will achieve this by
  • 00:16:52
    Being data-driven, work with PMI to create benchmarks on equity work, we will measure the success of specific processes, set goals, and measure progress.
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    This will also increase accountability.
  • 00:17:08
    We will implement a shared racial equity lens with city departments.
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    Racial inequities are not random.
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    They have been created and sustained over time and will not disappear on their own.
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    It is essential to use the racial equity lens when developing or changing policies and processes.
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    We will also increase our collaboration with NCR and communications departments and partner in promoting our services to the communities of color, facilitating engagement and obtaining feedback on how to address gaps and improve services.
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    We will build relationships with communities and business organizations within the city.
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    And lastly, we will meet quarterly or as needed with other jurisdictional leaders to collaborate on call center and service center issues, including issues on racial equity.
  • 00:18:00
    The shared learning sessions will build trust and knowledge based on a shared vision of commitment to racial equity.
  • 00:18:08
    Thank you for your time today.
  • 00:18:09
    And I will now stand for questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:18:15
    Thank you so much for the presentation.
  • 00:18:17
    We have a couple of council members in queue.
  • 00:18:19
    Council Member Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:18:21
    Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Director.
  • 00:18:25
    I have a question about the interaction between 311 and 911.
  • 00:18:30
    We just had a presentation yesterday in Public Health and Safety about just the quarterly update in the Office of Community Safety and one of the items we discussed was just the recruitment and retention challenges in 911.
  • 00:18:45
    I know that we've shifted some of the 911 calls to 311 for those non-violent theft reporting instances.
  • 00:18:53
    And I also know that some years back, some administrations back, there was discussion of integrating 311 into 911.
  • 00:19:01
    And if I recall, that was decided against for reasons that I don't recall.
  • 00:19:06
    But could you speak to that interaction between 311 and 911 with a specific lens around how
  • 00:19:14
    we can use 311 to help alleviate some of the burdens of 911 or if they do need to be more integrated.
• • Mwende Nzimbi
  • 00:19:22
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, thank you for that question.
  • 00:19:26
    As part of the work that we are looking around streamlining the processes in our new department, I have been in conversation with Director Hordney at 911.
  • 00:19:38
    and we are talking about some of the ways that two departments can collaborate because we see some similarities in some of the challenges that we are facing or even stuff that the 9-1-1 department has done or implemented training for their management or even for their staff that we can collaborate on.
  • 00:20:00
    So yes, we are collaborating on a lot of things.
  • 00:20:04
    One of the things that we've also talked about,
  • 00:20:07
    We actually are working on together is this whole thing about the non-emergency services.
  • 00:20:13
    It is not very clear and we have heard this from multiple places where customers are residents are not clear on when to call 911 versus when to call 311.
  • 00:20:24
    because of what you just talked about, that non-emergency services were transferred from 911 to 311.
  • 00:20:32
    So that's not still clear out to the public, so we've been working together to figure out how to better message that or what we can do to be more intentional about that.
  • 00:20:41
    And also the other area we've been working together on is around special events.
  • 00:20:48
    We've been intentional in standing up the 3-1-1 operation during special events after hours either in the evening like you know like the Taylor Swift concert that we had and standing up the operation on the weekends that way and I believe Director Hordney had a presentation about this a while back or mentioned it that
  • 00:21:08
    in those instances, in those events, they saw a reduction in the number of calls that they received because they were able to transfer the non-emergency calls to 311 because we had stood up operations.
  • 00:21:22
    So in short, we are working collaboratively together to see what opportunities we have and how we can move forward.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:21:29
    It's really good to hear and definitely reach out if there are budgetary impacts to some of the ideas that you're collaborating around.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:21:41
    I put myself in cukes.
  • 00:21:42
    I'm not seeing any other council members with questions in one of the slides to talk about some of the risks and capacity being a risk and more work without an increase in capacity.
  • 00:21:55
    If I'm paraphrasing that correct, is there a plan to build capacity as I don't really see the demand necessarily decreasing and I'm not seeing any additional FTES added this year.
  • 00:22:06
    So curious about what the plan is for building capacity.
• • Mwende Nzimbi
  • 00:22:10
    Chair Koski, that's a good question.
  • 00:22:13
    Because we are a new department, we've just merged, we're trying to first assess where we're at, what our needs are.
  • 00:22:20
    We are taking the route of aligning our roles and responsibilities for our staff.
  • 00:22:27
    and using this here to really find what the actual needs are and what we need.
  • 00:22:33
    So for the time being, we're utilizing other methods that we feel are gonna give us a better idea of what we need.
  • 00:22:42
    So for example, around the
  • 00:22:45
    the point that I brought up about 311 services have grown exponentially or even services that were moved to 311 during the pandemic and it has increased the workload that we have.
  • 00:22:58
    So Ms. Phelps has started meeting with department leaders to look at what are those roles that were brought onto 311 that can start being transitioned to departments to start lightening that load or finding that sweet spot of what
  • 00:23:14
    How much in the weeds our agents can go to so that is gonna help that capacity piece as we start looking for you know those Looking at those opportunities that we have the other piece too is that I did mention that this earlier this month our training class of 10 transition to taking calls so we are
  • 00:23:37
    looking at data and observing what impact that will have to our operation before we start considering, you know, asking for more FTE.
  • 00:23:47
    So there's a couple of ways that we are looking at it internally to address that, the capacity issue.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:23:53
    Thank you.
  • 00:23:54
    That's really helpful and appreciate the data driven approach and slowing down before we speed up to appreciate that.
  • 00:24:02
    I'm not seeing any further questions.
  • 00:24:03
    So thank you so much, Director, for this thorough presentation.
  • 00:24:08
    Next is the Communications Department and I will invite Deputy Director Michael Douglas to give that presentation Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:24:18
    Thank you.
  • 00:24:19
    Good morning
  • 00:25:00
    Okay, well, good morning.
  • 00:25:01
    My name is Michael Douglas.
  • 00:25:02
    I am the deputy director of communications.
  • 00:25:06
    I'm stepping in for Greta, who's not able to be here today, but also will be attending this presentation for our budget overview with CJ and I'm looking forward to sharing with you all what we are asking for and share with the great work that we're doing for the entire city enterprise.
  • 00:25:25
    So first I want to start off with a department overview.
  • 00:25:29
    We're comprised of 13 individuals whose work individually and collectively is really serving all the city enterprise.
  • 00:25:35
    I'm going to start from the right of this orb chart and kind of give you a little background as how we are operating at full capacity.
  • 00:25:44
    but also loving what we're doing and serving the city.
  • 00:25:48
    You'll see our social media officer, digital communications coordinator.
  • 00:25:52
    Jordan is operating his position.
  • 00:25:54
    He not only oversees all the city's social media platforms but creates content, manages them, oversees the city's social media policy and works with the city ethics officer.
  • 00:26:04
    and the City Attorney's Office on compliance for all city-operated social media sites.
  • 00:26:09
    Next is the video services manager, who's part of that, called the multimedia services team.
  • 00:26:15
    That's CJ's team.
  • 00:26:17
    And on there is comprised of four people, CJ, Danielle, Kim.
  • 00:26:22
    They shoot, edit, produce videos, motion graphics, infographics, audio pieces.
  • 00:26:26
    and Mike, who is behind the scenes here and our newest team member, Erin, also live streamed council meetings, news conferences, et cetera, and maintained all the operation of the equipment.
  • 00:26:38
    And soon they will also offer another service you'll hear about coming up in November.
  • 00:26:44
    Next, we have, reporting to me, three people, Cheryl, who not only offers graphic design services, but client branding consultation, department and office logos,
  • 00:26:57
    working with each department on their project digital look at impact.
  • 00:27:01
    Charlie who's our internal communications person, that's the next position that you'll see there.
  • 00:27:08
    Beyond handling Minneapolis matters and also all employee emails, he's also working across the enterprise with departments, employee resource groups to ensure our city message is inclusive, creative, factual and meets the needs of all employees.
  • 00:27:24
    and on their city talk pages and their communications.
  • 00:27:28
    Next is Elizabeth, who is also a strategic communications person.
  • 00:27:32
    You're all familiar with the news bites that you all can produce your newsletters as well.
  • 00:27:38
    There's also a newsletter that she administers.
  • 00:27:41
    She also writes copy edits, helps the departments with their project communications and engagement.
  • 00:27:46
    And next is the other position that you'll see
  • 00:27:49
    is the media relations.
  • 00:27:50
    This is Sarah and Kasper.
  • 00:27:53
    These two are powerhouses, being timely and being resourceful, also being great collaborators from media requests, proactive media outreach, media training, to assisting with co-managing crisis communication with departments across the city.
  • 00:28:08
    They're also great writers and great storytellers.
  • 00:28:10
    and just all of our good people and very hard workers.
  • 00:28:13
    And finally is this position you see in white.
  • 00:28:15
    That's the Interagency Coordinator, the one that we're kind of asking you all that you have approved last year to fund.
  • 00:28:21
    This position is very crucial for us.
  • 00:28:25
    We're now in the hiring process.
  • 00:28:26
    We actually just did our first round of interviews this week.
  • 00:28:30
    And this person will be very instrumental in our services, be more streamlined and also
  • 00:28:36
    allowing us to better serve you all, all city departments.
  • 00:28:39
    You'll hear more about this position later on.
  • 00:28:44
    Going to the priority objectives for enterprise communications, one thing we do, we deliver information and content for our city residents and businesses, which is very important to explain the story that we're trying to tell what we have to offer.
  • 00:29:02
    Also, we provide the media time and public information,
  • 00:29:06
    to maintain and enhance the public trust.
  • 00:29:08
    This is locally, nationally, and even when I first joined the city last year I was a media relations specialist for
  • 00:29:16
    and we even had international reporters telling our stories like in Toronto.
  • 00:29:22
    And thirdly, we are championing transparency in our government decision making actively to an internal and external audiences.
  • 00:29:31
    And one thing our director Greta Bergstrom has shared with you all and other departments across the city that we are striving for that all city departments make our department
  • 00:29:41
    the Communications Department top of mind when it comes to communicating about projects and services and programs.
  • 00:29:47
    I told Greta that I have this little saying I want the city to kind of make us first a thought not an afterthought because therefore we can proactively and strategically move through communicating our projects out effectively.
  • 00:29:59
    Here you have our program staffing.
  • 00:30:03
    Currently we are at 13 and for 2024 we will be adding the Interagency Coordinator which is the request we have coming before you today.
  • 00:30:17
    And for its achievements
  • 00:30:20
    Again, our lean, strong, and mighty team has done a lot collaboratively.
  • 00:30:25
    First, I want to begin with cultural media, which we're kind of rebranding to community media because everyone has a culture.
  • 00:30:31
    But we have successfully negotiated contracts with eight local community media partners, including the expansion of the East African and Hmong outreach platforms to give you some numbers.
  • 00:30:43
    So far this year for 2023, we've produced 98 shows, and we still have 24 more to come for the year.
  • 00:30:49
    and those numbers include for KMOJ, we have produced 24 shows, La Raza, 26 shows, Sura Media, 12, WIXK, that's among the radio, 24 shows, and also Aromia 11, that's one of those expanding ones, produced 12 shows so far.
  • 00:31:06
    And what's interesting, these shows have been very impactful.
  • 00:31:10
    For example, with La Raza, we did a Driver's License for All where we worked with the state to have this for our shows.
  • 00:31:20
    And they had such a turnout and response for the community that we produced two additional shows and they're requesting even more.
  • 00:31:28
    So again, this is a partnership with our partners in neighborhood community relations as the host.
  • 00:31:33
    And also for Hmong Radio, what was interesting about the Renters' Rights show, the inspectors that delivered that show, it was such a great impact.
  • 00:31:44
    But then Michael Yang, who is the host from NCR, he received a lot of community questions about evictions and renters' rights.
  • 00:31:52
    So we then did an additional show to accommodate those questions and stuff like that.
  • 00:31:57
    So these programs are really having a great impact and have been very well received by the community.
  • 00:32:02
    And we again are also partnering with NCR for our indigenous community.
  • 00:32:05
    Last year we did team up with them to produce two indigenous programs with the election and voter services.
  • 00:32:12
    Again another city department that we're collaborating with.
  • 00:32:14
    And it went over so well that we're really excited to work with Karen.
  • 00:32:17
    You'll hear more about that coming up when she presents.
  • 00:32:19
    to bring the indigenous media programming to as another service that we'll be providing in collaboration with other city partners.
  • 00:32:28
    Next is our crisis communication agency.
  • 00:32:30
    We've been working with Tunheim, you know, actively partnering with them to make sure our communications crisis plan is updated and it's really going to be, you know,
  • 00:32:39
    Crisis will always come, so hopefully we can do even better in anticipating what's happening.
  • 00:32:45
    Next, for Canva, a graphic design platform, which we launched in the fourth quarter of last year, has enabled department staff to create digital and print content independently, but again, even with that
  • 00:32:58
    being as a service, we still work with them to make certain that they're meeting their needs.
  • 00:33:02
    And we have more than 100 city staff have been signed up as users of the CAMER program.
  • 00:33:06
    Next is the supported city staff are using audio visual technology in the public service building.
  • 00:33:13
    That's one of those things that CJ will kind of talk to you about a little bit, but this has been very impactful for the departments and there's another service that we provide.
  • 00:33:24
    Next, Multimedia Services has collaborated on 88 projects this year with various cities and departments.
  • 00:33:31
    Multimedia Services also broadcast over 200 live government meetings to date, including 136 council meetings and committee meetings.
  • 00:33:40
    You can see the numbers there.
  • 00:33:41
    Even for press events, one thing we're going to talk about for those press events, the Mayor's Office and other departments, they will develop the content for those news conferences, but we deliver the access so people can view and tune in to watch it.
  • 00:33:53
    And also in the PSB Conference Center, you will have five of those, five events, including the Community Commission on Police Oversight.
  • 00:34:01
    In August, I attended one of those and it was very well attended.
  • 00:34:03
    It was great to see that it was being broadcast out and people, how they learned about it from the work we got out about it.
  • 00:34:09
    I'm looking forward to attending the next one as well.
  • 00:34:12
    And we also work collaboratively across the city to ensure that internal and external audiences are receiving the city service information because again, we are ensuring that we are working to better tell
  • 00:34:27
    and actually tell the city story.
  • 00:34:29
    And that's been a challenge throughout the pandemic.
  • 00:34:31
    But also we work with civil rights.
  • 00:34:34
    We worked from community safety, public work, civil rights, regulatory services, neighborhood community relations I mentioned earlier, and even your very own offices to make certain that y'all have questions you would like a consultation about.
  • 00:34:45
    We've been here for that and we are working with the enterprise to ensure that the communication they need are reaching those intended audiences and that their messaging is accessible, is impactful and is inclusive and is also understandable which is the most important thing I believe as well.
  • 00:35:05
    Now, going to our mission, it is to be a driving force in effectively and accurately communicating information about the city, promoting transparency, and inviting the public to engage in a governing process so people who live, work, and play in Minneapolis better understand and appreciate and benefit from the work the city does.
  • 00:35:25
    And our goals are very diverse.
  • 00:35:29
    But what's key to it, it reflects what I referred to earlier, is that, again,
  • 00:35:35
    We're very concerned and committed to make certain that the information that businesses and residents and visitors have is accurate, is updated, and is also usable in telling the great services and programs that we offer here in the city.
  • 00:35:50
    With news organizations and reporters and stuff like that, again, working with them to make certain that, again, that they tell our story accurately, you know, if they
  • 00:35:57
    If they don't do that, to also work with them to make correct on their side.
  • 00:36:02
    Working with the city department's division to make sure that their information that they have is timely and they're being very strategic in what they're delivering.
  • 00:36:11
    And making sure that our workforce, our co-workers, know what's happening within their city through Minneapolis matters and things of that nature as well.
  • 00:36:20
    For our goals, again,
  • 00:36:23
    We're striving to make sure we provide improved communication support to achieve our programmatic and policy objectives through our county departments and it's stated in the mayor and the SREAP priorities.
  • 00:36:36
    We've done a little bit of a restructure to enhance our internal service coordination plus our client accessibility.
  • 00:36:41
    That's why this particular position, the Interagency Coordinator, is going to be very important to our internal workforce communications.
  • 00:36:48
    And we also continue to drive the city's story, engage our audiences through the channel diversification.
  • 00:36:54
    These are the social media sites that we are actively engaged on and what's important to pick this out.
  • 00:37:10
    Our social media officer continues to do his best to work to mitigate any risks from all citywide social media accounts through policy enforcement while also working with our team on crisis communication and this is commendable to say that you know to the least that especially in light of the social media atmosphere today that we're trying to be proactive and making certain that we're not adding to the fodder that's out there.
  • 00:37:37
    and continue with the goals.
  • 00:37:39
    We're also working to better coordinate, maximize our visual content creation with digital emphasis, again, as with our social media, audio, video content, as well as continue to operationalize our communication staff and coordinate initiatives throughout the Office of Public Service.
  • 00:37:54
    And as I mentioned earlier, this is our daily goal and what we're striving to do.
  • 00:38:02
    and also we're planning to expand a service I told you about earlier because we're looking forward to getting to continue offering you more services.
  • 00:38:09
    And here are some of our services, media relations, digital comms, the internal service, the internal coordination that's coming, addition, the cultural media, community media, multimedia services.
  • 00:38:21
    Also with Comcast Cable franchise, Greta is our cable officer and we're currently in negotiations with Comcast.
  • 00:38:29
    If Comcast happened to reach out to you all, please let us know, because they should not be doing it.
  • 00:38:34
    And our public access TV management and audio-visual technology management, we support the PSB, City Hall, as well as the PSC.
  • 00:38:42
    And talking about our communications, the interagency coordinator, this position is a new position that allows our department to have a dedicated representation at the interagency meetings.
  • 00:38:54
    also on a large at large scope enterprise projects and work in collaboration with other city departments and partner agencies.
  • 00:39:01
    Funding for this position was included in the 2024 plan and communications is currently in the hiring process.
  • 00:39:06
    As I mentioned that we had our first round of interviews just this week and we actually went through the JQ process this summer, which was a very that job.
  • 00:39:16
    Make sure I say this correctly.
  • 00:39:17
    This the job analysis questionnaire.
  • 00:39:20
    That was a very interesting process.
  • 00:39:22
    I learned a lot more about the city.
  • 00:39:24
    But also, we've had several folks from around the country to apply for this position.
  • 00:39:29
    And that's a great interest.
  • 00:39:30
    And we have been working as a team this summer.
  • 00:39:33
    I hosted in August a series of meetings that I called a Workout Wednesday, where I invited some of my former colleagues from across the country to talk about their internal processes, especially working with a strong mayor system.
  • 00:39:46
    I have the communications director from the city of Houston.
  • 00:39:49
    I'm a former City Communications Director from the City of Atlanta, who's now the Assistant General Manager for Communications and Marketing at the Hartsfield International Airport.
  • 00:39:58
    We had our network news writer, producer, as well as graphic artist.
  • 00:40:04
    And I think I'm missing someone?
  • 00:40:05
    But again, we met every Wednesday as a team.
  • 00:40:08
    We've been working to get ourselves ready for this new addition so that way we're streamlining our services and fine tuning so that we can better serve the entire enterprise.
  • 00:40:17
    So this impact for this particular position, this coordinate will aid in the department operating as a marketing communications agency by centralizing our service requests and processes.
  • 00:40:28
    This role is important to serving our client departments through the intake and priority management, client service priority, and it will improve our working across departments to better serve the public because again,
  • 00:40:38
    This person will be the front line in receiving these requests coming from departments and then we'll actually meet with that service department, that requester to make certain we have a clear idea of where they're going and what they're trying to do and then they will meet with our team and we'll begin to work on building out those services and delivering that content to them for the operation.
  • 00:41:00
    And with that, I'm going to, as I said, we'll be tag teaming.
  • 00:41:04
    Here's CJ to come talk about the public access aspect.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:41:10
    Chair, Council Members, CJ Harrison, Communications Department.
  • 00:41:14
    I'm here to talk about Public Access TV.
  • 00:41:19
    The City of Minneapolis contracts with an independent vendor, Speak Minneapolis, to operate the public access cable television channels and provide media resources to Minneapolis residents and members.
  • 00:41:30
    And we've been joined today by Rebecca Smith, who is the director of Speak Minneapolis.
  • 00:41:34
    She was able to make it over here today.
  • 00:41:36
    We are currently in year four of the agreement with a fifth year option in April of 2024.
  • 00:41:41
    The city does not have any involvement in programming, content creation, or membership.
  • 00:41:46
    Public Access TV is separate from city communications staff covering, like Michael said, council meetings, press conferences, and other service videos we do with various departments around the city.
  • 00:41:58
    Public Access TV provides residents of Minneapolis an opportunity to attend audio-visual classes, check out AV equipment, create content, and produce programs in their two studios in Northeast and South Minneapolis.
  • 00:42:11
    The diverse Speak Minneapolis team has expertise in broadcast, journalism, education, technology, and community media.
  • 00:42:21
    Speak Minneapolis currently has 136 members, over 90 participants were served in training classes, more than 22,000 hours of equipment checkouts logged, and over 540 hours of studio and edit suite bookings provided in quarter one, quarter two, 2023.
  • 00:42:40
    One of Speak Minneapolis' media education clashes in their youth programming department involved Minneapolis high school students.
  • 00:42:48
    This program called Rise Minneapolis, representing youth stories and experiences in Minneapolis, has served 53 high school students.
  • 00:42:56
    with paid school year and summer training resulting in award-winning content and meaningful career training where former participants are hired as employees at Speak Minneapolis and local news and media outlets.
  • 00:43:11
    And I know they've been very proud of that program and it's been a very good turnout, very good response from their members in it too.
  • 00:43:18
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:43:24
    And before I want to share you an example of our communications collaboration, one thing I also wanted to point out about this interagency coordinator process, we had a lot of salary savings last year, so that way we were able to move on this position.
  • 00:43:38
    with that salary savings so we can start the hiring process and we have to wait until 2024 to start the process.
  • 00:43:44
    And so, unfortunately, it's just, you know, it's really, really looking forward to bringing this person on board with us.
  • 00:43:51
    And this particular, we would like to share a quick little video that kind of demonstrates our collaboration.
  • 00:43:57
    This involves the Health Department about the Green Share Cost Program.
  • 00:44:04
    This is a demonstration of how our video services team work with the embedded communicators in the health department and also our business partners and owners to show, you know, tell our story.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:44:26
    Hi, my name is Dale Howie.
  • 00:44:27
    I manage the property at 1600 Park Avenue.
  • 00:44:30
    We run a company called Green Rock Apartments and we have 12 buildings in areas around Minneapolis.
  • 00:44:37
    What we're doing here is we're trying to create a sustainable development in the city and get off of fossil fuels.
  • 00:44:45
    So at this property, the City of Minneapolis helped me with the insulation on the roof, the solar array and the car charging stations.
  • 00:44:54
    The City of Minneapolis also helped me at other locations with my solar arrays, heat pump units, water heating units, and more insulation.
  • 00:45:04
    The benefits that my tenants are seeing, and I'm seeing, are I don't have an electric bill.
  • 00:45:09
    The tenant's bills on this building are like $12 to $20.
  • 00:45:12
    They're ridiculously low.
  • 00:45:15
    The solar array pretty much zeroes out the energy use of the tenants and the building, and we're going to look to be carbon neutral on all our properties.
  • 00:45:23
    Without the City of Minneapolis help, there's no way I could have done all this.
  • 00:45:26
    I mean, it would have taken me a decade longer.
  • 00:45:28
    And I don't think we have a decade longer to wait.
  • 00:45:32
    I would definitely recommend the Minneapolis Cost Share Program.
  • 00:45:35
    The process is really easy.
  • 00:45:36
    As a small business owner, to have the assistance administratively to do this is huge.
  • 00:45:41
    And they're really timely with payments.
  • 00:45:45
    So I think it's really critical that people work with the City of Minneapolis and the benefits that they offer.
  • 00:45:51
    You know, we're trying to figure out how do we live in the city and make it sustainable for future generations.
  • 00:45:56
    I'm looking beyond my lifetime.
  • 00:45:59
    You know, I can't change what anybody else in the world is doing but I can change what I'm doing.
  • 00:46:03
    Let's get busy and make a future for the world around us.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:46:14
    So again, that was an example of a collaboration with the Health Department, the Small Business Division, as well as our office.
  • 00:46:22
    And that completes my presentation.
  • 00:46:27
    I'm happy to respond to any questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:46:33
    I am not seeing any questions for my colleagues.
  • 00:46:35
    I did have one question.
  • 00:46:37
    First of all, thank you so much for the presentation and appreciate you being here and Greta's absence.
  • 00:46:44
    Actually, I'll let Councilmember Payne has jumped in, so I'll ask mine after.
  • 00:46:48
    Councilmember Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:46:49
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:46:52
    Thank you for the presentation.
  • 00:46:53
    I was just wondering, how would you like us to be proactive in working with you and your team when it comes to each of us trying to get our messages out?
  • 00:47:02
    I know we do our biweekly newsletter, but we haven't worked a lot with comms directly outside of those really useful news bites.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:47:14
    Chair Koski, Councilman Payne, from my experience, I would suggest anytime you have an idea,
  • 00:47:22
    of something that you're trying to do within your respective areas.
  • 00:47:28
    Reach out to us, like say first a thought, hey, this is what we're thinking, you know, make a request, you know, we'll have, you know, myself or someone come down and meet with you, kind of figure out what, you know, what is your plan.
  • 00:47:38
    What are your goals?
  • 00:47:39
    What are you hoping to do?
  • 00:47:40
    And then that's part of, I think, our synergy that we're creating, because we want to make certain that it'll be streamlined and effective, but also to make certain that we kind of clearly understand where you're trying to go, especially if you're doing it in advance, not like two days before.
  • 00:47:57
    My hope, working with Greg and the rest of our team, is that
  • 00:48:03
    When y'all have an idea or say, oh, this is something from town hall meetings or whatnot, well, I'm going to say, oh, let me call Communications.
  • 00:48:12
    Let me reach out to Communications so that makes sense.
  • 00:48:14
    We are abiding by all policies.
  • 00:48:17
    But maybe they also have some other ideas that we have not thought about.
  • 00:48:20
    Because again, it's great to sit down with folks and have this creative session that doesn't really take that long.
  • 00:48:26
    Because again, we're not there to, you know,
  • 00:48:30
    to drive the idea.
  • 00:48:32
    We're there to make sure that we are pulling as many possibilities on what you're trying to do and give you something to look at and massage and see what works best for you.
  • 00:48:42
    So always reach out to us.
  • 00:48:45
    We're always an email away and we're going to be launching a new service request form, which will kind of highlight what our services are going to do.
  • 00:48:53
    a look like, but also this is part of our new process that we've been going through with this agency coordinator coming on board with this new service request form.
  • 00:49:01
    You'll put in a minimum request, like five questions, then this coordinator will reach out to you, set up a time to come in and chat.
  • 00:49:08
    and discuss where you're trying to go and what are your goals and what are you hoping to obtain.
  • 00:49:13
    And then from that we then work on the communications plan and kind of really creating the ideas and the plan for what you are hoping to do.
  • 00:49:23
    And then from that it really shows you how we are, you know, we may be bringing in other areas that you have not thought of.
  • 00:49:32
    That discussion is something in having that agency approach and making sure that we are accessible and we want to hear from you so that way we don't see something out there as, oh God, Councilman Mann, can we talk to you about that?
  • 00:49:44
    You know, so those type of things we're trying to prevent as well, because again, we're here to, you know, we're public servants.
  • 00:49:49
    We're here to help you all to serve the public as well.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:49:52
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:49:53
    Sure.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:49:55
    Thank you, Council President Jenkins.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 00:49:58
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:50:00
    Good morning, Mr. Douglas.
  • 00:50:01
    And I guess sort of related to Councilmember Payne's question, it's been my experience in sort of planning events to have communications sort of at the table at the beginning of the process.
  • 00:50:22
    Is there
  • 00:50:24
    a staff person that's committed specifically to the council.
  • 00:50:33
    I know Casper has been sort of seemingly in that role in the past, but I'm not sure if that's still moving forward.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:50:44
    Okay, well, Chair Koski, Council President Jenkins, from my experience, what we're working on doing
  • 00:50:51
    is, you know, with this new request process.
  • 00:50:54
    We all, from Casper to Sarah, myself, or Greta, you know, serving one department only, you know, some people said, like, we have beats.
  • 00:51:04
    But what we're actually doing is making sure that all of our team, you know, upon the requests that we receive, will be able to come in there.
  • 00:51:11
    That's why this interagency coordinator will also be a key person in.
  • 00:51:15
    meeting with that request that you have, and then they will bring that information back to our team in our interagency meeting.
  • 00:51:23
    We met with Council President Jenkins.
  • 00:51:25
    Here's the project, because again, they will be going through some things to really flesh out your idea or whatever the project or the service that you're trying to do.
  • 00:51:35
    They will bring that to us as the team collectively, so you will have a point of contact, but it won't be just like,
  • 00:51:41
    will be doing this, so it's part of our, we're kind of going through our rebrand and making sure we all will be able to collectively serve, even though there will be some immediate needs that an individual person will be serving, so it's part of what we're moving toward, because when I was a media relations coordinator serving for alternate response with
  • 00:52:04
    formerly OVP, Office of Violence Prevention, Now Neighbor Safety, as well as the alternative response with those programs for Office of Performance Management and Innovation.
  • 00:52:13
    I didn't just work solely for them.
  • 00:52:16
    I would help out with new spies, like helping out with Casper and doing the community media.
  • 00:52:21
    So we all are what we called in the broadcast, we are jack of many trades.
  • 00:52:26
    So you are maybe accustomed to having that one person, but Casper is just one person,
  • 00:52:34
    if the chair can say I need Casper too.
  • 00:52:36
    That's why this agency position will allow you all to send out this information and you will see a coordinated different structure that we're working to roll out by the end of the year.
  • 00:52:48
    That's why we've been working since June, July going through this.
  • 00:52:52
    internal training and reorganization and talking and conversations from our forms to our process and how are we going to meet differently so that we'll be able to better serve everyone.
  • 00:53:02
    So it will be a change, but we're not going to just jump out of the box and hit you with it, but we will explain it through our city talk updates, what's happening and be able to do updates and come to go to different departments, explain what the changes is and how this will serve you all better.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 00:53:19
    And then my last question is the video that you showed earlier, how do we distribute that?
  • 00:53:26
    I mean, maybe that's a question for Mr. Harrison, I don't know, but how do people see the green cost share video?
  • 00:53:38
    Do they have to come to our website or are we?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:53:43
    Not only did we do a news release about it because again that's one of the things with our projects and we're trying to turn every project into a multimedia project that means oh you don't need just a video because you have to have a story you have to have something written to explain what this program is and
  • 00:54:06
    then you have that video link that will give you a visual element to kind of tell that story.
  • 00:54:12
    So I know we wrote up an article about it, we pushed it out on our website, we also pushed it out via social media and we're also trying to drive people to our YouTube channel so that way if once they get there to look at that video, they might start looking around and looking at we're not doing YouTube shorts and things of that nature.
  • 00:54:28
    So we're being strategic in how we are taking just a production because we do get a lot of single
  • 00:54:35
    service request and generally if a person comes to CJ say I need a video and I'll say hey CJ well where's that link going to live?
  • 00:54:49
    How does it get out to everyone?
  • 00:54:51
    It has to drive them back to the properties that we own which is our website.
  • 00:54:57
    So everything has to have a purpose but it has to be
  • 00:55:01
    to see
  • 00:55:19
    I'm not going to call or I may send an email.
  • 00:55:21
    So having those single service requests is something that people have been accustomed to, but we're in a multimedia, a multi-pronged approach to actually communicating this out more effectively.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:55:35
    and what we're trying to do more is Elizabeth can start sharing some of these videos in those newsletters she sends you so you'll be able to share those with your constituents so that there's just many we have a communication plan we meet with the department hey I want a video maybe it's more than that but let's figure out your distribution method that as well like you said social media YouTube any other the City Council TV channel
  • 00:56:01
    all those kind of distribution methods and then also reaching out to customers to say, hey, this is available too.
  • 00:56:06
    I know interim director Eric Hansen, we just rolled out, we're going to be rolling out soon the CPED recovery videos.
  • 00:56:12
    There are seven videos that Dorothea and Danielle put together, which are absolutely fantastic.
  • 00:56:16
    You'll see those soon.
  • 00:56:17
    And so you'll have, oh, that's a great thing to distribute to your residents.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:56:22
    And if I could add to that, Chairman Murkowski, Council President Jenkins, for example, we were talking about the programs within CR that we've been hosting when we had the driver's license for all.
  • 00:56:34
    The state person that's been a guest on our show, they're now also asking, we will be sharing all those links for every show and send them over to them and they will be resharing
  • 00:56:44
    the content that the city of Minneapolis shared to their audiences because as we know come October 1st it's going to be a next level of our folks from the immigrant population who have all these questions and we will still continue to deliver that but our partners even with the state will be taking the content that we produce collaboratively and sharing it and that was one of the requests of them being our guests on our shows as well so that shows another way that we're trying to distribute by doing it intentionally and stuff like that as well.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 00:57:14
    Madame Chair, if I may, lastly, I did a project earlier this summer with
  • 00:57:19
    and some young people from Speak Minneapolis and it was to promote pride and it was amazing.
  • 00:57:31
    So work with Speak Minneapolis, the young people there are doing some incredible work.
  • 00:57:38
    Great facilities too.
  • 00:57:39
    And great facilities.
  • 00:57:40
    And the equipment is high level, professional, it was a great experience.
  • 00:57:50
    So thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:57:53
    Thank you.
  • 00:57:54
    So, Deputy Director Douglas, I just had one question.
  • 00:57:58
    And you kind of answered this, but I wanted to get more of a deeper example of the, for the position, the interagency position, of an example of the kind of work they would do.
  • 00:58:10
    And maybe I'll just use, you know, President Jinkson's brought up, you know, events.
  • 00:58:15
    For example, we're doing our second annual Seniors Fair together coming up at the end of October.
  • 00:58:22
    you know we haven't really looped in communications for that.
  • 00:58:28
    I mean we have it on the news bites and that's the only piece but is that an example of a project you know we're trying to draw many seniors all are welcome but it is dedicated to seniors and it's in you know the South of Minneapolis but is that an example that
  • 00:58:46
    would be a project we could reach out to this interagency individual, talk to them about this and start from the beginning and again, hear about what are some other things we're missing when we're thinking about communicating this to our constituents.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:59:00
    Chair Koski, yes.
  • 00:59:02
    So, for example, with that event coming up, if you reached out, say if the interagency coordinator was already here.
  • 00:59:10
    and you would say, hey, we're co-hosting this and you will submit a simple request that I've answered these five questions that we have there.
  • 00:59:21
    They would then contact you, come into the office, you know, meet with your team, say, okay, we have these questions, we want to
  • 00:59:27
    get a better idea of what you're hoping to do.
  • 00:59:29
    And since you are targeting seniors, we're looking for data like what are the best ways, the most common ways that your constituents say they prefer to be contacted.
  • 00:59:38
    So that way we're thinking strategically, how can we create those elements that will be delivered in a way that's accessible to those folks.
  • 00:59:48
    even if it's held in South Minneapolis, that doesn't matter.
  • 00:59:52
    And then that means also one, writing an article about the event, why the event, interviewing the two people or whomever you may have identified, that would be the article.
  • 01:00:03
    Then perhaps creating a video with CJ's team so that way we have a video for those who are more visual people
  • 01:00:10
    within this link would also live in that particular article.
  • 01:00:13
    Doing a news release, you know, as you know, it's been in news fights and stuff like that, but doing a news release about the event because it would be great for the media to show up to also tell that story.
  • 01:00:23
    But then with that article, which is kind of a preview to what's going to happen, and then also for social media for some seniors that are on social, you know, again, which ones do they most go to from what you have heard in your areas, then I think the next step would be
  • 01:00:39
    once the event actually comes, you know, as it actually happens, a member of our team and maybe some of your team said, hey, you know, we're going to come to that event.
  • 01:00:46
    I've often attended a lot of city events and I think Council Chair Jenkins, you know, I'm always popping up at some things and just kind of, you know, understanding what's happening in all the districts.
  • 01:00:55
    And then I would say we would, you know, write an article about the event so that
  • 01:01:00
    and the
  • 01:01:13
    you know the great impact and y'all's perspective from those who turned out and they have that now they have that post article that demonstrates the impact of it then now next year or the next time you'll have that we now have a historical perspective of things that we can pull from that shows you know how you know effective things are so that's how we would
  • 01:01:34
    approach.
  • 01:01:34
    So once we have the interagency meeting with you all, they then meet with our team and then everyone from their different perspectives, from social media, from video services, perhaps audio, as well as writing, from missing anyone, graphics, flyers, all those people will be in that meeting and they will be given their assigned
  • 01:01:56
    Tactics are sub-projects and they'll start working on those while we're working on other projects as well.
  • 01:02:02
    That would be out of the approach.
  • 01:02:03
    You still have time since it is in October.
  • 01:02:06
    Yeah, reach out.
  • 01:02:08
    Please reach out.
  • 01:02:09
    It's hours away.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:02:11
    That is really helpful.
  • 01:02:12
    It's just helpful to understand in context when you're talking about this role and we see it on paper, but what's the actuality and what's the impact that it's going to have.
  • 01:02:21
    So really appreciate a little bit more context to that.
  • 01:02:25
    It's really helpful.
  • 01:02:27
    I'm not seeing, she's going to be calling you, so that means I'll be calling you too.
  • 01:02:33
    Or we'll fill out a form, if you have that form.
  • 01:02:35
    I'm happy to fill out a form.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:02:36
    Until the form launches, just send an email and we'll go from there because we definitely want to make sure that we're here, we want to be first to thought, not an afterthought.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:02:44
    Sounds good.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:02:45
    Yes.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:02:45
    Well, we appreciate this presentation.
  • 01:02:48
    I'm not seeing any further discussion.
  • 01:02:50
    So thank you so much.
  • 01:02:51
    Thank you so much.
  • 01:02:52
    And I would be remiss to not talk about Mr. Harrison's lovely tie here.
  • 01:02:58
    And call that out.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:02:59
    All right.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:03:02
    Thank you so much.
  • 01:03:03
    All right.
  • 01:03:04
    Finally, we have our presentation from our Neighborhood and Community Relations Department.
  • 01:03:08
    And I see Director Karen Moe is here to present that.
  • 01:03:11
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:03:18
    Good morning.
  • 01:03:22
    My name is Karen Moe.
  • 01:03:22
    I'm director of neighborhood and community relations.
  • 01:03:25
    I am grateful to be standing here today to have the opportunity to talk about our department's budget and the work that we do and to talk about the mayor's proposed budget.
  • 01:03:36
    Before I dive into the work of our department, though, I do want to take a note to acknowledge that our department and our city lost two leaders, two elders from our community in the past year.
  • 01:03:48
    In the photo that you're looking at, on the left-hand side is David Rubador.
  • 01:03:52
    Many of you worked with David prior to coming to the city.
  • 01:03:55
    He has decades of work that he did in committing to making our city a better place.
  • 01:04:01
    He also worked as a director of a neighborhood organization and was instrumental in working with the City Council, city leadership and actually establishing the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department and then served as the first director of our department.
  • 01:04:13
    He retired in December of 2021 and we lost David earlier this year.
  • 01:04:22
    On the left is Jack Whitehurst, who some I hope all of you know.
  • 01:04:27
    Jack also had decades of service to our city.
  • 01:04:31
    He came into our organization through the neighborhood revitalization program where he was assistant director and then came into the neighborhood and community relations department.
  • 01:04:40
    He retired last year after 30 years of service to the neighborhood organization and NRP work.
  • 01:04:47
    We lost Jack earlier this year as well.
  • 01:04:51
    I share this because this is part of the culture of our department to honor both where we've come from, the elders in our community, the leaders in our community.
  • 01:04:59
    It's also significant for the work and what we're talking about today in terms of where we've come from and where we are today and where we hope to go moving forward.
  • 01:05:12
    and here's where we are today.
  • 01:05:14
    This is, oops, sorry.
  • 01:05:19
    I'm gonna have to flip with my glasses.
  • 01:05:20
    It's part of becoming an elder in your community, I think, for some of us.
  • 01:05:31
    So here you see Neighborhood and Community Relations Organizational Chart.
  • 01:05:35
    From henceforth, I'll refer to our department as NCR.
  • 01:05:37
    That's the commonly used acronym that we use in the city.
  • 01:05:40
    This shows how our department is structured internally to achieve our vision.
  • 01:05:46
    You can see the NCR reports to the Deputy City Operations Office of Communications and Engagement.
  • 01:05:52
    Within our department, along with myself as director, there is one deputy director, one director of Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs, and an internal services manager.
  • 01:06:03
    First, that the city addresses and removes barriers to civic participation and meaningful engagement in city programs, services,
  • 01:06:10
    policy development and activities, and that we have a city-wide network of place-based engagement organizations.
  • 01:06:21
    I always love this part to celebrate the achievements that we've had looking back in 2022 and so far in 2023.
  • 01:06:27
    I think one of the things that we feel especially is meaningful for the work in our department given what our city as a whole has gone through in the last two to three years is staff morale within our department it maintains at a good level.
  • 01:06:44
    When you check in with our staff, people are still feeling valued and supported within our department and doing the work of the city.
  • 01:06:53
    We do that also, I want to acknowledge that our department at the core of our department is a commitment to racial equity.
  • 01:06:59
    At the foundation of our department, that was a central tenant, and as we continue to do our work, that is something that we continue to prioritize in our department.
  • 01:07:09
    I also want to acknowledge that we have full implementation of the Neighborhoods 2020 program.
  • 01:07:14
    For those of you that understand, this is significant and I'll touch a little bit on it later but it really has been a significant body of work from many of our residents, volunteers, neighborhood organizations, staff and boards and staff here in the city.
  • 01:07:28
    One thing that I feel very proud of in our department is that we continue to be adaptive to both ongoing and emerging needs.
  • 01:07:37
    It's not something necessarily that we always want to have to do, but emerging needs are part of the work that we do and our staff have continued to be adaptive to make sure that we cannot just do the work every day, but continue to identify and respond to emerging needs.
  • 01:07:53
    In 2023, with one-time funding, we were able to implement the immigration filing fee loan pilot program here in the city of Minneapolis.
  • 01:08:03
    We're excited to have our partners, Affinity Plus, both because we're excited about Affinity Plus, but also because Affinity Plus is a service provider for our partners in the city of St. Paul.
  • 01:08:13
    So now we have one service provider offering this service in the metro area, which we know will reduce confusion for the people that need to access this service.
  • 01:08:23
    Our staff have been recognized nationally, whether it's being invited by the Neighborhoods USA Conference to present on behalf of our body of work here in the city of Minneapolis, being acknowledged by the International Association of Public Participation, or you'll see in this photo if you recognize Farhia Bedoul, who is our East African Community Specialist, is currently on leave, as she was acknowledged as a Bush Fellow, which is just fabulous for the city.
  • 01:08:50
    Another achievement in 2022 and 2023 is re-offering the Community Connections Conference.
  • 01:08:56
    I'll touch a little bit more on that later, but we really are excited about our ability to bring that significant event back to the city.
  • 01:09:06
    With this, some lessons learned.
  • 01:09:07
    I'll say I think continuing to invest in staff every day and make sure that they feel valued and supported and seen in the work that helps them do the job every day, but also be adaptive and work collaboratively, be creative.
  • 01:09:19
    We do hard work in our department, we do hard work across the city, and we don't shy away from that.
  • 01:09:25
    But we also make time to prioritize building relationships.
  • 01:09:33
    I'm going to touch on risks here and I want to acknowledge that sometimes the term risks can bring up a heightened sense of concern there's a negative connotation with this term and we understand as leaders in the city that acknowledging risks actually something important to do so that we're both aware of what the current challenges are but also so we can adjust accordingly so we can reduce the potential negative impact of those risks
  • 01:09:58
    Some things that we've noted I think are things that you probably are all aware of in terms of listening to my colleagues from different departments talking.
  • 01:10:05
    I think staff capacity at the city is one that has been a risk that we continue to monitor both because we've lost staff but also because the increasing needs just continue to ask our staff to do more.
  • 01:10:18
    new leadership in our department.
  • 01:10:20
    I think both is an opportunity.
  • 01:10:22
    I particularly am excited about the opportunity myself, but also I think for the city of Minneapolis, it's an opportunity.
  • 01:10:28
    Having said that, we need to acknowledge that we have lost some historical knowledge of systems and just of our programs.
  • 01:10:36
    And that's something that we will continue to monitor and make sure that we don't have any service interruptions because of that.
  • 01:10:42
    The loss of staff across the enterprise actually is something as an internal service-facing department, one that works collaboratively with other departments.
  • 01:10:52
    When we lose staff in other departments, we lose relationships and we lose the ability to work effectively or collaboratively together.
  • 01:10:59
    We can build those back.
  • 01:11:00
    It just means that there might be time that we have to take to address that.
  • 01:11:05
    The increased demand for services certainly in some of our program areas is something that we are continuing to monitor.
  • 01:11:12
    The government restructure in and of itself is not a risk.
  • 01:11:15
    I think our department believes and understands that there's a lot of opportunities here for how we can do better as a government system.
  • 01:11:22
    Having said that, as we're implementing a new government structure, we also know that there's new policies and procedures.
  • 01:11:29
    And at times that means taking time to understand what those policies and procedures are and that's just something to monitor in terms of timeliness and making sure that we are following new policies and procedures.
  • 01:11:42
    This last risk, I want to acknowledge that today it feels like we're a little bit less reactive than we have been in the last three years.
  • 01:11:51
    Having said that, when we prepared this presentation and looked back in 2022 and certainly earlier in 2023,
  • 01:11:57
    It still felt like both our department and our city as a whole was in a little bit more of a reactive mode, which was necessary.
  • 01:12:06
    But what we also understand is that comes at the cost of resources being committed to a proactive response.
  • 01:12:15
    That's just something we'll continue to monitor.
  • 01:12:17
    Again, lessons learned really are the same lessons from our achievements, which is invest in our staff, make sure they continue to feel valued and supported and seen.
  • 01:12:27
    To continue to work collaboratively as we have increased demand for services We don't necessarily have additional resources in all of our areas.
  • 01:12:36
    So what does that mean for as the city?
  • 01:12:37
    It means we may need to think differently think better about how we collaborate and leverage each other's resources and Then I think also just that balance of making sure as you are being reactive to maintain some space and capacity for that strategic and proactive approach towards the work of
  • 01:12:56
    As NCR has grown and I think I noted that when David worked with the city of Minneapolis to establish our department It was just roughly 12 years ago.
  • 01:13:04
    So we are young within our current city's history but as we've grown and solidified our services both externally with community partners and Internally as a service department.
  • 01:13:15
    We continue to look at the resources we have and how to leverage them to meet our current department goals and
  • 01:13:21
    We're doing our best with the resources that we currently have.
  • 01:13:25
    On this chart you can see what our resources are.
  • 01:13:28
    The top chart shows the funding and I do want to note here it may look like we're taking a budget cut and we are not.
  • 01:13:37
    The 23 budget includes one-time funding.
  • 01:13:41
    Rollover funds from 2022 and some lingering community safety costs, some internal costs.
  • 01:13:47
    The proposed budget for 2024 does not include any cuts to our budget.
  • 01:13:53
    We'll talk later about the one proposed amendment from the mayor but right now I just want to point out that it may look like we're taking a cut and we are not.
  • 01:14:02
    The table on the bottom of the slide reflects the number of staff in NCR.
  • 01:14:06
    We currently have 20 staff that work in our department.
  • 01:14:09
    We have two vacancies, both of which are in the process of being filled.
  • 01:14:14
    As I mentioned earlier, we continue to evaluate the needs and function of our department.
  • 01:14:19
    And that means when we fill vacancies, we also evaluate what our current needs are and making sure that who we hire to fill that vacancy addresses the current needs of our department.
  • 01:14:33
    As I move into the program updates from the NCR department, I want to note that today I'm just going to be touching on a few of the metrics from each program area.
  • 01:14:43
    I invite all of you, as I've done in years past, to visit our department's website where you can see the Blueprint for Equitable Engagement dashboard.
  • 01:14:51
    That dashboard includes a whole array of metrics from all of our program areas that we track on an annual basis.
  • 01:14:58
    Again, I'm just highlighting a few so if you have questions about additional ones you can always visit our dashboard or ask me today and I may remember some of those numbers off the top of my head or I may have to follow up with you.
  • 01:15:10
    I will note that my intention is to update our dashboard in 2024.
  • 01:15:14
    It's a great dashboard but our programs have changed, some of our funding has changed and with that we need to update the dashboard, the language and make sure it accurately reflects our programs today.
  • 01:15:28
    Now I'll move into our three program areas.
  • 01:15:31
    The first program area I want to discuss is our access and outreach support.
  • 01:15:37
    The goals of this body of work is that city programs, services, and activities are accessible to all residents, that all residents can access information and resources, and that immigrants and refugees have equal access to participate in our democracy and our city life.
  • 01:15:53
    A few of the metrics to demonstrate our work in this area is that in 2022, the city spent over $250,000 on language services.
  • 01:16:02
    As you can see from the chart on the right, this spending not only is the highest since we started tracking in 2010, it also demonstrates ongoing annual growth in this area.
  • 01:16:14
    In 2022, the grants to support immigration-related services resulted in over 1,100 people receiving needed and reliable services
  • 01:16:24
    While the number of people served in 2022 was the highest since we started tracking this in 2018, I want to caution that the cases and services provided to individuals is very complex.
  • 01:16:39
    And the total number of individuals is not always reflective of the impact of those services.
  • 01:16:46
    While metrics aren't included here, this program area also supports some of the work focused on assuring the city is compliant with the federal American with Disabilities Act.
  • 01:16:54
    NCR co-manages the city's ADA complaint line with the 311 service center.
  • 01:16:59
    For more updates on that program area, again, visit our dashboard.
  • 01:17:03
    In the last two years, the department has been lead or involved in tracking the emerging situation with migrants from the southern border.
  • 01:17:11
    I'm noting this under accomplishments.
  • 01:17:13
    This is something that was not necessarily we invited ourselves into but was a need that we had to do and with Michelle Rivera as the Director of Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs, we've been actively tracking that.
  • 01:17:26
    The established citizenship fairs led by the city's Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs in partnership with the City of St. Paul has become a meaningful place for residents to access significant information and resources, including information about the driver's license, housing, and of course, how to create a path towards citizenship.
  • 01:17:46
    Lastly, I'm excited that we will soon have a full-time language access coordinator dedicated to managing the growing demand for these services.
  • 01:17:56
    I'll point out in the upper right hand corner our current budget in this program area and the mayor's recommended budget.
  • 01:18:02
    You may notice that it looks like a significant decrease in the funding from our current year to 2024.
  • 01:18:07
    The difference is made up of one time funding NCR received in 2023 for the loan pilot program and the increase in immigration legal services.
  • 01:18:16
    In addition, there were some accounting changes made to reflect the actual spending within the program area.
  • 01:18:22
    Again, there's no cuts recommended for this area.
  • 01:18:28
    The next program area is Coordinated Engagement Services.
  • 01:18:32
    This program area includes the work the NCR department does to support the enterprise.
  • 01:18:37
    NCR works to assure that city departments are equipped to meaningfully engage with residents and under engaged communities, that strong relationships are fostered to increase trust between community and the city, and that the city has comprehensive enterprise engagement policies.
  • 01:18:52
    Some of the metrics I want to highlight here include, in 2022, 124 people attended at least one of the Learning Labs we offer.
  • 01:19:01
    Learning Labs is a series of workshops offered to city staff and the public with a focus on engaging communities of color, people with disabilities, and other groups historically not centered in engagement activities like our elders and our youth.
  • 01:19:15
    In addition to the learning labs, NCR co-manages the city's cultural radio program, as you heard Deputy Director Douglas share some information about, with the communications department.
  • 01:19:26
    The program creates an avenue for all enterprise staff to bring information about projects, programs, resources, and decision-making to residents.
  • 01:19:33
    In 2022, the city hosted 109 city radio and TV shows, bringing a whole variety of city staff and programs from all departments.
  • 01:19:43
    Lastly, NCR organizes the Annual Community Connections Conference on behalf of the enterprise.
  • 01:19:48
    This annual free conference provides a space for the city and community to come together, connect, and share information with one another.
  • 01:19:55
    In 2021, we did not host a conference due to coronavirus, but the table in the lower right-hand corner shows the attendance for 2022.
  • 01:20:04
    And today, I'm able to confidently share the attendance for 2023 was 942 people.
  • 01:20:10
    Again, you can see ongoing continued growth in that area.
  • 01:20:16
    I'll just note here too I also like to say the Community Connections Conference I think is the largest gathering of city staff in one place from all departments with community.
  • 01:20:27
    I think Open Streets may be the other one but the Community Connections historically has been I think one of the largest places for all city programs and staff to come and meet with community.
  • 01:20:39
    In this program area, I also want to acknowledge that NCR has hired a full-time community specialist focused on our community of people with disabilities.
  • 01:20:46
    We are so excited for finally making this happen.
  • 01:20:50
    We're very excited to have Guthrie Bayard join us and able to deepen and expand our work in this area.
  • 01:20:55
    With this additional capacity, we hope to not just continue to strengthen our work in compliance, but to enhance our city's ability to hear from our community of people with disabilities throughout more of our decision-making process.
  • 01:21:09
    Additionally, in 2022, there was some one time funding to offer cultural media programs for our Romo speaking community.
  • 01:21:16
    Again, in the upper right hand corner, the table shows the current budget for this program area and the recommended budget for 2024.
  • 01:21:23
    Again, there is no change.
  • 01:21:25
    The difference just reflects some accounting corrections.
  • 01:21:32
    I'll also point out that Deputy Director Douglas referenced when the housing inspectors came on the Hmong Radio program in that photo, if you don't recognize.
  • 01:21:41
    On the far right-hand side is Michael Yang, the Southeast Asian Community Specialist who hosts that program.
  • 01:21:46
    On the far left-hand side is our colleague, Daryl Spears, who works in Regulatory Services as one of the housing liaisons.
  • 01:21:56
    The third program area for NCR is Neighborhood and Engagement Support.
  • 01:22:02
    All of you are very familiar with this program.
  • 01:22:05
    Our goals are that all residents are engaged equitably regarding issues that impact them at the local level, and that our city continues to have a citywide network of place based engagement organizations.
  • 01:22:17
    Some of the metrics NCR uses to track our work in this area includes how we support organizations to be effective.
  • 01:22:25
    With that, in 2022, NCR provided 87 financial reviews of organizations.
  • 01:22:30
    This can include something as simple as a financial review of policies or accounts as well as full audits.
  • 01:22:38
    In addition to the financial reviews, NCR staff offered 293 board trainings in 2022.
  • 01:22:44
    and see our staff work with neighborhood boards and staff to understand what their needs are and then we follow up with appropriate trainings.
  • 01:22:51
    This can include the role of the board for a nonprofit or neighborhood funding or financial management.
  • 01:22:58
    With these funds, neighborhood organizations estimate they leverage 94,200 hours of volunteer time in 2022 and that they reached a little over 18,000 households through their door-to-door outreach.
  • 01:23:14
    As I have shared with all the other program areas, these are only a few of the metrics of the accomplishments of this body of work.
  • 01:23:21
    NCR recently presented to the Public Health and Safety Committee multiple times on the status of the Neighborhood Network Fund, Equitable Engagement Program, the Partnership Engagement Fund, and the Collaboration and Shared Resource Fund.
  • 01:23:33
    Again, you can visit our dashboard for more metrics.
  • 01:23:36
    And while I take this opportunity to celebrate all of the work of this program area, one I really do want to highlight is that 69 of the 70 organizations are fully engaged with the Neighborhoods 2020 programming.
  • 01:23:48
    This is a huge accomplishment.
  • 01:23:52
    This is the reflection of a lot of work on behalf of these organizations, their boards, their staff, residents, as well as the staff in NCR and other partners around the city.
  • 01:24:04
    NCR staff are working closely with the residents in the 70th neighborhood with the hopes that we will have an organization fully engaged in this program area and able to access the funding.
  • 01:24:16
    In the upper right-hand corner is a table which shows the program area's current budget as well as the proposed budget.
  • 01:24:22
    Again, there are some accounting changes in here.
  • 01:24:24
    I also want to note that the difference between the 23 current budget and the 24 plan is that there were some rollover funds from 2022 as well as some one-time funding for neighborhood organizations in 2023.
  • 01:24:40
    There are no budget cuts recommended for this area.
  • 01:24:43
    You'll actually note in the 2024 mayor's recommended budget there's additional funding and that brings me to the last slide.
  • 01:24:54
    The mayor's recommended budget includes an additional $420,000 of ongoing funding to neighborhoods.
  • 01:25:02
    This ongoing funding is designed to increase the allocation to every neighborhood by $5,000.
  • 01:25:08
    This will ensure that every organization receives at least $15,000 in the neighborhood network fund.
  • 01:25:14
    As pointed out, the funding does not result in an additional position within our department.
  • 01:25:19
    This funding will just be added directly to the neighborhood network fund contract allocation.
  • 01:25:24
    And with that, I have finished my presentation.
  • 01:25:26
    I say thank you and I stand for questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:25:30
    Thank you, Director
  • 01:25:32
    President Jenkins is in queue.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 01:25:35
    Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you, Director.
  • 01:25:40
    I really just want to acknowledge the great work that you guys are doing.
  • 01:25:46
    52% of the Community Connections attendees are people of color.
  • 01:25:54
    I think that's incredible.
  • 01:25:58
    The international recognition is really
  • 01:26:05
    I think
  • 01:26:07
    directly related to our dear colleague, David Rubador, who I know has been working at the national level for decades around neighborhoods and neighborhood work and glad to see you guys continuing that and just thank you so much for adding a disability specialist to the team.
  • 01:26:33
    I think it's really critically important that we
  • 01:26:37
    have that work and to that end I'm going to be bringing forward a resolution.
  • 01:26:44
    and the next council cycle to really recognize invisible disabilities and making sure that we create awareness around these issues.
  • 01:26:57
    So to have somebody in place doing that work is really critical.
  • 01:27:02
    Um, I still hear from our community members that they don't know what's going on.
  • 01:27:09
    They don't know what the city is doing.
  • 01:27:11
    So
  • 01:27:12
    to the extent that we can continue this engagement and get deeper into our communities.
  • 01:27:21
    I think that's going to help us do better.
  • 01:27:23
    But you guys are doing great work and just want to say thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:27:30
    If you want to respond, you can.
  • 01:27:31
    Otherwise, we'll come to Marineville and queue you.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:27:35
    Actually, I'm going to take a moment just to respond and say thank you, Chair Jenkins.
  • 01:27:41
    I think we who work for government understand sometimes things take a while.
  • 01:27:48
    Specifically, the Community Specialist for People with Disabilities was a
  • 01:27:54
    a long overdue commitment that we had the opportunity to fill and I do especially, I'm thankful to David Rubidor who started that work and it was something that we are very proud that we're able to actually follow up on.
  • 01:28:08
    I also just want to acknowledge on that that we do have staff that do a lot of work along with the National Recognition
  • 01:28:14
    I'd like to brag a little bit and say Farhi Abudul is actually the second Bush Fellow in our department.
  • 01:28:19
    We have a former Bush Fellow that works for us with Araya Fine.
  • 01:28:23
    He happens to be here too.
  • 01:28:24
    We also like to brag a little bit of 20 positions in our department.
  • 01:28:28
    We have two former urban scholars that are both working in our department, including Nick Ngo, who is a former urban scholar and now is serving as a deputy director of the department, I believe the highest
  • 01:28:41
    former urban scholar on the bureaucratic side Council Member Chavez on the bureaucratic side so our commitment to doing this work and to continue to provide a culture where all of our staff feel like they can become the leader that they want to be is important to us so thank you Council Member Rainfield
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:29:09
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:29:11
    Just a couple of quick questions, please.
  • 01:29:13
    Thank you for your presentation today.
  • 01:29:15
    And I'm wondering if you have an opinion.
  • 01:29:17
    I'm not going to hold it to you.
  • 01:29:19
    I'm just asking for an opinion.
  • 01:29:22
    In the third ward, we have a real high turnover amongst the leadership in these neighborhood groups and neighborhood staff or staff, of course, too.
  • 01:29:31
    But more so concerning is the board members themselves just seem to churn and come and go.
  • 01:29:35
    and that seems to have accelerated in the last three, four years.
  • 01:29:41
    Any idea why that's happening?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:29:44
    Councilmember Rainville, Chair Koski, thank you for the question and I also appreciate you acknowledging it's my opinion.
  • 01:29:52
    I actually don't know, it's something that we can look into a little bit more about maybe that's something
  • 01:29:59
    Our department should actually maybe survey more of our board members to understand is that unique to neighborhood organizations?
  • 01:30:05
    Is that part of a shift that's happening right now in terms of
  • 01:30:12
    I know I sit on a board myself outside of the city and the last three years have just been a lot for people who live in the city of Minneapolis and I think our country as well.
  • 01:30:23
    And so I don't really know.
  • 01:30:25
    I don't necessarily have a personal opinion It's something that we certainly can do some thinking about within our department to understand Is that unique to those organizations or is it part of a larger pattern?
  • 01:30:37
    But thank you for that super thoughtful question
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:30:39
    Well, it's a challenge, I guess.
  • 01:30:41
    Think it through and I look forward to it.
  • 01:30:43
    I see Steve nodding his head.
  • 01:30:46
    It's not a good thing and we should do something to correct it.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:30:52
    Yes, Chair Koski, Council Member Alice.
  • 01:30:54
    I understand the complexity with neighborhood organizations that sometimes the unique funding, especially the NRP funding and sometimes the number of rules around the NRP funding is something that takes time to understand and so having some consistency can be important for neighborhood organizations.
  • 01:31:16
    So I will circle back with our team and we'll do some work on that one to follow up.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:31:22
    Thank you, and one last question.
  • 01:31:23
    The Community Connection Conference, how much did you spend on that?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:31:33
    Chair Koski, Council Member Rainville, I don't have the answer off the top of my head, but I will say that the range over the last couple years since I've been within the department has been somewhere between 70,000 to 100,000 annually.
  • 01:31:48
    Okay, thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:31:52
    Thank you.
  • 01:31:52
    I am not seeing any further discussion.
  • 01:31:55
    I too just want to say thank you for the very thoughtful presentation and you began a presentation with an important acknowledgement and that is taken in with gratitude and I am glad we had a moment to pause and remember today and you know I think we can all feel the deep care and love that you and your team has for the city through the presentation you gave today so thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:32:20
    Thank you Director and to your staff that are here with us today for the incredible work that you all do to engage our residents across the city and in wards where people don't always speak English so just very grateful for the work you all are doing and
  • 01:32:40
    will be reaching out to you in regards to other potential needs the department may have and making sure that it's funded adequately as we go into the next year.
  • 01:32:51
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:32:53
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:32:55
    Alright, thank you very much.
  • 01:32:58
    Seeing no further discussion, at this point I'll direct the Clerk to file those presentations.
  • 01:33:03
    Our next Budget Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, October 2nd at 10 a.m. That day we are set to hear from the Convention Center and the Health Department.
  • 01:33:12
    With that we've concluded all business