##VIDEO ID:aeLnNB8aJnE## staff prided the intent of city code for the exterior lighting why did staff not include to protect motor vehicle operators why did staff not include the language from city code 21317 exterior lighting lighting plan where number four states an accurate site plan indicating location of property lines and all existing and proposed land improvements including but not limit to buildings parking lots aisles and driveways streets walkways and accessory buildings why did staff not include the city code 21317 exterior lighting States minimum illumination of parking surface of the parking loading access or other surface areas along the property line why is there no Lighting in the areas where pedestrians are likely to be present such as the sidewalk next to South entrance Park Avenue and the sidewalk in the parking lot on Chicago Avenue additionally there is a sign there is a parking plan that indicates LP or light pole by the darl FR sign why was that not constructed also after the last listening session and Council secretary an email dated Tuesday August 27th 2024 I did not receive a reply um email says first to address comments made and I used YouTube's YouTube's rough transcriptions a council member states so you're dismissing the fact this is the this is a reply to my concern about there being seven police reports with my name in them so council member says so you're dismissing the fact that they may have actually been responding to things that you were calling the city about at the time because you call every week about parking violations noise violations light violations not having enough light right so they could actually have been responding because you were submitting complaints to the city my comment I had not been calling the police additionally I stopped taking pictures after August 27th 2019 when police approached me while I was in my neighbor's driveway with her permission police inaccurately informed me that I would be subject to arrest under the harassment statute regardless of my intentions the statute as written was unconstitutional at the time which I had not violated either and noted in the NES versus city of Bloomington decision that stated NES decision to Chiller speech was not objectively reasonable for two principal reasons first her intended conduct is not prescribed by the statute Additionally the definition of harass in the word another suggests that harassment must Target an individual victim as such does not extend to the monitoring of a physical space an issue or a random crowd of people December 2 second was the motion for a preliminary injunction that was filed first report is dated December 5th 2019 and then another council member states because of your reports they are being diligent all week she also commented I would agree with the council member most likely they happened because of the length of the inquiries so it was put on the roll call to do for the week my comment again I had not been calling the police additionally if they were going to be diligent they would have at least included extra Patrol on Friday Also I had quit speaking at city council comment periods after January 7 2019 as well because the city required that I provide my address verbally and that was not safe I did not comment again until May 18th 2020 when I requested the council revise the agenda concerning the public hearing for rank Choice voting then again on April 26 20 21 not concerning the building and that was it until the listen sessions began April 25th 2022 mayor says I think the bottom line is the police said reason to do this my comment and that is what I would like to know what is the reason city manager our police officers are always patrolling neighbors neighborhoods my comment yes they are but they are not putting names in reports unless there is a reason and again what is that reason I would like to know why my name is on these reports it is not on the reports for the reasons the council member suggested so why is my name on the reports this is an Ask okay thanks thank you all right Michelle hey just want to say there's no pen here so um greetings Mr Mayor counselors and staff um I'm with Restort n uh and uh so we just I'm just here to introduce the um position paper that we've put together um it's a looks like a really huge document but that's because the FedEx guy wanted us to look like Hypocrites and he only printed it pded right so um we also emailed it so you'll have it that way too um so it's laid out it starts out with you know an executive summary which just gives you all the basic information that we want to talk about like uh ecological restoration climate change social equity and access to Nature um the negative impacts that we think adding new recreational amenities to Central Park could bring though not moer we're not uh concerned there and our vision for enhancing the corridor for Education um then it gets into the nitty-gritty details after that for those of you who want to keep reading and find out uh just more detail um so that's pretty much it I'm just here to to say that we've put this together and hope that you read it um and then I guess just I also just wanted to say that um I went to I go to the park and wck meetings uh Park meetings every month and so this last one you maybe don't know uh Renee talked about everybody she'd spoken with you know that they talk to Ada people they talk to cyclists they've been talking to restore the nine people and she said one of the themes that we're hearing from the community at large is that a shared Trail for bikes and pedestrians is least preferred and so I just want to say it looks like the cyclists and restore the nine have something in common that's it okay I'll write this while somebody else talks thank you very much y'all coun any questions um yeah I would just be curious um this is great thank you and I look forward to reading it over how did you guys create this and are is it like something that you'll have on your website so people can like read it through it and sign on and well uh let's see we created uh different people contributed to it and is that kind of what you're asking yeah I mean I've been part of a lot of Coalition work and I just was just curious different members who to this point I mean that takes a lot of work and a lot of lot of people and so I guess I'm just kind of yes do yes some of us uh worked very very hard and many hours on that so yeah thank you no problem and yeah it's a good idea that that we probably will be putting it on the website so here I'll gather the way now F's done any other questions okay all right thank you here all right Miss gon you're up and welcome well thank you for giving me to talk my name is Mari Aran and I'm going to tell you just a bit about myself to for some credibility I'm a Minnesota native I've lived in Bloomington over 50 years my husband and I have raised two sons here I worked my way through college became a Minnesota licensed teacher K through 12 art and English I worked in Minneapolis and Bloomington schools I also worked at Ma Clinic Rochester that's how I worked my way through school state of Minnesota Health Department Minnesota Heart Association my own business mg designs affiliated with Midwest fashion and design Consortium work retail Mall of America Macy's and Nordstrom so abroad background also have been working as a volunteer I've been a math tutor in Bloomington public and private school elementary schools I've been an election judge 13 times I have been an artisan and leader at Creekside Boutique over 10 years so why am I here I'm representing the boutique because I get the impression that the boutique is kind of being overlooked and forgotten and I feel very strongly that that should not happen so a little um history of the Boutique first of all what is a boutique it means small specialty shop that's all it means the name is derived from French in French it means shop and now it's a common English in common English usage Boutique so what what are the reasons to save the Boutique first of all foremost I would say it provides socialization connecting with others for the artisans for the customers for the volunteers we might be the only people some of these uh customers talk to for the whole day who knows we in the boutique the the boutique the boutique contributes to health and wellness and guards against Health robbing loneliness and isolation which is experienced by so many seniors many who have lost their partner many who are taking care of somebody caregivers and this creates real health issues can result in premature health issues and even early death the boutique has been in existence for over 40 years since the middle 1980s it has more than 20 volunteers that run the boutique it has about a hundred crafters and Artisans who get new ones all the time and some dropping off and it's a place for them to Market their Handcrafted Creations everything must be new handcrafted um did you know that 25% of the sales revenue goes to the city of Bloomington 15% for the volunteers also did you know hundreds of dollars are given every year to local charities such as vep Cornerstone and bridging this year we already have given $500 and there will be more because this is only September so even though we've been told all the pl for the Health and Wellness Center Creekside are preliminary and nothing is definite but we have seen they don't call them schematics I don't know what they call them but they look like plans to us and we don't see anything there that says Boutique and we strongly object to that we are extremely concerned that we are going to be left out so here's something interesting that I found and I'm sure you all know about this survey that was done in 2022 by the city of Bloomington July and August of 2022 explaining to the citizens why a 0.5% sales tax should be approved in order to help pay for our new craigside cide community center so the city hired Morris leathering company to conduct a survey of Bloomington GR residents the results of the 10minute telephone survey of 400 Bloomington residents showed that 76% supported building a new community center and that's where we're at the survey also showed that 61% said that the number of aquatic facilities in the city was about right 9% of the respondents said there were too many aquatic facilities only 21% that said that there were too few aquatic facilities and now the plans that I've seen show it's a huge part of the plan um so the show survey showed that 70% of Bloomington residents respondents thought the current availability of aquatic facilities was sufficient the Morris lean survey results showed that there was not a felt need for more aquatic facilities cont contrary to what we are now being told as to what Bloomington residents want so there is some disparity there which I think you all should look at so if the city was satisfied with the survey results regarding the desire for a new community center why isn't the city also satisfied with what the same same survey showed as to the Aquatic facilities and maybe some of you noticed that I did a email this to all of you last Thursday the very same thing so that is um I'm open to questions if anybody has a question for me thank you thanks for being here today Council any questions council member ker and then council member L um so this might be just as much a question for City staff but um when I hear you talk about what what you do at the boutique and all that goes into it and the crafters and Artisans and I mean it kind of makes me I probably opening up a can of worms so I'm really sorry but I mean it kind of makes me think like it would even be good for the boutique to be like in Civic Plaza somewhere to have space um because we already have a lot of Arts based organizations here um so I don't know like I whenever I heard you talking about what it was that you did um I just wanted if even Civic pla would be a really good like even a better fit because of the type of things that you're doing I mean I think I see stuff being craft stuff being sold downstairs already so it's like how I mean so I guess more of just an idea um and I'm not saying obviously like you said no decisions have been made about the new Health and Wellness Center but but I we have so there's it seems like there's space and maybe potential opportunities and so we do need traffic for sure and ideally we would like to be near the entry and we would like to have a glass storefront we need at least as much space as we have now if not more and it would be a dedicated space just like the Aquatic Center and the health thing that's all dedicated right the child care center dedicated space right all right so that's what we're asking for and you will be seeing us a lot counc M lman thank you so my questions are along the same lines U but it's more a question for you how important is it for you to be inside of the the new Health and Wellness Center that's where we've been why shouldn't we be there that's where we've been why should we be kicked out we're very insulted tell you the truth C any additional questions all right thank you thanks for being here tonight all right thank you all right that's the last on our list of folks is there anybody else we do have a few minutes here is there anybody else would like to speak this evening I guess there is time there is time that's why I asked you earlier all right hi I'm Robert Coleman um I was uh wondering may what happened with Riverview um it it seemed like from uh I think that a lot of people who were really uh working towards it were very shocked at what Ramsey County decided and from the wording of their statement it really feels like they don't want Transit at all um and then it really seemed like you know a couple hours later uh mayor Carter and uh the I don't remember her name the ward five uh council member on St Paul city council was like oh we're going to work for brt now but from the statement that uh Ramsey County put out it didn't really sound like they wanted brt I mean they cancelled all of the uh policy committee's future meetings why wouldn't they just like if if the county wanted brt why didn't they just say oh at the next meeting we're going to recommend that you guys approve brt I it see it was very shocking and I don't we don't understand what happened well uh in my conversation with for those of you who don't know uh the Ramsey County Commissioner Rafel Ortega who is the chair of the corridor policy advisory committee he's been driving the notion of Riverview Corridor for more than a decade I think a couple of decades now uh made the decision that he didn't want he didn't want Ramsey County to commit any more resources toward Riverview Corridor toward the toward the project and the where the project was after literally 10 years that we've been working I mean longer well the original study was before 2000 yes it was that's why I said since we've been working on this this advisory committee's been working on this uh the recommendation was boiling down to Modern street car connecting downtown St Paul and ultimately the airport and Mall of America or bus Rapid Transit doing basically the same thing studies Galore about travel times costs ridership all you know how it would all work and how it would all fit together uh and commissioner Ortega I mean he said very specifically he didn't feel there was the support necessary to move forward and when pushed on that uh specifically from the the Met Council or the Metropolitan airports commission yeah I was thinking it was Mac and um and uh he he without that support he thought it was not responsible to continue to commit Ramsey County resources and time and energy and so on towards something that he didn't think he had the support for and uh so he just he he decided that the best path forward at this time was to Simply suspend the operations he also said I mean if if things changed he'd fire it up again but uh at this time he he just thought this was the best course of action wow that sucks yeah really looking forward to that but Y and and again for those of you who don't know it is still it is served by what's the road is it4 the 54 bus uh takes roughly two and a half weeks to get from downtown St Paul to Mall of America roughly yeah I've no for sure I've been in I've been on Route 54 where there was a big protest uh near the Exel and every bus was delayed like 30 minutes so it's not it's not ideal right now but it it continues it has there is still service it's not good and efficient service but there is still service between downtown St Paul and the uh and the airport in the mall it's just not as ideal as it could be and a lot of time and effort and work and Blood Sweat and Tears went into this and it's it was disappointing I agree with you Robert I mean it was disappointed to hear it also because I mean like I I I've literally been working on it for more than a decade now I've been on that committee for more than a decade and uh to see it just stop abruptly like this was was disappointing CC member Nelson yeah two quick questions um how long does it take for light rail if you go to to Minneapolis and then over to St Paul how long does that take is that faster than the 54 uh it's not faster no but I I can and second what are you gonna do your free time I I don't [Laughter] know I mean the fact that St Paul isn't gonna get a direct rail connection to the airport sucks on its own will right 2025 they have a train coming up to the big plan they're building a bridge over the that that's the Riverview Corridor that's what we're got killed by the Ramsey County and Ramsey County K Ram County just pulled the plug out it that's okay they're also not building housing in St Paul either so that's they're not wrong py comments aside um thank you are there any other questions all right very good anything else folks all right no one coming forward counil I would look for a motion to adjourn our listening session this evening some motion in a second all in favor please say I I opposed motion carries 60 we are adjourned we will see you downstairs thank you much as I said that I realized I think I forgot the colge order but