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First off, a quick note: this week a group of leaders from our region is traveling together to Toronto for our annual InterCity Leadership Visit! We’ve been given a very warm welcome already, and I very much look forward to learning from Canada’s largest city - North America’s 4th largest. This is a trip all about aspirations and I will share what I learn when we return!
With this trip coming up, I’ve been thinking about aspirations – how can we think bigger and better of our region. It was with this mindset that I learned on Friday of another potential ordinance that will further limit retail business opportunity in Saint Paul. And I want to encourage the City Council - with great energy - to vote this down. The St. Paul Planning Commission approved a resolution last Friday that would restrict future drive-thrus within the city. The resolution prohibits new drive-thrus for fast-food restaurants and coffee shops while creating new requirements for pharmacy and bank drive-thrus, such as requiring walk-up access during the same hours that the drive-thru is open. In T3 and T4 districts, pharmacy and bank drive-thrus would only be allowed in a building that is at least four stories high and 40,000 square feet. Additionally, stacking requirements have been increased to a minimum of six stacking spaces. This resolution now heads to the St. Paul City Council for consideration. We spoke about this back in June (KTSP article). And my concern about the proposed ordinance remains. Certainly, some locations are not a good fit for a drive-thru operation due to infrastructure design or maybe traffic patterns. But we don’t need a sweeping policy change to analyze specific projects. From my season at the Port Authority I worked with several companies that walked away from Saint Paul because they simply couldn’t find locations for drive-thru service. Each of these companies wanted to bring jobs, tax base, and expanded services to Saint Paul. They went elsewhere. This broad prohibition will tell retailers – “no thank you,” at a time when we should be doing all we can to welcome, invite, and make room at the table. If you have an opinion on this issue and would like to take your own action, please let your City Council Member know – they care what you think! Restricting drive-thrus will harm future businesses and residents alike by removing a key component of modern convenience and efficiency. Drive-thrus have gained popularity because they allow customers to quickly access services without exiting their vehicles, which boosts service speed and increases customer turnover. Eliminating this option for consumers will likely cause them to seek out drive-thrus outside of the city, resulting in a loss of customers for local businesses. It will also take away a business’s ability to continue serving customers while dealing with both workforce shortage and public safety issues. And the city would forfeit a valuable asset for attracting new businesses who want to bring jobs, tax base, and expanded services to St. Paul. I feel strongly that, the more we legislate to the least common denominator, the more we invite in “unintended consequences” that actually drive future business opportunity away. Relevant News Articles
See you in the trenches, B
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We’ve got two really big programs ahead of us, both in response to your declared priority of investing in tomorrow. Tuesday, October 15, is our 3rd annual Career Connect Day at RiverCentre! Designed as an opportunity for high school students to interact with employers and explore future career paths, each year the program grows. Last year we sold out with 100 employers purchased booths and spent the day with students. This year we’re expanding the experiential side of the event, providing "a day in the life of" experience in various sectors. Our vision here is that this program become the gold standard for career exploration opportunities for youth, from across the region – and even the state. To learn more about the day or watch a video from past years, click here. Employers can purchase a booth, or sponsor the event for added visibility – connect with us by Sept. 20. If you have questions about the event or signing up, please contact Kim Chung, Manager of Strategic Initiatives, or Melissa McLean, Director of Talent Development. Otherwise, you can register here!
Additionally, our quarterly Lunch With Leaders event presented by Wells Fargo, this Wednesday, highlights and celebrates entrepreneurship. We’ll learn about the NASA Inclusive Innovation Mashup Lab, and partner with Saint Paul’s Full Stack initiative as we introduce the MSP StartUp Guide. I especially appreciate this programming because it’s been led by our Small Business Committee, who suggested we expand the event programming to include more purposeful networking time. In case you hadn’t seen it,
See you in the trenches, B For more than five years now, Saint Paul City Council member Rebecca Noecker has made her SPARK initiative a priority. Saint-Paul-All-Ready-For-Kindergarten is intended to ensure that all Saint Paul families have affordable access to high quality early learning and childcare. On this November’s ballot will be a request for additional property tax to pay for this initiative.
I don’t intend to dispute the merits of the idea. My very real concerns are twofold: budget and prioritization of issues. In terms of budget, I still haven’t seen one. What I do know is that it will be more expensive than the anticipated $20M-over-10-years proposal. As one expression of his opposition, Mayor Carter presented his projected cost analysis to the City Council earlier this year, and he calculated the program could cost over $100M over those same 10 years. To my mind, it’s not yet a policy discussion – is still a math discussion. This on top of a city-wide 7.9% levy increase for 2025, a Ramsey County increase of 4.75%, a new metro-wide sales tax, and a new Saint Paul 1% sales tax to pay for critical infrastructure needs. Which takes me to my next issue: prioritization. Given that Saint Paul doesn’t even have money for its roads, offering "free" pre-k by raising property taxes even further seems especially unwise. The City is challenged to serve its residents’ needs within existing city departments and programs. And those needs are growing. We need to focus on the more immediate issues of public safety and infrastructure improvements. See you in the trenches, B I want to talk again this week about George Latimer. His funeral was Monday; more than 500 people attended, and another Mayor – Chris Coleman – offered the eulogy for his very good friend. Coming to the city as I did, after Latimer’s terms in office, I never knew him well. And I clearly underestimated his impact – and who he was. Lest others of you share my misapprehension, I wanted to tell you what I heard yesterday. It moved me deeply.
I listened to people’s conversations throughout the visitation, I spoke to friends who knew him. Every story was about his nature: big, ebullient, unapologetic, collaborative, wildly human, a great listener, deeply caring for people, “unconfined by misplaced pride”: “He had an unsurpassed love for the city he served”; “Once you worked for him, any future bosses paled in comparison”; “He created a feeling in that city… everyone wanted to work on whatever HE wanted to work on. Because he cared so deeply”; “No one wondered if the City cared, because HE did.” Latimer had big ideas, took risks. And he always saw possibility - “he made no small plans for they have no ability to stir the imagination”: among them being District Energy, preservation of Landmark Center, Galtier Tower, Town Square, World Trade Center, Hubert Humphrey Job Corps Center. And then he always soldiered on, even when some of them didn’t work out as expected. Coleman spoke so eloquently about his friend. “He was a man without an ounce of meanness… he would rather walk with those who had no shoes than ride with those who had no souls….” He shared the lessons he took from watching Latimer: march forward with joy, dream big, act wholeheartedly, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, don’t take yourself too seriously.” Certainly many things have changed since Latimer’s retirement. But not the important things. Leadership still is the conscience of the people. We can’t live alone, isolated, only for ourselves. We must live for the benefit of others. Walter Rauschenbusch was a Baptist minister in the Hell’s Kitchen district of New York in the 1880s. He espoused a “social gospel,” seeing the gospel and social justice as one being the expression of the other. Mayor Chris Coleman shared one of his prayers at the funeral, in part because George Latimer was seen as walking this path. And I thought it especially lovely. God, we pray thee for this, the city of our love and pride. We rejoice in her spacious beauty and her busy ways of commerce, in her stores and factories where hand joins hand in toil, and in her blessed homes where heart joins heart or rest and love. Help us to make our city the mighty common workshop of our people, where everyone will find his place and task, in daily achievement building up his own life to resolute manhood, keen to do his vest with hand and mind. Help us to make our city the greater home of our people, where all may live their lives in comfort, unafraid, loving their loves in peace and rounding out their years in strength. Bind our citizens, not by the bond of money and of profit alone, but by the glow of neighborly goodwill, by the thrill of common joys, and the pride of common possessions. As we set the greater aims for the future of our city, may we ever remember that her true wealth and greatness consist, not in the abundance of the things we possess, ut in the justice of her institutions and the brotherhood of her children. Make her rich in her sons and daughters and famous through the lofty passions that inspire them. We thank thee for the patriot men and women of the past whose generous devotion to the common good has been the making of our city. Grant that our own generation may build worthily on the foundation they have laid. If in the past there have been some who have sold the city’s good for private gain, staining her honor by their cunning and greed, fill us, we beseech thee, with the righteous anger of true sons that we may purge out the shame lest it taint the future years. Grant us a vision of our city, fair as she might be: a city of justice, where none shall prey on others; a city of plenty, where vice and poverty shall cease to fester; a city of brotherhood, where all success shall be founded on service, and honor shall be given to nobleness alone; a city of peace, where order shall not rest on force, but on the love of all for the city, the great mother of the common life and weal. Her thou, O Lord, the silent prayer of all our hearts as we each pledge our time and strength and thought to speed the day of her coming beauty and righteousness. Coleman ended his eulogy: “rest well my friend, knowing yours truly was a life well lived.” See you in the trenches, B I got news late Sunday, news that marks the end of an era. George Latimer, Saint Paul’s longest serving mayor, passed away Sunday morning at the age of 89. The Pioneer Press wrote a nice piece on him.
Take a moment and read the article – you’ll learn something. I sure did. Latimer’s service as Mayor preceded many of us here in Saint Paul; others have deeply treasured memories that extend to your own parents. What I have learned is that he brought innovative thinking coupled with a spirit that deeply cared about people as individuals. People have been telling me stories, about both his great successes (District Energy and the Ordway are but two) and his challenges. Most importantly, in each case people speak about how Latimer cared about people. What I appreciate the most about what I’ve learned about Latimer is his growth mindset. He focused on building up Saint Paul, on thinking bigger than we were, something we need to embrace today as well. We are at another inflection point, and downtown revitalization must remain front and center. See you in the trenches, B |
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