Blog Archives

The Power of One

10/24/2022

Hi everyone! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been with you, and I’m glad to be back. In these last weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about power. Who has it, how can it be used to advance good, and what is our responsibility with the power we have… I’m compelled by this idea that each of us has real power, within our areas of responsibility – big or small. Look around. We know lots of things or situations that need to change. But most of the time, we can feel powerless to do anything about any of it. The issues are just too big. I am convinced that we do have the power to make a difference. In fact, we have a ton of power to create change, and we can do so every day. That personal power can have a ripple effect and lead to real systems change as it spreads.

Each of us can author change, with the power – or agency – we have in our lives right now. And we don’t need to have a title or money to do so. In my small world, here are some things I do with very specific intentionality:

I invite new friends to dinner at my home. And I introduce them to one another.
I meet with a new company, its owner navigating funding for a project, and I introduce him/her to 3 people within my network who could help.
I work hard to manage both my thought life and the words I use when I’m talking about a situation, a person, or a challenge I’m wrestling with.
I can actually stop to help my neighbor rather than rushing into the garage and hoping she doesn’t see me (this one is a “stretch goal” for me…).
At a meeting or networking event, I intentionally invest my time with the person I’m sitting with. I want to learn something new, and make a real connection.
When asked, I’m willing to share my personal or professional story with people. And I am as candid as possible, hard though that is.

To my mind, real change, revolution even, happens one person, one situation at a time. The Power of One. I bet you could think of just one thing for yourself, as well. I’d love to hear about it.

See you in the trenches.
B

Ex-Minneapolis cops head to trial for aiding George Floyd’s killing. Already convicted on federal counts of violating Floyd’s civil rights, this trial is on state aiding and abetting counts.
Sheriff sounds alarm as Ramsey County jail populations climbs. Attributed to several factors, including: state court backlog due to the pandemic; more people being held on murder or attempted murder charges; more people waiting for court-ordered evaluations for mental illness.

Big News: MN launches $100M effort to help new small businesses. Check out the new online hub that bills itself as a one-stop shop for "everything you need to know about DEED's resources for small businesses."
Chris Farrell: As recession looks more likely, there are steps to prepare for the worst. A Bloomberg Economic model projection has a U.S. recession "effectively certain in the next 12 months." The Wall Street Journal's latest survey of economists reports the odds of recession over the next 12 months at 63%. Fitch, the credit rating service, expects the U.S. will enter "genuine recession territory" next year. Remember, these are forecasts; and they’ve been premature – or overshot – more than once in recent months.

Minnesota reports small increase in unemployment September: up to 2%. And our job growth continues, despite the ongoing tight labor market.
The Fed is set to raise rates by 75 basis points next month – the fourth meeting in a row.

State

Minnesota Election 2022. The Pioneer Press annual voters guide, as well as help finding your polling place.
Battle to control Minnesota Legislature hinges on the suburbs (and likely in fewer than two dozen competitive districts).
News coverage on Sunday’s debates: Star Tribune, MPR, 5 Eyewitness News.

Regional

St. Paul City Council decides tenant appeals of Dominium rent increases. The developer demonstrated that prices are up more than 9%; City Council capped it at 6.1%.
Earlier this month in St. Paul: St. Paul City Council has voted to continue to work with a coalition of nonprofits (“the Sherburne Collective”) intent on developing 6 units of deeply affordable housing at 652 Sherburne Ave in St. Paul. Such an engagement likely will entail $1M in future city funding.

Election season is ramping up. Be sure to reference our East Metro Voter Guide to learn more about your candidates!

Subscribe to our Chamber Advocacy Update to keep up with advocacy news.

Build a network to last the rest of your career. Join the LSP Class of 2023. Registration is open!
Lunch With Leaders, Economic Development Update: Nov 9, 11:30am – 1:00pm. Register here!
Our Equity Summit V, Inspiring Human-Centered Leadership, is here: Nov 15, 8:00am – 2:00pm. Register here!
Please join us at St. Paul’s Holiday party – the Chamber’s annual Holiday Open House: Tuesday, Dec 6, 5:00 – 7:00pm. Register here!
And be sure to come out for the GLOW Holiday Festival, that will be at CHS Field this year, Nov 23 – Jan 1, 2023!

Want to lure remote workers back? Here’s the best incentive to offer. Hint: some include 4-day workweek, more paid time off, workplace safety and cleanliness.
Your Chamber was honored to execute on the first annual Career Connect Day, on Oct 18, at St. Paul’s RiverCentre. Nearly 2000 high school students participated, all free of charge due to funding from 3M, Medtronic, and the Workforce Innovation Board of Ramsey County. Look forward to this event in 2023, adding more schools/businesses and a second day for adult career exploration opportunities and resources.

St. Paul tech companies join forces to help build employee engagement in a world of remote work: more on the Augeo acquisition of Structural announced earlier this month.
St. Paul nonprofit leaders are recipients of the St. Paul & Minnesota Foundation’s 2022 Facing Race Awards: Angela Hooks, founder and ED of Black on Black Development and Entertainment, Txhongpao Lee, ED of the Hmong Cultural Center (the other 2 recipients are: Classie Dudley, President of Duluth NAACP,/ED of Community Action Duluth; and Lulete Mola, co-founder and President of the MN Black Collective Foundation in Mpls).

Twin Cities-based jobs website – Twinist - aims to connect immigrants with employers.

Sears site: what’s the plan? Seritage Growth Properties is working with the St. Paul office of real estate consultants Kimley-Horn and New York-based S9 Architecture to effectively cut up and redraw St. Paul’s long vacant Sears site, which spans more than 17 acres of land. The vision, so far, calls for eight or nine five-to-seven story buildings of mostly market-rate housing, presumably apartments, spanning 600-800 housing units. (Courtesy of Seritage Growth Properties).
The Twin Cities office market: sees rise in sublease availability. According to CBRE, this trend has been ongoing since 2020. These are the largest office building in the Twin Cities, ranked by square footage. And last week, Saint Paul BOMA released their annual Market Report.
Construction officially begins on Gold Line BRT linking St. Paul and Woodbury. This BRT project is the first of its kind in the region to primarily use dedicated bus lanes.

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10/17/22 Connect. Cultivate. Contribute.

10/13/2022

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GUEST BLOG: Connect. Cultivate. Contribute
from Kari Wiley, Leadership St. Paul Alumni (Class of 2015) and LSP Curriculum Chair

The three goals of Leadership St. Paul are not only a fun collection of words that start with C but the framework for this premier leadership program. For me, going through the cohort in 2015, planning Healthcare Day for 6 years and now as the curriculum chair, this program has brought deep appreciation and understanding of what is amazing about St. Paul and the East Metro and has opened my eyes to where there are disparities. Being a part of Leadership St. Paul allowed me to see what organizations and the community are doing to provide solutions to the issues we face and where there are opportunities for me to contribute. With program days that span all industries and sectors, I’ve been introduced to the breadth of what makes this city and region tick. Additionally, this program helped me learn more about myself with the embedded leadership curriculum that encourages self-reflection and provides a lens to approach each program day.

I am very thankful for LSP and the deep and lasting friendships, connections, and knowledge I carry forward with me.

Applications for the next Leadership St. Paul Class of 2023 are now open. My ask of you is to consider who in your network belongs in the next Leadership St. Paul "Best Class Ever" and encourage them to apply or apply yourself and join the more than 2,000 LSP alumni in making the St. Paul region a more vibrant place to live, work, and play.

Kari Wiley, Leadership St. Paul Alumni (Class of 2015) & LSP Curriculum Chair

B's blog, It's Our Business will be back next week!

Meet St. Paul's police chief finalists.

Drying Mississippi River Threatens U.S. Supply Chain. Shipping and tourism businesses are searching for alternatives as barges are grounded on sandbars and prices soar. This is especially troubling during Minnesota’s crop harvest.

Twin Cities prices leap 7.4%, not as high as rest of U.S. It's the first time the increase as measured by the CPI for the metro area has fallen below 8% since January. At the same time, Minnesota home sales decline 18.2% in September, though prices continue to trend upward.
Worsening inflation will pressure the Fed to keep raising rates (anticipated to raise by another 75 basis points at its meeting next month). Inflation in the U.S. accelerated in September, with the cost of housing and other necessities intensifying pressure on households, wiping out pay gains and ensuring that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates aggressively. And it is hitting small businesses especially hard.

State

The St. Paul Area Chamber submitted comments in opposition of the Minnesota Housing rent control proposal to adopt a 5% rent increase limitation on its 2024-25 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP). The effect of this proposal would be statewide rent control on affordable Housing Tax Credit (HTC) projects, which already are subject to federal guidelines. You can read our comments here. MN Senate Housing Policy and Finance Committee Chair Rich Draheim also released a statement in opposition to Minnesota Housing’s proposal.
MN will pay $487 bonuses to frontline workers.

Regional

Saint Paul’s local ordinance for the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area (MRCCA) zoning regulations will be going to the Planning Commission with the recommendation for it to be released for public review on October 14, 2022. Here is the draft local ordinance to be recommended. The Commission will also be asked to set the public hearing date – the City tentatively expects that they will agree to this for Nov. 18, 2022 at its regular meeting. The draft local ordinance being considered for public comment in the coming months would replace the existing River Corridor Overlay Districts chapter of the St. Paul Zoning Code and move the newer, 2010-era floodplain management ordinance based on FEMA flood insurance requirements back into the Zoning Code.
Maplewood considers dropping support for BRT line

Election season is ramping up. Be sure to reference our East Metro Voter Guide to learn more about your candidates!

Subscribe to our Chamber Advocacy Update to keep up with advocacy news.

Build a network to last the rest of your career. Join the LSP Class of 2023. Applications are now open!
Our first annual Career Connect Day is here: Oct 18, 9am – 4pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Our next Equity Leadership Series session is here: Oct 19, 7:30am. Register here!
Our next Public Affairs Issue Forum, “Business Deregulation: Oct 20, noon-1pm. Register here!

Fascinating article on the explosion of “non-routine work,” and what it means for the future of employment.

The U.S. Chamber wrote a compelling piece on the benefits of joining a local chamber. We are, indeed, “an integrated business network” working towards the common interests of businesses both large and small. We can create business contacts, increase credibility, expand your network, provide resources, and support professional development.
A trend to pay attention to: Gen Z organizes. People born between 1997 and 2012 view unions more favorably than do other age groups and are unafraid to fight for change on their campuses – and in their workplaces.

DEED announces 2 RFPs: new Pilot Re-Entry Competitive Grant Program ($3M to help reintegrate justice-involved Minnesotans into the workforce); and the MN Tech Forward Training Competitive Grant.

Saint Paul looks for ways to curb displacement. Preliminary number show that barriers may be growing for homeownership – and the racial disparities remain stark. The effort is separate from rent stabilization discussions, although it’s a “parallel concern,” said Luis Pereira, the city’s planning director. The consultant may look at rent control’s impact on displacement.
From the Federal Reserve: How the racial wealth gap has evolved – and why it persists. New dataset identifies the causes of today’s wealth gap.
Women’s return to work a stop-and-start struggle. Most of those parents are back at work, now that schools and day care centers are open again — but fewer women than men. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 225,000 more men in the labor force now than before the pandemic, but 427,000 fewer women. Men have recovered all the jobs they lost in the pandemic; women are still down by 515,000 jobs compared to February 2020.

The Saint Paul City Council last Wednesday voted to continue to work with a coalition of nonprofit organizations intent on developing six units of deeply affordable housing at 652 Sherburne Ave. in Frogtown, even though the project likely would entail $1 million in future city funding. The Sherburne Collective plans to rely on $1.68 million from Ramsey County, which has created a deeply affordable housing fund backed by federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act.

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Celebrating Manufacturing Month this October

10/11/2022

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October is Manufacturing Month in Minnesota. This industry is critical to the strength of our local economy and offers many family-sustaining job opportunities for our residents. Did you know that the manufacturing industry accounts for about 9% of all employment in Ramsey County, with 642 local manufacturing firms? Check out Ramsey County's Manufacturing Month webpage to learn more.

Also in October, Gillette Children's is celebrating its 125 years of service. Check out my newest episode of B's Table Talk featuring Gillette Children's President and CEO Barbara Joers and the archives here.

See you in the trenches.
B

Meet St. Paul’s police chief finalists: why do they want the job? And what are their priorities?
Three fast food restaurants robbed at gunpoint in St. Paul the first weekend of October.
I’m referring us back to a Spring 2022 article, because the challenges continue: Metro Juvenile Detention Center Closures Blamed for Rise in Teen Crime.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank 2022 annual meetings begin in Washington, D.C., on Monday, and the IMF will hold its World Economic Outlook press conference Tuesday morning. The IMF said it plans to announce a downward revision in its global economic growth expectations for next year.
In separate speeches last week, Federal Reserve officials indicated they were committed to the current policy path of steadily rising interest rates: Fed Governor Lisa Cook said rates needed to stay at restrictive levels until the board was confident inflation was headed toward its 2% goal, and although Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he was starting to see signs of progress in battling inflation, he said that "more needs to be done." (The Wall Street Journal) Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said she has not seen the evidence she needs to justify a slowing of interest rate hikes, and she does not expect the Fed to cut rates at all next year. (Bloomberg) Meanwhile, a million job openings vanished in August. According to the most recent MetLife and U.S. Chamber Small Business Index, most small businesses anticipate inflation will get worse. In fact, seven in ten (71%) believe the worst is still to come with regards to inflation.
Grant applications are now open for the East Metro Main Street Economic Revitalization Program. This program will distribute up to $7 million in grants from the Department of Employment and Economic Development to businesses and nonprofit organizations for capital projects in the Snelling-University-Rice Cultural District, the East Side community and along West Seventh Street. Grants will support economic recovery from the impacts of civil unrest, the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges to these commercial corridors since March 15, 2020. Eligible projects include the development, redevelopment, demolition, site preparation, predesign, design, engineering, repair or renovation of real property or capital improvements.

Federal

Midterm Election Turnout looks primed to reach historic levels again.

State

KSTP/SurveyUSA poll: 3 statewide races all toss-ups with a month to go. This includes the attorney general, secretary of state, and auditor. The last time a Republican won a statewide race was in 2006. The secretary of state race is getting the most national attention.
THC Law in Minnesota: employers need to revisit drug testing policies.

Regional

Rent control commentary has reached the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board: St. Paul Regrets Rent Control. “The City Council does damage control after builders flee.

Election season is ramping up. Be sure to reference our East Metro Voter Guide to learn more about your candidates!

Subscribe to our Chamber Advocacy Update to keep up with advocacy news.

Build a network to last the rest of your career. Join the LSP Class of 2023. Registration is open!
2nd Congressional District Candidate Debate; Oct 13, 8am. Register here!
Our first annual Career Connect Day is here! Oct 18, 9am – 4pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Our next Equity Leadership Series session is here: Oct 19, 7:30am. Register here!

Why are so few workers worried for their jobs? Pay loss expectations among U.S. adults fell to a record low in September.
3 decision-making factors that will impact your business for the rest of 2022.

Ramsey County: Ramsey County opened an Affordable Housing Development Readiness Solicitation, building off two previous solicitations, to increase and preserve the supply of deeply affordable housing options across the county. Ramsey County previously committed $37 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for affordable housing development-- matched by the City of Saint Paul.

EDA and Forge North: the U.S. Economic Development Administration awarded 51 "Build to Scale" grants – totaling $47 million – to organizations that support technology entrepreneurs, catalyze innovation and fuel economic growth. EDA’s “Build to Scale” program provides annual grants that aim to accelerate technology entrepreneurship by increasing inclusive access to support and startup capital. This EDA investment will support Forge North—a startup coalition for the Greater Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP) region. As a coalition of 130 startups, investment firms, entrepreneurial support organizations, corporations, government, and universities, the Forge North coalition is positioned to jointly engage and recruit thousands of Minnesotans to invest in startups.
PPL and LEAP: Project for Pride in Living (PPL), a partner of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™, has received funds totaling $1 million from the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Ramsey County, Minnesota. These funds will support LEAP pilot sites managed by PPL throughout Ramsey County, including the City of Saint Paul, at schools and community organizations. The dollars are part of a $24.8 million American Rescue Plan funding package for high-quality job training programs and workforce initiatives in the state.

Reuter Walton’s Maplewood apartment project faces community push-back. Neighbors have complained of the project’s high density. Back to the Planning Commission it goes…
HIllcrest Site – The Heights – officially has sites available. Also looking for master housing developer. The project received DEED redevelopment grant funds in support of the infrastructure work.
Commercial and industrial: JLL’s Q3 report indicates that stakeholders are rethinking offices, and signs point to a continued shakeup of the office market. Prime Therapeutics is one example… Meanwhile, ‘Black Diamond’ site in Woodbury fetches $3.9M. MSP Commercial plans to build a 180K SF light industrial bldg. on a site kitty-corner from Amazon’s new distribution center.
St. Paul commercial-industrial permits up in Sep, though still running well behind last year’s pace. Numbers are up on the strength of one big-ticket project: a $100M UST science, technology, engineering, and arts bldg. under construction now and scheduled for completion in 2024. McGough Construction is the general contractor on that project.

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Greetings from Charlotte, NC!

10/3/2022

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This week I am with 85 of this region’s leaders, traveling to Charlotte, NC - one of our peer regions for the 20th InterCity Leadership Visit. We do this trip the first week of October every year, glad to be back after a 2-year hiatus due to the pandemic restrictions. Our goal? To learn from peer cities and bring new ideas home. Charlotte is the 15th largest city in the US, they are experiencing exciting growth, and we're learning a lot.

Yesterday we heard from Mayor Vi Lyles and her close alliance with the business community to advance her Racial Equity Initiative. This morning we are hearing from Charlotte’s Regional Business Alliance (a combination of their version of Greater MSP and their regional chamber). Lots to learn, and I look forward to sharing more upon our return!

See you in the trenches.
B

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