Remembering and Honoring Service

A week of memories, some of them deeply grievous. Remembering 9/11 and our very serious charge to “never forget.” Pausing to honor the lives and impact of Queen Elizabeth II and Mikhail Gorbachev. A week of reflections, indeed. I remember where I was on September 11, 2001. And I remember Gorbachev’s visit to Minnesota on June 3, 1990. And, of course, we all remember that just this past Thursday the world lost its second-longest reigning monarch on record. 
 
Just around the corner is an opportunity to honor public servants in our lives today.  On Thursday, September 29th, the St. Paul Area Chamber and East Metro Chamber partners will host the annual Leaders in Local Government Awards. This year’s event features retired St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell, and is our opportunity to elevate and celebrate public servants who work on our behalf every day. I hope you’ll join us to thank the nominees, all who exemplify and demonstrate innovation, excellence, and success in local government!
 
Thinking back on Mikhail Gorbachev and his visit to Minnesota (highlights and memories): I had just gotten back to the U.S. after my tour of duty in West Germany. We had experienced the Berlin Wall come down in November of 1989, the Perestroika (“restructuring”) political and economic reform and glasnost (“openness”) policy reform had gripped the world with hope. And this was the first time a Soviet leader had visited America’s heartland during the Cold War since Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited Iowa in 1959. Gorbachev’s policies helped bring an end to the Cold War, led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall, encouraged the rise of democracy in Europe, and ultimately led to a complete dismantling of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin created the communist system that challenged the West; Mikhail Gorbachev brought that system down. Say what you will of Gorbachev’s success in doing so; he earned his place in history and he understood one thing: “only democratic change had any chance of producing real economic improvements to ordinary lives.”
 
See you in the trenches.
B

• Retired SPPD Chief Todd Axtell on Twin Cities shootings and moving forward as a community: “Every spoke of the criminal justice wheel must support victims of crime - from the 911 call through judicial accountability. When this happens, violent crime offenders are not left on the street to re-offend. It’s really a basic crime prevention strategy.”
• How the gun trafficking problem in Minnesota compares to other states. The ATF traces the origins of firearms and the link is to 2020 numbers. MN ranks 19th in terms of % of firearms with out-of-state origins.  In actual numbers, total firearms recovered and traced in 2020, Minnesota is 28th. ​

• In his last public remarks before the Federal Open Market Committee meeting September 20-21, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank needs to "act now, forthrightly" to rein in inflationary pressures, indicating that the option of another 75-basis-point rate hike is not off the table. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, an FOMC voting member, told reporters he supports raising the benchmark interest rate to at least 3.5% in the coming months. (Financial Times)
• Economic Club of Minnesota event: read what supply chain leaders from Cargill, Hormel Foods, and Andersen Corp. say about labor shortage and the inflation squeeze.  
• Tracking ARPA: Brookings Metro and GREATER MSP created tools that gather, summarize, and visualize how local governments are putting SLFRF dollars to work. Brookings Metro partnered with the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties to produce the Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker. And as part of its MSP Federal Funding Hub project, GREATER MSP partnered with 12 cities and 17 counties in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region to generate the MSP ARPA Tracker, which tracks those jurisdictions’ spending plans. 
• Build Back Better: our region was NOT selected for Build Back Better investment.Twenty-one regional coalitions will receive a funding boost from the federal government as they try to build more equitable economies based on emerging industries. The winners of the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge, overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, were announced last Friday. They will receive grants ranging from $25 million to $65 million.   

Federal

• Government funding: The House will join the Senate in session this week for the first time since the end of its August recess. A lot of things are in the mix, but the biggest issue facing lawmakers before they return to the campaign trail next month is reaching agreement on legislation to fund the government past September 30.  What we're watching: Senators appear to be coalescing around a stopgap spending deal to fund the government through December 16, and could vote on it as soon as next week, according to Roll Call. But divisions remain over the Biden administration's request for money to respond to COVID-19 and the monkeypox outbreak. Also at issue is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's pledge to add permitting reform legislation to the continuing resolution, as promised in the Inflation Reduction Act negotiations, due to opposition from House progressives and some Senate Republicans.

 
Regional

• Rent control: St. Paul City Council likely to prune rent-control ordinance this week. A series of amendments were passed last week, aimed at courting new real estate investment. Additional amendments and a final vote are expected this week. St. Paul’s PED Director, Nicolle Goodman, testified at City Council on Sep 7 and shared some data: permits for new housing units in the Twin Cities metropolitan area are up 38.5% in 2022 over last year. By contrast, St. Paul saw a 31% decrease in the number of new permitted units. Goodman also clarified data provided to the council by the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections last month that showed applications for construction permits were up significantly from previous years, which seemed to contradict building permit data that showed construction cratered in the city. Goodman explained the data provided by DSI showed an inflated number of applications because developers sometimes submit multiple applications for the same project, and city staff hadn’t removed duplicative data. Once duplicative applications were accounted for, city data showed building permits in 2022 have been lower than the past four years on average, rather than 20% higher as originally reported by city staff.
• U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg rides Metro Transit to highlight future Minneapolis-St. Paul BRT line.

 
Election season is ramping up. Be sure to reference our East Metro Voter Guide to learn more about your candidates!
 
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• The Star Tribune’s own Jim Walsh talks about JazzFestwrote about its 20th anniversary last year – and it’s back! For more information on JazzFest, its performance lineup and vendors, go here.
• September’s episode of B’s Table Talk featuring Amanda LaGrange has been published on PodBean.
• Inclusive Workplaces Cohort Recognition Event. The Workforce Innovation Board, in partnership with Ramsey County, launched the Inclusive Workplaces Cohort initiative to support businesses in becoming more inclusive workplaces in 2021. The program offered businesses in Ramsey County the opportunity to participate in a year-long peer learning community to learn together while advancing equity and inclusion within their organizations. The cohort sessions were led by the Center for Economic Inclusion in alignment with the county’s Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion Plan which set a comprehensive economic development strategy centered on equitable growth and strengthening economic competitiveness.
• Check out your Chamber’s calendar of upcoming events as well, which include:
  1. Lunch with Leaders: Entrepreneurship Edition (featuring TurnSignl; 2043 SBC; NCXT; Bridgemakers), Sep 14. Register here!
  2. Equity Leadership Series, Presented by Bremer Bank, Sep 21. Register here!
  3. Leaders in Local Government Awards featuring Todd Axtell, Presented by Bremer Bank, Sep 29. Register here!

• Innovative workforce solutions in Ramsey County: September is National Workforce Development Month. As the second-most populous and most diverse county in Minnesota, Ramsey County faces many of the same workforce challenges as other communities throughout the country, with local employers having difficulty filling their open positions and yet some residents having difficulty finding employment. But there is a wide array of local resources intended to help.  Residents in Ramsey County can seek assistance and programs to support them in overcoming barriers to employment through the efforts of Ramsey County Workforce Solutions, CareerForce, the statewide public workforce system, and the Workforce Innovation Board of Ramsey County (WIB).
• Plating People Growing Justice Leadership Institute is working to boost literacy rates among children of color.

• The Soul Apartments, a Schafer Richardson development at the intersection of Robert Street and Plato Boulevard on the City’s West Side, will add much-needed deeply affordable housing for St. Paul families. Utilizing American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to expand the amount of stable, permanent, affordable housing for Saint Paul’s lowest-income residents, who are most cost-burdened and disproportionately affected by the housing crisis. 
• Target is partnering with entrepreneurial Minneapolis fashion designer Houston White – with plans for a several-year commitment. Over the past two years, Target has pushed to work with more companies led by Black makers, making a commitment to invest more than $2 billion in Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025.
• DEED’s “Summer of Jobs” Campaign highlights the Office of New Americans. You can watch a recording of the full discussion on DEED’s YouTube channel. 
• Minnesota’s Black jobless rate climbs while overall figure hits record low. The development contrasts with gains seen last year and during a prosperous period rom 2016 to 2019.

• U of M continues land assembly for proposed Health Discovery Hub. The latest deal is to pay $1.88M for 512 Ontario St SE, or Block 11, adding to the planned 275K SF hub TSF. Partnering in this project is M Health Fairview.  
• From the St. Paul Downtown Alliance:  You may have recently seen some new storefronts filling as the first Grow Downtown tenants move in. We continue to see a very positive response to the program, with even more business prospects and landlord participation than we originally imagined, look for more good news on that in the near future. Also, check out this story from the Wall Street Journal from earlier this summer. I think it has some really great insights about the future of downtowns across the country. It also shows that our region has some of the best return to office data in the county.
• 3M spinning off health care division that would be its own Fortune 500 company. Where will it land?