City of Bloomington, MN Council Minute 2020, 22 Jul 2020

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From YouTube: July 20 Council Minute

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Mayor Tim Busse provides a rundown of the July 20 Council Meeting, including highlights from study results of the Bloomington Fire Department, a vision for the future of the Lyndale Avenue corridor and City plans to move forward with a ballot question about ranked choice voting.

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Hello bloomington, I'm mayor tim bussy, and this is the council minute for the week of july. 20Th this week we had a study session to.

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Review some issues in more depth, and today I want to talk about three of those topics: fire services.

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The future of the lyndale avenue corridor and ranked choice voting.

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One of the city council's strategic priorities is high quality service.

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Delivery and one of the ways that council and staff have focused on ensuring high quality services over the past couple of years.

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Is to conduct service assessments across the organization.

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The purpose of these studies is to look at a service that we've been doing for a.

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Long time to make sure that we're meeting the mission of the city and the expectations of you, our customer, we also want to make sure that we aren't doing the things. The.

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Way, we've always done them simply because that's the way they've always been done. In other words, we want to make sure that.

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How the city provides services is based on best.

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Practices and is as efficient as possible. This.

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Week we heard from fire chief ulie seal about what we've learned from our study.

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Of our fire department, first and foremost, the expert.

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Consultants report said that bloomington has an outstanding fire department.

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With firefighters, who are well trained and well-equipped.

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I couldn't agree more. The report also said: there's always room for.

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Improvements, one of those areas of improvement is.

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That the city council should work with the fire department to.

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Set service expectations and performance measures, especially in.

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The area of response time, the report said the city council should.

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Adopt updated, complete performance measures to aid.

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Deployment planning and to monitor performance, the measures of time should.

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Be designed to deliver outcomes that will save patients when possible and will keep small but serious fires.

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From becoming more serious fires, the report said.

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The city should continue to plan the capital replacement.

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Of those four stations not meeting needs, as well as the addition.

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Of 24-hour spaces to station number one in anticipation of future staffing model.

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Changes that might be necessary one of the things you may not know about.

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Bloomington's fire department is that our firefighters are not.

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Full-Time employees, they are what's called paid, on-call.

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Firefighters, which means they only get paid for calls, they respond to.

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However, in recent years the fire department has used a.

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Duty crew model, which means firefighters, working assigned, shifts.

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To make sure that we do have a base level of responders available.

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The report found that the department should continue the use of the duty crew.

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Program to support times when the paid on call force is not as available but to closely track the capacity of the.

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Paid on call force to fill all the needed assignments, the.

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Report said the department should continue its best practices.

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Support of the paid on-call program, while keeping a close eye on its ability.

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To fully carry out the needs of the city issues like recruitment, training,.

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Retention costs, along with personnel quantities they all.

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Need to be considered and closely forecasted so that the city.

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Is not surprised if the paid on-call force declines as.

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Changes in society continue to occur. We are fortunate here in bloomington.

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That we've been able to maintain the largest paid on-call department in the.

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State of minnesota, while many other cities have had to move.

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To more costly full-time fire departments, we have maintained ours. Another of the city council's goals is.

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Focused renewal making sure that we are being thoughtful.

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And intentional about reinvestments and redevelopment around town.

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That will keep certain areas, especially the smaller neighborhood commercial.

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Nodes in good shape and economically viable.

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Last year, the city initiated a study called the lyndale avenue retrofit to look at the whole lyndale avenue corridor.

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From 494 to south of 98th street, as you know, much of glendale reflects the.

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Heyday of the corridor as the main drag in bloomington back in the.

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1970S and we want to be ready when market forces present opportunities for.

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Redevelopment, our staff and team of consultants began.

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An ambitious schedule of community engagement last year and earlier this year to get your ideas about the area along lyndale avenue and.

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Around it from your ideas, they put together a.

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Draft vision for the city council to consider- and we talked about it this week- that vision is that lindale avenue is a.

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Dynamic walking boulevard that connects a series.

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Of vibrant and distinctive neighborhoods along one cohesive corridor.

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The vision is that it's the cultural heart of the community.

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With a diverse population and interests that embrace equitable and safe.

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Neighborhoods for all the vision is that, over the course of.

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Time the corridor will include a series of destinations.

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To live, dine work and play preserving bloomington's, unique history.

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While providing a framework to build new and exciting experiences,.

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Including public gathering places that are conveniently accessible.

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And reinforced with a range of restaurant and shopping options.

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There are two areas of concentrations, two distinct nodes. If you will.

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One at 86th street and the other at 98th street, where the greatest opportunity.

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For cohesive and larger scale redevelopment is likely to occur.

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Our project team took input from the council and will be finalizing up the.

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Draft concept: it's a bit of a challenge, of course, to get community input during the pandemic in the way we did before.

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But we will make sure that there are opportunities for you to weigh in on the.

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Plan before it's considered for adoption later this year,.

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One thing that's very important to remember we're playing the long game here. This is a long term vision. While there is some.

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Activity in the corridor today, it'll likely be some time before we see.

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The final plan really come to life. The last item I want to update you on is.

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The discussion of ranked choice voting as you may know, the city council held a.

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Public hearing in may and unanimously approved amendments to.

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The city charter for future consideration by the charter commission.

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And ultimately, by the voters in november that language would amend the city.

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Charter to allow the mayor and city council to be elected using the.

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Rank choice voting method. Now there are a lot of different.

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Processes to amend the city charter, the process the council chose, sent the.

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Charter amendments to the charter commission to consider.

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The charter commission's role in this whole process is advisory and.

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While the commission's perspective is valued by the council, it's not binding.

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On the council, the charter commission met twice to.

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Discuss the topic and narrowly voted to reject the charter amendment language.

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Approved by the city council in may, despite the charter commission's.

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Recommendation this week the city council opted to move forward.

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With rank choice, voting the city attorney.

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Presented three options for ballot question language for voters;.

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And the ballot question the council directed staff to prepare.

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Reads in this way, it says: shall the bloomington city charter be amended.

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To elect the mayor and city council members by the ranked choice, voting.

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Method, the city council will consider a resolution on monday july 27th to adopt this ballot question. It will be.

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A public hearing, so your input is obviously welcome. Look.

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For more information soon, well, that's a wrap on this week's.

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Council minute stay safe, bloomington.