What should Golden Valley prioritize in 2024?
During a meeting last week, the Golden Valley City Council gave City Hall staff members direction for how best to spend their time this year.
Kirsten Santelices, deputy city manager and human resources director, led the Jan. 30 discussion on what should be pushed forward and what can be pushed back.
Some items are necessary, like developing a retail cannabis registration process. City Attorney Maria Cisneros said the city should wait on direction from the state and then fill in city policy as needed.
Some items are already ongoing, such as upgrading public safety facilities with the new sales tax, and the city’s affordable housing project, the Home Ownership Program for Equity.
Council Member Gillian Rosenquist said two things to continuously keep in mind are the city’s budget as well as staff members’ bandwidth.
Then there are new ideas: restorative practices and a community engagement toolkit.
Mayor Roslyn Harmon said she has a vision to bring more restorative practices to city operations.
Harmon explained restorative practices as “ about creating that foundation of healthy, strong environments that can communicate effectively and repair harm and talk in a productive way.”
“I know we’re doing it a little bit in some areas. But we definitely need to do it more,” the mayor said.
The plan would detail how the city interviews people, the workplace environment, how the city approaches residents and how to address conflict.
Cisneros said the plan should have “as many people as possible bought-in” to be effective and perhaps the city should incorporate restorative practices in areas of prosecution and code enforcement.
Background checks?
Presently, the city runs backgrounds checks on people applying for city staff roles. However, elected officials and people who volunteer on commissions do not need background checks.
Harmon also asked about running “soft background checks” on people who want to serve on the city’s various advisory commissions. Right now the city doesn’t conduct background checks for commissioners, but it does city employees.
Though she was vague, Harmon indicated that an issue had come up recently. To address it and future problems, Harmon asked about soft background checks – which she explained would not be the same as a typical search for felonies.
For Harmon, a felony record would not be a deal breaker to serve on a commission, but if someone had certain pending charges, the city could privately tell the person why the job would not be a good fit. The idea is based on something the Dispute Resolution Center – which Harmon is executive director of – does with its volunteers.
Harmon offered a hypothetical example.
“So if we have a commissioner who applies and they have a domestic abuse case that’s pending right now, yet they sit on the PEACE commission, which works with the police department ... It’s not something that needs to get out to the public; it’s not anything that anyone needs to know about. It’s just us saying ‘Hey, I don’t know right now if volunteering is the best thing for the city of Golden Valley.’”
Police Chief Virgil Green pointed out that if someone has pending charges, it means a court has not yet determined if the person did anything wrong.
Rosenquist was not a fan of soft background checks.
“I’m hesitant about this because we are different than a private organization,” Rosenquist said. “You know, there’s a presumption of innocence until there’s a final disposition. And to take on some kind of judgment or penalty as a government organization is a different thing than a nonprofit organization. I approach (soft background checks) cautiously and with great reluctance.”
Rosenquist added that they should differ from staff, who would need some time for legal research. For Rosenquist, this was not a priority.
Council Member Sophia Ginis asked if the city would want to create a policy for staff to administrate.
Cisneros said unless a policy was very clear that the city could administratively reject an applicant, the City Council would need to deliberate on the subject. That kind of discussion would need to happen publicly per Open Meeting Law. Ginis added that some commission applicants might be deterred by public background checks.
After some discussion, Harmon decided to withdraw the idea.
Setting more priorities
The police chief spoke about rebranding the ominous-sounding Neighborhood Watch Program into a more friendly-sounding program, such as the “neighbor-to-neighbor safety program.” Council members also decided to put the creation or legitimization of neighborhoods on the back burner.
The members also agreed to table the development of a policy regarding naming public facilities.
Council Member Maurice Harris suggested putting off updating the sign code, but Cisneros said the city hadn’t updated signs in over a decade, despite changes in legislature. Parts of city sign codes are no longer enforced which can lead to confusion. From this discussion, sign codes will remain a priority.
Job openings
Dozens of items were discussed at this meeting – mostly ongoing projects, but the two things council members mentioned again and again were communication and staffing.
In recent months, the city has seen the retirement or resignation of its fire chief, parks and recreation director, city manager, finance director and others. The fire department needs more staff members – 16 letters of interest turned into three hires this year. The police department is still building its staff back up. Green hoped the city could take over the shifts currently being filled by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office by the end of the year.
A huge priority is filling those positions, and the city manager is top of that list.
Outreach
Communication, both internally and to the public, is another issue.
Ginis and Santelices spoke about developing a community engagement toolkit. The toolkit could be used both to tell people what is happening in the city and to invite people to be involved in decisions.
Ginis and Harmon shared tips from their election campaigns.
Ginis suggested making short videos to put on the internet. She wondered if the Golden Valley could be inspired to make TikTok videos, like the city of Savage.
Harmon suggested people could opt in to text messages related to city events.
Council Member Denise La Mere-Anderson asked the city to keep in mind not only the social media adept, but also an older crowd who cannot be reached online.
“There are many people that live in my immediate vicinity that don’t have smartphones, that don’t have the internet,” La Mere-Anderson said. “They don’t have email. They rely on the traditional tools that we’re using.”
Harmon said the notifications could be delivered to landlines as well.
La Mere-Anderson cautioned not to overwhelm people with phone calls either.
When it came to internal communication, there were points made on how challenging it can be. Open meeting laws prohibit certain kinds of communication. One of the first things members hope to do with the new interim city manager – and eventually the permanent city manager – is to establish clear expectations.
The next city council meeting was Feb. 6 at City Hall, after this edition went to press. Regular meetings are recorded, broadcast and open to the public. Learn more at goldenvalleymn.gov.
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