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I asked our HR director Linda Hillenbrand why we can not offer our employees the same partner benefits that UMR offers theirs.  I thank Linda for getting the answer.  It was not what I wished to hear, but I understand.  I find it unfortunate that there are big state government policies that we can not change that make us more discriminatory and less desirable for a group of talented people.

Michael,

I apologize for the delayed response to your question as to why City/County organizations are required to follow state statutes relative to medical plan designs (same-sex partner benefits) while the University of Minnesota/Rochester is not required to do such. 

In speaking with the HR Staff at the University, I learned it was formed in 1851 while Minnesota did not become a state until around 1858.  As a result, the U of M is identified as “constitutionally incorporated” and is not required to follow some of the statutes that we are, medical plan design being one of them.  They can chose to follow some of these statutes but are not necessarily mandated to do so.  And that is how they are able to offer medical plan benefits to same-sex partners.  Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Linda Hillenbrand

Director HR, SPHR, CCP | City of Rochester

Here is the new language that appears to have unanimous support from the council.  In short, almost every affordable housing project gets some sort of Federal, State, or Local tax subsidy.  As such we have an obligation to make sure that money is well spent.  Our policy now more explicitly states what is affordable housing.  Our policy considers Housing costs, Energy costs, Associated costs, and Transportation costs.  As you would expect many properties that are cheap are not actually affordable when all costs are considered.

The Need for Affordable Housing

 

The City of Rochester is suffering from a critical shortage of affordable housing (housing that, through subsidy or other means, costs no more than 30% of the household income of households earning 80% of the area’s median income).  The proportion of households in Rochester paying more than 30% for housing has increased from around 20% of households in 2000 to over 27% in 2010.[1] There were 11,430 households in Rochester paying over 30% of income for housing in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

For years Rochester and Olmsted County have been developing a bicycle masterplan.

Many meetings and opportunities for feedback have finally resulted in a plan that the city council got to review.  For this to be implemented we will need your advocacy and support at the Rochester City Council and Olmsted County Board meetings.  Even after we get these plans adopted we need to make sure that they are not ignored.  There is so many good recommendations here that I encourage you to take the time to read this, write down your thoughts, and make sure your elected leaders vote to adopt and follow the plan.

To make this plan a reality we will need to spend about 2.5% of our transportation funding on this system.  This SHOULD be an easy sell given the fact that:

• 12% of all trips in Minnesota are by walking or bike (higher in places like Rochester)
• biking receives about 1.5% of federal funding
• results in more than 9% of all traffic fatalities in Minnesota
• the industry represents has more than 1500 jobs in MN
• the industry contributes $145 million annually to the MN economy

And just in case you hear this nugget:

According to County Planner Phil Wheeler’s presentation to the city council, only 1.8% of transportation funding comes from the gas tax.  So don’t buy that tired talking point.  Biking is far more cost effective for taxpayers than more and bigger roads.

http://www.bikeleague.org/conferences/summit12/factsheets/State_MN.pdf

Here is data on bike commuting in major cities:

http://www.bikeleague.org/news/acs2010.php

Here is the link to the yet to be adopted masterplan:

http://www.co.olmsted.mn.us/planning/trnsprtnplng/bpac/bikemasterplan2011/Pages/default.aspx

Here is the downtown bicycle study:

http://www.co.olmsted.mn.us/PLANNING/TRNSPRTNPLNG/BPAC/Pages/dwntwnbikestudy.aspx

Here is a link to our Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee:

http://www.co.olmsted.mn.us/PLANNING/TRNSPRTNPLNG/BPAC/Pages/default.aspx

From executive director Sarah Stauder:

Hello, all.  I just wanted to share with you that artist John Gossage was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography. You may recall that he exhibited at the Art Center in 2010 and his exhibition catalog was inserted in the Post-Bulletin in January 2010.

2012 Guggenheim Fellowships Awarded to Ten Photographers The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced the winners of its 2012 Guggenheim Fellowships. The winners include ten photographers: Elizabeth B. Barret, Peter Bogardus, Stephen DiRado, Dornith Doherty, Douglas DuBois, Wendy Ewald, John Gossage, Bill Jacobson, Fazal Sheikh and Sara Terry. In addition, Peter Galassi, former curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has won a fellowship in photography studies. Guggenheim Fellows receive a grant to pursue a project; the Foundation does not disclose the amount of money they receive.
Founded in 1922, the prestigious Fellowship program is intended to “add to the educational, literary, artistic, and scientific power of this country, and also to provide for the cause of better international understanding.” The Fellowship supports individuals in mid-career “who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”

Past recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships include photographers Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Brian Ulrich, Richard Mosse and Penelope Umbrico.

Information on all the winners can be found on the Guggenheim Foundation web site.

We don’t play games.  We don’t unallocated LGA.  We don’t cut market value credits.  We don’t retroactively cut CDBG.  We don’t steal from school districts.  We don’t shift fees to other governments. We don’t inappropriately borrow against future revenue streams.  We sometimes get beat up for setting taxes that actually pay for our expenses.  We prioritize stewardship over talking points.  We have still managed to reduce our expenses nearly 20% in real terms over the last decade. We are still a great community to live in.  And that is why S&P says that we are still AAA rated and stable, while Minnesota and the US Governments are not as a result of their diffusional tax policies.

Dear Minnesota and Federal politicians, take a look at how responsible stewards do it…

Statement from S&P

The redistricting map approved by Olmsted County is a textbook example how to ensure cities, minorities, and urban poor are not given fair representation.  It is a shameful act of disenfranchisement that relies on fictitious principles of redistricting while ignoring real redistricting considerations.  As a result of the redistricting, Rochester is not likely to achieve the representation that the deserve.

The justification for the selection of “Option 15″ basically came about by weighing arbitrary or meaningless metrics while ignoring more important metrics.  Basic principles such and compactness, respect for political subdivisions, and respect for communities of interest (neighborhoods) were ignored needlessly. Read the rest of this entry »

If city government performs at its potential we will see a radically different transit system in Rochester in the next 5 to 10 years.  Technology, congestion, growth, and demographics are combining to create a new Rochester that we must adapt to.  If we are successful we will have a far more efficient, effective, and far reaching transit system.  Pedestrian, Bicycle, Park & Ride, Development, and Transit will merge into one seamless entity to the benefit of our citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

Today the city council unanimously voted (6-0 with Hanson absent) to approve the independent recommendation to select First Transit to operate Rochester’s transit system.  There were four companies competing, but everyone was interested in whether First Transit or stick with Rochester City Lines.

If we are going to be a serious player for businesses we must be fair to those that wish to compete here.  After a fair process, we had an impartial recommendation that stated that First Transit was the best of 4 choices (all capable) while Rochester City Lines came in last.  First transit also cost $2 million less over 54 months based on operating 70,000 hours per year.  To look at these facts and chose anything but First Transit would be cronyism at its worst.  I asked questions about the process and found it to be exceedingly fair.  RCL questioned if the request for proposals was fair, but the example that they raised about experience with new technologies, was actually something that I strongly think is needed.

We also secured an understanding with First Transit that they would recognize the existing ATU organization and would be offering positions to existing employees first.  If we lowered our costs by pushing working families into poverty we accomplish nothing.  I have already told these workers, that I will continue to have their backs.  I respect how good these drivers are.

Dan Holter continues to threaten to run a parallel transit system that he implies will cause harm to the city’s system.  That kind of entitled behavior leaves me shaking my head.  That said, if he can run a successful system that will only help transit in Rochester, but to do so he will have to follow rules pertaining to franchises.

There is no love lost between me and Dan Holter, given his lobbying antics, belief that he is “entitled” to a profit, and his holding us hostage for that profit.  But we lose credibility as a city if we don’t have a fair process to choose our venders.  We did have a fair process, and made a decision based on facts.  We did not make any sort of decision based on spite or revenge.

This should have no negative impact on Dan Holter’s business since in a statement to the city council he stated hasn’t made any profit in 44 years…

It will be interesting how long the wasteful lawsuits continue.  We will see tremendous improvements in transit between now and 2016.  We are going to see better access, faster service, and more hours, and we can best achieve this by working with the best.

As many of you know I have a background in business finance and am particularly interested in finance issues.  You are also probably aware that the City of Rochester was directed by the FTA to have competitive bids to run OUR transit system (I refer to it as ours since we own the buses, streets, shelters, set the fares and routes, and have paid for most of everything for decades…).  You probably also know that I believe that we should have bid this competitively even if we weren’t required to.  Here are the financial results in 3 charts.  If you look at these 3 charts, I think you can see why competitive bidding is good for the city.

For a decade we saw double digit growth in expenses compared to less than 5% population growth + inflation.  The bid resulted in growth rates that are far better.  FT = First Transit

Edit:  Today I asked staff about this and part of what we need to look at is revenue hours for each year.  Staff is getting me that information and I will update.

Here are total expenses per the bids vs. what would happen if RCL had continued to grow at the same rate as the past 10 years.

Edit 2: The jump in 2012 is due to an adjustment in revenue hours (I think).  I will confirm.

Edit 3: I will update this chart to adjust for revenue hours when available.

This is the request for proposals to evaluate operations at the Mayo Civic Center.  We have a pretty good staff out there, but we also have a pretty old building in need of some repairs and rejuvenation.  It only makes sense as we move toward rehabbing and expanding the facility that we ensure our operations is the best it can be.  I personally have a few concerns, and I know there are community members with additional concerns.

Here is the entire Request For Proposal (RFP), unedited.  Not quite sure what a “pubically” owned civic and convention center is though…

Read the rest of this entry »