I believe there is no greater challenge, nor more urgent need in our community than eliminating the opportunity and achievement gaps for people of color and those living in poverty. While we have a moral imperative to ensure that every child in our community has the opportunity and is given the tools to have a meaningful, full life, there is also an economic imperative. The Metropolitan Council has projected that all of the growth in population in our region between now and 2040 will be growth in the number of people color, with individuals of color projected to increase from 22% to 40% of our overall population during that time period.

While most attention regarding the opportunity and achievement gaps tends to be rightly focused on educational outcomes disparities, I recently had a chance to play a role in a less discussed aspect of narrowing these gaps. I represent the City of St. Paul on the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) of the Metropolitan Council. The TAB administers the spending of some federal transportation funds in the region, typically soliciting project proposals every two years from cities, counties, transit providers and others. Over the past two years I had a chance to be on a key committee tasked with overhauling the criteria and process by which the region disburses these federal transportation funds.

While projects have historically been scored against one another on the basis of how many people will be served, congestion relief, safety improvements, etc., this group had extensive discussions about also considering "equity" as one of the scoring criteria for selecting worthy projects. In this case, "equity" referred to the degree to which proposed projects would serve or benefit communities of color and people living in poverty. After much heated debate and some very close votes, the TAB recently approved the new regional solicitation program including new equity criteria. 

Racially Concentrated Areas of Poverty in the region. More info here.

 
The basic idea behind the change is that the types and locations of investments that the region makes in transportation infrastructure can assist in creating better connections between the places where people living in poverty and people of color live, and the places in our region that have a lot of jobs and job growth opportunities. For example, the region has been investing heavily in the past two decades in suburban park and ride transit stations that primarily benefit residents of those communities who are commuting to jobs in the central cities. On the other hand, many of the highest ridership transit routes in the core cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have experienced declining service over the same period of time, and in many cases bus stops even lack shelters. The new "equity" points in the scoring criteria will help to remedy this historic imbalance and I was proud to have a played a part in making it happen.

Farewell to Midway Stadium, hello to future jobs    

Photo from McGhiever on WikiMedia Commons

In September, I had a chance to attend the last ever St. Paul Saints game at Midway Stadium. While it was bittersweet to see the Saints and amateur baseball teams leave Midway and Ward 4 for fancier digs in Lowertown, there are several positive aspects of this overall transition.
 

First, the Midway stadium site, ownership of which will now transfer to the St. Paul Port Authority, will return to the tax rolls and be put to another productive use. A joint development on the site between the Port Authority and United Properties will yield flexible light industrial space and approximately 300 more jobs in the Midway. Second, while the new ballpark may be further from Ward 4, it figures to be a much better baseball venue and will be much more accessible by public transit, including the Green Line, and by bicycle from several directions. Third, those of us in the Midway area will no longer be disturbed as often by late night summer Saints fireworks displays nor the occasional loud concert.

Whatever your thoughts about the Saints' move to Lowertown, it's important to mark this major transition of a long-standing institution in our community and to thank the Saints and the other users of Midway Stadium over the years for many great memories.  

The City put out a timeline in 2013 that called for expanded recycling services (single sort collection, expanded collection of plastics) and drop-off sites for household organics which began in April of 2014. Additionally, the timeline called for moving collection from blue bins on the curb to wheeled carts in the alley in 2015. Given that Eureka's (our recycling services contractor) contract only goes through 2016, and moving to new carts and alley pick-up would require some major capital investments by the City and/or Eureka, implementing these changes proved impossible to accomplish in a fiscally responsible manner in 2015.  I am extremely disappointed that this means the further improvement of our recycling program will be delayed until 2017.  

In terms of next steps, the Mayor's office has indicated that the City will be putting out a Request for Proposals in 2016 for recycling services to ensure that we're getting the services we want for a reasonable price. This issue is a high priority for me and I look forward to working with the Mayor, my colleagues, and the community to making dramatic, additional improvements to our recycling program in the near future.  We have a lot of work to do to reach the aggressive goals the Council set earlier this year for recycling or composting 50% of all residential solid waste by 2020, 65% by 2025, and 80% by 2030 (the short-term goal of 35% diversion by 2016 will likely not be met as a result of the delay in service changes). 

All In: Recycling 201 Video