St. Paul to require its legislative request list by early days of session

With the blessing of the mayor and the St Paul City Council as well as deep guidance from city lobbyists and department heads the city of St Paul delivers an elaborate laundry list of wants and necessities each year to state lawmakers spelling out the capital city s legislative priorities in order of importance The Grand Casino Arena demands state bond funding for a remodel The Como Zoo necessities a new enclosure for its big cats The mayor is pushing to ban semi-automatic guns and binary triggers from the city The wish-list goes on usually spanning selected pages or more of desired projects and changes to state law from the elaborate to the mundane In an uncommon bit of initiative housekeeping the city council on Wednesday is poised to require that City Hall be ready for next year s legislative session with an approved agenda in hand by the first month of session This year it was not Basically this is just an attempt to codify something that has been standard practice but this year wasn t stated St Paul City Council President Rebecca Noecker on Friday We were getting questions from legislators about what the city s priorities were Particular folks were asking Have you in fact adopted your legislative agenda That s what certainly takes it from a document that lobbyists are shopping around to the official will of the city Last session When the legislative session opened on Jan the city s legislative agenda was still in limbo getting passed around among city lobbyists and council members The council ultimately adopted the legislative agenda last April making St Paul likely the last city in the metro to finalize its agenda priorities even as major state bills were hurdling toward completion By April things are moving into the final stage of negotiation Noecker mentioned Last year got way way too late It wasn t ready It wasn t put into our Legistar program by our intergovernmental relations organization We had it shopped around to council members but it wasn t ready for prime time and we were asking about it The city s top asks this past year included the remodel of the Grand Casino Arena and the big cat enclosure at Como Zoo Neither project went on to receive state funding A laborious end to and start to Likely adding to delays in getting the agenda approved the final weeks of December were arduous ones for the city council which was mired in a budget fight with the mayor s office Also January featured an unique start to the legislative session as House DFL lawmakers refused to convene in the state Capitol while disputing leadership matters with Republicans The city charter spells out that city lobbyists may only lobby lawmakers on items with official city approval declared Brynn Hausz the city s intergovernmental relations director on Friday The council worked really closely with me on this ordinance and I am perfectly happy with the deadline being put in place Hausz added Having the legislative agenda before the city council in December just makes for a better process Then we have a lead-up to the legislative session to get our bills drafted You can t wait until January to start drafting bills and expect to get work done Proposed amendment The council s proposed amendment to the city s administrative codes requires the mayor s staff to submit the city s legislative agenda for council review no later than the first Wednesday in December That carries the expectation that the council adopt the agenda by the time state lawmakers convene their regular session and sets days after the start of the session as a hard deadline Noecker noted the city s legislative agenda can run more than pages making it a bit unwieldy Successive administrations have put down their priorities and it s hard to take it off once it s there but if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority she reported We d really like to get down to a one-page executive summary with our inadequate pushes for the year ahead our short list Also worth revisiting Noecker disclosed is how the legislative agenda is organized She d like to see better separation between state bonding priorities like the requested funding for the Grand Casino Arena remodel as opposed to legislative priorities that might get lost in the shuffle The city had sought state permission to ban guns from all of its regime buildings and install signs indicating so especially outside libraries and rec centers as schools and private businesses are already allowed to do That request also was not approved The next regular legislative session is scheduled to begin Feb Related Articles Here s how the St Paul mayor s proposed budget will impact city libraries St Paul City Council cuts vacant building fee for Donut Trap business Pedro Park dedicated after -year battle for scarce downtown green space Mayor wants percent increase to St Paul tax levy Molly Coleman is seated on the St Paul City Council