Jobs and the Economy Samuels for Mayor

From its founding in 1867, Minneapolis has been a place of ingenuity, hard work, and home to the next great wave of immigrants from around the world. These characteristics of Minneapolis helped build and maintain the great pillars of our city: Fortune 500 companies such as Pillsbury and General Mills, our beautiful lakes and Mississippi River, and our bustling downtown atmosphere. Throughout the course of our history, Minneapolitans have always taken on tough challenges in a clear eyed fashion; not hiding behind excuses; weve risen to the challenges of our time to maintain the greatness of our city. The future vitality of Minneapolis is dependent upon a strong, vibrant and productive citizenry. Our parks are dependent upon the City having the resources to fund its upkeep; our bike trails need funds to maintain their high quality; and our roads need continual investment. We must have a profitable and strong economy to fund all of the things we cherish in our City. But today, the challenges our economy faces are much more interconnected and complex than in times past. We must be prepared to address these challenges. The pressures of globalization, rapidly changing national, state and local demographics, persistent skills gaps, active competition for recruitment and retention of businesses and crumbling infrastructure have all contributed to the tough economic climate we, as a nation, have been fighting. The Great Recession of 2008 exacerbated all of those factors. Although its been tough on Minneapolis residents, the City of Minneapolis has fared well compared to other major American cities. Minneapolis is on strong financial footing due to strong leadership by city officials, heroic and painful sacrifices by city workers and residents and investments that grew revenues to the city. Now that the worst of the recession is behind us, we must re-position ourselves to thrive and ensure opportunity for all of our residents. We must be active and aggressive in continuing to bring economic activity to Minneapolis There are those who believe we can continue to make Minneapolis a great place and that alone will ensure continued investments in our City. That passive approach won t get the job done. Ill be the mayor to take us from where we are to where we need to go:

Where We Are
Minneapolis' Economy At a Glance: The Minneapolis area has an unemployment rate of 5.1%, which is much lower than the 7.8% national average. Leisure and Hospitality, Construction and Business Services sectors in the Minneapolis area have all seen more than 4% growth since 2010. The Minneapolis area has the sixth largest arts economy in the nation Minneapolis has seen a nearly 25% increase in the amount of residents with college degrees since 1970, currently putting Minneapolis five percentage points above the national average.

On paper, Minneapolis has strong economic activity, growth in several sectors and solid indicators of investment. Yet, we know we have a persistent employment gap that, ultimately, can be a drag on our economic potential. We cant strengthen our economy if we continue to have huge disparities in employment. The Minneapolis Downtown Council has put forth a great roadmap, the Downtown 2025 Plan, for how to strengthen our economy and standard of living. In addition to those great ideas, I ve got a few of my own.

Where We Need to Go:

As Mayor, when it comes to economic development, Ill focus on five areas: Workforce Development, Business Development, Investments in - Connector - infrastructure, Managing City Finances and Government Redesign.

________________ Workforce Development

The City of Minneapolis can, and must, play a more active role in making sure our people have the necessary skills to earn a living wage and provide for their families. Here's where I'll focus when it comes to workforce development: Step-Up Expansion; Increase STEP-UP Program Summer Job Goal to 3,000 each year Theres no doubt that the STEP-UP Summer Jobs program for Minneapolis Youth has been a success. With some tinkering, we can make sure this program provides the neediest kids with opportunities to learn work ethic, jobs skills and other skills to succeed later in life. But, most importantly, what these kids learn is to see themselves as future business, philanthropic and civil leaders. STEP-UP has various component programs: STEP-UP Achieve, STEP-UP Discover and STEP-UP Explore, and those components can be better aligned to ensure that opportunity is placed on a continuum so it becomes developmental for the next generation of workers. Right now, STEP-UP serves about 1,800 kids each summer. This is a proven program that works. We need to expand it. In addition to expanding it, I believe the City should utilize STEP-UP in collaboration with Urban Scholars, as coordinated pipeline programs for helping to diversify city departments, such as Public Works, Police and Fire, across the enterprise that are in need of more diversity. . Re-introduce the Building Trades to our Middle and High School learners. To be successful, Minneapolis must have a strong manufacturing and trades base of labor. The trades provide a strong, unexportable, base for living wage jobs, as well as the skills and expertise to help build the infrastructure of the 21st century. I envision building a thriving "green" manufacturing sector that we can grow in our city. But to do it, we must make sure our future workforce is exposed at a young age to these manufacturing and trades opportunities.

Coordinate with U of M, MCTC, and Workforce Centers and Programs to align curriculum to needs of Minneapolis businesses

Working with our fantastic higher education institutions and existing workforce programs like Summit Academy OIC, Workforce Centers, the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis Community and Technical Colleges, the City must be more active to convene and help align the training and skills that local businesses need. We know that worker turnover and training can be expensive and even cost prohibitive on small businesses. Just to give you an idea of how expensive worker training and replacement can be: For workers earning less than $50,000 annually, which makes up 75% of the U.S. workforce, studies show a typical cost of turnover and training of up to 20% of the workers salary: $10,000. By embedding specialized training programs into our educational institutions, we can save costs for businesses and provide certainty so they know, when they hire an employee, they can be confident that their new employee will have the necessary skills to help their business immediately. As Mayor, I will expand and widen the Urban scholars Program, a pipeline for Promising U of M and MnSCU students to work in the City Departments and challenge the private sector to also create opportunities for these talented young people.. We are blessed to have some of the best educational institutions right in our backyard. We have to do a better job of showing talented young people how much we want them to stay in Minneapolis. This pipeline means we will be more active in providing soon-to-be graduates in certain programs with information about available public and private sector jobs in Minneapolis. The human capital and 21st century innovations of our City will come from our young and ambitious professionals.

________________ Business Development

The Mayor and City Council can play a much more active role, along with CPED, in helping local businesses expand as well as bringing business to Minneapolis. As mayor, I'll focus on business development in a few ways: I'll establish a City of Lakes Investment Fund (CLIF) with State Government & Downtown businesses. This fund would use targeted grants, loans and forgivable loans to recruit small and medium sized business to set up shop in Minneapolis. These businesses must sign agreements and meet specified job creation metrics, like number of jobs created and wage rates. CLIF funds will be modeled after, and partner with, the state of Minnesotas two main economic development tools, the Minnesota Investment Fund (MIF) and the Job Creation Fund (JCF). CLIF will have one primary focus: helping to recruit businesses to set up shop in Minneapolis, and helping successful businesses already in the city to expand and grow. In a global economy, we can't afford to just wait to see what comes to our borders; we must proactively attract new and growing business to Minneapolis. As the Mayor of Minneapolis, I will fight to bring jobs into our city.

_____________ Investment in Connector Infrastructure

As we work to increase the city population to 500,000, we must invest in infrastructure that can take people to and from; we must do it in a way that helps lower our carbon footprint, facilitates economic development along its corridors and reduces the need for car use. As Mayor, I will commit to: Invest in Street Cars for our intermediate transit corridors (Central Ave & Broadway Ave) Street Cars are key to connect our residential communities with our mass transit systems such as the Central Corridor and Hiawatha Light Rail lines. My plan is to also have a streetcar parallel to the Midtown Greenway. By connecting the middle of the city to the Hiawatha light rail and soon to be Southwest Light Rail line, we take another step towards our goal of creating an interconnected multi-modal transit system that can transport people across the metropolitan area. Expedite the Implementation of the Bottineau Light Rail Transit line, By connecting all of the suburbs to Minneapolis proper; we give businesses certainty that their workforce will have a convenient and environmentally friendly way to get to and from work. The northwestern part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area has not seen significant transit investments, relative to other parts of the region. The Bottineau Light rail Transit line is designed to help transport workers and residents from across that part of the region, which is long overdue and will encourage development.

Invest in the redevelopment of the Port of Minneapolis. With the current lease agreement for the port coming to an end in 2014, we have an opportunity to set the stage for bringing a 21st century industry to a key part of the City.

Managing City Finances I am proud of the successes that Mayor R.T. Rybak and I have achieved regarding the citys finances. Because of the fiscal discipline and stewardship that Mayor Rybak and I have led, the citys 2013 budget proposes cutting property taxes for the first time in over 20 years.

Watching Mayor Rybak give the 2013 budget address and state that he was asking for a $3.2 million property tax cut was ultimate validation of his strategy for governing the city. His strategy for leading this City has undoubtedly worked, and I am proud to have been his most reliable partner in making his vision a reality. During the address, Mayor Rybak said I have been a stalwart ally and the only rock solid partner on every big issue during his administration. The Mayor went on to say that without my rock solid partnership, this $3.2 million property tax cut would not have been possible. I am proud to have been Mayor Rybak s only rock solid partner and the partner that voted for every proposal that enabled the City to get its finances on the right track. Reducing property taxes will pay dividends for attracting young families and retaining residents, especially our seniors and working class homeowners. Mayor Rybak understands this and we cannot thank him enough for his leadership in making Minneapolis a more financially sound City. Now that City finances are on sound financial footing, we cant become complacent and allow our financial status to slip. This means we must make the critical investments to ensure growth and opportunity for our economy and people, but it means we must redesign specific government functions to meet the demands of a 21st century major American city. That will require us thinking about how we do things differently; how we innovate; and how we hold the line on property taxes.

__________________ Government Redesign

Often, politicians talk about how they are going to streamline government by getting rid of fraud, waste and abuse and none of that ever becomes a reality. Well, I have identified several specific ways to streamline, make more transparent and make the delivery of city services more efficient. Here are a few: Fire Truck Deployment: Each quarter, Our Public Safety Results Minneapolis data is reviewed by a team lead by the mayor and me. That data has revealed that each year, there are roughly 24,600 dispatches of a fire department rig to respond to an emergency medical call. In each of these cases, the full fire rig is sent out, costing city residents about $500 per dispatch. Only about 1,300 discreet cases were actual fires. The vast majority of the cases are emergency medical service (EMS) assistance calls. If the city deployed a smaller SUV truck in the EMS cases (which only cost roughly $250 per dispatch), instead of deploying a full fire rig, we would save the city roughly $7 million dollars every year. Im glad to see Mayor Rybak lead on this efficiency, and I will ensure that it is fully implemented as the next Mayor.

Streamline Business and Development Permit Process: When businesses and developers undertake complex projects, they often have to apply for multiple licenses, which can delay or prolong the project by weeks, if not months. I propose we have a Project Green Light express lane for businesses that have a successful record of providing quality services to the city through licenses and contracts. The businesses that have been accepted into Project Green Light will only need to submit one license/permit request per subsequent development project. This will not only alleviate the burden on the already overworked licensing division but also help proven businesses get started on investing and creating jobs for our people. Publish ALL Procurement Agreements and Contracts: Its important to know what businesses have received contracts from the City, and who is benefitting financially. Currently, there is an unintended loophole that contracts between the City and businesses for less than $50,000 never see the light of day. I believe that the more light we shed on how we spend money, the more responsibly it will be spent. This will enhance our commitment and accountability to fiscal responsibility and inclusion. End Tax Increment Financing (TIF): For much of the 1990s, City leaders used TIF as a tool to finance projects by taking future revenue to pay for current projects. That use of TIF robbed our city of future revenue and put us on a path of debt and increased borrowing. After a decade of strong leadership by Mayor Rybak, we've finally paid back the debt of the 1990's. We can't go back. As Mayor, I will not support finance tools that capture future tax revenue to pay for today's developments.

________________ This is how we connect people to the opportunities of the future, ensure investments in critical infrastructure and continue on the path of fiscal responsibility. My plan will bring business leaders and investors to Minneapolis by providing incentives for businesses to relocate and access our highly talented workforce. Together, we will continue to build the foundation for a 21st century economy that will bring sustainable prosperity to the people of Minneapolis.