welcome to the february edition of north st paul no it's a mirror host paul anderson coming up in the next half hour we'll interview our city manager jason zimmer stay tuned in our st paul notes is straight ahead hello and welcome to the february edition of your st paul no it's we hope this show will keep you up to date on the news and events that are of interest to the residents of north st paul longtime city manager wally weiss of all left north st paul last year after working for the city for fifteen years after a number of candidates were interviewed jason's emerge was named the new city manager for north st paul he's with me today in the studio welcomes jason thank you i'm sure to be here so that helps solo it's a little more threatening for me when i have to face somebody who said the experience on t v so but i looked up a little bit of history on the city as two  littlemore history was that in one thousand and thirteen a commission system of government was established and you're familiar with the commission system of government and in that case the mayor at the time his name was murphy  he expected each consul member to be responsible for a department of the city government i guess maybe that's standard for that that form of for a commission level of government is you know so also i found out that the council members were paid ten could be have the knowledge to run a city part of the city government i i'm not sure how that works if that worked well all that to him or not you know i actually it's interesting because there are still commission forms of government at the local level out there actually wouldn't you mentioned i'd been have done this before so i used to be in television years ago and one of the first t v jobs i had out of college after getting my undergraduate degree was in williston north dakota where they were in a commission form of government so it was kind of interesting to see how that ran where you had each commission member was responsible for public works and finance in these different areas so it is it seemed to work pretty well that's what they that's what they like that's what work well for him so that's the type of government that they want to have sure and i'm assuming that's the form of government i didn't check into this were there but i'm assuming that's a form of government we had until one nine hundred fifty one when the city manager form took place it could have been i'm not i'm not up to speed on all that you know that's history but it's largely possible that they at some point time they made a decision to go what what those of us in the profession of going more of a professional type of organization where you have a manager running  trying to keep the the politics out of the day to day operations of your city i'm sure that entered in quite often was that the politicians never know well another interesting point was that i found out that at that time this the  editor of the newspaper the local newspaper which was called the sentinel he suggested that the city hire a city manager and the city apparently didn't pay any attention to  so that's all it continued on as is the commission style of government so it's kind of interesting to see these things in our history and i know that you're interested in the history too as yes we spent some time going through the history museum that's kind or st paul was very interesting it's kind of fun yeah to have somebody who is has a mutual interest well before coming here you were meant city manager at maple plain were you serve for how long i was there for about six and a half years ok maple plains ok and maple plane is considerably smaller than your st paul is it correct yeah maple plains about two thousand people in north st paul's just is a little little under twelve thousand and three people but you know many similarities it's  interesting that even though the size difference is there's a lot of similarities between the two cities or they were both older people playing it just celebrated its hundred anniversary couple years ago and there's a lot of similarities between the two in terms of you know hopes for the future and the close close knit community that they had here and you have that here as well i mean i had to still assume that maple plane was one of those newer suburbs that started up and and  you mentioned the t v work sure i'm sure you must've had other types of jobs too you know when i got to my undergraduate degree from the university of north dakota in broadcasting and my first job as i mentioned was on williston north dakota and there  it's willesden everybody knows that nowadays because of the oil boom but they're really struggling at that time to figure out how they were going to survive because the oil had really kind of disappeared and so my beat essentially became the local government county government all those sorts of things and i enjoyed it and then i got hired in grand forks a few years ago six months i left that job after about six months and moved into grand forks right after the big one thousand nine hundred seven floods that they had to hold her so i was really involved with a lot of the recovery efforts up there and my news director at the time needed somebody to cover a council meeting so he asked me to go cover the council meeting and i did that and he came back he said you know you do a pretty good job at that i'm going to leave you on that beat and i said please take me off and do anything but cover local government and so i just kind of grew in i did that for about three years i covered both local government state government county government that was my main my main job requirements and then my wife got a job done in the twin cities and then we moved down here and i work for cornish communications for a little bit that's an operation that's tied in with k s t p and then i moved from there to northwest community television where i hosted a north  public affairs program for one of the northwest suburbs and i did basically i didn't quite cover council meetings but i covered a variety of different issues on behalf of the city so i would work with them to identify topics that they felt they would like to have covered  news programs and we would do that in really well and i did that for a body year and then decided it was time for a change and i went to the department of natural resources and spent a little more than five years there after i started that i had several today who  colleagues but at the time were people i worked with in those cities at northwest community television that said you know you should consider this public administration profession i thought i just wanted to get away from it as fast as i possibly could because i was i was done with it at that point but the seed got planted in a year after i started at the d n r i decided to go back and get my masters degree in public administration and a master's degree in management nonworking on my doctorate in public administration right now still so it's one of those things where people talk about you kind of know when you've found that right niche for you when you're passionate about something and that's the one thing out when i one stopped and thought about it and what kind of went back and looked at the times that i spent at council meetings and i used to joke with the grand forks city council that all they had to do was give me a blanket in the  because i would see them in the evening and greet them in the morning when when they came back for different means and so it's just something i kind of grew to love for some reason i always had this knack of being able to understand the issues and explain issues and communicate with people and  know in this position ninety five percent of everything that a city manager does or should be doing really is communication on with whether it's staff or with the council with the public sure ok it's kind of ironic that you after attending so many much of a challenge it sounds like it wasn't but coming from a smaller town into a larger town not a large town but it a larger town than you were accustomed to it was a challenge at all you know i view things more rather than challenges more as opportunities and so i saw a tremendous opportunity to i in maple plane it was really my responsibility to kind of do everything so i was the finance director in the city administrator and you know i did every other would jokingly even said part time janitor you know sure and some of those things but i think the appeal of going there in salie it was that it gave you an opportunity of getting your hands involved in a variety of different things really to kind of hone your skill and it gives you a better understanding of really what the staff do nor st paul or even any other large organization you can connect better you understand you've been through some of the trials and tribulations that they've had to go through on the day to day stuff whether it's dealing with residents who are dealing with council on issues that they're trying to get accomplished or just even have a better understanding of really what it takes to get the job done and so when coming here i saw that just my ability of having all those different experiences again was an opportunity to bring some of that into this position an understanding that while he'd been here for fifteen years and i've known wally and have always had a tremendous one respect for him so coming here really was you know with me being new he and i have really two different management style philosophies approaches and so it's more of an opportunity to really assist the staff in trying to lay out what direction we're trying to take the organization it's really not a change the staff are very committed and dedicated to north st paul to the work that they  do and i think that's that was one of the those appeals of coming here is i've told the staff repeatedly is and the council really to as well is that you know you get a lot of longevity on the staff you have people that are very dedicated you know and even the former manager talk very highly of  the staff that were here and so all those things factor into coming into an organization where you can bring you know what i perceive is you know my strong leadership style into the organization and just continuing things from where they were left off and taking them in a new different direction and just need be but to continue on that same path so you know we do you think it's more of an adjustment for the staff than it is for you so i think it's an equal adjustment you know i've been on the job for for five months and so we're still kind of getting to know each other you know as i told the council coming here coming to our st paul staff were accustomed to one person for fifteen years sure so this is going to be a significant change from what they had before to what they're going to have with me and you know it's going to take some time it's not going to be something that's going to happen in three months or six months it might take a year it might take a couple years really for everybody to kind of be comfortable and fully in trust with you know the management of the city councils trying to go to and but if we can open up those lines of communication and reestablish things in the public and have it improve those lines of communication between the public in the city i think it's just going to take some time to get there and in many respects it's just i always say patience persistence and perseverance are kind of the three p s that i i try to focus on it just you have to continue working on those things in order to succeed in anything you try to do you had a recent business association luncheon you spoke about some of your goals can you talk about that a little bit you know one of the things that the city council throughout the interview process and really since i've been here they've talked about they want to get this redevelopment engine kind of reignited in the city and how do we get businesses new businesses  to open up here how do we get the entrepreneurs that are looking to start businesses how do we get entice developers whether it's you know the downtown areas intended to be this kind of small kind of walkable mom and pop shop sort of thing where you get these unique shops that people are drawn to but you really need some of those you know the big box type of stores so those national draws like the targets which you do have in the community but how do you get a mix of those things that can you have those type of landmarks or those dark destination type of businesses that you can draw them in to north st paul that will take advantage of her downtown areas and so the city council said we want to figure out how we're going to get this redevelopment engine started and so one of the things that we started looking at was the city zoning code and there are some elements in  code that really when times were good in every city went through the same sort of thing is you develop these great comprehensive plans which is kind of the vision of the city for the next twenty to thirty years and then you're zoning code matches those that that vision and what happened  all these cities went through this process and then the economy kind of went in the tank and then cities as they were economy starts to climb back out cities are kind of stuck with these policies that maybe don't necessarily work or don't really fit with today's environment of which you have some point maybe in the future but right now you have to try and figure out how you fit in the needs of today with the visions of tomorrow and how you can kind of energize those things and so one of the things that we're taking a look at and we did bring in a consulting firm to tool review of the city's code book a s it relates primarily to the business district and the diversified district which was the new district that came out of the comprehensive plan and kind of after going through that whole process we decided that it's it's probably just better that we just throw that out and start over with something new to match the environment of today and really what because i think over time in this tends to happen whether councils change or they just have a change of of mind or a change of heart is the i think they're starting to see that maybe they want things to go in a different direction they still have the same sort of vision of wanting to accomplish some of these goals but getting there it's time to take a little bit of a detour on that route and then at some point you'll get back on that path later on ok so what we're working through right now is taking a look at redoing the zoning code we are in the process of hiring a city planner and so we've kind of put that on hold until we get that person on board so we can work with that person a little more closely rather than a consultant and then we can have a lot more internal discussions public discussions discussions with the city council on on what what that will all look like and what it means so we're just in the very beginning stages of that part of the discussion is there anything else that you had in mind as far as schools are concerned you know i think the one thing that i've told people and i've been asked that question before from a business owners is what's my to assist the count city council and taking those visions and helping them become become reality along the way it would be my responsibility in the staff's responsibility to try and provide some interpretation steve get this big vision what does that mean what does it look like but to try and help generate ideas and provide assistance to the city council and figure out what the best policies and practices are or what the best methods to be able to get there one of the things that we are doing we are bringing in the national retail research firm  called buxton and the idea behind this organization is to come in sit down with city staff city council and we've had several meetings with them already and they'll be going on february eighteenth meeting for approval of that contract but what they did was assisting us in rather than having this big shotgun approach of how we approach businesses and developers in other words rather than just talking to everybody helping us more with a rifle approach of being able to get to the people that actually are interested in being in  north st paul and the idea behind it is everybody has everybody whether it's north st paul or maple water white bear lake or oakdale or any of the cities that surround our community is they all have a great story to tell on why businesses should be located but how can we tell our story but at the same time say here's why you're a fit for your st paul and some of the idea is to get beyond just the demographics of what's the age range population you know what where do people live what you know  the what's the monthly household income but to really drive home to where people are spending money and that's kind of the idea behind this this research firm is to assist us in generating that information so that people can say we want this type of business and we can have an understanding of does that business match the profile of your saint paul you know for example i've had a lot of people say we'd like to see a trader joe's in your st paul and today i couldn't tell you if trader nor seen polls as it is a trader joe's community or not but by working with this company the idea is to help determine that if they come back and say yeah your perfect match for trader joe's then it's now we know that we can actually go in approach them and say this is our story about nursing paul and here's how you fit within that and here's how we match your business plan and start working with them and try negotiate to bring them in at that point ok i often hear comments from people saying the why can't we have the retail like we used to and i think people often don't think about the fact that since those days they used to do right time some change from pressure from when north st paul's downtown was probably thriving but the one aspect that we are attempting to research with both working with this this firm as well as just internal discussions is simple really has to identify what's unique about it and use that to its advantage i mean the one thing that you saw a lot of communities trying to replicate our downtowns and north st paul has that how can we use that to our advantage how can we work with the different resources in the area to try and bring businesses or developers in we don't necessarily want are saying that everybody's going to be located in the downtown area because you need those anchor tenant so to speak that might be on the outside on highway thirty six that are going to bring people in and once they marry once those people are here then you have the ability of redirecting them to say you know here's how you get to downtown and here's the types of shops that you can find the right you know and so there is there might be a lot of opportunities as it relates to having that unique type of environment in the you've been working on is some staff changes you mentioned bringing in a city planner but what are some of the other things that you're thinking about as far as staff changes one of the things when i first came here is we've had retreats with the city council where i've had a retreat with the city leadership team which includes a department heads our communications manager work a variety of different people but they also had a large retreat with the staff and one of the things that  was discussed in that in those sessions was really what are we best at you know as a city you're as a local government you're a service organization you're providing services to the residents but maybe some x that's aspect we've kind of gotten away from some of those things were providing services but our services that we're providing are getting expansive and so we're not we're kind of losing focus on some of those core areas that the cities is supposed to be serving or providing to the residents so some of the discussions and those retreats and one of the messages of trying to relate is what are we best at what do we want to be known for how do we handle those sorts of things and and as a result of that it's really kind of going back and kind of pulling things apart and putting things where they need to be and you know we had a discussion with the community development staff and i asked them what do they do and they came up with a three page list of items that they do half of them might not have been related to community development you know they had taken on these other duties because over time as you know an economy got tight in positions got a lemonade and staff were asked to do more and asked to do more and has to do more and you know as we all do we take on those additional responsibilities but at some point in time that's that stuff kind of kind of runs to a halt and you have to figure out how to do things differently so we're trying to pull things back apart in you know so we were bringing in the city planner to assist us on working with property owners if they want to have a land use application like that they need a conditional use permit or a variance or developer that comes in and provide better service and some of those areas we're looking at bringing on a finance director which the city used to have but really hasn't had we've had a consultant finance director for the last few years and that's worked out well but they've only been there one day a week and so you really need that that person in that capacity to work with myself in the city council the  finance staff as well as the larger staff within the organization to really help provide some direction where things are going from a financial aspect and really to do a lot more planning with regards to those we're looking at bringing on an engineering tech but that  is you know maybe that's something that could be shared with another community we're looking on bringing on an assistant to the city manager position to help with some internal h r functions as well as to kind of assist with some of the commission work so a lot of the positions that we're looking at  changing or we're looking at are really about kind of simplifying things getting things back to you know things in community development or community development related things in finance or finance related be more simple take a better approach to the services that we're providing and how we can be more efficient more effective and provide that quality of service that the residents really have come to expect from our st paul to make sure that continues here well we only have a few minutes left but you also had mentioned communication is a priority and is that something in the that you've already started to work on or what do you what here is if you if you've been thinking about as far as communicating you know it's kind of hard to get away from the communication piece when you've done that for for years for sure but i think that's as i mentioned that's the key element i mean it's ninety five percent of what we do want to run a regular basis it's to keep people informed keep people engaged with the people involved in the one thing as a communication piece that it's always been a passion of mine and something i've always wanted to do which is to bring a citizens academy into the community i work for to give people more of an interactive opportunity to get involved with with the city to have a better understanding of what it is that the local government does and does for them in the services that they provide and how those services work and affect them and so it just gives people an opportunity can learn about you know how our property taxes generated wheelbase our budgets put together you know how does the public works crew polish street didn't you know the city has an electric utility department which is only one of twelve cities in this in the states that have electric utility and learn more about that service that's being provided you know the rates really are cheaper than xcel so let's give people more of awareness of really what that's all about you know the police department the fire department all these different services that at the end of the day you know our responsibilities is to hope that people can come to somewhat to take advantage of take advantage of us you know we want to be able to provide the services that when people flip on the lights in the morning the powers on and when they take a shower the you know they take their shower in the water goes away if and when they're done with that soul but i think giving those people opportunity of being more interactive to come to a better understanding helps and it's not just learning it's also interactive so that they can participate in different will give them experiences with that so that's something we're working on well we just have a few seconds left but is there anything else that you wanted to mention the you didn't get a chance to i think we pretty much covered more than i'm going to wait a bit but i prefer the opportunity to be here today and  will introduce myself to the community a little bit more and you know as we go forward my hope is to continue to be involved with the community and get more of the staff and the department heads in the city council more involved in all the city councils looking at how they can kind of also touch connect with the manager of north st paul and we are out of time on this month's schol join us again next month when we'll bring you more news about nor see him paul i'm paul anderson speaking for everyone at the city of nor st paul thank you for watching