2019-09-16 EDA Minutes (signed) - Laserfiche WebLink

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REDA Meeting Minutes—Monday,September 16,2019 Page 12 Member Willmus asked, with respect to the additional language added and will have going forward in the contracts, for explanation on how that came to be and who staff met with and raised some of the concerns. Community Development Director Gundlach indicated Ms. Kim Nelson, representing the union, came to staff with concerns. She met with Ms. Nelson on September 4, 2019 and brought a lot of these issues to her attention. She asked Ms. Nelson to share some of her evidence to support some of the things she was saying about the developer in this case. Staff received that information this morning but before the information was received, staff immediately connected with Ms. Kelsey and Ms. Ingram to explore development contract language that could prevent that from happening on Roseville sites. Ms. Ingram was very helpful in drafting a language highlighted in the packet. Ms. Gundlach reviewed the language with the EDA that helps protect the city now and in the future. Member Laliberte appreciated the work done by staff and no one wanted anything like what was brought up to happen in Roseville. She wondered if there was any other manner where someone could report something that is being suspected on a project. Ms. Gundlach explained this type of issue is fairly new and she has not worked with something like this at her past employment. When she did meet with Ms. Nelson, one item that was discussed, in the interest of trying to protect workers and recognize problems and report them in a timely fashion, was to offer to meet with the city Building Official and Building Inspection staff to give them tools and tips on how to recognize things that are happening on job sites and when those things are recognized, who staff should report those problems to. That offer remains open and Ms. Nelson has not asked to meet with those staff members since that meeting. Member Etten noted one of the questions that was brought forward was asking about law the city has in protecting labor situations. He asked EDA Attorney Ingram if the city held the statutory ability to do that or is that held by the State. EDA Attorney Ingram indicated when federal labor law is involved, there are actually steps that a city or an EDA has to take to comply with those. In state labor law situations such as what is before them, there are not similar procedures. There are certainly procedures that are more voluntary, in the state labor law context. She noted this is not her area of law and is speaking a little beyond her depth. The trade off of having the city or the EDA do enforcement of its own, is that it is staff and time and money intensive on the part of the city