President Todd Nicholson welcomed people to the University Club and led attendees in the 4-way Test. President Nicholson thanked meeting volunteers including Greeter Shelly Rucks, Carolyn Will for introducing our speaker, and tech volunteers Ken Crabb and Dave Wolfgram.
September & October birthdays were celebrated with cupcakes from Dave Dominick.
Ruth Petermann has joined our club as Director of Membership. Her first day was October 4th. She has deep Rotary experience, including recently serving as President of Hudson Daybreak Rotary Club. President Nicholson thanked the search committee chaired by Heidi Fischer. Ruth spoke briefly and is excited to be working with Club 10!
Carolyn Will introduced Joe Spencer, President, Saint Paul Downtown Alliance
The Saint Paul Downtown Alliance is dedicated to driving vitality and jobs in downtown St Paul. Joe started out noting that it's been a rough year and a half for downtowns. He feels proud of what the Downtown Alliance been able to accomplish in a difficult environment.
St Paul is the 64th largest city in the United States. The 63 larger cities all had a Business Improvement District. How it works: commercial property owners petition the city to levy an additional assessment that goes back to property owners to provide additional services. Core activities include improving safety outcomes & perceptions, having an Ambassador program, landscaping, events and promotions.
Saint Paul normally has 55,000 workers. Downtown residential population has grown from 5K to 10K. Normally 8-10M visitors for arts, culture, sports, restaurants. Workforce and visitors to downtown have seen dramatic declines throughout Covid, though entertainment venues are coming back.
The Downtown Alliance created a welcome back campaign -- deployed in spring 2021. Three main components:
- Make downtown safe & clean
- Remind people of what is special about downtown, a vibrant environment. Delivered 343 events over the summer including the Jazz Festival.
- Marketing campaign -- telling people about why we are great. They created the orange STPL sculpture, 40 videos about favorite places, and more
Joe described the Alliance's Safety Communications Center. Dispatchers coordinate with police, work right in their office. There are typically 6-8 police officers out around downtown in pairs. There are also 125 safety / security officers in private buildings. The Downtown Alliance is working to get private security officers talking to each other through the Safety Communications network, so they can share information about activity happening downtown. The team also connects people in mental health situations with social services, instead of all of these cases being handed by the police. The Alliance has also deployed 16 people in downtown walking around, removing litter & grafiti.
Crime statistics for June, July & August 2021 show improvement. There has been a 23% reduction in crime vs 2020, and downtown St Paul is 10% under the 5 year average. The Alliance's efforts are in concert with a lot of police overtime, increase in capacity for people experiencing homelessness, and other services
Bottom line -- if you're ready to come downtown, downtown is ready for you! We need you, your family & friends to come back!
Checkout their website: stpdowntownalliance.org, where you can sign up for weekly newsletter on what's happening in downtown Saint Paul
Laura Nichols-Endres
Scribe