St. Paul City Council, mayor’s office still wrangling with special event costs

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·7 min read

When the organizers behind the popular Little Mekong Night Market in St. Paul saw cost estimates for security in 2022, they scrubbed the event altogether that summer.

Already hard-pressed for cash coming out of the pandemic, fundraising staff with the Asian Economic Development Association were uncertain how to keep up with city requirements to hire St. Paul police officers at time-and-a-half overtime rates, among other costly precautions such as road closures, Jersey barriers and hooded parking meters.

“Everything has gone up in terms of the cost, including the cost of security,” said Va-Megn Thoj, executive director of AEDA, on Thursday, noting the Night Market returns June 22-23 for the first time in three years. “This will be our most expensive event ever this year.”

Those cost concerns have been echoed for years by the Grand Avenue Business Association, which convenes Grand Old Day, as well as organizers of the White Bear Avenue and Rice Street parades, Highland Fest and other community festivals, some of which are now defunct in part due to their inability to keep up with the growing price of public safety precautions.

How to mitigate costs?

Members of the St. Paul City Council and Mayor Melvin Carter’s administration vowed to look into how to help cultural events mitigate those costs in 2020, and then again when the issue arose in 2022. Fast forward to 2024, and some council members have expressed frustration that more progress hasn’t been made around containing security-related expenses that stem directly from the city’s public safety mandates.

“What we heard loud and clear from all of our community organizations several years ago, when the police department doubled or tripled its security costs … is that it is no longer viable to put on many of these festivals that do bring the vibrancy and the sense of place … to our neighborhoods,” said council member Rebecca Noecker, expressing open frustration during a May 8 council meeting.

“We were told at the time that the administration was handling it, I believe under the leadership of the deputy mayor,” added Noecker, who represents downtown, part of Grand Avenue, Cathedral Hill and the West Side. “A year ago, we were told … it was going to be imminently solved. … Where is the accountability from the administration?”

Streamlined permitting, noise-level variances

Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher said those concerns have not fallen on deaf ears.

“Events are highly important to our city. They create vitality,” said Tincher, who convened a meeting between media and representatives of Visit St. Paul, the St. Paul Downtown Alliance, St. Paul Parks and Recreation and various other departments a few days after the May 8 council discussion. “We as a city celebrate that and we want to do everything we can to help event organizers put those on.”

Officials with St. Paul Public Works, the St. Paul Police Department, the Department of Safety and Inspections and the mayor’s office say they’ve streamlined processes related to special events.

Krystle Cruz Williams, the mayor’s director of business engagement, works as the initial point of contact in the mayor’s office for event planners, and the city launched an online portal with a single “smart sheet” that links festival organizers to all the relevant city departments at once.

Most sound-level variances, which required public hearings before the city council, will soon be swapped out in favor of a staff-driven permitting process, allowing a majority of events with amplified sound to obtain a single permit for multiple nights without a public hearing, said Department of Safety and Inspections director Angie Wiese. The city convenes an internal “Block Party Permit Committee” featuring all event-related departments, with the goal of coordinating permitting for events.

Public Works officials are in the process of finalizing a policy intended to create more clarity and uniformity around the costs related to hooding parking meters for events. Department officials say they will present a fee schedule — $10 per meter per day for special events, $25 per day for other obstructions such as utility work — to the city council for approval in coming weeks. The requirements clarify that the meters need to be hooded a day in advance to avoid day-of towing.

“It effectively reduces the rates,” said St. Paul Public Works director Sean Kershaw, noting the financial loss from a hooded meter is partially offset by other types of visitor spending during special events, including parking elsewhere. “There was inconsistency in the past. We did apply the rates we’re talking about now to the Winter Carnival.”

Some council members called the proposed meter policy well overdue. “I liked this policy when I saw it in my inbox two years ago,” said Noecker, showing visible frustration while addressing a representative of St. Paul Public Works on May 8. “I like it today. I like the predictability.”

Security costs still at issue

Still, prior to 2022, festivals negotiated security rates with off-duty St. Paul police officers, which allowed for flexibility in pricing. Now, they’re required to pay straight overtime rates. That requirement has not changed.

“It doesn’t work for the city because of the liability,” said Tincher. “We really don’t have any ‘off-duty (police)’ anymore. People may feel like it’s expensive to start putting on events the right way. It’s real expensive if we start doing it the wrong way.”

If anything, the November 2021 deaths of six bystanders at a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee — among other event-related tragedies — has heightened the resolve of St. Paul police and others in the Carter administration to keep security requirements tighter than in the past.

“If you’re going to run a festival, and you want to hire a security company … there’s not a lot that they can do other than visual deterrent,” said St. Paul Police Deputy Chief Tim Flynn, noting sworn, on-duty police provide everything from advance intelligence gathering about known security threats to squad cars and powers of arrest.

“These events (in St. Paul), for years, nothing happened and we got lucky,” Flynn added. “If anything, I’d want more officers (than what is currently required). We’ve had open-air events where we are arresting people for multiple aggravated assaults.”

Limited subsidy for special events

Some members of the public have called for more financial support from the city to offset security costs that stem directly from city mandates. Existing funding through the city’s Cultural STAR grant program only goes so far.

That raises the question as to which events would be eligible, and from what funding source. Despite rising costs, St. Paul police say organizations have already scheduled upwards of 134 outdoor community events this year compared to 145 events last year in total, before including National Night Out and other assorted block parties.

Ultimately, said Tincher, if the city were to play favorites, that would be a decision of the city council, not city administrators.

That said, Visit St. Paul, the city’s contracted visitors bureau, began experimenting last year with a temporary pilot program to help small nonprofits better market more than 20 street festivals through outdoor digital displays, radio spots on 89.3 FM The Current, free event photography and email and online promotions. Among the happenings were the Flint Hills Family Festival, the Swede Hollow Art Fair and a series of winter gatherings under the banner “St. Paul holidays.”

Visit St. Paul, which is largely funded through an overnight lodging tax at hotels, has set aside a separate $300,000 to help major events that bring in overnight visitors over the next three years or so. The Frozen Four college hockey tournament and the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships are strong contenders.

Thoj, of the Asian Economic Development Association, said he appreciated any effort to streamline costs. He had hoped to host the Little Mekong Night Market at Central Village Park this summer but was denied by the city without explanation, so the event will return to its block party roots by University and Western avenues on June 22-23. Across months of organizing, other meetings put him before state health inspectors, county officials regarding having pedestrians cross county roads and St. Paul police.

“It’s a bureaucratic maze, which adds to time and money,” Thoj said. “It takes at least six months just to go through the whole process of permitting. But it’s gotten better.”

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