Brooklyn Park Mayor Hollies Winston Talks About City’s Legislative Priorities for 2025
As cities scramble to put forth legislative priorities in front of a fractured state legislature in St. Paul this January, Brooklyn Park Mayor Hollies Winston said the city is focused on working together with northwest suburban neighbor cities to tackle a couple of different issues the state can help with.
Group Homes
Winston told CCX that the city is working alongside leaders from Brooklyn Center, Crystal, Golden Valley, New Hope, and Robbinsdale to see if the state can allow for more oversight of congregate care facilities–or group homes.
“Especially for cities like Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, and Robbinsdale, over one in ten in public safety calls are going to congregate care facilities, which (is) a huge drain on resources,” the mayor told Rusty Ray with CCX Cities. “If we’re going to use this many police calls or fire police calls–and some of these calls take 45 minutes or an hour and a half–then we need additional resources for that.”
He hopes the city can also gain oversight because city officials say companies buy the homes–as many as 500 in the city alone–and the homes can’t be regularly inspected to make sure they are up to code like other rental properties might be.
“I think coming together as a coalition and investing more in those resources, and saying, you know, these are some real issues, and saying, you know, as a city, we’ve invested in things like affordable housing before almost any other region did, and we’re dealing with specific issues we did what we were supposed to for the entire state,” Winston said. “I think it’s a strong argument when we come together and realize what we did in the past is affecting us now, and I do think the legislature does have some responsibility to say how do we get you the resources you need so you can continue doing what you do for the state?”
Public Safety
Overall, Winston would like to see some help from the state in regards to public safety costs. He said the city sees higher crime rates than cities of comparable size, but because of the tax base, public safety costs are more of the budget.about
“Fifty-five to sixty percent of our budget goes to public safety. For a healthy city, it should be 30-35 percent,” said Winston.
He is advocating for a portion of the tax revenue that comes from the tax created to pay for the construction of Target Field 15 years ago. Right now, 80 percent of that goes to HCMC and North Memorial Hospital, and Winston thinks even a small portion of the remaining 20 percent could go a long way in Brooklyn Park.
“We know if something happens at a store in Brooklyn Park, often those same perpetrators are moving around in Robbinsdale, they’re moving around in Golden Valley, they’re moving around in Minneapolis,” he said. “We want to have intelligence, intelligence sharing so we can continue to talk to our other cities.”
Brooklyn Boulevard Development
Mayor Winston also wants the city to ask state legislators for help developing more tax increment financing districts to spur more purposeful development along the central corridor of Brooklyn Boulevard.
“We have some prime real estate that we as a city have bought, because we saw a certain direction that it was going, and we said if we get some key parcels, and we get the right development there, we can ensure that we can try to change the nature and character of what we see along this boulevard so it’s much more in keeping with what we’re looking for,” he said.
