(gentle music) - "R-Town," The Show About Rochester is back and we're kicking off the season by catching up with State Auditor Julie Blaha and the State of Main Street Project.

We also join in on some biking fun at Shields Bike Night.

Next on "R-Town, The Show About Rochester."

- [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(gentle music) - Coming to you from 125 Live, "R-Town."

♪ Come on back to me ♪ So how have local governments fared financially in these unprecedented times?

That is precisely what the office of the State Auditor sought to find out with the State of Main Street.

Here to walk us through the report and its key findings is State Auditor Blaha.

It's a pleasure to have you back on the show.

- Oh, it's so good to be here in person, too.

- It's fantastic.

So, before we dive into the State of Main Street, can you just tell us, remind us what is it that you do as a State Auditor?

Well, that's a great question and you know you're a hardcore political insider when you know what your State Auditor does.

- I do, I do.

- You do.

- So I am hardcore.

- It's different in every state, so here it is.

I oversee about $40 billion in local government spending and just this last year, we picked up another 20 billion in some federal spending.

We do it with examinations, audits, investigations, we do analysis, so we can make decisions based on facts and then we provide direct support to local government officials.

So basically it's about making sure that that level of government where we get to make the decisions closest to home is successful.

- Fantastic.

So, what is the 2022 State of Main Street?

- Well, you know, when I first started this work, I saw that the President got to do his State of the Union and then the Governor got to do the State of the State and nobody was talking about local government.

So, we came up with the idea of the State of Main Street where we share our data about local government.

So we take our three big reports, our city report, our county report, our-Township report.

We look at trends and then see if we can make sense of those.

- So you have to gather a lot of information for the State of Main Street.

Can you talk a little bit to us about how you gather that information, how did you go about compiling all that?

- Well, you know, people have to report an awful lot of information to the government and you wonder where it goes.

Well, this is one of the places where it actually goes.

So what we do is we take the reports that all of our local governments submit to us and then we look for trends and we look for three basic areas, the money coming in, so we look at income, we look at expenditures and then we look at the bottom line, so what comes in, what goes out and what does it all add up to, so income, expenditures and then debt and debt and reserves.

- In addition to that, I'm sure you have to work with a lot of governments and leaders, how'd you go about doing that?

- Well, we thought, you know, when you look at these graphs and as much as I would love to look at graphs all day, they don't tell the whole story, so we wanted to make sure that we took the data we had and put it back in front of the people who lived it.

So we did a series of listening sessions, where we had local government officials, elected, staff, neighbors, come together, look at a graph and tell us what it meant to them and then all of a sudden, it's not merely raw data, but now it's really a story of what's happened over the past year at our most foundational level of government.

- So, of course, you did this throughout the state, we're here in Rochester, so- - [Julie] Right.

- I would love to learn a little bit about what our local government had to say.

What did they share with you?

- Well, you know, we heard from Rochester area officials.

We heard that a lot of things didn't match our statewide trends, but they also had some things that were unique, particularly things that had to do with hospitality since that's specific to this region.

You know, every region is different based on its tax base, makeup, and because you have so much hospitality down here, the impacts on hospitality during COVID really made some specific impacts on Rochester.

- So the leaders must have also had some other challenges, as well, during the COVID-19 pandemic and then also, I mean, do you feel like we overestimated the impact of the COVID-19?

What did the data say about the impact of the pandemic?

- Well, one thing I'm extremely impressed with what local government had to do during the pandemic.

They had to take a record amount of resources, move them at record speed and with record complexity to keep us out of economic free fall and they had to do all of this while they're cat walked across the keyboard 'cause they were in the basement, right?

And it was really quite impressive.

It's one of the first time in recent memory that local government was used to respond to a global economic crisis and so we learned a lot about how can a local government respond to a global crisis and I think they really rose to the challenge.

- In what ways did they rise to the challenge?

- Well, you know, local government worked really hard to keep things stable, but they had to do not just keep the infrastructure stable, they didn't just have to respond to the healthcare part of the crisis, but they also wanted to keep the economy stable and they realized that they had to do all three things together because alone none of them would have worked.

So, by pulling them all together, you see that they were able to move resources as directly to people as possible and that's one of the great things that local government can do, can customize and get very much to the ground level and that was their focus.

- Fantastic.

We're gonna be back to talk and delve more into the State of Main Street.

We'll be right back after this break.

(upbeat music) Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R-Town."

We hit the road with the Shields Bike Night and continue our conversation with State Auditor Blaha about the State of Main Street.

But first we learn about the long history of the Soldiers Field Wall of Remembrance in this weeks R Culture segment.

(gentle music) - Soldiers Field Veterans Memorial is divine ground.

It's where we honor our veterans, their families and its an educational memorial, a place to come and find peace, to grieve, to find comfort should you have lost a veteran or a family member serving and reflect on the service of that person and your family.

The memorial came to be conceived in 1995.

In 1996, they started breaking ground.

It's all tax free dollars.

There's no tax dollars here.

It's all volunteer works and this memorial has inspired other nations to come here and look at it, other communities to look at it.

- We start with the flags.

We got nine flags.

State flag, Minnesota flag, the six service flags and the POW flag.

And then we have our wall remembrance and our wall remembrance is for military people who have passed away.

- Everyone from a 50-mile radius through Rochester is eligible, if they died, no matter when they died, 20 years after they got out of the service or any time.

- And then we have the walk of remembrance and that's our sidewalks.

And our sidewalks, we have within those a total now of 6,483 pavers.

- Now the walk of remembrance was the main fundraiser.

70% of the funds raised to build this memorial was through the sale of the pavers.

- They worked so hard to come up with designs and you have World War II veterans, Korea and Vietnam.

Everybody experienced something different and everybody had an image that was just engraved in them and so you come together and you compromise and you find things that people would understand.

The wall is four walls, it's in a circle.

It represents the circle of life and it starts off with the civil war and then it's the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, then the Vietnam War and ends up with the Persian Gulf War, which at the time we thought we're over this.

This world can get along and it just can't.

- There is a price paid also on the home front, which we have in front of the wall of remembrance.

We have that statue.

You can call it a widow and a child or a mother and a child.

The idea for a memorial came up in 1995 when the 173rd Airborne had their reunion here and all of a sudden this idea to honor and remember the 173rd became an idea to honor all veterans.

It started out as a plaque.

Now this here is our plaque in the park and we presented it to the City of Rochester in about 2007 or 8.

We gave the ownership of it to the City of Rochester.

Proud of it, it's the gem of the City of Rochester.

(gentle music) - This memorial means to me, as being a combat vet and being around those who made the ultimate sacrifice that this is a place to honor them, to honor the people that unselfishly step up to defend this nation, defend their homeland.

They do it willingly and they do a very good job at it and it's sad that so many will lose limbs, will spill their own blood or lose their lives or come home with PTSD.

It's divine.

When I come here, I know I'm among hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters and I was just one speck like the sand on the beach that helped defend this country, will continue to do so today.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ #RTown or ksmq.org/rtown.

♪ To the unknown ♪ ♪ And we'll see what we can find ♪ - Hi, this is Danielle Teal with a spotlight and I'm here with Crystal Whitmarsh today to talk about my favorite thing, coffee.

Welcome, Crystal.

- Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here.

- Well, I'm excited to connect with you.

I do know that you're very involved in the community.

I've had your coffee, it's delicious.

Let's talk a little bit more about your coffee business.

How it got started, who's involved, all that good stuff.

- Yeah, of course.

So my husband and I co-own Trail Creek Coffee Roasters and we are based out of Kasson, Minnesota, so just down the road a little ways.

We started back in 2017 roasting coffee out of our home and we actually started on a popcorn popper, so started very small roasting for ourselves and for family and friends and then slowly grew from there so that we started roasting on a commercial roaster out of our garage.

- It always starts out in the garage.

- [Crystal] It always starts in the garage.

- How cool is that?

- Yes, that's the best place to start.

And then in 2019, we moved into a commercial space and started to expand more commercially.

- So how did that feel expanding into a commercial space, you're having to produce more?

Were you able to kind of assess and keep up then at that point?

How did you expand?

- It's a little bit, a lot of bit scary actually to expand and make that leap into having a rent payment and needing to get licenses and all of those things and actually sorting that out was a bit of a process.

But once we got going, we did find that we've had a nice, natural steady growth and most of our customer base comes from word of mouth and referral and just getting ourselves out there in the community.

So we've made sure to keep it within what we can handle, but also steadily growing and seeking more.

- That's really cool and the essence behind the coffee isn't just superficial.

You actually go places to help with the sourcing of it, correct?

- Yeah, sort of.

So, our tagline I guess you could say is that we're a small batch specialty coffee roaster with a passion for community, connection and global impact.

So it's about more than coffee, right.

We make great coffee and that's awesome, but also coffee brings people together.

- It sure does.

- Yes.

- It really does.

- In situations like this, like one-to-one, but also communities and then globally, as well, so we've done a few partnering with different non-profits here in Rochester, including The Landing, Project Legacy and then also Ironwood Springs Christian Ranch and then just this past February, we also went to Belize and started to check out a coffee farm down there that's actually the first coffee farm in Belize and we'll continue to grow that relationship as we return and get a chance to work together with them and hopefully eventually source their coffee beans, but they're still in the growing phase, as well.

- That's great.

We're gonna share a little bit more where people can find out more information about this fabulous business.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Walkabout.

We're at Shields tonight and guess what?

It's bike night.

We're gonna be talking to a few people about it.

We're here at Shields, it's bike night and quite popular.

We've got a little crowd right now.

People are on their really cool bikes.

Tell us a little bit more about what goes on.

- Yeah, so we have our bike club here on Tuesday night, so we have our casual riders and our moderate riders.

So our casual rides are about between 5 to 10 miles.

- Can you define casual?

- I am definitely a casual rider.

We do a lot more trail rides, slower paced.

Like I said, shorter, so it's 5 to 10 miles with that.

Yeah, I've only been riding with these guys for two years now, so I'm very much on the casual side of things.

But we have some who have been riding a lot longer, so that would be our moderate rides.

- Is this your first rodeo, Jason?

- No, definitely not my first rodeo, not at all.

- How long you been doing this?

- I've been riding road bike now for about seven years.

- [Danielle] And we talked about it a little bit that there's a difference between casual and some of the rides that you do.

Can you share the difference really quickly?

- Yeah, yeah, this ride that we're doing tonight, for example, it's gonna be a longer ride, a little more challenging, elevation.

It's gonna be around 700 feet.

The casual ride, they might only do maybe 100 to 200 feet.

So a little more challenge in that regard.

The speed is gonna be a little faster.

We're gonna be shooting for somewhere between 15 and 17 mile per hour averages tonight.

- It's Tuesday evenings, what time?

- We meet here at 6 o'clock and then once we get further into the year, so September, we'll go through September, we usually start meeting at 5:30 just so that we don't hit the sunset.

- This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Walkabout.

I think I'm gonna go ride with them.

(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone, it's Michael Wojcik, delighted to be back, doing another "R-Town" rundown.

Rochester has fantastic summers.

It's a great opportunity to get out and meet with the community and the City of Rochester puts on a number of recurring events through the summer that give you additional opportunities for new experiences.

Probably the most famous event that we have going on is our Thursdays downtown.

That's every Thursday from early afternoon through the evening and that's an opportunity to get out and enjoy local food and beverage along with craft vendors and enjoy some local music with your neighbors in downtown Rochester.

A relatively new addition to the summer schedule for the City of Rochester is the Forward Concerts.

This is a series of concerts that are put on in parks in different parts of the city.

The name implies that one is put on in each ward of the city of Rochester.

The next one is going to be going on August 17th at Withers Park.

Again, this is another totally free opportunity for you to get out and enjoy community in the parks.

The Rochester Police Department has partnered with other local partners to put on Safe City Nights.

It's an opportunity for you to get together in different parts of the city, meet with your neighbors, talk with public safety officials, talk about what's going on in your neighborhood and figure out what you can to be safer and what we can do together to make our community safe.

The next one is going to be July 12th at Jefferson Elementary School.

And, finally, one of the highlights of the summer is the Down by the Riverside Concert Series.

This has been going on for more than 20 years now and each Sunday night for the next few Sundays there's going to be a free concert at Mayo Park.

The first one is Sunday, July 10th and it's featuring Nerdy, who is a fantastic performer and a quality individual, as well.

This is a great opportunity to get out to see the headliners, but also see great local acts that are opening up, as well.

So I hope to see you out and about this summer in "R-Town."

(gentle music) - Welcome back.

We're continuing our conversation with State Auditor Blaha about the State of Main Street.

So we know that the fiscal health of local governments, obviously you know as the auditor, is so vital.

Can you tell us about some of the key lessons that you learned from the State of Main Street Project?

- Well, you know, local government officials, every year we've done this, one of the first things they say is we'd like to keep things stable.

They wanna keep things consistent.

One person even said we want your toilet to flush and you not to think about why.

That's what they wanna do and so they really had to work hard to keep things stable during COVID.

For instance, one of the things that we heard in Rochester specifically was some concerns about how property taxes were going to hit people.

Now so much of local government funding comes from property tax in Minnesota.

So it's really important and so they always strive to keep it stable, they wanna keep the rates as low as they can, but they also heard that since home values were going up, so property value is going up, it property values went up at the same time property tax rates went up, that'd be quite a double whammy.

So they worked really hard to keep property taxes as flat as they could in this last year, but, of course, you know with increased property value, people still felt it and I think your local government officials really listened to that and worked hard to keep things as flat as they could.

- Of course stability really relies on having enough funds, having enough resources.

Can you talk a little bit about how local governments were sort of thinking about that?

- Oh, and during COVID, one thing we heard a lot was it was a good thing they resources came when they did, that that's exactly when they needed those resources.

So one thing I think the federal government did right was move resources as local as they could, as quickly as they could.

Now that added some confusion.

That was challenging for people, but it was really important to, again, try to keep things stable.

So they said a lot about how, again, timing mattered but also flexibility.

One difference between CARES and ARPA, so between the two rounds of funding was the level of flexibility.

Local government officials asked again and again, we would like to see more flexibility and the Biden administration, our federal representatives listened to that, made it more flexible and then they were able to respond to a wider set of needs.

So flexibility and timeliness were really key this last couple of years.

- Was there anything that surprised you as a State Auditor about what was coming back from the local governments?

- Well, you know, I think most surprising was, well, I don't think I should have been surprised, but people were working to be really careful about that money.

For instance, we saw a number of townships saying, you know, we're not gonna ask for money we don't need.

We're not just gonna have it and stack it, so a number of townships said we're actually fine.

We don't necessarily have COVID expenses that need this level of extra funding, so we're not gonna ask for the money we don't need.

So I thought that that, again, that responsibility and that thoughtfulness was really key because any funds that weren't used the first round got to be redistributed where the need was greater.

- So you learned a lot, got surprised a little bit.

How are you sharing these lessons learned?

- Yeah, that's important.

The data means nothing if it stays in our office.

So not only do we do the listening sessions, but have worked to do media work and this year we also worked on sharing our information with federal representatives more.

You know, this was, again, the first time in a long time that Congress and the Senate did a lot of work sharing money with local government for a global issue.

So we wanted to make sure they understood what was the result of that action.

We wanted to make sure Congress and Senators and the President know that flexibility worked, that timing worked, that clarity, making sure that their instructions were clear were really helpful.

So we added kind of a federal sharing to this in the same way the COVID funds were shared.

- So, the core of what you all do at the Office for the State Auditor is getting that data and that information so that local governments and decision makers can make good decisions and choices.

- [Julie] Right.

- What are the recommendations that you're sharing with local governments given the State of Main Street?

- You bet, and I don't feel I can say this too many times, but flexibility.

Again, when people can customize the finances to their specific community's needs, I think the money will go a lot further because it's very precisely tailored to that community.

I think it's also important for people to write down what they did.

We need to capture what we learned during this time.

- So data collection.

- Data collection, well, the idea of capture, what worked and what didn't work?

And so the next time, and I think we all know there'll be a next time something happens, you have that data.

And then I think also, I think we learned that local government can have an important role in a global crisis.

I think this was one of the times that we have used it in that economic field more than ever.

And I think the lesson learned is hey, local government is definitely up to the challenge, especially with all we had to learn and build over these last two years.

- Do you feel like local government feels empowered to do all of that?

- Well, I'm not sure if empowered is the field, I think everybody felt so stressed, I hope they do.

I hope that they realize that the role they played in keeping us out of economic free fall was vital and that we need to remember that and we need to continue to utilize that level of government to its greatest potential.

- Sure.

I'm just inspired by that, but I'm also thinking.

Again, I'm really interested in the fact, I mean, it's state wide.

Did you see trends depending on the region that we were in, the population?

What were some things that kind of came up, depending on, we mentioned a little bit of how Rochester had the hospitality.

That was a big thing because of the nature of this region and what happens here.

I guess what other trends did you see in other spaces of the state.

- What I thought was interesting was what was the same and what was different.

And that connection between the two.

You know, we talk so much about a rural urban divide and I think a lot of times it's not so much a divide as the need to customize.

You know, we talk about homelessness across the state.

Everyone has housing needs, but the flavor of that is different depending on where you are.

During COVID, we saw the metro areas often having to talk about, say, encampments because that was a major problem with a communicable virus, whereas in greater Minnesota, you're seeing more discussion about workplace housing and so that's how they talk about it.

Again, they're the same concept, just different flavors.

And so I think that's something we can all learn is the idea of we shouldn't look at everything as a divide.

It might simply be customization.

- Sure and diversity just across.

- Absolutely and there's some great benefit to that.

You know, we need things to be different across the state, so we shouldn't look at that difference as a divide as much, I think, as an opportunity to try different things where they work best.

- Okay, well, to wrap up, because I've been waiting to ask you this question.

The last time that you were here with us, we talked about you being a crop artist.

- [Julie] True.

- What are you working on?

Let us know, we want to see it.

- This is great for my accountability because July is when the rubber hits, not so much the rubber hits the road, the seeds have to hit the canvas.

And so I want to celebrate, this is the 75th year of the Pronto Pup and it's not just a Pronto Pup, but the concept of on a stick really came in with that banquet on a stick, so I am making a piece to the Semi-Sesquicentennial, which is my favorite word, Semi-Sesquicentennial of the stick at the Minnesota State Fair.

- Oh, that is fantastic.

Well, we'll have to look out for it.

Thank you so much for joining us, State Auditor Blaha and we hope to talk to you soon again.

- Can't wait.

- And thank you all for joining us today.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #Rtown.

Be well and stay safe.

We will see you next time on "R-Town, the Show About Rochester."

♪ And darlin' ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ But we never had a moment ♪ ♪ Just to sit and wonder ♪ ♪ I wonder what this has all been for ♪ ♪ Meet me in the remote ♪ ♪ By the old screen door, love ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'm tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll tell you I'm sure ♪ (gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.