(upbeat music) - Stay tuned for On Q.

For KSMQ Public Television, I'm Eric Olson.

Why is it so tough it seems to find an affordable place to live in Southeastern Minnesota?

Well, we'll have some tips for you today from an expert.

Also, we'll find out what new things Park and Rec is up to, and we'll discuss the emerald ash borer problem that has surfaced recently.

That's all coming up On Q.

♪ Local ideas that matter to you ♪ ♪ Sharing our region's unique point of view ♪ ♪ Telling the stories that you never knew ♪ ♪ On Q ♪ ♪ On Q ♪ ♪ On Q.

♪ The Austin HRA, Housing and Redevelopment Authority does among other things, provide affordable, decent, safe housing for low income individuals and their families, but other things too.

Executive director Taggert Medgaarden joins us now.

Welcome, sir.

- Oh, thank you, Eric.

- One agency name, but many hats you wear at HRA.

We know you basically as a landlord when you hear about HRA in Austin.

Just run down some of the other things you do.

- Well, you always start from the beginning, I guess a little bit.

The HRA started in the '60s.

We started as a, there's two paths the HRA can take, they can be right in a department of the city or an arm outside the city.

We are established as an arm outside the city, we have a board of seven commissioners with three city council members on the board.

And yeah, like you said, we not only do housing, but we do redevelopment.

And the redevelopment piece is something that we're able to do a lot of different things with.

- And I didn't know about a lot of the things that HRA does.

I like many people was well, they own rental properties, quite a few of them.

But you mentioned a spruce up or look your front of your house program, where you can make your house.

That's a new thing, talk about that.

- So we have a few programs, we have CHIP 1, CHIP 2 program, and then we have like the one you're referring to, is the CAP program, and that's the Curb Appeal Program.

And what that is, is it's encouraging homeowners to fix up the exterior of their house, curb appeal, right?

The incentives on that are, it's 20% forgivable grant.

So say they spend $25,000 on projects, whether that's windows, landscaping, items like that, they'll get $5,000 back.

It was a Hormel Foundation grant we received, we're gonna do that until the money runs out.

We started that the beginning of the year, we've had quite a bit of interest on it.

And there is income limitations on it.

I think one person in the house, 65,000, two people in the house, 75,000 or under and three people and up 85,000.

- And that's on your website, I would assume, that information.

- [Taggert] Correct - That's really a neat program.

Now, that's just Austin?

- That's just in the city limits of Austin.

- Okay, great.

So folks, sorry you in Winona watching us now.

But still, it's a great program that other communities maybe should consider doing.

Because the name of the game these days is cities trying to attract people to stay and work in the communities where they live.

I know there's new jobs, Nu-Tek is one big company in town that's building a big operation.

They're looking for workers that will stay here and have a good quality of life.

- And we're trying to encourage people to put money back into their properties, keep things up.

I kinda referred to the housing study that was done a few years ago, and that was one of the things.

We have an aging housing stock, so what kind of incentives can we do to help keep that stock in good condition?

And that's one of the programs.

Another program we have is the CHIP program.

We have two- - What's that stand for again?

- So Community Housing Improvement Program.

You put me on the spot on that one, I had to think about that, I've been calling it CHIP for so many years.

But we have one that's income based, lower income, that's for emergencies like furnace, roof type stuff.

And then CHIP 2, when I started, I've been in the job for three years, when I started there, I got a lot of calls for people in that mid-range income level looking for a program to help do a small remodel project, whether that's a basement or fixed garage or kitchen or bathroom.

And so I'm like, "There's a lot of interest here."

So that also was a foundation grant and HRA contributed some dollars in it.

And we wanted to see maybe if something like this would take off.

So it's a 10 year loan program at 2% up to $25,000, and it has to be remodel type projects.

And we've done 20 of those loans so far, and that started in the beginning of 2021.

So it's been very popular actually.

We're at the point where we have a waiting list, we're out of funds.

- [Eric] That's great.

- So we're gonna to...

It's a revolving loan fund, so that'll be good.

So we're looking at options to try to get to build that fund.

- And I mentioned it at the top of the program, it seems you see on the news and it's a reality, tough to find places to live, a housing shortage you hear about.

I was in Rochester at a bakery there, help me out, what's the bakery place called?

Great Harvest.

I was getting bread and I mentioned to somebody I lived in Austin and the clerk came from around the counter and said, "I have to move there.

My rent is going up so high.

Can you tell me, the are the schools really good?"

Et cetera, cetera, asking me questions.

And it's a true that at it's a scramble these days.

- It's not just in Austin.

Any community you talk to, I do multiple meetings, whether that's in different communities or nowadays with Zoom, you have the capability to do so much with that.

Everyone's facing the same challenges.

And with a lot of people working for home, I think there's been a shift of people where they're living.

And houses, our market in Austin, there's not a lot of houses for sale.

We own two market rig complexes in Johnson Courtyard, and those are full, and we have people calling.

So there's definitely a demand there.

But I think there's a demand in all areas of housing, whether senior housing, twin homes, apartments.

It's just not just apartments, it's single family homes as well, all aspects of housing we need.

- And you brought that up, I'd never thought of that.

The workplace, more people working from home.

So where they live is an emphasis.

- And there's no silver bullet, unfortunately, other than building more houses.

But that takes labor, that takes money and time.

- Is there a website?

Say somebody is new to the region, Southeastern Minnesota, is there a trusted location where they can say, oh, there's an apartment here, there's an apartment there.

Or do they just go on one of those apartments.com websites?

- Those sites are out there.

The Austin HRA website has recently been redone, so we have some information on there as well.

Or if you're local, you can stop it in our office and we have a list of landlords and the options that are out there.

- And back to your core mission, the housing part, you have a few projects happening right now.

- Yeah, one right now is we partner with Riverland Community College, the carpentry and the electrical program.

And we provide the cost of the materials and we provide the land and they build a house each year.

We're in our third house with them, this fall we'll be starting our fourth.

And right now, the board is looking at approving the sale of it.

So that's been kind of a fun project, building a house every year, and that's been a fun project for us.

And it's a nice house in the community and gives someone a great place to live.

- And the experience on the students side, these are folks in the carpentry program that need that experience.

They have experts looking over 'em, so it's a win-win.

- It's a win-win.

It helps Riverland and it helps the community add housing.

Obviously, would we like to do 20 of 'em?

Sure, but we are limited to do one.

But it's just a neat little project for everyone involved in it.

The other thing we're doing right now is we're working with Three Rivers Community Action.

We're trying to bring a 40 unit affordable housing project, apartment complex, underground parking to the area.

It's a tax credit project.

They'll be submitting that actually probably next week.

And we will find out in December or January if that will be funded.

And the location and site that we have earmarked for that is just East of the post office in Austin.

- So that would be another housing option for people.

- [Taggert] Correct.

- And you've had some other recent construction projects.

- Well, in town they obviously have a 91 unit market rate apartment complex going on in the old YMCA site, which is great progress to be seeing in their community.

Seems like we have a lot of building KSMQs going up in the area.

So it's good to see all that new construction in town.

- What about your history?

How did you come to be at HRA and your history in Austin?

- Well, I'm an Austin boy.

But I worked 18 years for Cedar Valley Services Vocational Rehab Facility.

We work with people with disabilities, I was director of management services and business operations and public relations type stuff.

So on the surface it seems like a weird switch, but I tell people it's non-profit to government.

It's a different pond with a lot of the same structure, you have a lot of government regulation, reporting.

Redevelopment is a lot like business development, you're making connections with people and you're trying to make something happen.

So it's very similar, but yet a little different.

- Is it enjoyable or just stressful?

Because folks, if you don't watch the news every day, you're in city council stuff and you have to engage in these issues.

- Yeah, probably in some things happens would like to be.

- [Eric] It just happens.

- But it's a job, this has been told to me from the person who was in the position before, John Erickson, the old city engineer.

He said, "It's a job that you can create your own work."

And people laugh a little bit, especially the staff, they think I've done a little too much creating my own work.

But it's fun, I absolutely love it actually.

- [Eric] Great.

- I think is a really good fit, a lot of variety.

And like I said, I'm born and raised in Austin, I care deeply about the Austin community.

And it is fun to try to help make a difference and try to add value to our community.

I have three boys, my wife and I have three boys that live in the community.

And we wanna do what we can to help this community to make a difference.

- I've only been here 11 years, but looks a lot different than when you were young or is it the same?

- My office is downtown.

When I was a kid, I tell people this all the time, that downtown scared me, there was a lot of old buildings.

And it's not that it was a scary downtown, it's just it was intimidating.

A lot of buildings, there wasn't as much stuff.

And now it seems like it's very open and very welcoming.

But you've got a lot of good stuff down there, spam museums, some restaurants.

Just the downtown really I think looks great.

- Hey, wonderful.

Well, that's good to hear from a native.

Thanks so much, Taggert Medgaarden for joining us and sharing a little bit about Austin HRA.

Folks can look on their website or stop in if you want more information about where to live or how to find a place to live.

- Oh, thank you.

- Okay, thanks, Taggert.

(melancholy orchestral music) The Parks and Recreation Department of the city always has many responsibilities, and especially in the summertime.

Here today from Austin is director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry, Dave Merrill.

Welcome Dave - Thank you.

- And welcome to the community, relatively new to the city.

- Yes, Eric, six weeks in so far.

Yeah, I'm excited.

- And coming from Illinois, did it shock you?

I always think Austin has a lot of parks.

It just seems like, but maybe every city says that.

- No, I would say per capita, based on other communities, we're very blessed in the amount of park land that we have and green space compared to other communities.

- And your primary role within the city is managing all of those parks or I'm sure there's many other things.

- Facilities, programs, all of this stuff.

I've got a great team that works with me that manages all those individually.

But I get to oversee the overall operation.

- So the hockey or the- - [Dave] The arenas.

- The arenas, that also falls under your purview?

- [Dave] That's our department, yeah.

- And what's unusual about this city?

It would be nice to get your perspective as having fresh eyes in a sense.

Things that are great and things to improve on would be nice to learn about.

- Obviously the great things, the people of Austin, that's what I've really encountered so far as the, not just the people that work in our department and that run our programs, but the people in the community that I've met, everyone's been exceptionally helpful, and they're just willing to help in any way.

The level of involvement and the passion that the community has for the things that we do in our facilities, sometimes it's good and bad.

Like sometimes your passion shows in complaining about things.

But there's usually always some legitimacy to the concerns that are being raised.

And that's the platform that I want to take, is just open ears and eyes to what the community wants and needs.

Because at the end of the day, all these parks and facilities, they belong to the community not to me or to our department.

And we're just stewards of those resources for them.

- Does the phone ring off the hook for horseshoe these days or is that a fading?

- It's a bit of a fading game, I gotta admit.

But it gets replaced by other things.

And we still support even some of the fading sports, we try to support the groups in the community that want to do those sorts of things.

- What's the new stuff that people wanna do?

- I'm sure you've heard of pickleball, pickleball.

It's been around for a little while now, but that's definitely a very popular sport as people are transitioning out of racketball and squash and even tennis into pickleball, that's a very popular sport.

- I know the dimensions of the court is a bit different than tennis right?

Do they rent a court from you and the equipment?

How does that work?

- Well, we're catching up to the demand of pickleball.

So we're looking at renovating some old tennis courts and resurfacing them into specific pickleball courts.

Otherwise you have to do some temporary lines that aren't really permanent.

So we're trying to make some permanent facility changes that are gonna accommodate those groups and new activities and things like that.

- Do people still, and I don't do this anymore, so I'm guilty I suppose, but do they participate in leagues of sports?

It used to be fast pitch softball, slow pitch softball, summer volleyball, or whatever the case may be.

And you've heard that people don't do that as much anymore.

I don't know what the truth is.

Is are those things still popular?

- As an overall recreation trend, the league format is a little bit less popular than it would've been a decade or more ago.

There's still plenty of people that like to participate in kickball leagues, softball leagues, volleyball leagues, are some of our adult sports.

Obviously youth sports, those types of leagues are still thriving in our community.

But as the world grows and the demand for people's time increases they make sacrifices.

So I think league formatted sports are something that is on the decline a little bit.

But we still have the facilities, we still have the programs to support those people that wanna continue doing that sort of thing.

- I suppose there's also maybe a bit of the family wants to do something together at night or something.

The point being both spouses are working, they don't see their kids that much.

So I don't want to do a league with a bunch of other people, maybe I'll go out with my kids and play catch or something.

- Sure.

- Don't know.

- That's still true.

Obviously, we try to provide amenities in the parks where mom can come out and play softball and dad and the kids can watch or play on the playground.

We try to make it a family friendly environment, where even if you are playing in a league, your family can come out with you and do those sorts of things.

But you do make choices, you have to make some sacrifices, and am I gonna play softball this year or not?

Because my son now is old enough to start playing in his own league and I'm gonna go support my kids doing their things versus me doing my things.

And it's just a bit of an evolution family wise.

- And I know something folks that the Austin Park and Rec Department has because I had to rent it coming up for a big party we're having.

We're using the stage, the portable stage that you have because this coming September, we're gonna have a big street dance.

I guess I'm breaking this story right now, we haven't talked about it.

But September 17th, Saturday for the 50th birthday of KSMQ, we're gonna be on Main Street and we're using your stage for that.

And the city use it for ArtWorks Festival also, which is a bit...

This will be your first ArtWorks Fest.

- Yeah, this is my first go around through all these great events.

So I'm excited to be a part of it.

- ArtWorks is really something that came from the ground up since I've been here, and now people come from all over.

It's like what you were talking about, with how recreation can be a draw to people.

We have this inflatable gym or this inflatable dome that brings softball players and teams in from all over the place in the wintertime to work out and practice and have games.

So it's still recreation, it's called Rec.

But it's still more than just idle time, it's important to people, I think.

- Yeah, it's the other third of your life.

You have your work third, you have your sleep third or your maintenance third, and then you have the other time, the discretionary time that you use that you have to recreate, recreation is recreation thing.

And it's the way you regenerate yourself and focus on things.

- What do you like to do in your recreational life?

- Personally, I like to play golf, I like to play basketball.

I'm from a small town in Indiana.

So if you don't play basketball, you're an outcast, so I grew up doing that.

So I've always enjoyed that.

But as I've gotten older with a family now, I enjoy spending time with my family, my boys, our dogs, and seeing them start to make those steps in that process.

That's one of the best parts of me coming to this position in Parks and Rec is my boys are so young that they're gonna immediately jump in and they're gonna have a whole life of going through all of our programs.

So not just as an administrator for these programs, but as a parent of kids in our program.

So I get to see it from both sides, and hopefully do positive things for them as boys, but also positive things for everybody who has families in the program.

- Well, like a little focus group.

- Yeah, right, right.

If it's not working for them, it's probably not working for some other people too.

- Southeastern Minnesota, they've probably heard about emerald ash borer.

That's a problem with tree stock in Austin, is it not?

- It is.

We have a confirmed case by the Department of Agriculture of emerald ash borer in the city of Austin.

It seems that it has been there for several months to years.

And the infected area that they described is probably a two to three mile radius, which encompasses almost the entirety of Austin.

I think everyone knew that this was here and it was happening, but this was our confirmation, which then starts the official process of how we're gonna mitigate the situation.

- And what is that process?

Do we think we save trees somehow or what do you do?

- There are opportunities for residents to save trees.

There are companies that they can contact.

And the Department of Ag has a lot of very descriptive information about how they go about that.

But essentially you're injecting some insecticide of some sort into the trees that eventually kills the ash borer and the tree then can be saved.

It's a time consuming process and it's expensive.

But if you have a great tree on your property and it's still relatively healthy, it's probably worth it to you.

Otherwise, the plan is to eventually eliminate all the ash trees and then repopulate with something else.

- And this is your forestry role that's in your department also.

- [Dave] Right.

- And is this just ash trees that- - Yeah, only ash trees.

And some are healthy, some trees they don't have the borer.

But eventually it's probably gonna happen.

This is not a problem, an infestation that we're ever gonna completely eliminate, it will never go away.

If there's no cure for this, we have to mitigate it as best we can.

- Will your tree look different or something, if it's there?

- There will be signs that people will be able to know, and I'm not really gonna go into what the signs are here.

But it'll look diseased, it'll look unhealthy, and you'll know at that point.

- So resources available for people, would that be the Department of Ag?

- [Dave] Yes.

- Website under that?

- Yes.

- So is this a statewide or a national problem?

- Anywhere there's an ash tree, it's a possibility.

The bugs haven't gotten everywhere yet, obviously.

And there's certain places where they become more localized or more concentrated, and we happen to be one of those areas.

The state actually provides, the Department of Ag actually provides a map that shows where a lot of these confirmed infestations are.

So it gives you an idea of where it's been confirmed.

But just because it's not confirmed there doesn't mean it's not there.

But the big thing that we want the public to know is that, yes, this is a crisis, this isn't something that we're gonna get...

It's not an emergency.

And the process for mitigating this is a matter of containment.

So what we don't want people to do is cutting down ash trees that are infected and transporting them somewhere else, because that's how they spread.

We're gonna wait until the fall, we're gonna ask people to wait until the fall until the bugs become dormant, and then you take the tree down.

And you can keep it on your property, you can use it as firewood.

as long as you don't transport it, there's no real danger.

But that's when we're gonna do things, is in those cooler months when the bugs aren't gonna be able to spread.

And we just don't want people transporting any firewood anywhere from out of town or in town or anywhere.

- Well, great, Dave.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Enjoy your time here in Austin.

Welcome.

- [Dave] Thank you, I'm happy to be here.

- Dave Merrill's, director of Park and Rec in Austin.

And thank you very much for joining us.

That's it for this edition On Q. I'm, Eric Olsen, KSMQ Public Television.

We'll see you next time.

(melancholy orchestral music)