1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE Minnesota Outdoor Recreation Task Force Meeting Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Remote CART October 21, 2020 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. * * * * * This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format, and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event. * * * * * CART Provided by Jayne Carriker, RPR, CRR, CRC Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 2 >> Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to give it a few minutes to get more people to join before we start, so sit back, relax and hopefully we'll begin in a few minutes. Happy Wednesday, everyone. We're just giving folks a few more minutes to make sure they're signed in and we have all of our task force members elevated to panelists so they can access their microphones. If you are a panelist -- or a task force member who has called in, if you wouldn't mind using the chat function to message the host, Madison, with your -- telling her who you are so she can make sure you have access to your mic, that would be really helpful. And we will get started here in a few minutes. >> Hi, everyone. We are just about to get started. Just waiting for the last couple people to join the call, and then we will get rolling. Thanks for your patience. All right. Well, I think we have the majority of our task force members and staff with us, so we'll just go ahead and get started, and as other people trickle in, Madison, who is helping out on the call, will make sure that CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 3 folks get elevated so they can access their mic. I did make the announcement in case there's anybody new on the call that if a task force member is calling in, if they can send the host Madison a chat using WebEx to let her know who you are so she can make sure that we can give you access to your mic to join in on the conversation. So I just wanted to welcome everybody to our October Minnesota Outdoor Recreation Task Force meeting. Thank you so much for being here. We've done we've had some people working behind the scenes really hard for the last month so we're really excited for today's call to see what they've been up to and then engage in some good conversation to hopefully get these recommendations moving forward. So before I go through what we have on the docket today, I'm going to pass the torch to our -- one of our chairs, John Edman to start us off. >> Thank you, Gratia. And good afternoon everyone. Thanks everybody for being a part of this arch's call. Yeah, I really don't have a whole lot that I wanted to say, probably the most important thing is to thank you. I know there's been a lot of work behind the scenes over the last several months. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 4 We're very excited to hear a little bit more. I've had a preview about some of the work that you've already done and I'm very excited about where all of this is going. It's so many hours of thought that you've put into this and I think we're getting pretty close -- close to the finish, but this isn't the only step. We have to figure out from here where we're going to go, how we're going to make this a reality given our current budget climate and some of the challenges that we as state agencies have looking in front of us. But theories a lot of fantastic ideas that I've seen that you've come up with. We just have to figure out how to make them actionable. So I think there is a lot that can be done there. I think there's a lot can be done through cooperation and through coordination. We're close but we're not quite there yet but we couldn't do it without all of you. So again I just want to thank you for all of your efforts up to this point because there's been a lot of great work by everyone. I think Gratia will talk in a second here the agenda today. We're going to talk I think Randolph is going to talk CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 5 about some of the public engagement efforts. We're going to talk about some of the recommendations that have been made by each member of the team, some of the grand visions. I think Aaron, you're going to talk about that. And then at the end of the call closing around 3:00 I think Commissioner Strommen will be with us and we'll be able to have a conversation where this is going to go next and any questions you have or thoughts that the commissioner has as well. But great work by everyone up to this point. Thank you so much for all of your efforts and I really look forward to today's discussion. So thanks all very much and I'll turn it back over to you, Gratia. >> Gratia: Thank you, John. A couple meeting -- or a few meeting objectives for today. We're going to share out, discuss and finalize our draft recommendations. There may be some additional editing that takes place off line after this meeting, but that will kind of depend on where the conversation goes today. We will hopefully be approving an overall vision statement for the body of work that the task force has CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 6 been working on over the last few months, and then we will discuss next steps. So here's our agenda. Like John just mentioned, Randolph will be giving a public engagement uptime and I'll be going over the remaining timeline we have. We will hear a report out from the recommendations synthesis team who has been working hard over the last four weeks to produce that spreadsheet you all were sent a couple days ago. We'll take a short break before convening at 3. I will mention that Commissioner Sarah Strommen will be joining us for the second hour, so at 3:00 she should be on the call to hear about the grand vision you all have for Minnesota, and then we will be engaging in a collaborative conversation between the task force and the agencies. The agencies will offer some initial reactions to your recommendation, and then hopefully we all can engage in a really good conversation like John was mentioning just a few moments ago about how we can move this work forward. We will go over next steps. We will be taking public comments and we'll wrap up hopefully around 4. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 7 To our members of the public on the call if you do have any questions to put forth, you can use the Q and A function in WebEx and we will do our best to answer those in our dedicated public comment period towards the end of the call. And I will say for our members we will be going over that spreadsheet that you all were sent a couple days ago along with the agenda, and it will be pulled up on the screen, but I would encourage you if you have the ability to also pull it up separately from the WebEx screen just because it may be a lot easier for you to navigate through yourself than watching somebody else go through it, and I'm not sure how big it will be on your screen. So I would encourage everyone to pull that up if you're able to when we get to that part of the call. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Randolph to give us a bit of a public engagement update. >> Randolph: Okay. In order to keep us on time I've got one minute, so I'll be super brief. As far as public engagement is concerned we're still working through some of the details for that. We've been -- Gratia and Andrew and a few others have been working with DNR's office of outreach and CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 8 communication to develop a communications and engagement plan that we can get approval from leadership on. We're -- as I've noted previously, we're planning on using a handful of tools to get feedback from the public, virtual meetings, online info sharing, surveys and task force member networks. So right now we're building this plane while it's in flight. We hope to land it sometime around mid November. We have a few weeks in there to get some input and feedback from the public, the interested public. So that's really all I had right now. We're -- the DNR has got a new online engagement platform that we're currently -- it's still very new, so we're working some of the -- we're trying to perfect it first before we go super live with it so we're hopeful that we can utilize that platform for some of this engagement but if we're not able to do that, there's still a number of ways in which we can do some online info sharing and surveys and forums and reach out to folks, so we'll be touching base in the coming months for a big push in November of public engagement. That's all I had to share, Gratia. >> Gratia: Thanks, Randolph. Way to keep it efficient. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 9 That was awesome. I'll just quickly go over the review of the overall timeline, we're meeting today to share out the latest draft recommendations. I anticipate there may be a little bit of tweaking based on conversation today to the recommendations that hopefully can happen in the next couple of weeks. Like Randolph mentioned we'll spends November doing some public engagement. We'll come back together in early to mid December to finalize the recommendations based on what we heard from the public and hopefully be ready to submit your recommendations to the DNR and explore Minnesota in mid to late December. So still a lot to do but I think it's doable so hoping for some good engagement today so we can make sure we can stick to this timeline. All right. So with that I'm actually going to pass the torch to Matt Gruhn who is going to start us off on our next topic, which is hearing a report out from the small group that's been working to synthesize your recommendation. I just want to give a big shoutout to this group of folks. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 10 They got together several times over the last month to really dive into what you all presented at the last task force meeting, and really looking forward to hearing from them today, so Matt, I'm going to turn it over to you to present. >> Matt: All right. Thank you, Gratia. Can you hear me okay? >> Yes, loud and clear. >> Matt: All right. Let's make sure I've got my screen shared here. You can see the screen okay? >> Yep. >> Matt: All right. Thank you, Gratia. And thank you to everybody. It's been a really rewarding process to be a part of this and watch how all of this has come together and participating in this synthesis group has been equally rewarding how everything has come together and being a part of this conversation. So what I want to do today is walk everybody through -- it might be a bit of a history lesson and bring everybody up to speed on where we feel we're at today and review some of these recommendations. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 11 As you all remember at the beginning of this conversation when we all came together for the first couple times, we really kind of built this concept around these five work groups. We had access, we had coordination, economic development, promotion and public awareness and the stewardship and conservation. And as we all kind of went out and did our own conversations and talked through what we felt were the obstacles and the opportunities and our strengths and weaknesses and so forth, we developed these expansive lists of talking points that ended up turning into recommendations, and you've all seen this document here that's on my screen. These are the draft recommendations that our groups individually put together so you see access here at the beginning. You see coordination here that goes from page 1 down here into halfway through page 2 and then economic development, same sort of thing here. We had a number of recommendations here. Promotion and public awareness through this part. And then the stewardship and conservation recommendations. And so our job in this little synthesis group was to CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 12 kind of take this and start to figure out how do we look at this, what does this look like as we bring it back to the group and then back to the agencies and the state and so forth to talk about what do we do next. And one of the things that we started with was we took this -- all of the content of this expansive document and we put it into buckets in a spreadsheet, and what we -- what we saw, and I'll explain the spreadsheet first I guess. What you'll see here vertically are each of the working groups. Here's the access group, economic development, promotion and public awareness, coordination work group, and then the stewardship and conservation work group. And we added the vision right up here in this first box, the vision from each group, and then their individual recommendations, and as we went through these, what we discovered was there were some very common themes. In fact, some very specific themes that we saw from each of the work groups that we felt were, as you'll see here, raised by each of the groups, you know, individually. Each of these groups came back to the larger group with these recommendations, and they were all in alignment, and it was really good and rewarding for us to see how CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 13 much in alignment they really were. So you can see here, and you guys were all part of these conversations so none of this should come as any surprise to you, but we had a lot of conversation through every one of these work groups on the equity, diversity and inclusivity part of our work and goals here. We had a lot of conversation about uniting the outdoor recreation community. And you can see here the -- each one of these groups mentioned these specific -- the specific need to unite the outdoor recreation community. We have a very specific marketing focus where each group mentioned that, and we had the same approach with the outdoor recreation office where each group mentioned it. And so as we took this and as we started this conversation, we felt like, hey, maybe our role here ought to be to take the commonalities between, you know, the different recommendations and kind of condense them into a main thought or a main task force -- or I'm sorry -- recommendation for each of these. But as we started to do that we felt like we were at risk of taking away from all of the work and all of the great ideas that the larger group and each of the individual task force working groups had contributed to CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 14 this. So what we felt was going to be the best outcome then was to -- who knew that you could actual duly this with a spreadsheet and make it look exciting and creative here, but Aaron, kudos to you for making this look the way that it does. But what we ended up doing was we kind of flopped the orders of things from that original spreadsheet into what you're seeing here and instead of the work groups being vertical going in the columns here, we have them now going across horizontally in the rows. So you'll see all the access, economic development, promotion public awareness coordination and stewardship going down the left-hand column. Each of them has their vision here, their end goal, and each of the recommendations are in here. Now, I mentioned that we started talking about how do we combine these thoughts. You know, for example, in the creation of an outdoor office of recreation, there was a lot of different ways that people phrased that. For example, in this box you can see here -- I'm going to blow this up so everybody can see it okay, maybe. For whatever reason I can't scroll here. That's why. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 15 Hold on one second. Sorry. User error here. You can see here that it says a coordinating entity, right? Down here it says an office of outdoor recreation. So we started thinking about do we combine these and bring these all together into common language and we felt like that was probably the wrong thing for us to do. We decided to not do that because we didn't want -- again, we didn't want to take away from the specific ideas or contributions of any one individual or any one of these work groups. So what you see here in this document now is a -- a comprehensive list of all of the -- again, the work groups, and then these four main buckets that we found that everybody had contributed some sort of recommendations in each of these four buckets, and we kind of feel like this is the framework for, you know, on which we would build our final recommendations for the state. So I feel -- I think that's kind of the overarching summary here. I guess I would throw it and open it up to you, Gratia, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 16 or anybody else from the task force -- or synthesis group that would like to add to that or alter anything that I said. >> Matt, this is Aaron. I think one thing to add is just those four universal truths that each work group really was mentioning. Those are the four recommendations across the top of that spreadsheet. And, you know, I'll hand it back to you. I think just go over those four universal truths that came out of the work. >> Matt: Okay. So and you're meaning these boxes here? Or are you speaking about -- >> Aaron: Yeah, recommendations, delivery, diversity. >> Matt: Yeah, those four common themes and recommendations coming out of this is that this effort ultimately deliver equity, diversity and inclusivity that we unite Minnesota's outdoor recreation community, that we unify communication that seeks to position, promote and create public awareness around Minnesota's outdoors, and then create and fund a Minnesota office of outdoor recreation. You can see the -- I don't know how well you can read this but I'll read this to you. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 17 The overarching vision, actually we're going to talk about that in a couple minutes so I'll wait on that one but those are the four overarching recommendations there. Anything else that we should add or cover? I know -- throw it over to Lynnea here in a moment to cover our first list of recommendations. But anything else you'd like me to cover in relation to this overview? >> Matt, this is Gratia. Thank you for that. I would say if the small group doesn't have anything to build upon what Matt said, we can open it up to see if anybody has any questions so far. Like Matt said, we'll be going into the nitty gritty details, but if there's any questions kind of on the overall approach, now would be a great time to pose those questions to Matt and the small group. All right, Matt, I'm not hearing anything else, so thanks for that presentation. I'll take back over as presenter, and Lynnea, I'll pull up the spreadsheet and you can get going here shortly. >> Hey, everybody. I had kind of a moment where my -- our power was out for several hours today, so just came on. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 18 Just as the meeting was getting started. So if it's helpful, I can share it on my own or if I can't, then that's okay too. >> Gratia: That is fine. Madison, I think I'm going to need you to switch over who is presenter. And Lynnea, I can just pull it up. >> Lynnea: Sure. >> Gratia: Just so we're not constantly switching because I know four of you have to share this Fred sheet. So let me just... and get the right screen up. There you go. And you can just direct me on when to scroll down. >> Lynnea: Yeah, so first of all, just thank everyone for all of their work on the access team in the small group. Also I came into the process a little later than everyone else, so I appreciate the opportunity to definitely pull my weight on the team and do a little bit of work. My approach was to include everything that groups talked about and just pull out those themes related to equity, diversity and inclusion. And I want to acknowledge that we also had conversations CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 19 around justice that came in later to our whole process. It was -- and so I think that that's still something for us to maybe talk about, but we didn't include it in the context of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion because we really didn't have a lot of conversation around what does that mean, and I think it's important for us to be really intentional and explicit and to use terminology that we're ready to back up with action, and so I think that's a very important conversation for us to have, and hope that is also accurate, and I'm happy to hear from others if they feel differently that we should be including some aspect that we haven't after we go through these. So just a reminder, the overall vision for access team was partner with black, indigenous, people of color, people with disabilities, people with low income and LGBTQ plus communities, cross sector leaders to cocreate Minnesota's sustainable outdoor recreation ecosystem. Realize market potential and prioritize equitable access, safety and joy for all. It's our philosophy that we want to be explicit so that it is not possible to leave out any critical audiences. And actions and to acknowledge that there are leaders within many of these underrepresented communities who are already -- and recreation who are already doing work CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 20 that we need to recognize and collaborate with. So we wanted to make sure we were recognizing that. The way that the spreadsheet works is the column directly to the right, so it's column E as you're able to see there, is vertically all the things that were pulled out across each of the different groups. So the first one we're looking at is access, and these are literally just taken from what was specific in access, and there was a lot of conversation to delivering equity, diversity and inclusion in our work. So there shouldn't be any new content there. It is really what we saw in the presentation from the access team, so I don't think I'll read it all to you. Is that okay? Or should I be? I guess. >> I think it's up to you. I encouraged folks to have it pulled up but maybe we can at least -- if you don't want to read it, we can give a couple -- >> Lynnea: I mean I can read it. I'm happy to, but I just wanted to check in and see if the team felt like we needed to go through it, each section. So maybe we can. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 21 If you want to -- we'll just do it. I don't know if we're at the top of that column or not. Oh, we were. So the first bullet there is to cocreate plans to remove barriers and improve cultural relevance for BIPOC, LGBTQ communities experience -- and communities experiencing low income and communities with disabilities. So this is really about not inviting people just when it comes to engagement as a check box or after we've decided what we wanted to do to get them on board but to really involve these communities that have historically been left out at the time when we're identifying what needs and/or -- can happen. Remove the barriers of gear and programming by making it more affordable, removing fees and providing gear to eliminate the barriers to participation. Low cost transportation options for a local, regional and state parks. Private sector investing in and building market share with BIPOC, differently able, LGBTQ plus and within the hiring in the sector. So this is really about making sure that we are seeing that these populations are important not just for some type of perceived morality but and also because they are an unserved market share, and they are also talent that CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 22 should be represented within all the different levels and ranks inside organizations whether they're mission-driven social organizations or the public sector or the private sector. Identify and develop responses to current barriers accessing outdoor activity including costs, lack of culturally and gender relevant outdoor equipment and apparel, which can be a barrier. For example, things like heated gloves or sized for men or unisex versus women. Women's apparel sizes being smaller or not inclusive of different body shapes and types. This is something that we talked about a bit in our access group, and I don't know if this is really well known for everyone else, but when it comes to outdoor clothing for women, it does not follow the normal convention of other types of outdoor clothing whether it's everyday wear or outer gear. It follows a different convention that it makes it really hard, so I just wasn't sure if that's something everyone was aware of. And then that outdoor agencies and businesses facilitate culture of welcoming everyone into the outdoors by practicing inclusivity and promoting users being inclusive of one another. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 23 One of the things that many agencies have had to work on is while they've worked internally on their own staff practices, it is -- the growing next challenge is getting users to be welcoming and inclusive to one another, and that is something that has been a challenge in many spaces for a long time. I know the national parks was working on this issue when I was out west in Colorado in the early 2000s, so it is an issue that some of our regional parks are dealing with as well, and we certainly see it play out in public media with probably one of the most notorious situations being the woman with the off-leash dog and the herder in New York. So there's many, many examples of that and it's growing in awareness. Are there questions or additions to the access portion of this? How do you want to do the questions part? >> So we could either pause kind of by work group and take questions or you could go through, you know, all the DEI recommendations and do the questions at the end. >> Lynnea: Sure. Do folks have a preference? I will say this was the most robust category related to the most suggestions were in access. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 24 >> Yeah, why don't you go through and then open it up at the end. >> Lynnea: Sounds good. If you want to scroll down. So the next group is economic development. And this is to ensure that BIPOC, LGBTQ and women and people with disabilities are equally valued as tenants of outdoor brands, I would also say spaces as well, as population of BIPOC communities is 74% of growth in the state of Minnesota, and one thing I'll point out is that is outside of the metro area and from the Canadian border all the way down to Iowa and Wisconsin to the Dakotas. We need to tap into these new and growing markets for outdoor activities. And then the third is integrating underrepresented populations as customers, employees, vendors and owners of the outdoor recreation agencies, groups and businesses. In promotion and public awareness, presenting a united and integrated marketing strategy to coordinate across agencies and businesses that promote the value of growing and -- I think this should be of growing the historically underrepresented populations or growing and participating, something -- we're missing an adjective CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 25 there. So we can fix that. I believe the intent is really about making sure that we see that this is an important population that we aren't currently engaging in a strategic way across the different agencies that already do promotions, and we talked about this at length. I think a part of it is not seeing Minnesota residents as a major target audience for us and really being thoughtful about that but expands that to be very specific about these underrepresented communities and making sure that we are clear about the importance of the value of promoting to them as agencies and businesses for overall growth potential. And then number two, develop specific approaches for engaging BIPOC, LGBTQ plus people with disabilities and women in campaigns. So being really thoughtful that successful campaigns get to really audiences specifically and we should be using that kind of an approach when it comes to promotion and public awareness. And then last to use a consistent practice of identifying new and growing markets to engage in the state. One of the other conversations that was had was that CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 26 there wasn't a whole lot, and seemed really focused on their current customers and loyalty, and same could be said about the public sector. Really it's a lot easier to look at and survey and engage current users vs. potential. So the need for us to build the muscle around the ability to identify potential markets, potential users and figure out what they need and be responsive. Under coordination bring together outdoor recreation Minnesota stakeholders including BIPOC, LGBTQ plus people with disabilities and underrepresented genders around a shared plan to build community, drive relationships and facilitate an inclusive understanding of it should be the outdoors. So I think one of the things we've talked about is the need to have a shared vision for what this means. We also have a history of promoting, the air quotes, a right way to be in the outdoors and we need to be making sure we have room at the table for everyone to help define what being and supporting and viewing the outdoors means across communities and cultures, genders, ability levels and the like. Stewardship and conservation. So this one we didn't have as much opportunity to talk about a whole lot, so I really hope that this captures CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 27 some of the intent that was articulated in the one pager we received, so I just had that to look at when pulling out thoughts related to diversity, equity and inclusion. So I apologize if I took a little bit of liberty. Please feel free to correct and advise and amend as needed. So include and educate all Minnesotans who do or may recreate in the outdoors about their role and impact on land, water and native species. Include all communities and create content that is culturally represented and relevant. Be a national leader at include historically underrepresented groups as thought partners and leaders in advancing and protecting Minnesota's national resources. I think this is the last group for us -- or category, so this would be a time to ask questions, and as I'm thinking being this, maybe one suggestion might be to change the bullets into numbers which might make it easier to reference in conversations with folks in the future. So with that I'll pause and start the conversation. >> Thank you, Lynnea. Yeah, if anybody has any thoughts on the recommendations that fall under DEI, amending any, adding anything, now CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 28 would be a great time. In that e-mail I sent you, you know, one thing that the small group worked on wanted folks to consider at the ends of this meeting do you feel confident signing off on this, so consider that as you think through if you want to add anything to this conversation. I did receive an e-mail from Hansi who is on the call today but unfortunately is not feeling very well and has kind of a shaky internet connection so he had a couple of comments that may fall under this category that I can read off just to kick off the conversation. And so he said, and I'll just read this. I'm not sure that this comment fits into access or if it should just be in coordination as it does have some mention in that group, but here are a couple thoughts on some additions to the access recommendations. One is I would like -- I would like to have seen a component of access that both brought people together to create more unity from both the BIPOC, LGBTQ communities and the white communities to build more cross-cultural relationships and connections, mainly to change perceptions people have of each other through personal connections and experience. And then his second comment was, I would like to see a component of access creating outreach to the white CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 29 community on cultural awareness and diversity training to give tools to change -- tools of change to the people who are already on the trails and in the woods to learn how to be accepting and welcoming of people who they might see as nontraditional outdoor enthusiasts. We need to change the perceptions and attitudes of the people who are out there now to make sure that the people we invite in are welcomed. So those were two comments from Hansi. >> Lynnea: I think they're both great personally, and I would say I don't know about stewardship and conservation, but I could see them both being a part of promotion and -- I'm trying to visualize the bucket, promotion and public awareness, and I guess I would probably put it in that category if it were up to me. Maybe coordination where it's really about bringing together a united vision and culture around being in the outdoors that's positive and inclusive. Those are my two thoughts. >> Gratia: Thanks, yeah, and we can open it up if anybody else has any comments before we move on to the next category. >> Hey, guys. >> Joe Henry here. One idea. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 30 I'm reading the bullet point include and educate all Minnesotans who do or may recreate in the outdoors. We have so many people coming to Minnesota. It might best to say all who use Minnesota resources and not just exclude it to Minnesotans unless there's a different intent. >> Gratia: Any thoughts on Joe's comment or at least we can just record these and I'm sure we'll be coming back as a small group to consider everybody's input. >> Lynnea: I think that the stewardship and conservation group would be the best to answer that not being a part of that group and that was one that was written as they -- there wasn't any change. >> Yeah, this is Mark Norquist. I can comment on that. Good question, Joe. And I think definitely it's ideally is both, but I think there's an aspect of practicality we looked at in terms of prioritization and looked at residences is probably the best to engage on this front. That being said it might make sense to have that as a secondary element as you think of how things get implemented, could there be opportunities to inform and educate for those who are traveling into our state from outside. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 31 I think it would be good to bring that in so I think that is a good point, Joe. >> Thanks, Mark. >> Hi, everyone, this is Katy Friesz. Great presentation and work and comments so far. I appreciate and I think there may be to be Joe and Mark's last point, some potentially interesting opportunities to think about how that creatively shows up in the outdoor spaces so there might even be like signage or creative ways that we can make sure that we're educating all who come and visit and use Minnesota's resources, so like that, and also, you know, completely appreciate and agree with Hansi and Lynnea's conversation around just making sure that as we look at these recommendations, there's reciprocity and just making sure that it's -- we're including that element of bringing people together and having -- building relationships across culture and difference. One thing, one thought I have just kind of across the board in the recommendations, which is kind of just a technical kind of editing thing, is we should perhaps be consistent with -- when we're naming specific elements of diversity or groups. We may want to just kind of adopt consistent language across that because I think a lot of the groups were CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 32 trying to capture a similar spirit of naming and being specific about groups and populations that we want to identify, but as we move toward a more finished product, I think we could probably get alignment on developing consistent language there. >> Gratia: Thanks, Katy. Are there any other comments on delivering equity diversity and inclusivity before we move on? >> Hi, folks, this is Sarah Milligan and thanks Lynnea for your great work on this. Really appreciate it. And just I was wondering if you could say another word or two just about your thoughts about the justice piece of equity, diversity and inclusion and if there's, you know, if that was -- if that conversation were to happen it seems like we might need to have some conversation about that now, since this is looking like it's, you know, pretty good draft that's moving towards a final product. >> Absolutely. So the -- there's an acronym that Greg Lais shared that is JEDI, which stands for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, and I definitely support that concept of thinking about justice. It's not as a part of that body of work, and knowledge CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 33 building that we're going through as a collective group together, and so what my hesitancy was about that's where we started the document was including justice. When in -- as I was looking across all the working groups justice wasn't something we had talked about in our work explicitly in that context, and so I wanted to make sure we weren't just using a term without having it be backed up, you know, and so I think my two cents is that I think we should have a conversation about justice as it relates to outdoor recreation. I think that would further maybe to even some of Hansi's comments around a better understanding of a fuller picture of how individuals are impacted and there is a space for us to talk about justice and as it relates to outdoor recreation and access and all of the different ecosystem elements from the public sector to the private sector and in between. So I could certainly ideate a bit about what things come to my mind about justice as it relates to this. But I think it's really something we should have an intentional conversation around and then include it and incorporate it at that point. That's my two cents on it. And I don't know if that answered enough. And if you'd like me to give some examples of things CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 34 that I think of that might play to that or if Greg would like to share, I think that might be great next -- yeah. >> Thanks, Lynnea. That makes a lot of sense, and you know, I think -- and Greg, I would be interested in hearing if you have anything to say about that. I think there's maybe two thoughts that I have about how maybe we could kind of keep the process moving forward and keep this conversation moving forward. One would be if anybody was interested in having that conversation here in the next week or so, you know, maybe we could -- you know, people could raise their hands for that, which I would definitely be interested in. And I think the other question -- or thing that we might be name that that's work that there is to be done and without this group having had in-depth conversation around which even if we have a conversation or two, it's probably not going to be as in-depth as it needs to be but perhaps we could make mention in this grid that we recognize that equity and inclusion and diversity really can't be fully achieved without justice. And so that that would be something for potentially an office or, you know, what I mean? As this work continues for folks to continue to do that CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 35 work. So those are just a couple thoughts off the top of my head. >> Thank you, Sarah. This is Greg. Lynnea didn't mention that she's a Star Wars geek, by the way. >> Lynnea: It was so hard for me. I had to temper my geekiness. >> Greg: So the group can know, we've been working and talking to some other people with this task force and others to form an ad hoc committee to work on this outside of the task force per se and Mikayla from REI would like to do that and work on it. I would just say if people are interested in pursuing this topic more in-depth, just e-mail me, and I'll add you to the list and we'll pull together here. Separately from this task force. Thanks. >> Lynnea: So just maybe one thought, Greg. We haven't -- we talked a little bit but haven't gotten into the difference between justice and equity and I think that would be one thing for us to think about. In my mind just to give some examples of what I think about when it comes to justice, I think it's about -- CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 36 equity to me is about systematic equality over time and by a specific experience -- as experienced by specific groups that can be monitored and measured based on some kind of shared affinity they have, race, gender, geography, things like that. Justice to me -- and I haven't had a chance to think about this a whole lot but in the context of the context of the outdoors makes me think of having -- we thing we've experienced in our park system for example and regional parks is having young black Somali teenagers have police called on them saying they were doing things they weren't doing because someone didn't want them in the park, and to the point where we've even seen some policies be suggested that makes it a crime to make false claims and -- based on race because it's happened so much. We saw that with the burner and the woman with the dog off the leash. So using police, the threat of police or policing in our different systems itself in ways that are threatening and cause harm. I think the other part of justice is failing as institutions to plan for when crimes or harassment or assault is committed within their jurisdiction or within their private space, so at a resort or at a state CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 37 campground, and between -- it could be things between users. It could be things that are between staff and users. So those are some things to me that come to mind. I could give so many stories of things that we've had reported to us in my role with regional parks and trails or have observed firsthand in these, you know, many different outdoor contexts that I've been in. But I'm not -- I'd like to hear, Greg, is that kind of what you're thinking along the lines of those types of things or is there a different aspect that I'm not capturing? >> Greg: No, I think that's right on, and very much along those lines and what we're talking about too is forming some other action steps or ways that we could fulfill -- fulfill this. So I think it's spot on. >> Hey, everyone. That is Gratia. Thank you so much for the engaging conversation and the great questions. I hate to like stop this great conversation but I also do want to be sensitive to the time and that we have a few other recommendations to go through, and so perhaps what we can do is I'm planning to do some follow-up via CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 38 e-mail and I'll pose a couple of questions to the task force to see how we want to move forward on this issue or this topic to see, you know, whether it's having another small group meet on this topic or potentially, you know, around Sarah's idea of incorporating a recommendation that says, you know, more work is needed here. But just for the sake of time, I think we should move on to our next recommendation, so Greg, I think you're up for that, the outdoor recreation community. >> Greg: Okay. Thanks, Gratia. I'm a little bit -- so Lynnea went from access across to the right on the spreadsheet. I can just go -- you want me to cover the uniting -- I can just go down the spreadsheet? >> Yeah, go down. >> She did go down. She did read the vision statement, yeah, you can just go down. >> Greg: Okay. Sure. Well, so, again, all of these bullet points were derived from other -- the other work groups and put into what we called the bucket and this one being united Minnesota's CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 39 outdoor recreation community. So real quickly in the access category, recognize the market potential of underrepresented audiences. BIPOC, LGBTQ communities and approach that with an asset base blends. I think a little bit here about Asha's email that she sent before kind of about the marketing information that was, I don't know, a couple -- maybe a couple months ago now and that just bullet point really kind of addresses that I think. Increased diversity, equity and inclusion regarding hiring and retention practices in both private and public outdoor recreation sectors. Moving down to economic development, bring together the outdoor recreation stakeholders and resources to collaborate on behalf of our shared parks, forests, trails, transportation corridors and destinations, establish communication partners to distribute Minnesota's positioning statement brand to the unique niche target audiences outside of Minnesota. Do more with less through communication partnership creation, local, regional, state, national and international tactics. Build, strengthen and grow public and private partnerships. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 40 I think that's really about getting organizations and whatnot to create a consistent message through their newsletters and websites and all of that. Ensure all of Minnesota's varied geography and landscapes are positioned as equal tenets within Minnesota's brand. Just this weekend my wife and I went down to blue mile state park in the southwest corner of the state and it was a different landscape and very beautiful and I think we want to include the diversity of Minnesota there. Share resources wisdom best practices, merge silos of content, I like that comment. Seek to see the unseen and hear the unheard and also question the status quo. Great recommendation there. These are numbered by the way. In the promotion and public awareness category, and I think this one is a really important one, unite Minnesota's fractured outdoor community and industry by promoting shared dialogue on challenges and opportunities and identify new ways to promote a bigger outdoor experience together in Minnesota. Maybe "fractured" isn't the right word but certainly Minnesota's diverse outdoor community, and I'm not talking about -- you know, in that case it's based on CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 41 activities and geography and all of that kind of thing. Develop cohesive messaging and form a cohesive voice establishing new narratives for Minnesota's outdoors, develop outreach to new groups, and down in the coordination category bring the other outdoor recreation stakeholders throughout Minnesota around a shared plan to build community drive relationships and facilitate a unified understanding of outdoor recreation. That shared plan, you know, the third bullet share and make clear the plan the state of Minnesota is currently implementing. That kind of echos some of the conversations we had with SCORP and I think Erika Rivers is on this presentation now and we talked about that. I don't know how long ago, two months ago. Going back up a bullet. Include black indigenous Latino and other communities of color, LGBTQ, people with disabilities and people of low economic status. So I think we all believe strongly in that, and I would second Katy Friesze's call to kind of have consistent language there that we could use. More of Minnesota knows the plan be open to adjusting the plan based on the feedback of greater response -- of a greater response from Minnesota. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 42 Measure and share benefits of coordinating at an annual event. And that was actually a big point of the coordination task force is to try to have an annual focused outdoor recreation event because I think one happens in North Carolina or maybe South Carolina. Last on the stewardship and conservation front, identify common conservation priorities for different outdoor recreation communities, for example, water quality as it relates to fishing, boating and kayaking and get the groups to work more together. Aquatic and invasive species is an example of users of all Minnesota waters should be educated on. Create partnerships with national organizations to promote the best practices of responsible recreation and promote public/private partnerships between communities, conservation and stewardship groups as well as outdoor user groups to maintain a recreational infrastructure and preserve Minnesota's natural spaces. So those are the bullets and recommendations under the unite Minnesota's outdoor recreation community. >> Thanks, Greg. Do we have any questions from the task force related to any of the recommendations that fall under that umbrella of uniting Minnesota's outdoor recreation community? CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 43 >> Hi, Greg, this is Sarah. Great presentation, and I like how this is really all kind of coming together in a really kind of understandable, unified kind of presentation. One of the things -- and I actually when I think about it, it kind of relates to the first -- Lynnea's presentation as well, but some of the things that you brought up certainly would have, you know, some potentially significant costs related to them. Is that -- is that something that you thought about or, you know, as we kind of got to this level, I'm just wondering if that is something worth considering like how these things might be funded. >> Greg: That's -- I'm laughing. That's a very good question. We did not really consider costs although obviously costs would be a factor. We do know that the state of Minnesota is under -- and everybody is under kind of a budget crunch right now. So I guess there's kind of a COVID era and then there's a post COVID era for all of these things. I don't know if anybody else has any comments about that. >> Sarah, this is Matt. One of the things that we did talk about was -- and CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 44 you'll see this in the office of outdoor recreation component is, you know, there's a lot of work here, there's a lot of recommendations. We need to somehow put that under an entity that oversees all of it and that is funded properly and effectively to ensure that those types of things can be done. Ultimately what we want to do is provide these recommendations to such an entity or whatever it might be for them to kind of prioritize what -- how to do it, for them to have a budget and be able to allocate funding and that sort of thing. I think we kind of took it from the standpoint that this is our list of recommendations that we would suggest and then at some point, you know, it's a conversation that's going to need to be had at that level, and as John kind of pointed out at the outset of this, there's a lot to talk about related to the funding side of this and what can be done and what can't be done related to the current economy and the current, you know, everything that's going on out there. So, you know, I guess summarize, a lot of these are recommendations that at some point are going to need to be coordinated under some sort of office of outdoor recreation or some entity of that nature, and that we CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 45 would just kind of give them these recommendations that way. Does that make sense? >> Sarah: Yeah, it does. And I kind of -- you know, a little bit of a rhetorical question I guess, but, you know, just also recognizing that I don't know if there are -- I don't know. Even if it would be appropriate, but if there are -- if this group might like to say, you know, like these things we consider to be the top priority or something, you know, because we're list -- I mean I agree with everything that's been recommended so far. I think it's a really comprehensive list and appropriate, right? But I also -- it all can't be done, do we want to give some indication where we feel like these things are the most important. I don't know. Just a question because it's starting to become more real now so really starting to think about how this would all really come to pass. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Sarah: Thank you, though. That's really helpful. >> Gratia: Yeah, thanks, Sarah for your question and I CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 46 think the conversation that we get into in a little bit will help, you know -- we're hoping to do a little bit of a grew brainstorm to figure out how we can make these things happen given our current situation. So hopefully we can do some creative problem solving so we can make all of your work a reality. Any more questions for Greg before we move on to the next one? >> Yeah, Gratia, this is Mark. Greg, thank you so much for presenting all of that. And to echo Sarah's point I think it is a lot. And the next step is maybe to do a forced ranking of priorities which is always a challenging step in a process, but I think would maybe create some value in terms of prioritizing those things that should rise above others. I do want to just call out one piece that when Greg was presenting talking about the promotion of public awareness section. I think we did fairly -- we used the word "fractured" instead of diverse because I think it is more than diversity and I think it is something that needs to be acknowledged and that is whether your sports hook and bullet. Whether you're motorized or non-motorized. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 47 There's a lot of diversity that actually has created fractures. So I think it is more than diversity and we need to acknowledge that so I just wanted to make that point about that portion. >> Great point, thanks, Mark. >> Thank you, Greg. >> Gratia: All right. So I am going to pass the torch to Steve Voltz who is going to share about the next recommendation category. >> Steve: Sure. Before I do that I did have a couple thoughts about Sarah's question. We did talk a little bit about public, private partnerships and there are some examples out there where that could possibly, you know, be a path that wouldn't put all the funding on the state itself, and then just regarding priorities, you know, maybe that could be a part of the public engagement component as well, getting the public to help with those priorities. So just a couple thoughts. So regarding unified communication, so we really felt that in order to ensure success in each of the priorities that we identified, access, economic development, promotion and public awareness, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 48 coordination and stewardship that we needed to develop a unifying communication plan that's really going to help promote each of these areas so that all Minnesotans and beyond know about and contribute to and participate in our outdoor recreation resources, and so this work definitely was the primary focus of the promotion of public awareness group, but all groups included promotion of some sort in their recommendations so they're definitely included here. So from the access group, once again, unifying communication. So from access cocreate plans, remove barriers and improve cultural relevance with those who have been disproportionately excluded from outdoor recreation experiences such as individuals with disabilities, indigenous, black and people of color, people with lower financial income, lower education and LGBTQ communities. So how do we create those communication plans that would remove those barriers and get the word out. From the economic development standpoint, the recommendations were to lean out, simplify, make effective the system of both information creation and information sharing that's intended for the consumption of Minnesota residents. Create a pathway to get government communication out of CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 49 government circles. Make this communication mainstream content any Minnesotan resident can find without having to Google it. Create powerful metrics of every dollar spent on the outdoors, equals X for both Minnesota residents as a primary goal and Minnesota businesses as a secondary goal. Create a path for economic development within Minnesota's outdoors has the ability to economic impact -- economically impact our residents as well as our businesses. Make better known the plan, the score plan for Minnesota's outdoors is being created from. Reference the plan as decisions are being made ongoing. And lastly refresh communication tools, mostly digital to speak the language of the 21st century mobile customer. Perhaps an app for Minnesota's outdoors. All maps, all permits, having a one stop place to go for everything. For promotion and public awareness, in some of these you'll see definitely crossed over with unite, the uniting category, but unite Minnesota's fractured community by promoting shared dialogue on challenges and CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 50 opportunities and identify ideas to create a bigger experience in Minnesota. Form a cohesive voice. Establish new narratives for Minnesota outdoors, develop outreach to new groups and create new mediums, media appropriate to reach target audiences absent mobile first strategies for maps, brochures and collateral. Record nation, we talked about a lot about how do we promote and facilitate a culture of welcoming everybody outdoors. That would be definitely a big part for promoting our resources. Identify and state the values of how we'll treat each other when we're outside together. We know Minnesota has world class outdoor resources and should build on these assets to create a welcoming culture that ensures the safety of everyone that encourages inclusivity, togetherness and stewardship. Minnesota should be a destination because of our inclusive outdoor culture, not just to experience the beauty of our outdoor resources. And recognize the health and wellness benefits in align with the Minnesota Department of Health and health care providers create guidelines, training plans and promotions around Minnesota's culture of welcoming CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 51 everyone outdoors. Inform Minnesota residents and beyond about the outdoor opportunities available to them. And from the stewardship and conservation group, education all people who recreate in the outdoors about effective land and water stewardship and how this needs investment and attention to be effective. Open Minnesota's outdoors to people of all walks of life, thus creating more people to steward those resources, and lastly create a statewide PR campaign that would help communicate to Minnesotans the importance of going outdoors but also the fragility of the resources we have as a state and involve them in protecting those resources. And with that any comments or questions? >> Gratia: Anybody have any comments relating to unified communication? All right. I'm not hearing any, Steve. I think you may be off the hook. All right. Well, we can move on. Since we're not hearing anything, we'll shoot it back to Matt to talk about the final recommendation. I can't scroll unfortunately any further to the right, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 52 so -- >> That's fine. I've got it on my screen too if I need. >> Okay. Great. >> Matt: Okay. So the final recommendation is where it kind of all comes together. But creating some sort of office of outdoor recreation and funding such an office to make sure that it's effective in the role that we need it to play and so that we can give it the authority to carry out the recommendations that we're making here and other opportunities that will come up. So to begin with, and you'll see again I kind of mentioned this at the outset but you'll see there's a lot of different ways to say create an office of outdoor recreation, but we'll walk through those here real quickly. So first of all create a bipartisan and inclusive and coordinating entity to facilitate cross sector collaboration to advance outdoor recreation and equity in Minnesota. Invest in outdoor infrastructure such as increasing boat ramps camp grounds and wi-fi connectivity and outdoor CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 53 accessibility. And the next group had an office of outdoor recreation exists that can coordinate, create, design, implement and deliver upon these goals. Those goals being funds and staff this office appropriately, prioritizing Minnesota residents first, build real relationships in unity among the varied and different outdoor groups and industry within the state. Number 3, seek to understand and deploy economic development tools and investments where the outcome and end product have the ability to first build the economy of all Minnesota residents first and business and industry second. Establish a working group or office for outdoor recreation, increased funding to properly staff and achieve goals, eliminate overlap and inefficiencies within state agencies, work for parity of outdoors compared to other interests by noting and using and building on the significance of Minnesota's outdoor recreation, economic contributions and ensuring outdoor recreation's voice is on an equal level with other industries. The office should continue to ask what Minnesota residents feel they are missing in going outside and then evolve, adapt, and grow opportunities to deliver on CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 54 that. The office of outdoor recreation should promote the outdoor benefits to a broader world. The office should focus on building real relationships and unity among the varied and different outdoor recreation groups within Minnesota. That might have been a duplicate there. But create and maintain a database of outdoor recreation stakeholders, track outdoor recreation trends and use patterns. And then create an entity that can help Minnesota achieve the stewardship and conservation recommendations, most of which are noted there to the left of that recommendation but also here below, secure new funding sources for conservation in the future. Utilize this new entity that recommend a model of funding that replaces or augments the current funding model which relies mainly on license sales, coordinate funds to help maintain Minnesota's high quality recreation infrastructure such as trails and campgrounds, etc., as well as the place the infrastructure exists in. Prioritize and address the state's back log of deferred recreational infrastructure needs. So that covers that group. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 55 Any questions or comments that I can answer? >> Hey, Matt, this is Sarah. Thank you for this. I appreciate it. One thought that I'm having, and maybe I'm seeing this wrong, so feel free to help me see it differently. But as other folks were doing their presentations I think what I was hearing is that this office of outdoor recreation would, you know, kind of be charged with doing all of these things, and so I'm -- it feels like having a column that's specifically for the outdoor office of recreation that's separate from the three previous presentations that we heard which I'm also hearing would probably be under the purview of the office. I'm just wondering if there's a structural issue here that we might need to address. This recommendation actually feels more like -- it feels like the overarching recommendation is create examine funds this office charged with the following and what you've listed out there feels a lot like kind of building the business case for outdoor recreation or something like that. That may not be quite right. Does that -- how do you react to that? CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 56 >> Yeah, it's a great point, and I certainly don't want to speak for the group here, so I invite everybody else to jump in. I think we can all identify that there's a lot here, right? There's a lot of stuff that we've even been talking in this meeting about, hey, we need to prioritize this because there's so much. The thinking is that -- and again, I don't intend to speak for everybody on this but at least my frame of reference and thinking in this approach is, you know, there's got to be an overarching entity that guides this work, you know, we can sit here and individually look at the recommendations within each work group, you know, or as a total, and we can make recommendations but without us actually work in an office or an entity that would control all of this, it's really hard for us to strategically say if I push this button it's going to impact this and that program and we're going to be able to accomplish a couple things with this one initiative. Strategically I feel like the office of outdoor recreation would be able to oversee that and would be able to kind of guide strategically all of these initiatives so we can maximize what the ultimate goal here is for outdoor recreation in the state. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 57 And again there's a lot of requirements -- I'm sorry -- recommendations here that we would ultimately ask somebody to pursue and if this falls under a number of different, you know, departments, it just -- some of it, you risk more of it getting lost and not having a focus on the real intent of one overarching, you know, list of initiatives and recommendations. So that's my take on it. I don't know that that's the answer necessarily, but I know that's part of what we want to talk about here in a larger group format too. So I guess I would throw that back to the rest of the group and have you weigh in as well. >> This is Aaron. I think you're both kind of saying the same thing in different ways, but it feels like an overall number one recommendation is to create an office with the charged recommendations of delivering equity, diversity and inclusion and with uniting Minnesota's outdoor recreation and unifying communication. What does this Minnesota office of outdoor recommendation, how is it to be established, I think a lot of the points under that right now would help flesh that out but it does seem whether you flip the spreadsheet to make that more prominent and the three CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 58 pillars become the three other recommendations, I'm very open to that. It makes a lot of sense but from what I'm hearing and seeing I agree with you both. I don't know if that helps at all but it makes sense to me. >> And again this is Matt again. The thing, Sarah, I would build on with what you said and with what Aaron said when we first kind of synthesized all of this it seemed like everybody's first recommendation in their approach all the work groups was this office concept and that all -- that had bubbled up to the top right away. So we actually had that as our first recommendation at one point, and then we said you know what? All of these other three things are tasks and recommendations that need to be done. We need to move the office to the end of the list of recommendations because it's kind of exactly what you just said. It's this overarching entity that oversees getting all of the stuff done. So I think we're all on the same page with that. You're really aligned with the way the synthesis group was thinking and talking about it as well. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 59 Again I'm not sure it's an answer but we're all on the same page. >> Hey, guys, this is Joe Henry. Just a couple comments. So from the promotions and public awareness group we kind of said establish a working group or office, and the only reason we said it that way is ultimately what we thought is there will be a voice for outdoor recreation. Now if for some reason there can't be an office whether it's because of funding or whatever the case might be, we said, you know, working group or office simply so we would have a seat at the table for some of these important conversations and some of these important groups which maybe we don't right now. So just an observation. And then secondly, you know, when the Minnesota residents thing comes up in some cases it might be Minnesota residents but in some cases that might be stakeholders. Again just a thought. We have a lot of stakeholders based on what we're trying to accomplish with outdoor recreation in Minnesota. Are we looking to get tourism from other states. Are we looking to get manufacturers across our country CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 60 or perhaps the world. So again, stakeholders seemed like a little bit better fit but maybe there are specifics where we need to say Minnesotans. And then finally there's a bullet point in there about funding through licensed sales. And I would just ask the question, do we know that's the right funding mechanism? Is there a reason why we said that? Or could that be one funding mechanism but there might be others as well. There might be grants or funding from the state of Minnesota. I don't know. But I just wanted to bring it up because just having that one kind of caught my ear. >> Joe, I'm looking back at that recommendation and Gratia, I don't know if you want to scroll down to it but it's in the right-hand column next to stewardship and conservation but the comment was utilize this new office to recommend -- or entity to recommend the model of funding that replaces or augments the current funding model which relies mainly on those license sales. So it's not saying to use those license sales. I think this recommendation was more exploring it, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 61 coming up with something that either replaces it or enhances it in some way. >> Joe: That makes sense. Thank you. >> This is Gratia jumping in here. I really appreciate all the engaging conversation and questions everybody has related to this and I think it's obvious that there may be a little bits more conversation to be had, you know, related to the specifics of, you know, what your final suite of recommendations look like. But I do want to be sensitive to the time and we do have Commissioner Sarah Strommen with us today so really want to take advantage of our time with her today to keep us moving along. So if you don't mind, I think we're going to table this conversation now and Aaron, if you don't mind, would you mind if we transition to our conversation with chair John Edman and Commissioner Strommen and if we have some time come back to the vision statement at the end of the meeting? >> 10-4. >> Gratia: All right. Great. Thanks so much. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 62 So once again I want to say a big thanks to our chair John and Sarah, Commissioner Sarah Strommen for being here today and I wanted to open the floor to both of you to share your initial reactions to task force recommendations and if you have any further questions or conversation you want to have with the task force here today. >> Well, thanks so much, Gratia. This is Sarah, and I will first of all just say hello to the task force and say thank you too for all of the great work that you have done. I will say it's been a true pleasure to read through the recommendations and actually to have the opportunity to hear a bit of the conversation here today, so I'm very pleased to be here. John, we didn't flip a coin ahead of time to see who wants to go first, so I wanted to get those words out, and then I will be happy to defer to you if you want to jump in at this point, and then I have a few other specific things that I thought I would throw out there too. >> John: Sure, Sarah. So if you'd like me to begin with my comments, first of all, I think as you said, Sarah, there's an incredible amount of work that you've done as I mentioned at the CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 63 beginning of this call and I'm very impressed with the thought process that every group went through in coming up with these recommendations. They really have the interest of Minnesota's outdoors and citizens in mind when you're coming up with these thoughts and ideas. And the thing that -- I think every one of these ideas I think are very, very laudable and what we have to, what we must achieve as a state of Minnesota. But I found that the discussion particularly interesting when there were a few questions about priorities, there's a question about costs, there's a question about -- maybe he didn't really ask this, but what are the expectations for this or for the results of this. When the idea of a -- as Sarah knows, when the idea of an office of outdoor recreation first came guard a year and a half ago, maybe it's to years by now, that there was a lot of things in there. There was a lot of specific tasks, duties, responsibilities. It was initially placed within the Explore Minnesota Tourism and one of the things that the legislature asked us to do in response as an agency to respond to this was to tell us your thoughts, and at that time my thoughts was absolutely, I'm totally supportive of the idea of CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 64 creating an office of outdoor recreation, and I'm totally fine with whether it's in DNR or tourism or whatever. I think the goals are something we should all try to achieve. The challenge that I had and the responsibility then was to put together a fiscal know. And the fiscal know the things you've talked about here whether it's the promotion, the public awareness, the conservation, the access, etc., etc., and we put together a fiscal know that, well, I looked at it with my team and we said we know -- if you're going to do public relations, you need to put some dollars in it. If you need a promotion in outreach it needs to be really significant. If you're going to be infrastructure or education, you need to put some significant dollars into it. So we put together a rather large fiscal note on this. I think a lot of folks in the legislature kind of scoffed at that, they thought that we were trying to scuttle it when weren't. We were just trying to say if you really want to accomplish all the things without any further detail, you need to have the dollars behind it, and so the discussion that I heard today regarding a priorities, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 65 ranked choice, maybe some of the public engagement is a part of this to figure out how we do all of this, I think that is the next most critical part of this discussion is to figure out how are we going to accomplish all of this because I think everyone's biggest concern out of all of this including mine is that you put together all of this work, all this effort, and nothing actually ever comes of it. We want something to come of this, and so it's the question of how, how are we going to get all of this done and I think Sarah will probably point out the situation with the state budget deficit is going to make this a bit of a challenge. Maybe it's just an office that's sort of guiding that's creating the dialogue with the different stakeholders and groups to make sure everyone is on task with some of the things that you're recommending. But to me that's the biggest challenge that I see with where we are right now, we report none of the ideas, none of the recommendations, none of the specific tasks, but how are we going to get all of that done and that's the one thing I think we need to have a little bit more discussion about. >> This is Lynnea. Can I pop in? CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 66 >> Sure. >> Lynnea: You know, one of the things that I mentioned in our working group and a few other times, but it's not lost on me that -- I'm kind of curious how many folks on this team have read the 25-year legacy parks and trails plan? I mean is there anyone who hasn't read it? Maybe that's a question folks can fill in in the Q and A if I ask it there. But if you read it, there's a lot in the 25-year plan for legacy funds which was developed through very robust community participation statewide, and one of the challenges I've had is that there's been a very opposite of robust implementation of non-capital investments that are outlaid in the plan and many, many, many of the things we're talking about are there, but they're not be invested in by the agencies who, you know, are there. There's -- so that's one piece. Also the plan and the dollars were to be supplemental to do these kind of things, and the legislature has really used it as a plan resources that it -- and the language is explicit that that is not to be done but that's exactly what's been being done. So I think a couple things. One I think it's really important for this group to be CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 67 really aware of that plan and what's in it and leverage it because it was voted on by the entire citizenry of our state and it just really needs to be implemented with fidelity. So I do think we have an issue with resources but I would argue that we have resources that aren't being used as intended that can go a really far way for things that we are talking about and collaborative bodies that can be leveraged in addition to having an outdoor office or if the event there aren't resources to implement that right away there's already space that can be used and systems that can be used and resources that just -- we need to ensure are used as statute outlined and currently they are not being done so. Both from the standpoint of the legislature using legacy funds to supplant supposed supplement and in the context of agencies being more focused on capital and maintenance and -- versus the things that we're talking about, programming, communications, and things like that. >> Lynnea, this is Sarah Strommen, and I want to expand upon what you were saying because I think that was one of the points that I wanted to talk about a little bit with the group, is I think there is an opportunity that we need to have further conversation about and explore CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 68 about where are those places that we are already doing compatible work or where there are resources that could be redirected because I will agree, you know, wholeheartedly with what John was outlining that the work and the recommendations that this group has outlined are really, you know, I think the right ones and important ones, and I do want to say I just -- I really -- I want to call out how much I appreciate the focus on equity, diversity and inclusion and not just the idea of outreach and communication, but, you know, I saw words like cocreating and engaging, thought partners and leaders from communities of color and underrepresented communities and a commitment to address some of the structural barriers and a very strong commitment to collaboration, commitment to public, private partnerships and investment in the system and not only in that capital infrastructure but, Lynnea, as you were describing the communications and promotion and that entire system. And so I think all of that is really important and as John laid out, the budget situation is going to be tough, and that's true not only for the general fund but it is also going to hit legacy funds because they are funded through sales tax and sales tax revenue is projected to be down so we are expecting less funding in CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 69 those legacy funds. We're anticipating, you know, less funding in some of the funds that rely on fee-based revenue that have had long standing structural deficits. So all of those things sort of work against us but I think absolutely there is that opportunity to identify places where we can do the work with existing resources within existing structures, within the existing voices that we have. If the focus on the office is less about sort of the structure and staffing of an office and more about the function and the work that needs to be done, I think that, you know, our agency is working in collaboration with this group, I have no doubt we'll be able to apply some creative thinking and unearth some ways to figure out how to approach these recommendations and get the work done without necessarily, you know, needing to rely on large additional resources because I will tell you if that's the approach, there aren't large amounts of additional resources. They will come from somewhere else and perhaps a place that is not even in the interest of this group and the recommendations. So I think being intentional about how we will get that work done and where we might reallocate or where we CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 70 might find compatibility I think is a good place for this group to spend some time and energy in partnership with John's agency and ours. >> This is Lynnea and I just want to say I am really for that aspect of taking advantage of the opportunities that really exist. The one thing I do want to say that, you know, we've had is it ten years under us now with legacy funds plus a little bit maybe? And we spent less than -- my guess is because we're not actually clearly communicating and market -- or monitoring this metrics probably less than 5% on non-capital investment. When it should be more like 25 over the history of the legacy funds. So I guess I do think we can't continue -- I guess I just -- the one thing I want to be cautious about is thinking by doing what we are doing that we're going to get something better or different, so I do think we have to be intentional about calling out what's not working and where are there areas for innovation and then getting really explicit about what that has to look like and being accountable as public agencies mine included in being the stewards for the funds as they were articulated. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 71 And I can say this. Maybe -- I don't know. We have to hold legislators accountable for not raiding these funds, not raiding and reducing funding so the agencies that then puts them in the situation of using legacy funds to make up the difference, and I guess I just want it acknowledge that there are some things that we're doing that are fantastic and there are some things that we do have to change. And I think that it's a role of us as citizens to make sure that we are talking about that and calling for that to happen. >> Lynnea, this is John. One thing that you just said that really struck with me, when you said the word "we need to be innovative" and that's maybe something that perhaps could be explored a bit further. We started out with this concept of creating an office of outdoor recreation, and then we had to respond as I mentioned as a state agency and what is this entity and what is the fiscal note, etc. Maybe what we need is some innovative approach, and I think I saw this in Oregon I believe but instead of create an office, maybe it's this type of public, private partnership advisory group that has some sort of CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 72 authority that can get together and advise different agencies and groups on a lot of the things that you recommend and to hold them accountable for their activities, etc., which is sort of a -- maybe it's a step before we actually get to a structure of bureaucracy or funding or things like that. But maybe we need to think about ways to do things differently than we've tried to do them in the past because we want change. We can't just continually do things always the way we have in the past. Again I don't have an answer for that, but I'm just -- I just really am struck by your word "innovative." We need to think about change and think about different ways of doing things. >> I think I owe you some money because I've been talking about a private/public partnership, and I don't think just private/public. I think the other part of that is non-profit, philanthropic partnerships. I think there's so much to be gained there, so I really appreciate what you just shared. >> Hey, guys, this is JR from Polaris, if I can just jump in too. Because I was struck like John was with Lynnea's point CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 73 on innovation. The other thing I think just in terms of timing because I think that's really where we're -- the rub is getting to is that the economy is going to recover and sales tax is going to recover as the pandemic -- we get a better hold on the pandemic and our response, but I think the important thing to understand too as we talk to policymakers and, John, to your point of selling a fiscal note is we have a lot of data that shows that the outdoor economy is actually thriving in a lot of ways right now, and private organizations like my own, I always talk about this idea of pay go so you pay for yourself and you get the green light to go. And I think there's a myriad of sources out there, not the least of which of is likely the DNR that shows that there is a lot of spending happening within the outdoor economy right now, and we really need to I think maximize this opportunity right now. We need to seize on it because the outdoor economy is so strong, and frankly the use of the outdoor economy right now has probably created an additional strain on the infrastructure that's already out there where the investments are going to be critically necessary over time and probably in the near term more than anything to make sure that that infrastructure doesn't get further CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 74 dilapidated over the long term. I was just pulling up a few numbers to put this into context. We used Wisconsin numbers but they're one much our most significant competitor for outdoor recreation spending is, you know, there was a 14% year over year increase in fishing licenses in Wisconsin. June paddle sports sales were up 56% year over year with Wisconsin paddle sports retailers. Canoe and kayak use was up 30% year over year. We are paying for this resource to be created and do a better job of creating the innovation and efficiencies that Lynnea was talking about. So I don't want to discredit the real concern about how do we actually get this done but I also think we can't also under -- you know, discredit the idea that we are actually -- the outdoor economy is actually thriving right now, and making the investment when the time is ripe, which is today, is I think increasingly necessary. And then one final point is, you know, if we look at what our initial steps are out of all of this is there are a lot of funding sources outside of the general funds that are coming into Minnesota and making significant investment. I think in my place of work is the recreational trails CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 75 program which helps funds motorized and non-motorized trail investments through the DNR, and so I think having a survey done to figure out where all those resources are coming from that we currently have, not just legacy funds but elsewhere also, you know, I think giving everybody a better grounding of where the funding is come from and where there might be opportunities to maximize that funding would be an important first step as well. Thanks. >> This is Sarah. I just want to say one thing real quick because I think I really appreciate what you're saying, and one of the things that I have -- and I want to be clear like I'm not trying to be doom and gloom on the budget. I think there's reality there. I think that to the points that have been made, you know, if that's not an impediment to a big board. It just means we might have to do it a bit differently. But to your point of this moment that we're in this work is incredibly timely because of sort of the sector of the economy that's so robust right now is the outdoor economy. Our license sales have gone up 11% and we're seeing that increase across the board. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 76 You can't buy a bike or a kayak or a boat or an ATV. They're very hard to find right now as you probably all know, and I think one of the things that I have been talking with folks about is how incredibly fortunate we are in Minnesota that past investments have been made to the extent they have in our outdoor recreation infrastructure so in this time of a global pandemic Minnesota have those outdoor spaces to use and to, you know, find as a refuge from the stress and anxiety of the pandemic and have activities that are safe and healthy, and so shouldn't we take that lesson to heart and take an opportunity to reinvest in that infrastructure to make sure that it persists. I mean God forbid we have another global pandemic and people are going to need it for that, but the point is people need that outdoor recreation, a time to use the infrastructure and we didn't get here by accident. We got here through intentional investment and it's going to take additional intentional investment to maintain it. >> Gratia, this is Aaron. Can I speak to John's comment about innovation? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Yeah, John, innovation and I'm saying this working with the state a lot and it comes from -- it feels like CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 77 the state likes to put on their department kind of the belief that they have to be the solo doer, like you have to now okay you have your spreadsheet, now do it all and I think it's easy right now to look at this for the state if I was like part of the state like I know how it is and to feel that burden and weight of accomplishing this all on your own like how much time, how many people, how much money. But I think through this process we've learned that I mean just with the people on this task force we have a lot of people and a lot of groups who want to lean in and help make this happen and it feels like this office could be a lot more of a connector and a collaborator and not necessarily the solo doer. But if the office or the person or whatever we start with doesn't connect and collaborate, how will we even take that first step, and we have to do this work because we needed that master vision and that master vision is in front of us but now it's like, okay, what are those priorities? We talked about it. What's the process? What's the timeline and there has to be a budget of something. And it doesn't have to budget 20 people but can it CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 78 budget one because even one person can help move forward collaborating and can help moving that connection that I think we have to do. It's a must do. When you look at those recommendations especially equity, diversity and inclusion, we must do it. We have to finds a way. For John, don't feel like you ever to do it yourself. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of Minnesotans that are here and someone needs to lead it. And that's what the office can do. >> I just put in the chat an example of a -- from Vermont that folks can check out that I thought was really interesting. I think maybe a good model to look at as an example of individual agencies not having to go with the flow. Thank you, Aaron, for sharing that and -- my outline away that we could have a collaborative effort across sectors. I would make some additions but I thought I would share that I shared that in the chat. >> It's 3:54, so I know we don't have much time left, and that being said based on the robust conversation and all the good questions today, my thought is we could CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 79 probably benefit from another meeting where we could dive in a little deeper to some of the specific recommendations, and so if anybody disagrees with that feel free to chime in but my thinking is that perhaps between now and whenever that could be, hopefully, you know, in the next few weeks or so, maybe the agencies and all the folks on the task force could really think critically about how we could get some of this work done, what are the priorities and how we can make them a reality kind of given what we know about the current state of the outdoor recreation economy being super robust and the fact that we have a budget deficit. So I'm thinking perhaps in the next few weeks we can spend some time individually thinking through that and we can come back together with some ideas perhaps to create -- to chart a little bit more of a clear path forward once the task force meets in December. >> Gratia, this is JR. I like that a lot and maybe what we could do and I don't think we could do it right now but focus conversations on specific things like budget or revenues or things that we perhaps haven't discussed yet. So just a thought. >> Thanks, Greg. Appreciate your thoughts. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 80 >> Yeah, Gratia, I support that idea of having another meeting as well. >> Great. >> Same. >> Well, I will be doing some follow-up very shortly with you all to hopefully get that on the schedule soon. I know people are really busy so wanting to get that on your calendars as soon as possible. So look for some communication related to that. I do -- >> Gratia, can I jump in real quick because I want to get the commissioner and John he had manned maybe their feedback is important to this question too. Do we have someone from the agencies who has some experience in the state budget process might also be important to help inform the larger group as a part of the next conversation because that's obviously a part of the -- [indiscernible] are not going to be free. So getting our team grounded in some of the those budgeting concepts might also be important. >> Sure, this is John. I think probably folks in the DNR probably could be a little bit more grounded on the whole legislative process, but I'd be happy to -- however I can help chime into that as well as the discussion about public, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 81 private partnerships, alternative structures. I have been on this job for about 20 years. I've seen a lot of different structures in different states. There's more than one way to approach this and the public private partnerships, a governor's council or advisory group if you will to provide some directions, any other alternative thoughts that I could provide to this, I'd be more than happy to participate. So let me know how I can help. >> Thanks. >> Thanks, John. All right. So little 3:58. I do want to respect the fact that we do have members of the public on the call today and we did say there would be an opportunity for some questions and answers. We did get one question early on that Randolph went ahead and provided an answer to but I'll just read it out loud in case you didn't see it. This comes from Mikayla. How will you create awareness of the public engagement opportunities? What does the communication plan reference include? And so Randolph responded and said that he anticipates CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 82 we will promote the opportunities using social media channels along with some additional media placement. Also if you are signed up for the gov delivery you will receive notice of those opportunities as well. And then he just noted that if anybody has specific ideas on how we can create further awareness, we'd love to hear from them. We've also noted that we really want to tap into the vast networks that our task force members bring with them to help push those opportunities out more broadly as well. If there are any other comments or questions that the public would like us to consider, please put those in the chat -- in the Q and A, excuse me, feature and we will do our best to answer them in the remaining minute or so of today's call. But -- and I'll just give folks a couple minutes to write something in there. In the meantime just share that in terms of next steps, please look for an e-mail likely with a doodle poll and some other information from me in the next day or so so we can get that next meeting on the calendar. We'll also be scheduling a meeting for December to bring everybody back together once we have received some feedback from the broader public to see how we want to CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 83 incorporate that feedback into your final recommendations. So that is what you should expect from me in the coming days, and if folks on the call didn't get a chance to share any ideas they have for that next meeting where we come back together to dive a little deeper, please send me your thoughts and ideas. I would really appreciate any feedback you all have. And not seeing any additional questions come through. To our members of the public, if you do have any further questions, feel free to reach out to the task force e-mail. It's listed on our web page where you found the link to the WebEx. So with that it's 4:01. Thanks again everybody for the great conversation. Thank you so much to director John Edman and Commissioner Sarah Strommen for being here today and I really, really appreciate everybody's time and energy they put into all the work leading up to this meeting and into the conversation today. >> Thanks, Gratia. >> Thank you, all. >> Thanks, everybody. >> Thank you all. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 84 >> Thank you. [This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format, and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event.] CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT