Minneapolis autonomous vehicles: City Council could override mayor's veto

Minneapolis and St. Paul today. The debate over whether to pump the brakes on driverless cars. Yeah, St. Paul City Council is moving to regulate this technology and Minneapolis is trying to do the same thing with Waymo set to launch in the city soon. Fox 9's Emily Pofall is live in Minneapolis tonight. And so, Emily, both cities held press conferences about this topic today. Ahead of some consequential votes, Randy and Kelsey, St. Paul just authorized a study on driverless cars there. And tomorrow, the Minneapolis City Council will attempt to override Mayor Jacob Fry's veto of their regulations. You'll remember the Minneapolis City Council voted to require human safety monitors to sit in the driver's seat of all driverless cars. That, some say, defeats the purpose of driverless cars entirely. Waymo itself calls the move a de facto ban. Mayor Jacob Fry agreed and vetoed the regulations. The council Council needs nine votes to override the veto. Council member Robin Wansley says if they don't have the votes and the veto stands, she'll introduce another resolution focused on keeping rideshare worker jobs. The entire basis of this ordinance was also how do we protect workers. That is not what we're seeing in regulations across the country when it comes to autonomous vehicles. And Minneapolis had the opportunity to lead on that front and say that as we're welcoming technological advancements in our city, we're not going to leave workers behind. And in St. Paul, the city council taking less decisive action today. Instead of rushing into regulation, council members voted to approve a study on how driverless cars would impact the city. The study done by city staff will focus on a couple key areas. Impact to public transportation, ride-shared drivers, and people with disabilities. The study is also going to take a look at public safety and emergency response. Our responsibility is to look out for the people of St. Paul, not for these corporations. so depending on what our recommendations are depending on what our community tells us there may be guardrails that we can put in place that allow for these vehicles to operate safely but we need to do the work first to figure out if that's even possible so emily what does the st paul city council president think about the idea of requiring those human safety monitors in the driver's seat of those vehicles yeah i'd ask her i asked her if that's something she'd push for in St. Paul. She didn't rule it out, but she also said she doesn't want to presuppose what the results of this study are going to be or what regulations they might vote on. She also said there's no timeline for when the study is going to be finished. And we also know right now there's no timeline for when Waymo is going to actually roll out in Minneapolis. Again, that Minneapolis vote is set for tomorrow morning. You guys. All right. Still a lot of discussion to come on this topic. Thank you, Emily Pofall in Minneapolis tonight. Well, the Minneapolis City Council meets again tomorrow morning and there is a lot on the dock at this council will officially receive Mayor Fry's nomination of interim chief Bill Peterson for the full-time chief's position and refer to the committee for a public hearing. Also it will consider Mayor Fry's veto of the autonomous vehicle ordinance. The council will request a legal analyst from analysis from the city attorney's office on whether or not the city council has the authority to subpoena Mayor Fry's administration for information. And a new ordinance establishing licensing requirements for data centers will be discussed as well. Tomorrow's meeting begins at 9 30 in the morning.