e good afternoon thank you for joining us it is Wednesday December 4th we'll begin with an invitation from police chaplain Williams Madam mayor councel and staff thank you so much for what you do would you please join me in a prayer of invocation Lord lift up we lift up to you our mayor our city council and our staff members they're precious and willing individuals that constantly share their leadership talents and gifting with our great City father I ask that you draw the Mayor and counsel close to you please anoint them with your wisdom understanding and discernment as only our Master maker could do grant them favor and draw them close to you allowing them to know and understand and fulfill your purposes Lord I also ask that you protect our city leaders their families keep them healthy and safe additionally I ask the same protection for all of our city employees fire and police and their families keep them all healthy Lord we thank you in advance for your direction your discernment Your Love extended to our city and to you Lord we give all the praise and all the glory amen thank you Chapin please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States America and to the for stands na indivisible Justice I will now call to order the formal meeting of the Phoenix City Council will the clerk call the role councilman galinda here councilwoman wado here councilwoman Hodge Washington here councilwoman O'Brien here councilwoman Pastor here councilman Robinson here councilman wearing vice mayor Stark here mayor goo here Oscar Monroy and Elsie dwy are here to provide interpretation Oscar would you please introduce your team thank you mayor hello my name is Oscar Monroy and together with my colleague El Duarte we will be serving as Spanish interpreters for today's city council formal meeting I will now take a moment to introduce ourselves to our Spanish speaking audience and review some guidelines thank you mayor thank you so much will the city clerk please read the 24-hour paragraph the titles of the following ordinance and resolution numbers on the agenda were available to the public at least 24 hours prior to this council meeting and therefore may be read by title or agenda item only ordinances number g7322 and 7326 through 7332 S 51457 through 51500 and resolutions 22 266 and 22267 thank you will the City attorney please explain public comment yes thank you mayor members of the public may speak for up to two minutes to comment on agenda items comments must be related to the agenda item in the action being considered by the council General comments that go beyond the scope of the agenda item must be made in the citizen comment session at the end of the agenda the city council and staff cannot discuss or comment on matters related to pending investigations claims or litigation additionally any member of the public who appears before Council in their capacity as a lobbyist must as required by Phoenix city code disclose this fact before addressing Council the city code requires speakers to present their comments in a respectful and courteous manner profane language threats or personal attacks on members of the public council members or staff are not allowed a person who violates these rules will lose the opportunity to continue to speak thank you we'll first begin with the meeting minutes vice mayor do you have a motion on item one yes I move to approve May 15 2024 formal meeting second we have a motion in second all those in favor please say I I any opposed passes unanimously councilwoman Pastor do you have a motion on item two I move item two of uh approval of formal minute meetings second we have a motion and second all those in favor please say I I any oppose nay passes unanimously we next go to boards and commissions to advise our city on important issues vice mayor do we have a motion yes motion to approve mayor and city council boards and commission nominations second we have a motion and a second all those in favor please say I I any oppose nay congratulations to our new Commissioners we do not have a saring in ceremony today so we will go to liquor licenses we advise the State of Arizona on liquor LIC applications vice mayor do we have a motion yes I move to approve items 4 through 19 second motion and a second all those in favor please say I I any oppose nay passes unanimously city clerk are we ready for ordinances resolutions new business planning and zoning yes mayor vice mayor do we have a motion yes I move to approve items 20 through 79 except the following items 38 39 41 43 44 50 57 and 75 through 79 noting that item 75 has additional information and item 77 has additional information and excluding the following items for virtual public comment items 76 77 78 and 79 and can the clerk confirm if there are any other items that should be excluded for inperson public comment yes mayor and vice mayor also excluding item 73 also excluding item 73 second we have a motion in a second roll call gind yes wado yes hjj Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yes Robinson yes wearing in yes Stark yes GGO yes passes 90 we next go to item 38 we'll begin with testimony and then have an a motion we'll begin with Chuck buers followed by Kerwin Brown this is item 38 uh greetings and salutations mayor gyo and City Council Members my name is Chuck buers and I'm a dedicated veteran Advocate working at Regional State and National levels over the past 2 years I've been deeply involved in planning and implementation of homeless veteran Village spearheaded by the Tanner comp Community Development Corporation today I'm here to express my full support for this and transforma project veteran homelessness is a significant and growing issue Nationwide with approximately 1,200 homeless veterans and Maricopa County County alone since 2002 National strategies such as housing first and the B Administration all the inside initiatives have emphasized permanent and Supportive Housing as a primary solution for reducing homelessness these evidence-based approaches prioritize housing as a foundation for addressing broader Social and Health challenges with this goal of reducing homelessness by 25% in 2025 the Tanner Thomas Village for veterans fully aligns with these Federal policies and proven practices located in a 5 acre property in South Phoenix the skated Community will include 37 individual citas and a community resource center staffed with trained advocates this project stands apart because it offers transformational programming providing veterans with a hand up instead of just a hand out these Advocates will deliver veterans specific case management addressing all social determinants of health and we are prepared with a wraparound services for the village not only uplift the veterans addressing critical issues like veteran suicide and heat related deaths I thank you Council thank you Mr Brown good afternoon mayor uh City Council Members um I'll probably be somewhat brief because you are more aware probably than anybody else of the um situ situation in this city about homelessness and the percentage of those homeless that are veterans tenner Community Development Corporation has been involved in building not only a place for these veterans on a permanent basis instead of temporary housing this is permanent housing they also are providing as as uh Mr berer said uh a resource center for wraparound services and those services will be dedicated to those tenants in this facility not on a temporary basis but until they are able to um to to better themselves whether that be job training whether it be navigating the the health health care uh for veterans we will be there to support the veterans that live at Tanner Thomas veterans facility I would hope that the council and the mayor would also support these efforts to help the veterans in our city thank you thank you we have a real need for affordable housing in Phoenix and we had a presentation a few weeks ago that shows the remarkable investment we are making in our community veterans housing has been a priority of mine person when I was on the city council we cited more veterans housing in my district than anywhere else as part of that experience I've known that there are a lot of additional rules in working with veterans and a lot of needs for additional support every project comes in with really good values behind it but not every project is successful I've had concerns about this specific project for a while and when I was asked by the applicant to support it several years ago I declined to do so these kinds of tiny home developments have had mixed results in other communities in this case I am also concerned that the applicant has been putting this project together for 3 years to work with unsheltered veterans but has not yet reached an agreement with any service providers who have real experience working with unsheltered veterans in my experience this can be a challenging population who has really an uh important but sometimes intense needs we need to make sure the right support structures exist to put these veterans on the right path so we'll move forward with this item but if the council does not approve it this item will remain the funds will remain available and the applicant can reapply we judge teams based on the application they put forward to be fair and competitive you can't change your team after scoring because that is not fair to the other people who apply so I would hope to see a new application with improvements in the project and the application um I held a meeting with the team last week and they did not yet have a service provider in place uh when they applied they did not have the service provider in place so I think there's potential here but we really have to do a good job when we take on this challenge it's fair to the neighbors of the community and it's also fair to the veterans who've served our country and deserve our best May vice mayor thank you mayor um I too by the way my husband was a veteran he served in the Army um and I too had some concerns in reading the staff report about who was going to provide the services it looks like this uh organization does most of the development and I had some of the same concerns um I I just don't see who's attached to this that would provide the level of service that our veterans need um I too have concerns thank you mayor councilwoman hun Washington thank you mayor this one is a difficult one for me um this is in my district this is a project that I have met with at early stages I I I want to acknowledge the mayor and the vice mayor's concern regarding the absence of a more established service provider for the wraparound Services um but I wanted to see if our our city Deputy city manager um Gina Montes could answer a question or two regarding um this for me and Titus you can join us as well because of the procurement rules I did not engage with the applicant during the procurement period so I just have some questions that hopefully you can answer regarding this and help me to get some clarity on what is moving for forward um given the applicant um sorry the application seemed to did not include a a service provider that provides the types of services that we traditionally would expect in this type of a settin what was the thought process behind um approving These funds could you share a little bit more with us beyond what is stated in the actual um packet today mayor members the council excuse my voice is breaking up um we are three respondents respond to this RFB the noo and this particular case tner Village has a community resource center that they optioning to use to provide in-house services in the past we have done similar situations where we've had home funds with developers a case an example as like yam and Native American Connections also provide services in house so it's an option so one of the things I want to state is this is a a recommendation from the house department but at the end of the day it's the mayor and Council who recommends the outcome of this award but in addition to that we uh the panel looked at the all three proposals even though the council May award or not award today the process continues because we have to figure out working with the developer to ensure that they comply with all the rules of the Federal Regulations there's going to be a lot of Process reviews and checklists and a land use rental agreement that instates that they have to provide services otherwise they'll jeopardize the funding they receive so if I heard you correctly um at this juncture even if we were to move forward as the city council were to move forward with this they would still have to be able to Esta or to show that they have the adequate service providers to move forward the wraparound services to actually receive those funds that is correct okay thank you for that clarification um are there anything and I didn't get to look at are there any benchmarks or any time frame in which the applicant would have to identify the the availability of a provider to provide those services so councilwoman K Washington and the maying members of council typical deal like we do this type of deal it takes anywhere from 3 to six months to complete all the processes so one of the things we first we have to do is environmental assessments we have to do subsidary layering we have to look at the service providers we have to look at we have to create the land use rental agreement that is attached to the units for affordability in this case is 15 years and we have to make sure they have all their documents in place to ensure we comply with the Federal Regulation because otherwise they will not get notice to proceed to move forward with the project okay thank you so much for that clarification I think that in that uh covers all the questions I had regarding the service providers and just understanding the process moving forward um I presume there were the other question I had because this is a little different of a location it's more adjacent to a residential Community um have we do we have any information that we can share regarding the community's reception to such a program that result counc on H Wasington members of the council that also is part of the process it's public engagement with the community making sure they on board with this project and that's part of the environment reviews and archaeological reviews and all that reviews we do to because had requires that to do as well make making sure the public is the input is sought and there's an engagement process they have to provide documentation and the meeting notices that they engage the community and just so we understand what happens if this um these conditions are not met do those funds revert back what happens is the next step the next step is if the if the if it's not awarded or the deal does not go forward it comes back to us to be awarded again to do another no for we'll issue a notice of funding opportunity to release those funds again so H has given us to spend these funds by September 2030 okay yeah just to be clear I want to make sure we understand what happens if we move forward as a council approving this item but for one reason or the other the applicant is unable to meet the conditions that are necessary automatically revers and we will then move forward with a new opportunity correct that is correct thank you so much for the clarification that concludes my questions mayor thank you so much thank you many times when we've done similar votes we've done the community engagement before the vote to me that is what makes sense once we have voted it becomes much more complicated to make changes we've had several high-profile Investments including the safe outdoor space where we did months of community engagement before we voted we also are seeing a change in administration and it's really valuable to me that the first time we allocate this funding we get it right I had the a meeting publicly posted in in accordance with the transparency policy just a few days ago and there was no service provider in place again we have been a leader in Phoenix in housing veterans but there's a lot of really important needs that need to be met and we ought to have a team that has that experience here so I would like to know what the community feels about this and who the team is before I vote we can reissue it and Award with that team in place but we do as a council have a lot less input after we have voted and so that's a real concern to me we've had challenges with tiny home communities in the past our most successful communities have on-site services that are well staffed and can respond and be nimble I want to know what that plan is before I vote I think it's possible that they could get there this board the board of Tanner and and team is very resp Ed Community leaders but we ought to check the boxes before we vote really important issue to our community we're at we've been in a period where we've had resources to address housing from the federal government we don't know if that will continue so we ought to get this right uh councilwoman pestor let me take a a deep breath so my understanding is that you brought this item in front of us without at this moment with the provider and and the concerns are the community um so my question is there are three applicants can we vote on two of the applicants and the current um the third applicant then provides a provider and the concerns that are up here or if it's voted down then it's starts the process all over again am I correct councilman Pastor members of the council that is correct and the other two respondents have been approved already by this Council it was items 36 and 37 so this is item 38 if it's voted down yes we can issue another funding opportunity and come back and do another process and they can reapply is there a possibility to continue this item I mean what I mean is there's no timeline I mean please explain councilwoman P members of the council um the funding deadline for this funding source is a few years out and so so um if it's not approved today if it's continued to a future meeting um there's no we're not putting the funding in Jeopardy I can't speak for the for the um provider and the applicant um developer in this situation but it wouldn't um jeopardize the funding okay because what I've heard in all the different questions is that if we move it forward uh all these pieces have to be together in order to receive funding um which were the provider and the community peace what I'm hearing also with the questions that I asked is that if we continue it the money still continues to stay here until a provider and possibly a community component has been done so there is a way to either move this forward or continue it in order to answer and provide what is needed mayor members of the council Council Pastor if we withdraw the item or pull the item what happens is it's in limbo in terms of the funding is then paused we can't issue a new RFP or a noo till we resolve this particular item okay I'm confused but so if we were to say continue it to January 22nd could we have a public community meeting and get a very clear service plan in place we can ask the developer if that's possible okay and Julie would that be fine with legal yes mayor and counsel okay so should we ask the developer or we just vote on it and let it I mean may I ask the developer Mr Brown um mayor and councel let me let me first of all clarify something um the reason that we did not contract a provider now is because we haven't even Broken Ground on this on this development that's the only reason I am in the process of talking to several different providers to make sure that we have those people who are going to fit into what we're building uh to your question uh if if we could take this and and have it a a provider chosen uh by the 22nd of of January sure that's that's not if I had known that that was the holdup on this it would have been done but I had no no reason to be expedient on this until I at least started breaking ground on the project so to answer your question yes that would be acceptable to me wonderful thank you and just just the provider plan matters to me ahead of time if you want to have someone on site you may want to think about that in your site plan um it is harder to make changes to a project once they're under construction no one would feel good about making changes to a half-built project or undoing construction that feels wasteful it is harder to change and have Community input meetings after you're already building the community sort of feels like you started without them so to me this order makes much more sense councilwoman HJ Washington I was going to let councilman gindo first and then I will if you don't mind na I'll close sorry I was looking right councilman thank you councilwoman hjj Washington you're very kind um so I'm a big supporter of Integrated Health or what some people call wraparound services and I do want to make sure we get this right for our veterans um these brave men and women wore our nation's uniform I want to make sure they're taken care of in the best way possible so I would like to know what is the definition that we're going to be using for wraparound services and does a service provider that is selected have to be accredited by a body like for example like carf councilman gindo and members of the council that is something we will work with the developer to ensure especially as it pertains to Veterans we work with several developers currently through the VA and other providers to ensure the veteran services are provided a good example is Native American Connections and some of their deals work with the VA closely to provide case management and supported Services as well well he just answered what I was going to say but and this and our wraparound services do not only we're not only talking about um health care but because this is a permanent housing uh with no age limits if it was a a younger vet that needed job training we're committed to to to helping with that as well and in the process of looking for outside organizations that can provide a lot of a lot of those types of of support if if it if whether it's mental or physical health we're also committed to to having uh com having we're also committed to to having um relationships with organizations that can help that don't get me wrong we will have on site people who report directly to me to coordinate all of these efforts so I I hope that answers the the the question and mayor if you like I can stand here and answer whatever additional questions that may come up anyone have additional questions right thinkk we're good councilman H Washington I think doesn't have a question but has a I want to make a motion comment oh you do would you like Mr Brown to stay at the microphone no I think he's already addressed my concerns thank you uh thank you mayor um I think given the conversation and the concerns that have been raised this is a project we want to see move forward as a council however we want to make sure that it's done correctly we have some concerns regarding the service providers we have some concerns regarding the community outreach um as mentioned this is not a situation where we can un you know we can't undo it when we've started so while we while I do find the project to be very um it has a lot of potential it also has some some gaps that we need to address as we want to make sure before we move forward um given the advice that we received from the attorney saying that we could do this I would like to see us continue this for a minimum of 30 days so that we can are um that the applicant can submit an actual um provider plan because it is important to get it right housing is a key part of the solution but we want to make sure that they are provided with the resources necessary to provide success we also want to see that there is an actual Outreach done with the community I think the community needs to understand the adjacent Community needs to understand the population that's going to be there what that looks like what are the net effects of these uh of everything and know that there is an actual plan um we are the ones that would would be facing the phone calls if this does not go right so we want to make sure we do it correctly I would encourage um Tanner to to to to meet with other organizations who have integrated themselves into a similar community and see what type of services they have provided we have seen tremendous success with some of our shelters and although this is more of per perative Supportive Housing I think we should follow kind of the similar model when it comes to this so again this is just meant to be more of a a support measure we are in it seems like my council is in support of this but we want to make sure we do it right so we definitely I I would want to continue this to allow for those two major components which is to provide an Outreach plan for the community where there's meaningful feedback and second to make sure that we have a true plan for the service provider for the needed wraparound Services second so can we do a January 22nd January 22nd works so so councilman just to be clear you have made a motion to continue this to January 22nd yes with two conditions wonderful did and do we want to repeat the conditions the condition is the community outreach is done with a fully uh with Outreach information on what's to expect and the second condition is to ensure that you have a an articulated plan as to who will be the service providers providing what components of the services wraparound Services uh Deputy city manager Montes um thank you mayor members of the council I'm just wondering if um the January 22nd is enough time okay to do the amount of Outreach that's being requested so I wonder if um if you have a if you have another recommendation I will take it I think two months what we're thinking 60 days so the 30 day the two meetings following the 22nd I don't have it in front of me would be I may look the 19th of February yes great so my motion is to continue to the 19th of February to provide for two things the community outreach as well as the identification of the service providers second we have a motion and a second and I would ask we I come up with the service plan before the community meeting so that the community can have input on the service plan councilwoman O'Brien nope all right all those in favor please say I I any oppos nay passes unanimously thank you all for doing this it will be I think a better project as a result and and we hope a point point of Pride for the neighborhood but very thankful we have voted we had three projects on today two of them had identified service providers in their application this one had not and we're going to remedy that all right uh item 39 is financial Community assistant Services noting Council and pestor won't participate in this one do we have a motion I move to approve item 39 second motion and a second roll call gind yes wado yes HJ Washington yes O'Brien yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes Gayo yes passes 80 thank you next is 41 the City of Phoenix eviction Legal Services qualified vendor list councilman O'Brien I'll turn to you thank you so much mayor um I would like to move to approve item 41 with the addition to the motion that if a vendor on the qualified vendors list contract is terminated for cause that that they are automatically removed from the qualified vendors list second um mayor if I might please councilwoman uh the reason for this addition is that there have been concerns in the past with vendors on the qualified vendor list and sometimes they don't meet staff's requirements or expectations but they can then still stay on the qualified vendors list with the potential to receive additional contract in the future Andor business with this motion I just want to ensure that we don't continue to reward Bad actors in the future with contracts um or business when they have already been um have proven that they don't meet our expected standards so uh I understand that there is a second RFQ opened up right now uh to add more vendors to this qvl and would expect this motion that would be treated among all equally among all of those respondents thank you so much mayor thank you councilwoman H Washington or councilwoman pestor I'm sorry who would like to comment I would like to comment right okay we'll go to councilwoman hjj washhington thank you mayor um I had my comments prepared before the uh motion was made and I have a I guess I want to ask a clarifying question regarding the removal of a vendor if they if it's terminated for cause can someone tell me what the current procurement standard is for a vendor that has been removed for um whose contract has been terminated for cause mayor members of council I mean I can speak to that generally so generally it does depend on as you know the language in the contract and um at times we can terminate a contract for convenience but if a contract is terminated for cause that terminates the contract and we we discussed specifically this as you know sometimes for a qualified vendor list um there's a contract and then there's assignments and so there might be multiple you know contracts so with that understanding I think here the idea is that if there was a for cause that the city would remove that vendor from the list so that they would not get any further assignments until this was rolic ited so with the proposed amendment from councilwoman O'Brian is that providing a different standard than which we hold other vendors that do business with the city of Phoenix mayor members of council I would say no um usually if we do have a list um we need to also have a contract in place um so again we might have a contract where we might assign you know different scopes under that contract but we definitely would need a contract so if a contract is cancelled removing those vendors from a qualified vendor list would I would say would be in line with City policy so is the I guess maybe I want to make sure I understand is the amendment as Pro or the languages proposed by councilman O'Brien actually necessary or is that the net effect of what already happen under the um the city's procurement standards mayor members of council I believe that is what happens um however if Council you know wishes to clarify and put that into a motion um and make sure that that occurs in this case then you know that's not a violation of any of our procurement rules okay um given that mik's comments were more so that the right to council has um has its pros and its cons and one of the criticisms that it often hears is its Effectiveness there's very little data in which to support it so my comments I wanted to make I was beat to the motion by councilman O'Brian I wanted to ensure that our contract we provide a motion that I don't know if the if councilman orrian would allow a substitute motion to provide for ensuring that we con um we compile and we keep adequate St require our service providers to provide to maintain adequate metrics to we can determine the success of the program um such as identifying case performance um indicators client centered me metrics and understanding the efficiency and the access to the program um some of the data that I have seen from our prior system prior usage under this program has not been as extensive extens extensive as I would have appreciated and it raises a question for those that are critics of this program how what is the usefulness or how useful is this program um so I definitely would like to stress that this is um this this initiative has the ability to to to make meaningful change for a proced a procedural um process for those that have been that are facing evictions but we also need to ensure as a fiduciary to our community that we are ensuring that we are com compiling the right data necessary to determine its Effectiveness so I would like if with councilman O'Brien if there is a possibility to amend her motion to include for access to the for maintainance of actual metrics so that we can track the progress of this program and its Effectiveness I am certainly open to a friendly Amendment um I would sorry mayor I AP coun I think she very appropriate that you speak and then we'll go to councilwoman pestor um I'm open to a friendly amendment to my motion I I do just want to clarify that when I was briefed on this item um I was um led to believe that you could um yeah or was I should say it was my understanding I shouldn't say I was led to believe it was my understanding of the conversation that um a a qualified vendor could um you know be deemed to not be performing per their contract but still be left on the qvl and end up getting business again and so that was the the purpose and the reasoning for my amendment is to ensure um especially in this case that that that cannot occur so you know when I spoke to staff it was particularly about this not in a general broad perspective and that's why my amendment was that I am also um completely supportive of making sure that there are metrics to ensure that we are not just getting um outputs but actual outcomes and positive outcomes for the citizens of Phoenix um that are successful and and reaching towards the objectives we desire councilwoman hudge Washington thank you thank you mayor councilwoman pestor I'm waiting for the response Deputy city manager Montes from to councilwoman O'Brien saying that she was led it was really my understanding I apologize poor choice of words um and it was made very clear by our Le our lawyer that even adding this it's part of the contract sure uh mayor councilwoman O'Brien our um you know we um interpreted as best we could what we understood under you know a qvl if we terminated a contract we believe them to be still on the qvl but we wouldn't normally in practice you know um have another execute another contract with someone uh with a vendor who was not performing so um if it's not possible to do that then you know it's not a circumstance we see a whole um very often so um if I misunderstood or we misunderstood I apologize for that Council mayor if I please I think that you know you did I didn't want I don't want anybody to think that I was misled I I think that it was as we communicate and we understand things your expertise is not contract law and so I appreciate Julie's perspective but I just wanted folks to understand why I would at was wanted this amendment to the motion to approve thank you for your clarification councilwoman pestor I have many questions first is to Julie so then this motion do we even need that type of motion I know we would like to add metrics to it and several things but mayor members of council um the tracking of metrics would be on the city Side um so that is certainly something that we would need to to add to ensure um to give direction to staff in regards to taking the vendor off of a qvl um again if the contract is terminated then we would not have a contract and we would not be able to use that vendor whether or not they remain on a list we would have to enter a new contract so I think the clarification is is fine but okay so then we're adding the clarifica the CL the motion is the clarification and then we're adding the metrics yes no mayor members of council that's my understanding of the motion and the friendly Amendment that's on the table right now okay what I want to say is uh Community Legal Service uh worked very closely with three council members on this dis during our uh how don't I want to say it during the time when uh people were being displaced from trailer homes and we worked very closely and I was in once a week if not twice a week meetings with CLS on helping those constituents get what was fair to them but also get the legal advice that they needed in order to either move a trailer sell a trailer move to another space all the things that we had to do and it was a very very heavy lift and each one of council members that was part of it nuances were different with each um trailer court but yet um Community Legal Services was was there for them along with the other nonprofit helping uh lead through that process so it sounds like there was a procurement Community Legal Service is the one that received it um and I have had in this process great experience with them now I do understand the back conversation that has been going around because I also heard and had Community call me regarding this um wanting metrics wanting pieces wanting a lot of different things we didn't add that when we were when we were in the process we didn't add we did it as we went and we were trying to figure out all the things that were were needing to be done because we were in a new space and time as to how we were operating so I think it's unfair that right now we're having this discussion when this was supposed when this is supposed to go to Community Legal Services and if there was an issue by St then staff should have been having the conversation with them and asking them do we have these metrics because we didn't ask for these metrics and we're asking for them now so my suggestion and I hope my colleagues vote for it is that then you add the metrics that you want in order to get the information that you need to know that it's effective thank you thank you councilman galinda Aira thank you mayor um I I I don't find an issue with um the motion the the amendment by um councilwoman or Brian or the family amendment by councilwoman heed Washington the additive language for metrics I think is important because as a person who's written grants for most of my life even if you write a $5,000 grants there are metrics there are outcomes that are required and if we're expending um the taxpayer dollar we should expect there to be metrics um for all of the things that we're doing to know whether it's failing succeeding I don't know which uh the name of the organization that um councilwoman Pastor who has worked diligently on this issue in the past I was not aware of that but what I am aware of the need to have this language we're when my first meeting as a councilman was a budget hearing and the number one item that was asked of that budget hearing was right to counsel um from people in in throughout the district so we want to ensure that this program succeed and it thrives but we also need to know the numbers because as we look at our budget going forward we may need to seek philanthropic support well if you're going to seek philanthropic support whether it's corporate or a foundation they're going to ask for numbers and if you can't provide numbers you can't provide those outcomes that's going to become a funding issue that will burden the City of Phoenix and ultimately harm um the individual seeking that assistance and um I think taxpayers want us to make sure that we're looking for Solutions and that we have the information to look for those Solutions especially for funding thank you councilman and coun woman or vice mayor Stark uh you were the seconder do you accept the friendly Amendment from councilwoman HUD Washington she does all right uh any and I guess one question I was a little surprised that we only had one applicant for this service we have a great team of public defenders who participate in our procurements and provide legal assistance to our community I would have guessed some of them might have wanted to participate or maybe some of our academic institutions who got this procur who did to whom did we send it thank you mayor um council members so um we did um some Outreach uh and uh there was one respondent to the RFQ we did re-release that um RFQ which will close on December 16th did um much more expansive Outreach to both educational institutions um other providers in the community as well um held uh two different sessions uh for pre-proposal conferences that did have more uh potential respondents uh show up at those pre-proposal conferences uh because uh we too hope that there will be multiple providers that we can work with uh to provide legal assistance in our community wonderful thank you and for folks who are watching the council at a recent council meeting unanimous ly approved significant funding to provide this assistance because we want people to find solutions that keep them housed all right one sorry councilwoman obrien I just have one clarifying question on the the data and I when councilwoman Pastor was asking about who could collect the data I believe someone said the city has to collect the data and guess I'm confused on how that will will work if we are referring a client or a citizen to um a vendor for services received our staff is no longer necessarily working with them so if can you explain that process to me Council councilwoman O'Brien mayor members of the council I'll jump in and I'll allow staff to clarify if my understanding is incorrect because we did speak about this a few weeks ago my understanding is knowing that you guys had wanted metrics our our intent was to include metrics in the final contract when we get there the metrics that we want want to collect that we can show you how the program has been effective or not effective but it is not on us to collect that data that data will be have will have to be collected by the vendor that is providing the service and that will be a condition of them actually receiving payment from my perspective it will be a reimbursement you don't get paid until you show us what we need okay so so the C the vendor will actually be collecting and providing the data and pro and then giving it to us so we can eval you all will evaluate it at one level but then city council will will get to see that data um as we go through the process okay I just wanted to clarify that thank you so much councilwoman H Washington thank you mayor and if I may I want to make sure I was my intentions were clear I have been a supporter of the right to counsel initiative from day one um having served as a lawyer understand the equal equalent balancing of power that comes when both sides are represented by Council my comments or request and metrics were based on prior communication when they presented to the economic development and housing subcommittee earlier this year where we went over some of the you know we went over what has occurred under the right to counsel thus far and one of the me we had significant conversation with the vendor at that time regarding um some of the outcomes and the concern was one of the concerns I had was um what is your level of success when it comes to monetary default versus non-monetary default because there has been some concerns raised about if it's a purely monetary default would the city be better off providing um assistance to those families in another way versus legal representation um there was also some questions I had regarding um the tracking of the outcome do we have any data that shows whether or not the cases were dismissed continued settled stayed and the service provider unfortunately said they did not have the ability they weren't really they said their success was greater than the data that they currently had showed so my goal in asking for the information is I wanted to have a more comprehensive picture of what is going on truly when it comes to the te program so that's what I'm asking for and I it it was not intended to seem that we don't keep data but I wanted us to keep a little more information such as understanding the average wait time for obtaining councel we know that the eviction process is a very expedited process and if we're and if individuals are not getting to the uh uh Council in in a speedy fashion are we really helping that person at that juncture I also want us to keep track of things such as like I said some of the more categories of favorable and unfavorable legal rulings um are we actually seeing this be part of the solution when it comes to reducing evictions Maricopa County as we all know has been has been seen a continuing increase in in evictions we I really just wanted us to become have more information so that we can address the underlying issue if it's not so I mean I'm biased I think the lawyer will solve everything but that's not accurate and I want to just make sure that we are using I I really do believe that we are fiduciary and I want to make sure that we are using our resources in a manner that provide the mess impact for those affected and we are using our city funds in a prudent manner so I would um so it was my understanding that it had to be specifically identified in our uh contract with the vendor as mentioned by city manager Barton and I just want to make sure that it's abundantly clear to any service provider that we want to understand the metrics we want to understand the data and we want to be able to to use this um many of my colleagues here we served on a kind of a tin tank session on the right to counsel and that's one of the things that is often missing and I want to make sure that Phoenix leads the conversation and ensuring that we do have the metrics to show whether or not this program works so those were the intentions of my comments so I thank you mayor for allowing me to explain myself thank you very helpful and I I I I really like the councilwoman suggestion that we also have client centered metrics how did the client feel the legal assistance went thank you roll call gind yes wado yes HJ Washington yes O'Brien yes Castor yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes goo yes passes 90 thank you we next go to two items related to the library 43 and 44 I'll turn to councilman wearing for a motion and comments thank you mayor I'd like to move approval of items 43 and 44 and make some brief comments after the second assuming there second second thank you uh for 43 uh the integrated Library System I assume this is sort of how the public interacts with the library plus also how the library moves books around I think that's probably the Layman's translation Aaron our chief Librarian Is nodding her head so I guess I'm right in that assumption I remember the days of going to the Westmont Public Library in Illinois using the card catalog and so things have come a long way um but I would say uh I'm a technophobe and this is an extremely usable system uh I know I've suggested a few tweaks here and there like maybe people watching at home didn't know if the library doesn't have a book you can either order it from some other Library around the country through inter Library loan or you can ask them to purchase it uh and if the vendor has it they can do that as well at your suggestion you do have to dig a little bit to find that on the website so I suggested maybe that should be on the facing page but don't blow up the whole website because otherwise it's very linear and I think very clear I find it very usable and it really takes away any excuse not to read because there are I don't know how many products you have but probably Millions I'm guessing uh so I just appreciate what they do and I I think it's been a fantastic system you can order books to have delivered so you can just go to One location and pick up five or whatever you need at a time uh you don't have to go pack if you don't want to uh the second thing uh which is a relatively newer Edition I assume Aaron that this is the listen to books on your phone system more or less all right yeah sure if that's not if that's not an accurate I'm gonna talk about it anyway but if you're going to tell me this isn't uh I'm close all right fantastic missed it by that much of media resources this one is for professional development Workforce Development so it's for all of the resources that would help get people prepared for certifications and tests and things like that so yes you're right it is a an edia resource it's a little bit different than the one that you use to listen to audiobooks but you're you know same idea that's a shame because the one I listen to auto books is fantastic but I'm too old for professional development even though I'm sure there are many things I could learn they're amazing to I will say for people who aren't familiar and I've gotten friends to use it now it is really uh no more CDs or I mean you could do that that way I suppose but um it's really fantastic that you can call up you know almost new books pretty much instantly and listen to them as you're out on a walk or whatever uh I think that's fantastic so sorry I was a little off course I wasn't totally sure which is why I asked but I appreciate what you guys are doing and uh mayor I will shut up now thank you excellent thank you any additional comments vice mayor I just want to say that councilman wearing is a huge advocate for the library and many times when I was shopping at Paradise Valley Mall I would see him walking in and out of mosquite Library you probably go there three times a week right Jim yep yes thank you for your advocacy wasn't always for me when my dad was alive I would pick up books for him but yes I'm still there probably two times a week for sure mayor who I'm sorry Council woman O'Brian sorry thank you I I would like to say yay everything they said this is incredible um it is wonderful to be ble to pick up books from wherever as well as have access to the online book so I'm thrilled with our library system and appreciate all the hard work that you do so I look forward to supporting this thank you thank you I also have used this system got to read all the wild robot books with my kiddo which we both very much enjoyed roll call Galindo yes yes hjj Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yes Robinson yes wearing after all that yes Stark yes goo yes passes 90 we next go to item 50 vice mayor I happily recommend approving item 50 Motion in a second councilman wearing mayor uh so this one I I love the program so definitely Pro tree I do have concerns I mentioned this a couple weeks ago about H how we're taking care of trees I see a lot of trees that are either in distress or are frankly dead um I just looked on my phone because I was curious because they're replanting now some trees that we had just planted and are already dead um September 1st 2022 was the last time or the first time I requested the trees on Greenway and then there's been subsequent ones it's two and a half years we planted trees in like the spr of 2022 they were dead 6 months later it's not a good look so it's been two and a half years I've been sitting there dead I probably mentioned it every couple months for the intervening 30 months um so I appreciate the fact that now it sounds like there is actually plan to replace them but a lot of those trees weren't dead when I first mentioned it and I was told oh they're just they're dormant or whatever well I don't know anything about trees but I know if you plant a whole bunch of the same trees and some of them are bright green and some are turning brown and then stay Brown for several years I'm stupid but I'm not that stupid they're probably dead so I I don't know we sent people out presumably and they looked at these trees that's concerning to me so if we have to spend less on planting new trees and more on Main training the trees that we have because I won't belabor the whole list but it's a pretty lengthy one of trees just around the roots that I drive and sort of the normal course of business I got 700 something miles of streets in my district so I'm not on all of them every day or every week but I do try to remember and then when I'm stopped appropriately text you know hey this location and um you know I did get curious I I didn't realize it had been quite that long but these are things I brought up a lot and I just think planting trees and then letting them die kind of undermines probably public confidence because everybody's seeing those trees that's the point they're out there on the big streets um undermines con confidence in the whole Enterprise you know so I would appreciate if we could focus on that I brought this up before um so I think the program is fantastic uh and for some others who have had trees planted I mean I see those I mean great locations really makes a huge difference but not if we allow the trees to to die so thank you may thank you we'll go to the vice mayor then Council woman HUD Washington thank you I share some of the same concerns that councilman wearing has and that's why I'm happy to uh make a motion to approve this because I think this will help solve some of those problems I've had a constituent who has a tree she backs up to uh Major Street and the tree has been planted I think three times and has died three times and there's just something going on and I I am very hopeful that this uh inventory system will help us get to some of the questions and frustrations that councilman wearing mentioned so very excited to uh Vote for This councilwoman Haj Washington and then councilwoman Pastor thank you mayor I I too share some of the same concerns as councilman councilman wearen in fact I raised some of those questions concerns when we were discussing the tree and shade plan um I appreciate the inventory that we're going to go but I think we also need to look into um an assessment with our vendor if we're getting our trees from outside vendor many times the vendors um I'm speaking from the HOA world when you replace a tree within a certain amount of time if it dies or it is found to be in a certain State they provide a tree War warranty or replacement and I think we need to figure out if there's anything else we can do to ensure that the city isn't just simply ping for replacement where it becomes more of a a responsibility of the actual vendor to upkeep the trees um it is definitely a shame for us when I see a tree that's that is dying when it looks like it's something based on lack of water or just not getting the right maintenance that we um that it should we it's again it's part of our responsibilities we should be making sure that we are using our resources as prudently as possible including ensuring the trees are protected so my comment is simply is there anything else we could we can look into to see there's anything else we can do to ensure that um that our vendors are incentivized to U maintain the trees versus just um versus just um Contracting for replacement thank you thank you and you're looking for a response to that or if they would if they think they can it would be helpful to know if there's anything in the contracts that could help us um if not just it's a consideration for as we move forward they don't know what to do we're trying to get someone up here to answer question specifically for you okay thank you uh good afternoon uh Council Pastor uh members of the city council I'm Scott cogin I'm deputy director with Parks uh for the forestry section is responsible for maintaining trees over 12 ft on uh the major streets and arterials when it comes to planting and maintaining those trees a lot of that is especially on the streets is done by the streets department um realistically when you see sections of that it's a lot of times it's a water issue or an irrigation issue so it's working with their inspectors who are going out and checking these areas and following up once you contract with a person to plant those trees there's a warranty if the tree fails due to poor planting um planted too deep those issues if it's a water issue it really is a City Maintenance issue making sure that those systems are functioning and in Parks when we plant a tree we make sure that there's irrigation brought to that tree because that's I agree with all of you the worst thing we can do is go out to one of our parks and plant 50 or 60 trees and see 20 or 30% of them not make it through the first year so does that answer your question it does answer part of my question my next question would be well what can we do differently to ensure we don't continue to see that um many times for example a constituent will call in and say there is uh clearly a a segment of the street where there's not where they're not getting water at the trees we encourage them to contact streets and and they do that and they don't get the result that they you know they don't get any response so what can we do differently to ensure that what process improvements would you recommend to ensure that this doesn't continue to happen mayor and uh Council that that is something that I've seen in the short three months that I've been there I get lots of questions about trees and how are maintaining them um I can commit to you that I'll go back to our team and look at how we're for um especially new plantings how we're going back and inspecting them and making sure that our inspectors have them on a more frequent inspection um route when they're first planted to make sure that that's happening and that they stay healthy I would truly appreciate that and I would also add that not just the new plant but when we do get concerns from a community indicating that there seems to be lack of water in an area that we have some process in place that allows um Department staff to go and inspect those and rectify them in a more expedient manner so thank you so much for that Scott I think just I think you wanted to respond to what the council I think that our our staff wanted to respond to the council men one of the things that we are seeing uh throughout the city and the department is over the last two summers the amount of heat that we've experienced and a lot of our trees are desert trees and they do extremely well but especially a lot of the older trees that you see downtown uh the Aleppo Pines and that which are Desert Pine trees but they were propagated here in the US and I've grew I've grown up here since 1967 and I've never seen heat like this I've never seen the sarro cactuses responding the way they do so a lot of what you're seeing the stress in that is heat related over water we're singing on our golf courses and our golf courses get watered daily in the summer so it's it a lot of it has to do with heat stress but yeah that is one of the major things and that's part of what this inventory is going to help us with is it is actually going to go out and give us a health assessment of every one of the trees in Parks streets and it City facilities so we actually know where we're at and then we can go along and address some of those issues thank you so much for the clarification thank you we'll go to councilman wearing and then Council P door uh so just a couple points so uh the ones on Thunderbird that I've called in there's a string of them uh I guess the waterline was cut so those trees never had a chance I I would strongly encourage the same way I've talked about graffiti and shopping carts and so forth if you're in a City truck and you drive by trees that are turning brown could you let somebody know does it really have to be just one of the nine of us it just seems like you're driving right by it you can't help but see it and it's not a good look to have like six seven eight trees now the list they gave me had six I think it's a lot more than that that are dead up there but any case they can well I don't know when I called that in but I bet it's been a year and they're still sitting out there dead so I guess maybe we couldn't replace the trees I hope we fix the water line for the ones on Greenway I don't think they could have been there six months so maybe I missed it maybe you said how long the warranties are this has come up with streets in terms of actual streets too where I think think it's a year citizens complain they don't think the road is done right and then yada yada Y and all of a sudden it's out of warranty now I've also had it where it's been within warranty and the contractors had to go out and fix it but I I bet some of these trees they were still within warranty when I complained and then nothing was done and now I we're probably going to have to pay for it and there'll be fewer trees to put somewhere else so I don't know how it's been with the rest of the guys maybe but I'm looking at my text I went to the oldest one September verse 2022 I know there are a ton more in there if I go look um you know the person I was texting as the former streets director is not here anymore but I I would appreciate some sort of rapid response if we're going to spend this kind of money on this that we're doing otherwise don't do it if you came to my yard and planted a tree and then let it die I'd look at that is blight not some sort of favor so and and then the list I have just on my phone right now is a lot of trees so yeah the ones that are out there are great they've definitely helped so it kind of Blends in but we we got to spend money for a positive not a negative so um we got to make sure the water lines are maintained I hope you guys are checking those and again I don't know how somebody didn't notice wow that's a whole row of brand new trees that's turning brown and then I mention it nothing happened so um it's a little frustrating so hopefully we'll do better um spending up money on this thank you mayor thank you we'll go to councilwoman pestor and then I have a question related to a counsilman wearing scent hi um I'm just going to go down memory lane about trees uh since wearing and I are probably the the veterans at this point and the mayor and um I'm going to go down memory lane I sat on uh I can't even remember the committee but parks and education and a bunch of things when I first got elect and trees was on there and what happened is Parks maintained all the trees in our city and Parks decided and my what I thought then is happening now um Parks decided that they could no longer maintain all the trees in the city so they decided that all those position that were in Parks should be over to Transportation because they felt maybe Transportation had some knowledge on trees um the positions that were remaining there would be remaining for the parks and uh the areas of the of those areas and they were going to split some duties so these positions moved all the way to transportation and so Transportation assumed those positions I was told then we know what we're doing we know because I had I worried then it went into uh Transportation then what happened is we started making the complaints and trees were dying I worked with a group that worked with the contractors and there a specific language that is supposed to be in the contractor's language regarding um preserving the tree regarding metrics of how they were uh butchering the tree it really killing the tree how they had to tell us where uh the water was cut or where there was lack of water a number of things and I'm not sure where that uh all that work that went into it was a a multi-discipline work Karen Peters was leading the charge at the time and it was supposed to be written in the RFP in the contract so I am now wanting to ask staff or the city manager to uh help me find all that information and see where the ball dropped if it has dropped or it's continuing um but down Central uh there's a group of people since I ventured that has stated please replace our trees please replace our trees those trees haven't been replaced it's been almost 20 years because Light Rail came in there and none of those trees have been replaced I do know that I did take a tour down that from mcdal all the way up to Camelback and uh those people have now since retired to inventory the that area and inventory where they need to put the water back so I guess I'm I'm putting the history down and putting it on record so that the future knows but most importantly we know what we're supposed to do this inventory will help I'm not sure if I think we have more than 106,000 trees so I don't know why it's only 106,000 trees and I don't think 600,000 is going to get us to where we need to get to on the inventory so I really want to make a bigger effort in looking at this and understanding that we do have a a we need shade we need trees we need people and to engage but how do we get our our pieces together and really collaborate and make it happen so that you're not in front of us again and you're getting the same lecture of years and years of frustration um so I'm appreciative of really building this inventory uh because I had this uh conversation with andula and saying okay we need to really know where our trees are we really need to understand we were working on that in the past I'm not sure where it broke down and he's like yes yes we're we're we're moving ahead on that um but you guys have a huge responsibility because you're hearing from all of us stating we're putting a lot of money in here and we're seeing them either die wither away could be heat I agree with you on the heat CU my poor orange tree is dying um but how do we solve that and so um this will pass but I think you have a bigger conversation and Collective to discuss how do we maintain all of this so thank you for what you have done and thank you for to listening to us but you hear our frustration this item will include assessment and inventory and some health tracking we also have some new technology tools that we've been previously done so will you just maybe give us a brief summary of how we're trying to learn and do better mayor member of the council what this will do so 2014 the original gave us a tree assessment and it also gave us places where trees were missing so that allowed us to replant throughout that what this will do is actually give us a new assessment a lot of the work Dr hondula has done with lar and that is great but it does not necessarily give us the health of the tree it doesn't give us the health of the urban Forest that the city manages this will do that the other part is the people who are planting the trees the forestry section in parks and the people in streets are contractors there will be an app where they'll be able actually be able to update the inventory at that time when a tree is removed because of a car accident or or or it has died and it has to be removed they're able to actively update the inventory Council woman pestor you were correct we that is an estimate um we lost our tree inventory access in 2019 and that's why we've been working to gain that back and we've been planting trees and Street has so this will give us a very good accurate depiction of how many trees we have so what it's going to do is it's going to give us kind of a starting point to be able to look at where we're at and then manage it there's no additional cost to this uh under the previous one there was a $8,000 a year maintenance fee so we'll be able to maintain this inhouse it will be housed within the contractor's uh system but we will have access to it great and then councilman wearing suggested other city employees who are driving throughout the city Maybe help us stay updated on the tree Health if if a resident or city employee sees a tree that needs some attention what should they do yes and and again you can count you can contact the Council Office you can contact the streets department you can contact Parks we work together again streets maintains anything below 12 feet so the newly planted trees are within the contractual responsibility of the Street Maintenance contractors and anything over 12T belongs to the forestry section of the parks department because we have the aerial equipment to take care of that but yeah we we work together uh we're talking with streets they reach out uh almost on a daily basis uh we work with their Hot Shots the storm response all of that is done in conjunction with the streets department and maybe for streets what is the best way to let the streets department know mayor and Council um we have a couple different ways obviously we have have a a hotline that you can call and report things we have a website and then I believe my 311 also has the ability to take that information in great okay so we're trying to do better um we have quite a queue but we'll go quickly back to councilman wearing then councilman O'Brien then councilman Glenda then councilwoman guado thank you for your patience I'd lie to you and say I'm not trying to beat it to death I'm kind of trying to beat it to death I do have to take a little bit of issue Scott I mean honestly you just said call your councel office well I'm in the Council Office first time I complained about the Thunderbird trees May 1st 2023 it's been a year and a half what I can't do is have you guys put out there oh call the hotline call your Council Office so they call me and I can't get it done I can't seem to get it done for myself so what make me think this is going to be any different and then I just look like a jerk I can do that just by using my own personality I don't need like intermediaries so you didn't have to nod so aister said it's all right I no okay I'll take it but I mean at some point it actually needs to work like that or I'd rather have you not plant the trees so I'm sorry to get a little heated but I mean September 1st 2022 May 1st 2023 what would I tell a constituent they'd be they they'll give up I've had these experiences they're no fun because you just look like a dummy I'm talking about me I don't like that so I mean we are going to actually go out and take care of this right I mean in some kind of it's got to be some kind of timely fashion I get that some days are not as good to plant trees as others as my father said sometimes when the tree dies it's the trees fault I understand that but then we need to replace it and try to do it when it's under warranty if possible thank you sorry mayor thank you we'll go to councilwoman O'Brien and then councilman gindel arera um thank you mayor I just I want to understand or make sure I understood what was said if it's under 12 feet streets handles it no matter where it is um uh yes M uh mayor members of the council councilwoman O'Brien uh our forestry team which is housed within the parks department takes care of all trees in parks and then trees that are in uh the medians or the public RightWay with canopies that are 12 feet or higher are managed by a contract that's managed by the streets department so all the trees in the Parks belong to the parks department correct everything under [Music] 12T along the streets and in the medians and everything is belongs to streets is that correct sorry and over 12 feet everywhere belongs to Parks yes that's correct councilwoman O'Brien and it speaks to I think the comments from councilwoman Pastor um when years ago there were efforts to try to allow the parks department to really focus on trees in parks and that's when that shift occurred to move to contra in out uh some of those Services of trees in the streets and right of ways okay and and when we say streets department we mean contracts that are managed by the streets department that's correct okay thank you for clarifying all that um I'm going to tell you from the moment that we started talking about the the tree and shade plan especially the tree part of that plan one of my concerns and I support trees and shade please don't anybody think otherwise um one of my concerns though is the operations and maintenance and I and I don't know how long ago we started that plan but I know that no one yet still can tell me what it costs to operate and maintain or shouldn't say operate I guess maintain water I guess there is Operation to it you got to water it and do all the take care of it no one has yet provided me a cost so if we plant 10 trees and we know there's a cost to that no one can tell me in order to keep these 10 trees alive for whatever their expected lifetime would be this is what we should be adding to our budget I'm looking out after Amber and Jeff right because if I just like with streets if we build streets we know that from that point on we have to operate and maintain them and I'm assuming we know roughly what that cost on an annual basis so that we can add it into our budget so I'm I'm a little frustrated that that we still don't have that number I don't know why so I'm going to ask for that number from all of you or from one of you doesn't have to be all of you but somebody could get back to us on that I would appreciate that um how long will it take to make sure the inventory program is up to date with all of our trees councilman O'Brien uh members of city council are they're estimating six to nine months to complete the tree inventory once uh they receive the notice to proceed and the everything's been approved okay and then I'd like to um go back to a comment you made about the system that we're um voting on right now you said that it is the contractor system that we will have access to so I want to clarify it will not be on our it will not be a software program that's downloaded to the the city's Brien that is correct that that is that is what the previous tree inventory was uh the same and how long are we going with the same no ma'am this is a change to a different compy a change to so we have not been in the old system you said something about we've been cut out of that system since 2019 we uh Council O'Brien we attempted to work with the previous vendor um but we were not able to resolve some issues with our contract that our Law Department helped us with and ultimately when we did resolve those issues it was more than twice the price of this vendor which was part of the factors that went into going forward with this vendor instead I'm going to pray that no one up here at the dis throws anything at me or from you all because what I'm going to say is I have concerns that we are again um looking at Contracting with the system that will have our information on it that we will not own own we will not actually own and control that system so if this company I I guess I'm not going to say make the statement I'm going to ask the question if this company goes Belly Up in a year and they shut down their system where's my tree inventory yeah mayor councilwoman O'Brien members of the council we would have access to that up until that point which means we would then become responsible for updating it again ourselves right but where would you update it because we don't have the software program correct I believe that there that some of that though is downloadable information so we We There is a system that lives with them but we have access to download that into tracking into not software but documents that we would still have the data that we need but we would become responsible for tracking it within the format that we download it but that I understand where you're going and that is something we can certainly work with our its department on to see if there's an alternative way uh to move forward with it so we can download this information on a daily basis if we want or monthly or whatever you all decide would be advantageous I would because I am concerned about doing all this work and um ending up with nothing again and having to start over from scratch so um I would hope that we would ensure that there is policy on the city side that we are downloading this in an appropriate um time frames whatever the yell week L monthly so that we don't lose this information and that I would also ask that we look at a system that we can have um thank you very much mayor thank you councilman Glendo ala is next but Council Pastor has software question so why don't we you want to do that now okay councilmen thank you mayor so the current tree mortality rate in Phoenix is 4.2% will the inventory be able to tell us what the City of Phoenix tree mortality rate is the conclusion of the study uh mayor members of the council councilman galinda ala uh they will be able to tell us that moving forward so they will be able to we'll get our Baseline information if you will and then once that tracking begins we'll absolutely be able to see what that mortality rate is based on the information that's being uploaded um and monitored so yes um and will then will they also be able to within our inventory um specify or tell us what type of trees have the best survivability rate um whether it's regionally within the City of Phoenix or overall uh Council M Gand elvita that's a great question and so with that data we'll be able to run reports and to get exactly that type of information we have some information on how on tree survival I think in our environment now but that'll help drill down more on that and so we've talked a lot about trees but what about the ground um the dirt the soil if it's not adequate to meet the needs to pair with the tree will be be able to track that to know maybe that's not a good area to have um tree planting um to alleviate some of the concerns expressed by members of the council yes councilman we envision being able to note um to put notes in the system that comment and we do that all the time now we identify areas that just where trees haven't been successful we also have areas in parks to your point um especially over at H Park where soil depths are an issue so those are things that will be able to put notes in and see that excellent thank you councilwoman gado thank you mayor so as everyone knows I'm a huge advocate when it comes to trees I think in District 5 we've done hundreds and hundreds of trees already um but I guess my question Cynthia to you is I mean we're talking about all this data all this information that we're going to get and know where we can plant trees where the trees are dead but you know we say we contract out some of these contracts but who is going to maintain all this new information like who how many people do we have to go take out a dead tree so it doesn't take three years before we get to it you know how do we maintain those trees how do we make sure that we have enough water like who who does all that work cuz it's great to have this contract and I'm supportive of the contract but who's going to go out and do you know I mean the Manpower do we have enough manpower to really maintain because I know that we've planted th thousands of trees at this point um for the last couple of years and to me it sounds like it's more a Manpower issue that we have um not I don't want to speak for you um or for or for anyone else up up there but what what is the the real issue yes mayor members of the council Council W guardado that's also a great question we um we have limited resources is which is you know what contributes to the some of the challenges in terms of Maintenance of of trees Scott oversees our forestry team um with the mayor and city council support you all have helped us um restore the number of Forestry teams or units within that division to help us but as we continue to grow we will continue to need to submit supplemental requests um to ask for additional teams to maintain our Urban growing Forest so we have what we need now and that's something that we'll continue to work towards and coming up with uh a model if you will that once we hit a next threshold of a number of trees in the urban Forest that that's going to be the Tipping Point where we need to ask for another team uh which is five different types of positions really of urban forestry techs and equipment operators that go out that many of you have seen you know are responsible for planting and maintaining these trees So within the park system and the trees that we're you know we're responsible for uh we currently have forestry teams we have Gardener Gardener sprinkler assigned position that all play a role in the maintenance and survival of these trees I know I don't want to speak for streets totally but they have um contractors that perform similar duties for the trees that they're responsible for but Staffing levels is critical and that'll be something we have to monitor and determine when we need to seek additional positions on our team to properly maintain those and I guess that's also a question for you Brady how how often do we get reports from these companies do we need more people um in IND the street department as well mayor and Council that's a great question and while I'm not an expert in this area yet um we are working through what that looks like um we do have a small team that we deploy to go out and look at these things and report back what they see um and then we're working with our vendor to then go and replace the trees in the right planting time so it's definitely something I'll look at more closely to see what we can get from a reporting perspective from them thank you well again I think you guys are doing an amazing job I think it's hard for you guys to do your job you know to our standards right and to do what we ask you guys to do when you guys don't have enough Staffing to be able to get the work done but I think you guys for all of the work that you guys do Jeff I think that you know we need to talk to Amber and figure out how do we and I know we have a lot of shortages coming up with with our budget and there's very difficult conversations that are are going to be coming up in this new year in terms of how do we maintain our budget but as we continue to plan more trees and we want to maintain them we do have to figure out how do we add in more money in the budget or what is it that we need to do as a console to be able to continue um to provide this this amazing service that our neighborhoods have been asking for at least in District 5 I think it's been very helpful to continue to plant trees to deal with all of the heat islands that we have in the west side and I know there's a lot of other districts that have this issue so I do think that would also be a good idea to maybe even consolidate this in just one department just because I think it's crazy that it's being ran in three different or maybe even four different departments on how we maintain trees so I would recommend that in the future we we have a conversation just about that and how is it that we become more efficient I agree with my colleagues that we're going to be spending this type of money um to continue to plant trees we got to be efficient and I'm supportive of this item but I think we it I think this we need a bigger conversation in terms of how do we maintain them what do we need to do to you know deal with all the frustrations that everyone is talking about here but I I think that you know it's it's more of a budget issue and I know the money is not there so we just have to figure out a different way on how we get that money to continue to run these programs thank you may here thank you Council just to be clear what you're suggesting you're fine if the parks department runs Parks trees and the streets department does trees in the streets but for our residents we want one place they could go for yeah they should have a place where they can right because it's not realistic where is that a 12 foot three 12 foot tree or a we're having I mean I'm today now learning who maintains wet trees cuz sometimes I'm calling Cynthia sometimes I'm calling Brady sometimes I'm calling Lori I'm calling different Dr hula I'm like okay who should be really in charge of M of really um maintaining all of our trees and at some point we should come up with a plan on how do we do that all right for those who couldn't hear him councilman Glenda ala suggested a tree are but um we're laughing but I do think for our residents having one place to go for trees and that person can be knowledgeable about who manages which contract um but I think that'll make life easier we are passionate about trees here and it's one of the top requests we do get from our residents it's a way they feel they can make their communities more comfortable enhanced property values and we're we've been pretty ambitious this is the first city in the country to sign American Forest tree Equity pledge saying that we want to plant trees in the areas of our city that need it most we're really national leaders on this and today will'll be an important vote coming forward the shade master plan which we unanimously approved was an important vote so we're using technology as well as investing in more trees and that's a great success for our community but we're going to keep learning I think councilwoman pestor had a software question I have a two questions one will will you be documenting uh the dead trees currently Council s members of the council yes we can request that the vendor when they go out and do the inventory will document dead trees or missing trees so as as starting when we start the contract as today and we we have been tracking tree loss this year because part of our part of the shade Phoenix plan is to replace all trees that are lost in parks and an additional 20% on top of that so that's part of our part of the shade Phoenix plan so yes we do track tree loss as part of the tree City USA we track tree loss in streets and parks and have to report that information okay cuz I heard you say in Parks we're tracking it now I'm going to Brandy to say what are we tracking in the other other side of the world yes mayor council um yes we are tracking that as well so are you then using the same software and tracking or two Silo uh pieces Council woman pastor we track the tree loss the information is then given us and we are giving that to Laura Martins who is essentially the tree Zar Zar yeah Scott are you sure you're not the tree Zar no I am not um and when this inventory is completed the Tre inventory will move under Laura Martins with Dr hul and Dr Hula's office and so she will be the manager and we will be streets and parks will be supplying information and data to her on tree plantings and tree loss so yes we are tracking that and gungin the forestry supervisor collects that information from Parks and I don't know if Eric is giving that to streets or he gives it to go uh and then we Supply that to Laura Martins as part of uh the tree City USA Data that is collected so it is then being centralized that's what it sounds like yes ma'am okay my second question is really about the software um are we we purchasing the software or are we uh purchasing the use of the software how does this work the the contractor has the software okay already so they we would utilize their software we would input our data through a website into their software okay so I'm going to agree with councilwoman O'Brien I have issues with that and the reason why I have issues with that is that that is our material or our information that we're giving or we're using a contractor's software and just like it happened in the past when we no longer are in line with the contractor or the contract has expired and it's too expensive to renew it we no longer have the data we we should somehow figure out through our it or programming to program a software that is our software to be able then to enter our own data and have the rights to it so I don't know if that's possible but you're asking us to vote on this today and I'm saying I'm saying can we look at this and see if it's better off doing our own stuff mayor members of the council I think what what staff is describing is that we have a use license with a vendor that provides a software service to us that we have the opportunity to download data out of what I can do is we can work with it to see if there's a way for us to replicate some sort of a database or some sort of system that has some sort of an interface with the software that is being utilized by the vendor so that we then have that information if we do part ways or that company goes out of business but we'll I'll work with we'll have it work and take a look at that and see what we have we also as you know we're exploring an asset management system for our Citywide inventory of assets to me what the way I hear you passionately talking about trees it's another one of our assets so there may be an opportunity for us to incorporate some of this information into that as well but we'll explore what the options are so we're going to explore we'll pass this and you'll explore because I want to be able to have this data correct I think you can pass this knowing that we have to start somewhere and that's what this really is giving us that Baseline and the opportunity to inventory what we have but at the same time we will work with our internal it Department to see what a solution could be for us that if that day comes when we want to separate how can we make sure that we're not left without the data that we need thank you thank you so I think we want to be able to download it in a form we can still use if this software is not available and just to go back to earlier comment I think our tree administrator in the office of heat response and mitigation already has a very full job so I'm not sure she should be the one dispatching different maintenance depending on where it is and helping track trees but I think we want there to be just one place for our residents and city employees who are not directly responsible for trees to go to help us maintain this important asset for folks who are watching and wondering why we're spending so much time on this uh we have an ambitious goal to plant 27,00 th000 trees in the next five years we unanimously approved a shade plan that includes tens of millions of dollars in investment so it's good that we're paying attention and making sure we do the best possible job with your assets uh we have heard from our residents they would like us to do what we can to make the city more comfortable particularly in hotter times and trees are a really important tool in addition to helping with property values and creating safer places so little bit of cont text on that I think we are ready for roll call gind yes one yes hjj Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yes Robinson yes wearing Stark yes goo yes passes 90 and I'm sorry I should have noted Mike Norton was available to speak if necessary on that item thank you for being available to speak if necessary uh what is it next is 57 all right uh vice mayor do we have a motion I move to approve item 57 second excellent so 57 is our intergovernmental agreement with the City of Tempe uh this morning Tempe mayor Corey Woods delivered his state of the city address he announced that the Tempe City city council had unanimously approved an agreement with the uh City to end our legal conflict over the residential development within Sky Harbor's airspace Sky Harbor is our top economic engine in the city and state contributing 44 billion to our economy every single year we have long had an intergovernmental agreement with Tempe since 1994 to protect Sky Harbor and to make sure we Safeguard Tempe residents in impacted by noise and overflights as some of you may be aware we've had different interpretations over the terms in this agreement we were considering legal action and I am thrilled that we have avoided that I am proud to report that thanks to good faith negotiations we have a compromise between our cities I want to thank mayor Woods who spent a lot of time meeting with me and and working on this but um our real heroes on this are city manager Je Barton and Aviation director Chad makovsky with our great legal team uh thank you to our Tempe city manager as well as Phoenix Aviation Advisory Board and member Andrew con and to my colleagues who spent a lot of time on this want to thank everyone who stepped in to reach an agreement this agreement which is being memorialized as a formal Amendment to the original IGA will ensure that our incredible airport will continue to improve passenger experience through significant Capital Investments expanded travel options and growth that will benefit all of us we're also working very hard to protect Tempe residents particularly new residents in development that hasn't happened who would might be surprised by noise impacts so um Jeff you spent a lot of time on this with Chad do you do you want to say any words mayor I couldn't say it much better than what you've already said the the only thing I would add is again this has been a very long process as you know I want to thank you and and the council for your patience as we've negotiated this because it wasn't easy as you know we've had many bites at the Apple but I think where we landed because of Chad's diligence and the and the hard work of his team and the creativity of his team we positioned ourselves in a position where the City of Phoenix and Tempe are both protected and we've we protected that economic engine that you talked about which is the Sky Harbor airport so again I just want to thank everyone for their involvement and I think we are in a better place today and will be in the future as a result of this IGA wonderful and Chad could you wave could we do a round of applause for Chad and Jeff and again thank you to our legal team any additional comments councilwoman O'Brien then councilwoman HUD Washington I also I actually wish we would make Chad come up to the table so we could see him um because this was not for the faint of heart um and I think that it is I had an opportunity to be with some other elected officials recently um and they found it quite surprising that that Phoenix owns their airport so this is an um a jewel in our city it's an economic engine and to protect it um was Paramount not just for um the airport itself but for the entire city and it is also one of the few places where you can fly in and then be um in our city uh you don't have to drive 30 or 45 or 60 minutes to get where you're going That's Unique as I've traveled a little bit more um recently than I might have liked so thank you so much to City management um you know Jeff and Chad and Julie and the mayor as well um to our counterparts and and Tempe who approved this um IGA recently I'm so grateful we didn't have to go down the the legal route as well but I it cannot be I'm said enough that you know Chad really did a lot of work on this as well as city manager Barton and we um very much are in debt to you so thank you for all that work councilwoman H Washington thank you mayor I also wanted to Echo gratitude to everyone involved in this process thank you to Jeff thank you to Chad thank you to Julie thank you to everyone who was involved um as we all know the Sky Harbor airport is an important part of what makes the city and the state tick and you guys do a very good job to ensure that we continue to have a first class experience I'm grateful to see that we were able to resolve this shy of litigation um it shows that despite right we when there are disputes we are able to sit down and actually come up with practical Solutions I'm grateful to see that this allows us to continue to um further and expand our airport while ensuring proper development is surround surrounds us so it's a win-win and I just also wanted to express my gratitude to everyone involved especially the legal team you guys don't get a lot of shout outs but you guys did a phenomenal job on this one so thank you councilwoman gado thank you mayor as well thank you so much Chad I think our airport is in great hands with you just the way that you handled the situation and everything that you did and the briefings and all the work that you did I think our airport is in great hands with you and I love to see how much you love the airport and it is our economic engine here in the city of Phoenix so I'm grateful to you for all of your hard work that you did on that on that project um also I think it's a dynamic dual between you and Jeff Jeff thank you again as well for all of your hard work as well our city is in great hands with you and our airport is in great hands with you Chad so thank you guys so much for everything that you guys did thank you councilwoman Pastor I'm just going to say another shout out to Phoenix and our strong team so thank you thank you any additional comments oh we do uh Diane Barker good afternoon mayor and Council and to district 7 I'm Diane Barker I live in this area have been in the valley three decades I'm glad to see that the law department is making a um settlement I do so so see that everybody's excited about protecting an economic make um treasure I was a navigator at the airport and so I am to know about it however I'm looking at the future and I was at mag where our mayor was there and I know she's a sustainability and I want to bring this up to you the north Runway sits on polluted groundwater the ep8 was down here last month and they're cleaning up three decades of litigation to clean the plume from the semiconductor spill that's happened and it goes all the way from mcdal down to like about Buckeye clear way over to 7th Avenue uh right now I agree with the mayor you know it's not groundwater is not surface so we're drinking uh probably fairly safe water but we have to look in the future also the EPA is looking at di if you could connect this to airport noise that would be fabulous okay yeah I'll put that the pollution and thank you because when I came here in the 70s my father had been a pilot and Air Force and he said you know temp is complaining about the noise the airport was there before the people so to that point mayor is that Tempe and so we don't have even more litigation the people that are going to be buying the rest residences or the apartments need to have disclaimer that there is noise they live next to that and I'd like to see that we clean up our pollution thank you so much roll call Galindo yes wado yes hjj Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes okay yes pass is 90 both councils Tempe and Phoenix have unanimously approved our agreement to protect our cities and Sky Harbor congratulations we next move to District three to item 73 which is 13th Place in cinear vice mayor I move to approve the application and adopt the related ordinance second we have a motion in a second we have one comment from Julia tager thank you city council this has been 45 years in the making um maryan Blake is the current owner of the rock garden she owned it uh in 1980 in 1979 there was a survey done and the city said it could have been possibly eligible but parts of it were not 50 years old at the time so for the past 45 years she has been collecting petition signatures you guys actually have 200 pages of signatures in your files um to try and get a historic status I met her last January and we started the process in the forms um and now finally with this meeting and your approval it will be historic uh it turns 70 years old this year it was built in 1954 by Grover Cleveland Thompson he was inspired by the Peterson Rock Garden in Oregon uh the City of Phoenix used to have many Rock Gardens they were a folk art environment instead of having a grass lawn you would have a very beautiful display of Art and rock and tile what ever you would want to design as of now we only have two left um the other one does not want to get historic status at this point so this will be the only one in the city with historic status we are also going to try for the national register we put in our application and if we do get on the national register we are the only one in the state on the national register as well so if Marian had not bought it and tried for the past 45 years to get it historic status I do not think we would have it anymore she's tried for the past 45 years and now she finally has it um I I know January 1st is going to be a big celebration with the community you are all invited um to just celebrate the rock garden and celebrate Grover's birthday and this big accomplishment for the City of Phoenix uh I know I sent in all the information for you guys to read about it uh so just thank you guys for approving this and for reading about the garden I know it means a lot to maryan it means a lot to Sunny Slope it means a lot to me um to finally have this done after 45 years of waiting and thank you Maran for trusting a 24 year-old to say that they would get you historic status after 45 years thank you mayor I just want to thank Julie for all her hard work on this uh project it is quite a delight in Sunny Slope and now she's helping me with Thunderbird High School we're going to try to make the tea historic uh Julia and vice mayor congratulations to both of you and I when Julia speaks I often learn something new as I I did today so thank you roll call gind yes marado yes hjj Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor save our history yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes G yes pass is nine z we next go to item 75 related to the downtown code thank you to the planning department on this and our partners at DPI and PCA for the very hard work to get where we are today and I believe we do let me just check if we have a staff report on this one we have a short staff presentation on this one so I will welcome our planning and development director Josh berar thank you mayor for the introduction uh with me today is Trisha goes our deputy director over Planning and Zoning I want to give Trisha and christop pero a lot of credit for this effort I appreciate uh the support from PCA and DPI Trisha can go quickly through an overview of the text Amendment and happy to answer any questions thank you mayor members of the council so yes item 75 is the - ta- 5-22 d 4-7-8 a request to amend chapter 12 the downtown code um And to clarify how or sorry and amend various sections of the Phoenix zoning Orin to clarify how other sections interact with chapter 12 changes to the downtown code were done in Partnership as U Mr bedar mentioned Phoenix Community Alliance and uh Downtown Phoenix Inc to streamline the development process within the downtown code such as clarifying the design review and and appeal processes enhance Frontage elements for New Uses and autonomous vehicles for example Grand entry and passenger loading zones strengthen requirements for active and shaded shaded Street frontages and pro promote utilization of art in public in private development there was a significant stakeholder input over a 2-year period in collaboration um with PCA downtown voices the design standards committee the Encanto and Central City Village planning committees and with that the Encanto Village planning committee recommended approval per the staff recommendation by a vote of 9 to1 and the Central City Village planning committee recommended approval per the staff recommendation by a vote of 12 to Zer the Planning Commission recommended approval per the staff recommendation in addendum a I vot of 9 to zero and staff recommends approval per the memo no dated November 27th from the PDD director and adopt the related ordinance happy to answer any questions questions jokes about trees and shade in this component right we'll open the public hearing we have Patrick here to uh speak on this item and then EDB and Madison available to speak if necessary uh good afternoon mayor guo try uh good afternoon mayor Geo vice mayor Stark and members of council uh thank you for the opportunity to speak today uh my name is patch McDaniel I'm the advocacy director for Phoenix committee Alliance I'm here today speaking on behalf of our board of directors on our Central City Planning and Development Committee our multimodal connectivity committee as well as our Arts culture and public life committee um I would just really like to reiterate and express our support for the changes that are outlined to the chapter 12 text amendments it's been 14 years since the original downtown code was implemented A lot's happened in those 14 years um we are looking at an increase in residents that's increasing every year we're looking at um we we have increased Transit options for downtown we have an we have a retail um base that's in uh becoming increasingly strong year after year and we also have a uh thriving institutions of higher education as downtown changes so too must so to much of the codes that govern it um these these proposed changes um which may seem kind of minor um really help to streamline the development process for example um changes to loading and unloading zones can lead to less traffic change clarifications about Frontage and Landscape can lead to a better pedestrian experience changes to appeals process is a revised appeals process lead to less difficulties in development and ultimately better development in downtown so and once again is the these may seem like minor things but these are small changes that radiate outwards and have a big impact on our daily experience in downtown um I really like to express our thanks and gratitude to director benic and his staff especially Chris too for meeting with our working groups um multiple times as we as we discussed these impacts with a group of season development professionals and also um thank you for including language that includes art and private development um it's small things like this that make us that make a downtown a place that people want to come to and a place that Ely will attract the best and brightest of Phoenix so once again thank you for the opportunity to speak today and thank you for these changes these will definitely help make our downtown a better place for everybody thank you thank you edin Madison are we good excellent great speech we'll close the public hearing vice mayor thank you um I'm very excited about this because I was a planning director when we originally approved um the downtown cone I moved to approve the November 27th 2024 Memo from the planning and development director and adopt the related ordinance second thank you any comments roll call gind yes wado yes hjge Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yeah Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes goo yes passes 90 we next have three related items we will have one public hearing and then three votes uh we will understand that we don't have any opening comments so I'm going to open the public hearing we will begin with Geraldine followed by Suzanne followed by Jim J and Geraldine okay Geraldine is here is that right if you are Geraldine could you wave Geraldine had to leave thank you okay uh Geraldine was in support uh Suzanne is next in opposition followed by Jim Farley in support okay if you are Suzanne could you wave Suzanne okay thank you thanks mayor and members of the commission uh last year uh this change from uh residential zoning to commercial zoning uh was not passed by the Desert View planning committee and so it was sent to the Planning Commission and they did not vote on it they sent it back to vestar the um Desert Ridge de developer to come back with a plan for this year and um during that time they scheduled uh the meeting again with Desert View planning committee during a fall break and I think because it was sent back a lot of the community lost hope because the majority did not want this zone change from residential that's the the history um in this intersection where this zone change they're asking uh there's three communities there's Sky Crossing Aviano and Fireside uh and some of those communities have very small Lots so putting commercial there will degrade the property values right now it has a Scottdale North Phoenix atmosphere and I'm afraid with a commercial right there it's uh going to make it more city-like um also at this intersection it's right where the 51 exits and enters onto Black Mountain Boulevard and then the very first major street is which is at the intersection is De Valley so you've got huge congestion bottleneck there and you've got the high school which is the first Pinnacle High School which is the first driveway and I think when the 51 was decided to exit there they were promised a bigger parking lot but it doesn't exist so right now you've got 2700 students 700 are new drivers 2,000 are parents picking up their children it's a huge I need to stop right that's huge traffic congestion and potential with a shopping center they're right bordering the high school thank you uh next we have a Jim followed by Eileen good afternoon mayor councel um I'm Jim Farley a resident of Sky Crossing adjacent to the propos shopping center first thing I want to say is if you if you look at just all the attachments and the letters attached to this um it gives the impression that there's overwhelming Community opposition to this but all those letters were uh written in 2023 before vestar made some uh important changes to this plan um so if you were at the Village planning committee you would know that there's actually overwhelming community support for this Shopping Center my wife Patty and I are very much in favor the center is needed and will be an enhancement to the the community of Sky crossing the current closest shopping center is Desert Ridge Marketplace it is already at capacity and will'll only get worse with the new homes currently being built nearby anyone who goes there on a weekend afternoon especially during the holidays especially after the snowbirds are back experiences just how uh crowded it is as to the opposition due to traffic frankly traffic is coming to this intersection whether this is built or not Black Mountain and Deer Valley are major arterials that are eventually uh being expanded to the north and to the east um North Phoenix is growing it's just a fact there will be traffic well this shopping while this Shopping Center in our neighborhood will enhance our quality of life more homes will not please approve it today thank you thank you Eileen is next followed by Nathan my wife I is a little shy so we're both gonna talk two for one either way we've been living in Sky Crossing for three years we find this can you stand closer to the mic sir so we can hear you thank you okay sorry about that uh we've been living in Sky Crossing for the last three years so we've been following the vestar project for the the last two years at first we did have questions about it we were concerned about a gas station we concerned about the size of the supermarket after talking with vestar we were most impressed that they listened to the community they had number of meetings with all the residents of the three subdivisions and they made changes they got rid of the gas stations they got the smaller Supermarket they're putting in traffic control they're going to have school guards during school I think they're a good company I think they're doing the right thing it will enhance the value of our homes and driving to a desert ridge although two miles away traffic is horrendous this way we can walk across the street and do our shopping so I hope you will pass this unanimously okay and um we live about a 5 minute 10 minute walk to this shopping center and we really really want it um in the beginning we were very skeptical we um asked certain things to be changed they listened and they actually changed which we were so surprised so I think Vester has done an excellent job and we really look forward to the shopping center I do think it will increase our property values it'll make it more walkable and I think it'll just be an asset to our community so we hope it passes thank thank you that's both of us yeah she didn't seem that shy to me mayor just an observation I guess and is I that all are in person so we'll go we'll go to Virtual comment we'll start with Kim Otis followed by uh Trent Otis but if you could break between speeches that would be very helpful to us running so it's two minutes each not four minutes combined thanks hello uh thank you to the city of uh Phoenix uh mayor and vice mayor for letting me speak today um I will be very quick with this um I've lived in this area I'm a native from Phoenix I've lived in this area for 17 years and we actually moved to the fire Fireside development three years ago due to the proximity of schools um the schools in this area if you guys aren't aware do not provide buses we are responsible as parents to get our children there via bike uh walking and all of those means um the property that bestar is looking for um is one that is going to make them money due to the proximity of the sr51 um excuse me as I get nerves through this um I do believe that bestar is um become our Goliath case this is David versus Goliath they have $ 1.82 point4 million um in revenue and 1593 million in funding we do not have that as residents of this community we did bring our um opposition last time they were not successful in their plan so they came at it at a different approach they speak of working with Community but I would actually have to disagree with that um I have several examples of misleading conduct um on September 23rd 2024 a post on the Desert Ridge Facebook page with the link for GB aw.com to sign a support submission stated the following if we're lucky it will be a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods this is your last chance to choose between a grocery shopping center or more Apartments so that was one falsehood that was stated there was additional ads in Facebook that I actually commented on that um were additional falsehoods but before I get too long-winded um I spoke with the PV um PV district and the pical high school the last representative implied that you do have support from them and that was actually not true um I'll quickly try to quote this even with the um they said we have met with the development group and shared concerns concerns at this point the developer has not addressed or mitigated our concerns I must clarify though py district and the Pinnacle principle are neutral on this topic they cannot say whether support or oppose which was implied in the last meeting in November 7th and I'll go quick uh the last thing I'd like to say is this is not a desolate area we are rich with amenities we have several several options I'm sorry um we just that's um we'll go to Travis I'm sorry Trent is um Trent is next thank you um yeah my name is Trent Otis um I live in the community obviously in the Fireside Community we have two kids that go to school um at the fireside Elementary and and explore middle school that we'll be going to Pinnacle high school they walk and ride their bikes I would also like to say that from this position um I'm also a a phoenix fire captain um so I come at this from a completely different angle and this is is all based on safety um as you guys know when we work in the fire service we work on risk mitigation and this is all about risk reduction and mitigation um there's going to be higher traffic higher volume of people going and walking through this intersection um this is going to be a place where high school kids and Junior High kids congregate which only increases the risk um for pedestrian versus vehicle accidents as well as more semis coming through the through the neighborhood um for unloading so this is um we're definitely in opposition for this um this fire station at this uh intersection of Indian of uh Tatum and Deer Valley fire station 52 um they they're able to service this area but adding more commercial to this intersection um you we're going to see an uptick in in in usage from that fire station and an uptick and call volume means that the fire station the fire trucks will not be available when other residents need them um lastly when we put commercial there um everybody keeps talking about convenience this area is built for Community not convenience convenience we have Desert Ridge right there next to us um and I think that when we look at it's not an if but it's a win um that we have a pedestrian versus motor vehicle accident at this intersection the crosswalks um although they say that they're going to be um you know working with the schools to provide proper crosswalks it's it's not going to be substantial enough lastly when we go on scene of a pedestrian uh trauma accident uh we're asked to have that patient loaded in the ambulance within 10 minutes and so really the only convenience that the community is going to have is that if they live in that area they're going to be able to be able to see their loved one on scene before they have to be rushed off to the hospital that's the only convenience that I see for this area thank you so much for your service we'll go to woter next followed by Steven hello uh my name is vouter rudenberg and I'm a resident uh of 17 years in Fireside Desert Ridge and I have two boys at the high school uh I'm opposing the Back Mountain Boulevard commercial resoning proposal before you um and I would like to start to point out that to the city council that this parcel is currently Zone residential and residential builders already have shown interest in the remaining part of this parcel the Desert Ridge master plan specifically outlines a main commercial center which is the Desert Ridge Marketplace and specifically outlines a limit to other commercial sites to three acres and also specifies C1 zoning with 10 activity types it and it doesn't allow drive-throughs however uh you know people have bought their homes based on this plan and the proposed site from vestar is only 15 acres is is more than 3 acres as 15 acres and is requesting C2 zoning which allows 200 types of activities uh and will promote drive-throughs um so quite the opposite and the main problem is that vestar would like to build that commercial center with drive-throughs next to our High School uh and also in proximity of our Elementary School uh and the reasoning was that desert rid is only one grocery store and too much traffic in the area but apparently Target in Whole Foods in in nearby City nor nor are not considered a grocery store um they also outlined the explosive and continued growth in the area and my question is wouldn't that warrant the development of another Marketplace of 100 acres not just 15 Acres um I've sent the districts an email earlier today that provides more insight and background on this case um and as mentioned the village planning committee voted 9 to1 back in October but somehow Fest I got a second chance which caused our opposition to fizzle out um due to the constant delay strategy applied the main question in my email is for the city council to take a wider view regarding the exponential growth occurring in Desert Ridge and I compel the council to not approve this isolated proposal at this meeting mainly because it seems like misleading information has been provided or critical information has emitted during the application as there are in fact few new grocery stores planned in city north and traffic issues will not be resolved due to the 800 new apartments and additional 3,00 in city north these facts were never shared with the committees or considered because of this in situation I'd like the council to consider this and delay the vote um and ideally commission a deeper review of this proposal and have committees consider all the active proposed developments in desert rids to determine the actual need for this commercial center determine the best look thank you stepen will be our final speaker hi everybody uh and good afternoon um I'll try to make this as brief as I can I had retail put relatively close to my high school in Northern California 1980s and I can attested a student now booing through the lens of a parent and just to disclose my children are in college they've never set foot in Arizona um but my wife and I do live here um and we are very concerned about the community and we had retail like I said put right next to our high school and it absolutely increased uh we had three accidents where no one died thankfully but three of my classmates had to go to the hospital and it absolutely I can attest was counterproductive to learning not necessarily for every student in the class but through the the vast majority of students um there's no doubt the retail going on high high school students and perhaps even the older Elementary School students I understand why vestar sees this paral as Prime and G given its proximity to the 51 um I'm not anti-growth I want thoughtful responsible growth and we need more infrastructure given the number of residents in the area I love being within a mile of Desert Ridge Market place and it's a net positive for the community despite some of those negatives however this particular partiel of land I think should not be used for commercial use and I understand reluctance to have more houses there but I think there are other non-commercial public uses that would benefit the school and the community over commercial um we have lots of other land nearby including a super block between Fireside and avano and the Desert Ridge Mall I don't want more traffic in our area but it's going to come we know all know that I don't want necessarily every developed but that super blocked is enormous and we also have a lot of land north of Pinnacle Peak now I don't know who owns that land whether it's plann for development near near turn but it seems like locations like these are much safer and open to planning that would not Place commercial right next to a school so I have to oppose this even though I do think it probably will increase the retail value of my home because I just don't think it's safe for the children of our community thank you thank you close the public hearing and I'll turn to councilman wearing uh yeah I'd like to make a motion on item 76 thank you uh uh I'd like uh motion to approve for the Planning Commission recommendation and adopt the related resolution second excellent any comments roll call Yes W yes Washington yes O'Brien yes pastor yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes Gayo yes passes 90 item 77 councilman wearing do you have a motion I do uh motion to approve per the December 3rd 2024 Memo from the uh P PDD director and adopt the related ordin second roll call Galindo yes wado yes hjj Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes goo yes passes 90 78 uh motion to approve for the Planning Commission recommendation and adopt the related ordinance second roll call gind yes yes HJ Washington yes O'Brien yes Pastor yes Robinson yes wearing yes Stark yes GGO yes passes 90 thank you a lot of people spent an enormous amount of time on this item including councilman wearing so we so appreciate your participation in the process we'll go to our final agendized item item 79 and I'll turn to councilwoman Hajj Washington thank you mayor um earlier today the applicant has noted their desire to withdraw this item with the intent to amend to address address the outstanding concerns um so in line with that request I move to I uh move to approve the withdrawal of z58 24a from the agenda to amend and address the following items traffic density drainage and character of the era including the Rio Montana plan the applicant shall present any changes to the proposal to the South Mountain Village planning committee for recommendations at this at that time the case will be read vertis for a future formal meeting on a dat to be determined second some comments please thank you I wanted to start off by simply by starting off by saying um I wanted to thank everyone that was involved and actively involved in this process um Community engagement is the heart of what we do and it's always my priority to ensure that the residents voices are heard respected and valued uh I always say a good compromise is never one-sided it requires genuine collaboration where both sides give and take I'm I want to also com I want to commend the applicant for acknowledging that there is more that can and should be done in the situation I believe that development in District 8 must reflect not only the vision of the applicant but also the needs and concerns of the community it will impact so I really want to say thank you to the applicant for his acknowledgement and the community that there is more that can be done and I hope that this um would give them an opportunity to amend and address those needs thank you councilwoman we have only two folks registered to speak uh ju juel and Jay hearing the councilwoman's motion uh do you still wish to speak okay so uh no one wishes to speak hearing the motion thank you appreciate that Council one spend again spend a lot of time on this one any additional and we did we have a second second uh any additional comments and uh all those in favor please say I I any opposed that passes unanimously that concludes our agenda's business we'll turn to the City attorney to introduce the final portion thank you mayor during citizen comment members of the public May address the city council for up to three minutes on issues of Interest or concern to them the city citizen comment session is limited to 30 minutes the Arizona open meeting law permits the city council to listen to the comments but prohibits council members from discussing or acting on the matters presented thank you we'll begin with Christina Tyler followed by Missy puit so the reason why I came here today was to talk about the disability discrimination and could you adjust the microphone so we could better hear you thank you I'm sorry so I'm here to discuss the dis the dis ility discrimination that I faced working for Allied Universal at tsmc those contracts were set up in a way to be able to allow tsmc to get rid of any person for any given reason at any given time my employer as well as my supervisor's Human Resources was aware um of the disabilities that I have they were also aware of my treating Physicians information in case there was any issues or discrepancy tsmc because of the way the contracts are set up decided to remove me from the location due to the appearance of sleeping even though um uh the the other IND individuals there knew of my accommodations I had accommodations to sit and stand and I am being treated for a prolactinoma currently at the time my doctor was trying to figure out if we needed to put me back on kerling or not I was being treated as well for high blood pressure and put on listen up ril I was also being treated for neurological bladder issue because my type of autism causes a full-blown connective tissue disorder which made it to where I was unable I've been unable to control my bladder until was put on oxy oxybutinin and so the thing is is that my appearance of sleeping not the actual facts not the fact that my head was a bobblehead which is why and with no AP no Medical Response tsmc ordered for Allied Universal to have me removed from this job site what I am wondering is why the City of Phoenix chooses to not have policies and ordinances in place like what the city of Scottdale has done to protect those who are contracted parties at a job site like a over6 billion contract which was just added or approved from different departments why are you guys allowing the Discrimination to happen thank you thank you so much Missy is next followed by Diane got a little over there hi mayor hi city council um District 8 um I live in District 8 so my name is Missy PR I've been here the last couple months and I'm just going to this will be my last time before I try to um set a some sort of agenda for next month but I do um run a nonprofit called she's all cat and I um Advocate and um educate all the community about All Things cats so basically if you haven't been if you haven't heard me before we have a huge crisis in Arizona especially um Phoenix with the overpopulation of cats we have over 500,000 cats living on our streets that are suffering every day not only are the cats suffering but the people that are caring for the cats are suffering mental illness um all kinds of things so I just want to tell you two stories and then I'll finish first story is um I went to help a lady that lives um down in Roosevelt um somebody had thrown three cats out of a apartment when a um gentleman had died and there were three three senior cats so we were going to help trap them and find them a placement so I was talking to the lady she um has about 45 cats that she feeds in her Colony beautiful long red hair I said what do you do she said she's a nurse in Phoenix and she moved here from Michigan probably 15 years ago she started feeding this colony and I said do you have any kids do you any family do you go on a vacation no she can't do any of that because this is her life now and this is what a lot of people's lives are that are dedicating their lives to cats there's a very small group of community citizens that are doing this and it's not there's nobody helping so these people are becoming mentally ill they're becoming suicidal there's a lot of lot of issues happening with that so I want to tell you that the second story is I went to um an apartment community about a month ago where um I was helping some another lady that does do cat rescue there trap some kittens the people that live in the community would not let me go onto their porch where there was two litters of kittens living because they liked to look at them they wanted to go outside and look at the kittens and they were cute and they thought that was nice so a week later they called me and they wanted my help at this point and this is the kitten that they brought me this is just one thing of this is nothing this is nothing compared to what we see every day and that's what's on our streets that's what we see that's what people come to see and it's just um something that I think that we should work on and acknowledge thank you thank you so much Diana is next followed by Peter good evening mayor and Council before I bring up the two pictures that I sent to my councilman today I wanted to um let you know mayor that I did support you at mag today for bringing up very necessary situation this is that Phoenix has borne the brunt of and the challenge to have the cooling centers and to uh shelter the homeless over all over the the mag or we're talking about Maricopa County and its cities and tribes and like that and she asked and there were no mayors that actually said that they had any of the resit or cooling centers and that's sad situation what I sent to you uh Carlos Galindo Al Vera was I called yesterday about the 7th Avenue in Roosevelt bus stop which has been a problem because we've had encampments there and around the circle K and as a citizen uh and a bus Patron you know I I do go over there I'd like to see and I use the bus and while I'm there it's just that you know I'm going up to work out and I'm thinking they don't pay me to bend over at where I Y Fitness I might as well just while I'm here put a glove on or and clean up the bus stop nobody is cleaning it up throwing down while I'm there so I was reporting and yester on Mondays you apparently the number that I'm called for the cleanup it's not there it's Tuesday through Friday so you know I ended up going online and I couldn't register that encampment because it's not called a a crime a theft or a burglary so I'm back on the phone and finally I insisted the uh the receptionist of police let the police know if they're around there do a drive around because I had seen an encampment with a lot of stuff thrown and I said that's very unfair to people that go to work or go to see families or need to use Transit that they the seats out now which I will support because people were there but what I'm going for and I talked to Transit operations very nice man he said it's a good idea at one time the city and I don't think that it was ambitious mayor had a do the bus stop I would like to see that was be brought up and I would like to be the representative of this particular site that's an ongoing problem the Rosevelt neighborhood wants to have the police send a letter to the state and take their beer and wine license away from Circle K I have never seen anybody go in there that looks homeless or is drinking so that's not the [Music] problem thank you Diane Peter is next followed by brindy good afternoon mayor and City Council Members my name is Peter South and I am a property manager for short-term rentals as well as I own a short-term rental here in Phoenix district C and the reason that I'm here today is because uh the city passed their short rental ordinance about a year ago and um I'm just going to tell you guys it's very confusing it is far more confusing than all of the other cities I've worked with both Tempe and Scottdale city councils um to create theirs and honestly their their online portal is super simple it's very easy City of Phoenix has a bunch of other things that none of the other cities have you have to get a notorized mail um so I can tell you guys council members the spirital mental Community is not happy with this ordinance and another thing the city did is they went right into enforcement mode and the other the other cities around the valley they were like hey let's give everybody time to bring them in to the licensing agreement for short rentals I even got fined $500 while I was licensed because I was in the middle of processing and the City of Phoenix caught me sorry you caught me but I was wasn't trying to get around it it was just very confusing so I paid the fine but what I'm asking City of Phoenix in the New Year please I'm part of another organization Arizona's for responsible tourism we would love to work with you to help the city to partner with the city and to bring everybody into registration but please let us work together and maybe let's have parody let's have uniformity across the cities um because that'd be really awesome for the short-term R Community uh thank you so much mayor can I just ask for a clarification real quick I or can he repeat the cities that he said have Scott still and tempy okay thank you um and just we we can't do substantive okay coun councilwoman pestor um I would like uh the planning director if he could explain the whole process no I don't that's no nope okay sorry we can put it on an agenda that's all we can do um brendy is next our final speaker will be Eric after brindy there we go all right good afternoon uh my name is brindy and I am actually here on behalf of arizonans for responsible tourism or asrt and we are a Statewide uh advocacy and nonprofit organization and so we do represent over 2,000 short-term rental hosts uh including many here in Phoenix I volunteer on that board with Peter uh and our mission at asrt is to promote responsible tourism and fair reasonable short-term rental regulations uh we believe short-term rentals can be a positive force in communities when managed well uh our members are engaged proactive and eager to comply when rules are clear fair and enforcable uh we have successfully built collaborative relationships with cities like Sedona and Gilbert where we've worked together on solutions that balance the needs of residents the tourism economy and the hosting Community would' love to establish a similar partnership with the city of Phoenix we understand that Phoenix is a larger City with unique challenges but we believe collaboration can bring tremendous benefits uh asrt is uniquely positioned to assist we have monthly or weekly newsletters monthly educational webinars and an online member Forum uh we communicate directly with hosts educating and informing them about policies and best practices we can help amplify City messages improve compliance and Foster accountability among hosts I know one of the big questions right now is we have a lot of hosts wanting to be compliant wanting to renew uh their short-term rental licenses and there's just a lot of Confusion And as an organization we want to help we're just really struggling to get the answers that we need uh so we are eager to partner with the city of Phoenix uh to support responsible short-term rental practices uh I will follow up by sending an email uh we have been working in receiving responses from Teresa hillner so I'll send a email a copy our entire board as well as the vacation. rental phoenix.gov uh to explore how we can collaborate directly uh effectively I think it would be neat if we could set up just a meeting and just talk and and explore how we could work together thank you for your time thank you glad you're in touch with staff already and our final speaker will be Eric oh um hi uh thank you as always for the chance to speak here um I came today to well first of all let me start out with uh for conman Waring if you like books I got two books that I read recently that I thought were really good the first was called God's Bankers uh a history of money and power at the Vatican it's all right it's written by some uh reporter the second book he should prob we should all probably check out is called the The Sovereign prerogative the Supreme Court and the Quest for law that's why one of my favorite legal Scholars by the name of uh ug V rostow but anyway um what I came here to say today is um and I'm sorry if scares anybody but it should uh there's a holocaust coming whether we like it or not it is coming our way now the first the first duty of society is Justice which really boils down to protecting ourselves there's an avalanche coming down the mountain and we can either cut tail and run like I thought about doing or we can stand and protect our land from the inequality and what's coming down the mountain is nothing nice now make no mistake about it they're talking about detaining deporting detaining they're talking about finding detaining and deporting the number they put is 11 million people which is strangely similar to the amount of Jews who were uh going through something similar um but make no mistake about it uh to actually move that amount of people there's only one way to do it you have to pack them into train into train cars to move that amount of people um and you know I got I I I thought I had a lot of good things going on for the city um I managed to get them to build a light rail to South Phoenix which some of you may know but what a lot of you don't know is the whole point of that was to connect it uh through fast train from here to Tucson I now request that we put that project on hold we shouldn't allow any federal funds to be used to deport our neighbors to a place they've never been um and you know the choices we make right now will reflect through history uh you know and if we make the right the right choices won't be easy but if we can make these right choices uh our grandchildren's grandchildren will look at their classmates and they'll say my ancestors were Phoenicians keepers of the Constitution Defenders of democracy the people most responsible for the beauty of the world will eventually settle into but make no mistake about it it's coming whether we like it or not and then my final thought is I want you to understand something very clearly so there's no mistaking it later the message from the black and Mexican communities to y'all is very clear if you touch that Ballot Box we have no choice but to respond with bullets thank you for your time thank you so much we are adjourned