Good morning, Madame Mayor. >> Good morning. Thank you. You ready? >> We are all set. >> Is everything working? >> Everything's working. >> Okay. Good morning, everyone. It's Wednesday, August 13th. Uh we are now going to start the meeting. Before we do that, we are going to um do the pledge of allegiance. We have some guests here. We have um some friends from Daytona Beach. They are here with um Ingus, right? Correct. Which is the United States National Guard. And I think are there 1300 of you here right now? I think it's it's a big group. I was there a couple days ago and so welcome. But um so we have a commissioner Cantu and manager uh Fiacher. Is that how I pronounce it? Okay. Thank Okay. Fature. Fature. Okay. Um so I would love for you to lead us in the pledge. >> Good morning. To the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, great job. All right, Madame Clerk, I'm going to send it to you to call the role. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Calling role for Wednesday, August 13th, Reno City Council meeting. Vice Mayor Taylor >> here. >> Council member Dor >> here. >> Martinez >> here. >> Eert >> here. >> Reese >> here. >> Anderson. >> Mayor Shibi >> here. >> You do have a quorum of the Reno City Council. >> All right. I'm going to send it right back to you for public comment. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Give me just a second. All right, our first public our first item today is public comment. Members of the public may hear, observe, and provide public comment virtually by registering through the following link which can be found on reno.gov/meings. https colon slash slash l i n ks period ren o period go vward slash c o n c i l08-13. It should be noted for those in attendance that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and council as a whole. Comments heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda. Council may not take action upon any matter not agendaized on today's agenda. When you're called on for public comment, please state your name for the record and begin speaking. The timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded three minutes. For those participating in chambers in accordance with council rules 6.3.11, while in this room, please be respectful. Disruptive behavior from audience members like clapping, yelling, whistling, etc. which impede the meeting may result in a warning issued by the presiding officer. If this behavior continues, you may be removed from chambers. If you're an attendee in the Zoom meeting would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Our first public commenters today are Commissioner Cantu and city manager Fcher, followed by Terry Brooks, followed by Donna Clants. >> That was perfect. I had practice with his name and I did not do a good job. Great job. >> Good morning, mayor and commissioner. Uh, Councilman Council. Okay. Um, they're all different. Um, my name is Stacy Cantu, Daytona Beach Commissioner. We are pleased to be in your city um for the National Guard National Guard Convention, which we will be hosting in Daytona Beach next year. >> Congratulations. This is actually helping us to see what you guys are doing in your city. Um, on behalf of the mayor and the city commissioners, we would like to give you our 150 anniversary challenge coin, which our 150th anniversary is next year starting in January. And we challenge you guys to come to Daytona. >> I love it. >> And visit us. I love it. >> I'm going to turn it over to our city manager. Truly, we are grateful for this opportunity to really be here at this um commission meeting to city manager and someone who's lived in the um Florida area um from W 2. Um it is an exciting time for us that we were chosen out of all of the different cities in Florida to host this conference next year. Um when you think about what we have, we're home to Jackie Robinson, the um barrier breaking for Major League Baseball for integrated baseball game. We're home to Dr. Mary Mloud Bthun, the home to NASCAR. And >> so we are excited to be in your community and we've been enjoying ourselves um these past two days and we look forward to the opportunity whenever you want to come to our area. It may not be for the conference um but if you ever want to be in our area and come and see um what we call the royal famous Daytona Beach, we're more than welcome to host you all in our community. And so we'll we'll pass the coins over um probably to the city clerk um and you all can pass it around. But I know Commissioner Cantu has stated she would get a picture that we actually did come to a city commission. Um and so if it was if it's possible if you all could stand and we can take a picture that be appreciative. >> That's fantastic. >> And hopefully the citizens um will not throw anything more than three minutes. >> It's it's hard being on this side. We have three minutes all the time as well. So >> and it's actually we have six zones as well. Oh dear. So yeah, you're kind of really similar to what we do. >> Wow. That's fascinating. >> Going through that barrier there >> and then our city. >> But what is the population of Daytona Beach? >> So the Daytona Beach population is 90,000 um residents. But what's unique about us is individuals don't know we have six colleges and universities within three miles of each other. About 44,000 students in one little area. Um you very seldom find a place like Daytona Beach. you can go from a prek to a PhD or a MD and never leave within three miles of each other because of the university system that's set up right there. So, it's it is a very unique situation to have that many students and sometimes it's problematic when you've got bike week, Jeep Beach, um the races, and you still have that population of students um who are wanting to have fun but also get an education. And so, we continue to grow um as a community, but it's been great for it. >> Wow, that's fantastic. It's fascinating. I had no idea >> what um how many people attend the Daytona race. >> So, you have about 100,000 individuals that are there, but we have Rock deal that's about 300,000 for five days of rock and roll music >> and I'm telling you, >> that seems like the week to go. >> And bike week. >> And bike week. >> I went to one of the events and I had on shorts, t-shirts. I normally wear both to work every day and all the police officers kept going, "Are you really our city manager? I love it. Okay, here we go. >> You got it. Okay, great. >> So nice meeting you. >> Thank you so much. Say hi to >> Did you live there? >> I live right near >> right near there. Oh, but it's small world, huh? >> It's fun. >> I love that. Okay, Madame Clerk. Thank you. >> Thank you. Terry Brooks, followed by Donna Clants, followed by Stephen White. >> Terry, good morning. >> Good morning. It's me, Terry Brooks again. And today, I'd like to share with you my thoughts on nutrition and retirement and what seniors go through. After working for a few decades while your meals were based on your work schedule and then suddenly you decide to retire, there goes your three meal schedule. People are usually hungry for breakfast as soon as they wake up. And when they were working, their alarm usually woke them up. But when you're retired, you don't need an alarm and you might just wake up at any time, which means you might eat your breakfast at just about any time. And the later you eat breakfast, the later you might eat your lunch. Or you might eat less earlier and just call it brunch. Now that you are retired, you must eat whenever you want. You just eat whenever you want. And you might eat at home or you might go to a restaurant. Being retired, you may spend a lot more time at home and be closer to that large stock pile of food that you store at home. And the closer you are to food, the more you're likely to eat. Especially when you notice something that's your favorite sweet treat. So when you're retired and less active but bored, you may find that you eat more, which could result in you weighing a little more. But some seniors lack their sense of smell, which decreases their appetite. And some seniors take medications that decrease their appetite. And some seniors wind up lacking forms of transportation which could then lead to a lack of grocery shopping or nutrition. Some seniors depend on others to provide them with meals such as visitors services or senior centers or maybe meals on wheels. Food is a necessity. Without it, we cannot live. So some seniors wind up depending on what other people are willing to give. I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and I look forward to coming back if I've had enough to eat that day. Thank you. >> Good job. >> Donna Clen White, followed by John Valto. >> Hello. Hello. Good morning, council and city manager. Uh my name is Donna Claus. I live in Ward 5 and I'm here to talk about a couple of things today. as a senior myself and as one who served 14 years as a volunteer for the city of Reno on your NAB and on your senior advisory board. Um I I wanted to talk about that first. I know that and I appreciate the staff has really gone through a lot of work to talk to a lot of people to give some suggestions about streamlining the way that the boards and commissions work. Um and I think that having a template that makes a lot of sense. However, I'm really concerned about the NABS and the idea that they should only become basically a development advisory board, even with a little small window now to allow for more topics. Um, as a as a former chair of a board and a member of a a NAB board, we were able to talk about all kinds of things that we as neighbors thought were important. We were able to talk about things that were going on at city hall that had nothing to do with development. Um, we could talk about streets lights safety um weather related things like, uh, snow removal or floods or fire issues. And having those kinds of topics available to that board are really, really important. The voices of the community should be able to come through those navs, whatever the topic may be. So, I'm urging you not to use that wording that basically makes them a development board. A little bit of history. Wo county tried it that way and they killed their cabs for several years by making them totally development boards. They've gone back to the old way of making them available and open to all the topics that are on the minds of this the community that that you all represent. So those are my words for that part. I also wanted to to uh kind of echo what I saw in Alicia Barber's brief this week about u coming up with a one um source e-letter that would allow all of us who are out there in the community know what's going on at city hall because we've got about 30 of them and I'm on many of those lists and I get them from nabs and other kinds of places. So, a template that would that would show the coming week of what's going on with with City of Reno public meetings, a link to the highlights from past meetings, uh activities for events, links to those those things. It's in her current brief, and I can send that to everybody. Um partnering events, a link to the city manager's most recent on the agenda podcast, open online surveys that the city wants to get input from, current job openings. A lot of cities do that and I'm urging city of Reno to come up with one one that pu pulls all those things together so that we who are also busy in our lives can keep up with what's going on and get involved and come here or write you notes or send you texts and and then come out and participate in the things that you need. Thank you guys. >> Well, thank you and your luck because our comm's department has been working on it for a couple of months. So, we're gonna have a new roll out for you. >> Great. Thank you so much. Thanks so much Donna. >> Steven White, followed by John Valto, followed by M. Rossy. >> Good morning. >> Good morning, my friend. >> Morning, council members. Feeling a little bit better today than last time I was here. >> A picture of my one of my paintings. You folks have never seen any of my paintings. >> Oh, I have. >> I've got over 12,000 works of original artwork hanging all over the country. spent 54 years as a working artist, spent over 40 years on the road in an RV painting my way around America. Uh, I should have told you my name is Steven White. I'm a notorious defender of the arts and artistic freedom in our country. Love the art show going on out here in the lobby right now. Black Americans and and Native American people, indigenous people. I got a question for you. Is anybody any of the members here going to make sure that every one of those artists gets a copy of the invitation that I wrote to you for you that explain the rules and are and invite all those artists to go out and share their artwork with the public in the public parks. Somebody needs to make sure that that's happening. You know, I mean, you got all these talented artists and nobody's telling them anything about their right to be able to go out in the parks and display and sell their artwork for profit without a license or permit from anybody. It's state law and it's federal law. These laws have been violated by cities all across the country for a long time. And it's destroyed artistic freedom and it's destroyed community participation in the fine arts in our communities. You know, when you open the door for kids, for young people to be able to share their artwork, their god-given gift of their artwork with the community and our public parks, it's lifechanging. It builds self-esteem. It builds self-confidence. You know, you take a high school kid out there and let him sell one of his paintings. Oh my god, you just change his whole life. You open doors of opportunity that they had no idea about. When we don't do that, we are robbing the entire community of all the beauty and all the inspiration and talent that we could all be enjoying from all these artists in our community. You know, we need to be doing this. We need art in their public parks. Mayor, is there any reason why we can't have you put out a proclamation declaring this month of September is art in the park month and get the whole city behind literally encouraging artists to be out in the public parks? I've given you the rules and all that. The mayor, I mean, the city attorney agrees with what I wrote to you and it explains artists what the rules are and what you can do. So, I hope you'll finally you'll do that. You know, for too far too long, the arts have been ignored here in this city. Artists have been, you know, walked on basically. God bless you all and thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, man. >> We'll make it happen September. >> John Valto, followed by M. Rossi, followed by Donald Crumb. >> Good morning. It's another lovely day here in wonderful city of Reno. Um, I just had a wonderful morning at the Grand Sierra. Um, thank you all for getting the stadium deal done with Alex Marulo. Um, that will help Reno basketball a lot and we'll have a lot of better concerts. I think that was a wonderful idea. Thank you for getting that done. Um, I'm here to talk about a more serious issue though. Uh, what I'm here to talk about today is the old adage of getting what you pay for. Um, despite being 34th in wealth, the state of Nevada is 49th in educational spending. And correspondingly, we are 49th in educational achievement. Um, and in the eyes of God, that's criminal. It's criminal what we're doing to our kids. Um, you know, just yesterday at St. Thomas Aquinas, Father Chuck's sermon was about the millstone placed around the neck of those who lead children astray. And, uh, you know, we have no middle school sports for our kids. Uh, um, you know, it's horrible the situation here and it is very easily remedied. Uh we could remedy this situation very easily over a 10-year period with a slight increase in the corporate tax and by passing a lottery ticket bill. Lottery tickets and a slight increase of the corporate tax could adequately fund our education system. In 10 years, we wouldn't be so far behind. The only state worse than us is Mississippi. Um Mississippi is a very impoverished place. It's an embarrassment that people like us with as much money as we have are 49th in achievement. Um, the way to fix that is to send responsible, enlightened, and electable people to Carson City. And that's you, Miss Shivi. Um, we can get this done. It really is a crime what we're doing to our kids. Thank you for your time. >> Mac Rossi followed by Donald Crumb followed by Paula Mcdana. >> Good morning. My my name is Mac Rossi. Good morning to the council as a whole. Uh I am glad to see that the NAB is back up and going. Uh I wanted to address one portion of it and that's developments. What happens at a NAB is developer will come in and present their proposal. The NAB get an opportunity to submit their concerns and send them to the planning commission. There has been times when there's concerns on the NAB and you just follow this all the way to the planning commission and find out is this the same project that was addressed here. I have been on the NAB and I've had the county come over with their proposal and was implemented a couple of years ago where everybody has to be on the same page before that development goes on. Uh it has been presented by the gentleman from the county that created the program and gives everybody an opportunity and get all on the same page. It has been presented to the NAB twice over the last three years or four years, excuse me, and it's gone on deaf ears. I think the city has got to get on the ball and get it where everybody gets an opportunity to give their opinion and all get together. City of Reno, please get on the ball. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mac. And you need no introduction, my friend. >> Donaldrum, followed by Paula Mcdana, followed by Austin Daly. >> Good morning, council. Um, I'm here to speak in opposition of the request uh of the abandonment of the alley um requested by Reno Housing Authority. Uh, I'm the owner of 410 Reno Avenue immediately adjacent to one of the parcels uh owned by owned now by Reno Housing Authority. Mine is a single family home, one story. It is not a rental unit. I purchased in this neighborhood because it was established and completely built out with most of the residents maintaining their the charm of old Reno. It was my dream to live in Midtown despite Holy Child Dare Care being two doors down and at times very active. The alleyway, the public alleyway, uh has provided me some buffer and made it tolerable. Uh the uh public alleyway has provided daylight and room to breathe and a nice walkway uh away from the traffic of Arlington Avenue. Alleyways in this part in this area of town are an integral part of the character of the neighborhood. They provide access routes for deliveries, waste management, and utility access. I understand that Reno Housing Authority now owns all the parcels bordering the alley. I believe they strategically did this so they could control the alley, but they don't own it. The city and the taxpayers own it. They want the city to essentially give them this land for free. And why do they need the abandonment? because it would give them the necessary space to proceed with their proposed project of the construction of a three-story 45 unit low income housing project right next to my home right down the alleyway completely dividing the block. My buffer would be destroyed. I strongly oppose the alley abandonment and the proposed project of this size in an already congested neighborhood. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Paula Mcdana followed by Austin Daly followed by Beth Dory via Zoom. >> Good morning. My name is Whoops. I mistakes just for the >> Hi, Paula. >> Never never fails. >> Oh. Anyway, um I' I'd like to uh um make a comment about something um that has happened to me a few times. Uh I'd like you to address the issue uh an issue on the northeast corner of North Virginia and Maple Street, which is the site of the parking lot into the Walgreens. And um I the I think the ramp there may be uh ADA non-compliant. Almost all sidewalk corners slope down to a no curb section. And at the corner I mentioned this does not happen in the usual way. Um excuse me because there is a light pole right on that corner. Uh um there is uh this uh there is a slope uh a slope cut into the sidewalk that is not very obvious. Uh not to mention unexpected and I often don't see it when I walk up to Walgreens. I live downtown in Arlington Towers and have often fallen as a result. So, I'd like to suggest that this ramp be uh that the sides of this ramp be painted a bright yellow so it's more obvious or that a little fence be put up so that you don't walk across it that way that you have to walk the other ways. Um because uh this last time I fell I'm going to after I leave here I'm going to the doctor. I fell about four days ago and I'm >> starting to have some >> So sorry. >> Yeah. So anyway, I just, as I say, I don't I don't know if that corner is ADA compliant in in the strictest sense of the word. >> Paula, will you make sure um because I need to understand exactly the area you're talking about? >> Uhhuh. >> Do you can you >> draw a map? Sure. >> Yeah. Could you give it to the clerk so we can send someone out there immediately >> and take a look at it? Yeah. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's It's I I walk everywhere because I don't own a car and and um that's the only corner I've noticed like that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Did you bring your baby today? >> Right there. >> Right there. >> Well, we will get on that. >> All right. I appreciate that. >> All right. Thank you. Make sure we have your phone number, too. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Austin Dailyaly followed by Beth Dory via Zoom. >> Twice in one week. Austin, >> nice to see you. >> Hi. Um, yes, my name is Austin Daly. I'm the manager of government affairs at the University of Nevada Reno. And, uh, we're trying something new. Uh, trying to do once a month coming by city hall to talk about some of the updates at the University of Nevada Reno and talk about some of the events that we're hosting. So, just wanted to start off by talking about uh, some of the things that the university hosted over the summer. Uh, some different community events. We're very proud to host Arttown on the Quad during the month of July. uh every Tuesday during July, including jazz performances uh the Northern Nevada International Expo with over 40 countries represented. Uh we just hosted Hot August Nights on campus uh last week for the first time in almost 40 years. Uh offering live music, vintage vehicles, food trucks. Uh that was from August 1st to August 10th and building a good relationship with Hot August Nights and hoping to continue doing this in years going forward. So hope you all or anybody else had an opportunity to stop by last week. Um, we're also excited for the John Tullik Business Building to finally open in a few weeks here. You've probably all seen the construction from the freeway or from Virginia Street. Uh, that will be wrapping up soon. And we're excited uh for our students to have a brand new 300 seat auditorium, cafe, uh, stock trading lab, and help to serve more than 3,500 students as part of the university's Matthew Gateway project connecting downtown Reno to the university. Um, next phase of that, we're still working with the border regions to get approval on a new hotel, a small hotel that would go there on the west side of that uh, new business building lot. Um, so more to come soon on that. And also wanted to highlight that this Saturday is the opening ceremony for the university. Uh, this Saturday at 7 p.m. Would love for any of you to be able to attend if you're available. I know it's short notice. Um, but excited to kick off the new 2025 2026 academic year. Uh ASUN, our associated students of the University of Nevada, is also holding a block party on the quad on Sunday, August 17th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm as well. And uh first men's Wolfpack football game is September 6th. Uh it's going to be the university versus Sacramento State on campus from at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. So, >> okay. >> Yeah, we're very excited for the academic year to kick off and hoping to do more of this every month at least or so with some students, too. So, thank you for >> How are we looking? Are we are are we going to take a win? >> I hope so. If you're looking good, >> that's great. You have a lot on your plate. That's fantastic. Tell us a little bit about the kickoff of the semester. How do people get involved? What how can we participate? >> Yeah. So, this uh starting tomorrow, Nevada Fit is kicking off. It's like a required oneweek program for all freshman students. So, there's going to be different uh events happening uh throughout the week for those freshmen. But the big thing really is this Saturday the opening ceremony and then uh the Sunday block party on the quad. >> And where are you doing the opening ceremony? >> Uh it'll be in uh Lawler Event Center. So yeah, but I can reach out. >> A big deal. Yes. Will you please send um us all an invite? That would be great. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. Good job. >> Thank you. >> All right. Take care. >> Our final public commenter is Beth Dory via Zoom. Beth, if you would unmute and begin speaking. >> Can you hear me? >> We can. Go ahead and state your name for the record and begin speaking. >> Thank you. My name is Beth Dory. Um, between WS five and six, there are over 88,000 residents who have not through their NABS had the opportunity to review arguably the largest land use zoning change in the city's history. Last night, W 5 held their NAB meeting. However, the accessory dwelling unit amendment was stunningly absent from the agenda. The W six NAB has never met and is not currently on the city's calendar to meet. While staff has provided an unreadable map with no streets listed and no postcard sent to affected property owners, staff states that there has been community outreach. I disagree. How can there be sufficient community outreach when clearly onethird of the population has not had a ch had has not had a NAB meeting addressing this blanket upzoning and there has been no mailed notices. The city will be doing a great disservice to the ward five and six residents if they ratify this upzoning before their nabs have a chance to review the amendment. Thank you. >> Thank you. Madame Mayor, with that we have no additional public comment. For the record, we did receive eight comments which were general in nature or not directly associated with an agenda item prior to 4pm Tuesday, August 12th. These comments were written correspondents received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by emails to our office. Copies of these have been distributed to the Reno City Council and are available to the public on reno.govme. eight letters of neutral or concern. >> Okay, thank you so much. At this time, I'm going to hand it over to city manager Jackie Bryant for any updates on the agenda. >> So, yes, before we uh move into the approval of the agenda, I'd like to announce that we are going to pull off item B12, that's boy 12 from the consent agenda. Secondly, we're going to change the order. The mayor's asked that we change the order to allow item D1, the RHA abandonment, to go after consent in order to um protect the time of the individuals who were here waiting. Following that, we'll do item C1, C2, RSCVA guest presentation, and the CAX presentation. And then we'll go in order after lunch. We'll have items boards and commissions resolution and ordinances C4. We'll go with items E1 and E8. Okay. I and I apologize. I think I miscommunicated to you. Actually, we will have a presentation from the RSCVA first and then we will go in to hear the RHA. >> So, we'll do then consent. >> Yes. >> C1 RSCVA. >> D1 RHA abandonment. Then C2 Cax presentation. >> Perfect. >> Then we will go back in order. >> Okay. Perfect. >> And mayor, that would be my motion. >> Okay. One one second before we do that. I'm just going to encourage everyone that's here in the audience to make sure that you check in with the clerk um because that's how we sort of look at our agenda and I want to make sure that we're using our time wisely and yours. I don't want you to sit here for hours and hours and hours waiting for your item. So, if you're here on different items, please make sure you let the clerk know so we can uh move those up. Okay. Um that being said, uh I have a motion from Councilman Ree. I have a second from Councilwoman Der. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. All right. >> I I was an I. Sorry, I wasn't quick enough. >> Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Eert. Um I sometimes forget that you're in the air. So if you need to speak, um please let the clerk know so I don't forget you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Um let's see. >> I have no items, Madame Mayor, for my consent. >> All right. So we're going to approve the minutes. >> Item A5, approval of the minutes. First >> motion to approve. I have a motion. >> Second. >> I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. Okay. We're gonna head into pulling consent items. I'm going to ask start with Councilwoman Anderson. >> I have nothing. >> Nothing. Okay. Councilman Martinez. >> Councilwoman Taylor. >> Nothing. Thank you. >> Councilman Reese? >> Nothing. Madam Mayor, >> Councilwoman Der, you know, I I do have a couple. I had a very detailed agenda briefing, but I think some are are worth discussing. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> All right. Um, item B6, which is about the citywide school zone beacon project. Really awesome. >> Good. >> Um, B9, um, which is also awesome about the basketball rehab, but I have a question for our manager. Uh, B12, um, this is, you just said is pulled. So, I I was going to have a question on that. >> Correct. B12 has been pulled. >> Okay. Thank you. So, that does not. And then I think there was one or two more. Um, let's see. And B21 again, awesome work. and B25. >> Okay. So, you want 21 and 25. >> Yeah. Just one second. Oh, and B 27. >> 21, 25, and 27. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. You want me to go over them? 69. >> I have 69, 21, 25, and 27. >> Yes. >> Okay. Great. Councilwoman Eert. >> I have a B14 and B 26. >> 14 and 26. >> Yes. >> Okay. May I get a motion to approve all other items on consent? >> So moved. >> I have a motion. >> Second. >> I have a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. Okay. We are now heading into um I believe the RCVA. >> We're on item C1. >> Where where is this? Hold on. When do you want to my agenda? Um hold on. go to. We're sort of skipping around here a little bit. >> Mayor, I guess do you want to go through? They hold seven items. Do you want >> Oh, we're going to hold those. We're going to hold all consent until the very end. >> Okay. >> Okay. All right. So, with that being said, we're going to head into item C1. I'm going to send it back to our clerk and ask if she has any public comment on this item. >> We do not have any public comment on item C1. >> All right. So, we have two people here, uh, the CEO and, um, the wonderful I don't know what we call you, the director of amazing marketing at the at RSCVA. We have Mike Larrietta and Christina Ernie with us today. And we are excited for this presentation because this sort of piggybacks on one of the presentations we had at the RSCVA. And I think there's some information that council members and the entire city will be surprised. And I just have to commend you guys. And I'm not going to mention other places and their names, but I'm very happy and a proud mama that our tourism numbers are looking great and they're strong and we're coming out on top. And so it's a good place to be in. So I always have to sort of brag um because you know how competitive I am and we're paying close close attention where other places may um have some struggling uh numbers but ours are looking great. So the floor is yours Mr. Laretta. Take it away. >> Thank you very much. >> Council member, city manager. Thank you for the opportunity to present today. Uh Mike Laretta, RCBA. I am joined today by the almighty marketing guru vice president of marketing Christina Ernie as the mayor teed up and also um from future partners Alex Mullen who is out of San Francisco but I must note is a graduate of the University of Nevada. So today we will be giving you uh an update in the essence of time we will go very quickly through the slides but we're going to talk a little bit about the overview of the RCBA. We'll jump into convention sales, tourism sales, venue management, marketing, research by Christina, community engagement, and then of course to the mayor's point, we want to share with the council some of our work that has been accomplished this past year in terms of our production across the board in all elements of room tax. So we have a nineperson board chaired by Mayor Hill Shiri. Our vice chair is Courtney Young and our secretary treasurer is Mr. Steven Esquaga represented by the Nevada Resort Association. Our history was we were established in 1959 as the Wo County Fair and Recreation Board. We are marketing organization for Wo County. Our vision is to be the preferred outdoor gaming and event destination. And our mission is to attract overnight visitors to Reno Tahoe while supporting the sustainable growth of our communities. We are a sales and marketing organization. A little bit about the makeup of our sales team. So we have seven remote offices located throughout the country. We have offices in Northern California, the San Jose region, Los Angeles, Dallas, Texas, St. Louis, Missouri, Dayton, Ohio, Washington DC, and Atlanta, Georgia. These seven individual regional directors of sales are responsible for soliciting, attracting, and pursuing convention, corporate, and association business to bring to Wo County. Each one of these individuals has a goal anywhere from 18 to 27,000 room nights on an annual basis to book for future dates. We also have a threeperson sports team led by Shelley Fine. This team sports is critical to the success of our region. And this team is accountable for anywhere between 120 and 150,000 room nights per year. To kind of put things into perspective of what this team in whole represents, our goal on annual basis varies between 275 to 300,000 room nights per year. When you look at the overall production for Wo County on an annual basis in convention and sports room nights, our city will generate anywhere between 550 to 600,000 room nights per year. The RSCBA team is responsible for 50 to over 50% on annual basis. That is a complete anomaly in the hospitality industry and just kind of emphasizes the importance of the success of our sales team at the RCBA. You may ask why is there such an onus of responsibility on this team? One of the reasons is because of the lack of true large flags in our region. When I say flags, that's your Hilton, your Hyetsz, your Lowe's, hotels like that, flag what we call flag hotels. And so we are truly an extension of our stakeholders. Whether that's the GSR, the petrol, Atlantis, Renaissance, Whitney Peak, the Row, whatever may be, we are truly an extension of their sales department. The tourism team is led by Mr. Arnes. 25 plus years in the industry. This team is responsible for overseeing all relations as it relates to travel agents, global distribution systems, receptive operators, wholesalers, what we call online travel agencies, better known as the Expedias of the world. This team is responsible for over 600,000 room nights on an annual basis. They handle co-op marketing and relationships with all the hotels throughout the region. Two key signature programs I want to talk about very briefly today that really is a difference maker and puts our region in a complete competitive advantage. one in December of 2024 after the board approved in June of 2023 we announced the the and broke ground and ribbon cutting of the Mondo indoor track which is is held is stationed in hall four of the convention center this track literally was built in Italy and is a world certified union track and this is uh some of the room nights that were produced in the first year we held eight meets 12,000 room nights 5,000 athletes with an economic impact of 6 million in year two starting this December and track season runs between December and March. What was so attractive about bringing indoor track to the region is because of the seasonality which piggybacks and aligns with a time of year which is we we declare as our shoulder and soft season in the region. In year two, we are forecasting for the room nights to almost double at 22,000 room nights. We are going from eight meets to 12 meets. It is a partnership with the University of Nevada. They will host six of those eight meets. And I'm happy to announce for the first time in the history of Northern Nevada, and we for those of you that have been around a while, we used to have a track back in the day. We are hosting the Mountain West Men's and Women's Conference Championship in February. And we're also hosting the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Conference Championships, men's and women's actually on the same weekend. So, we will have track Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in February. In terms of forecasting of what this track will produce in the upcoming years, uh again 12,000 year one consumed, 22,000 forecasted for year two and then we are forecasting significant growth in year three of 40 and 47 and 51,000 by year five. Our other signature event um which I know this council is very famili familiar with is the United States Bowling Congress hosted at the National Bowling Stadium. This conference rep has been in in Reno in Northern Nevada for decades. In 2026, we will host the Open Championship from March 14th to July 4. We have over 10,300 teams currently signed up, representing north of 50,000 bowlers. This slide says 758 75,800 room nights. Uh, based on information that I received yesterday from USBC, we're anticipating this room night to grow closer to 90 to 95,000 room nights with an economic impact obviously north of 79 million based on the increase in room nights. So, we've really done an excellent job with our hotels and our partners at the row of really getting in front of the bowler and bringing them back to Reno and numbers that we experienced in the past. In terms of future tournaments, as I said, 26 is happening right around the corner. We have contracts in 28 for the women's championship, 29, 32, 33, and 35 with an open championship. And we're currently in negotiations with USBC and hope to have an announcement in a few months of an extension of three additional years, which is vital for Northern Nevada. We also, as you know, manage four properties in venue management. The Reno Sparks Convention Center, 6,000 foot venue, the National Bowling Stadium, the Reno Sparks Livestock Event Center, and the Reno Event Center. I'll talk a little bit about activation and focus and what we're doing downtown as it relates to facility activation a little further in my presentation. One of the things we have done as relates to activation is we have done our best to open up the stadium to get the general public into the venue because for years the public, most of the public had never really been inside the National Bowling Stadium. So, we started public bowling days a little over a year ago. We partnered with various charities throughout the region, majority of them local, and we we basically once we cover our overhead cost, all proceeds go to those charities. In the first year, we've had over uh 12 events, 2,800 bowlers and $15,000 in proceeds to charities, uh it's been a huge success, and we get a lot of repeat locals that just love the opportunity to bowl in the National Bowling Stadium. Miss Ernie, >> thank you so much, Christina. I'm going to try to keep up his speed because he was talking quick. Okay, first I'm going to start off with, but I'm not going to go into too much detail. All of our marketing efforts are very much rooted in research. We are joined here today by our research partners at Future Partners and they will go into more detail, but a few key call outs that she will talk about in more is one, our average age is remaining steady around 46, which has been down. Um, our key marketing efforts have been working on um targeting this older millennial. We have seen year-over-year increase in household income and we also are seeing some steady family visitation. You can see all of our research pro um studies on our website rscva.com. This includes our visitor profile study, our resident effectiveness study, our resident sentiment study, and our brand effectiveness study. We also report on a monthly basis with our partners from tourism economics um some key snapshots of domestic visitor trends. You can see here California has been um results in 50% of our visitation and this has been growing slightly year-over-year. We also report on an annual basis with our partners at tourism economics. Um the uh annual economic impact to our region. These numbers are from 2023. We should be anticipating the numbers for 2024 here in the next week or so, but we are waiting on finalized numbers from um the uh Bureau of Labor Statistics. Going into our marketing efforts, we have launched a campaign called the no limits campaign. We launched this almost two years ago now and it's we it's been resonating really well with our target audiences. We've taken this concept not only for our leisure visitor but also for our meetings and conventions, our sports and also um air service development. You know, this really talks about our maverick spirit. There's not a lot of limits or red tape here in this destination. Your opportunities are endless. the diverse um offerings of outdoors, culture, events. Um we we really want to focus on um you know that people can really live their Maverick spirit here, not only for a leisure traveler, but also for your meetings and conventions and elevate your um event that way. flying through um our target um audiences, most of our visitors, as I mentioned, come from California, over 50%, but also don't want to lose track of our secondary markets. Most of them focusing on key non-stop markets, supporting our air service, and um following California, the Pacific Northwest is typically our next strongest market. A few of our marketing partnerships, we really try to diversify our partners. This was this is just a snapshot of a few of our partners we worked with over this past year. Um from travel brands to outdoor brands to sports teams. Um we really try to diversify all of our um marketing avenues. One of our partners that we are most proud of is Leave No Trace. Really emphasizing to our visitors um to um visit responsibly when you're visiting our region. Air service development. We have been working extremely closely with the airport over the past couple of years walking um handinhand and we've been working directly with airlines more frequently. So you can see on the screen we've done advertising campaigns directly with airlines such as Delta and working with um other airlines to bring in influencers and really highlighting those non-stop markets to um really show our investment and um determination to continue air service development. I don't know if I can keep going, but I'll keep going. Um, our social media reach over 50 million this past year. Our website had over three and a half million sessions and our email subscriber list, our active subscribers. I put here a little more detailed number, not just our overarching number. These are people who engage monthly with our um content. We really try to give and provide valuable information to our audiences. We launched a new website about a year ago. It's really focused on personalization. The more you interact with our website, the more it gets to know you and the more it'll show you content that thinks you will find interesting. If that's not personalized enough, we have an AI chatbot that we put on there a little over two years ago. We were one of the first destinations to integrate AI into our website. You can ask it specifically questions about what do you want to do with your family? Providing the more detail, as many of you are probably familiar with, the better results you will get. Our PR efforts, our PR team has had some major wins over this last year. A couple of them highlighted here. And then lastly, our community partnerships are extremely important to us. Whether it's working um together on air service development, on regional marketing campaigns with our rural communities, destination stewardship, or um NEA with the University of Nevada, we are proud of all of our community partnerships. I'm going to pass it back over. >> Yeah. Um wait, before you do that, Christina, one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to have you guys come and present because it's been a long time. Um, I need you to go back to that slide to show how much spend that visitors bring into the region. Why is that important to this council? The reason it's important to this council is because that's where our tax dollars come from. So, when those drop, uh, we get much less. So, that's why it's super important to keep your eye on the prize here, especially since we are one of those, um, destinations that absolutely relies on our tourism impact. So visitor spend is 3.3 billion 3.3 billion visitor spend 5.2 billion total economic impact. So and it really does hurt locally um when those numbers start to decline. I mean every little bit. And if you're looking, you might want to take a look across Nevada at some of the headlines that are happening right now and seeing how actually it can make a huge impact if your numbers are not staying solid or steady. And so as council members, this is super super critical for you to understand the um utmost important of tourism and getting them here. And then jobs uh created look at this 43,463 state and local tax generated 443.5 million. Okay, so that's some impressive numbers. All right, I just wanted to make sure everyone understands uh the importance of tourism. >> Very important. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Christina. >> Thanks so much. >> Great uh great segue into production and I'll go through these very quickly again in the essence of time. So this is a snapshot of our estimated visitors. Uh 2526 is obviously our forecasted number. But what you'll find is there is a pattern is from 1920 was a tremendous year for our region. And of course we had the COVID situation and then you see us as we come out of the CO situation and we have either maintained or exceeded growth year-over-year and we're anticipating actually a growth in visitor volume at 2526 when you look at taxable room revenue. So you see once again 1920 was actually a pretty strong year. 19 2021 CO really took a hit a little bit. Um I should have 18 1919 1920 was started with co my apologies and then you see the tremendous ramp up 22 23 an excellent year and you may ask yourself why is 2526 going down a little bit that's really being driven by ADR which stands for average daily rate which you'll see on the next slide terms of visitation higher occupancy higher ADR drives it down those are cash room nights and that's why your total room revenue was showing off a little bit and our budget for this fiscal year was uh we went in a forecast of down 3.9% % and to the mayor's point when you look at uh other cities in the state um their deficits to their budget for fiscal year 2526 were sign significantly higher something to think about as we go through this fiscal year when you look at here again average daily rate again when you look at 1920 2021 our market consistently and for years prior to this was in that 115 to 125 range due to capital infusion from our partners to growth economic development you saw a tremendous growth in ADR and What's enlightening is we've been able to maintain that ADR. Again, we're being a little bit conservative in 2526 with everything that's happening on a national level and economic uncertainty and obviously what's happening to our friends down south. We are being a little bit conservative. Um we hope we're in a situation as we go through the fiscal year that we were able to do an budget augmentation based on room tax returns, but right now we're kind of in that wait and see mode. Room inventory, again, very positive news. Significant growth yearover-year. um not maintaining, not declining. And you say, well, I don't see any large new hotels, large casinos. Most of this growth is coming through the select service or limited service properties. Those are your higher places. Those are your um econ economy suites. And what a lot of people don't realize, and I want to share with this council, when you look at overall room tax for Wo County, nearly a third of the inventory and over a third of the room tax is represented by this segment. So, we look at the big hotels and we think about the casinos and resorts. Very important. obviously vital to our success, but there's also a big segment that gets overlooked and that's limited service flex service properties. Meetings and conventions again always in that 250 to 300,000 numbers continue to grow. Another thing that I just want to point out in the blue box, those are leads. Those are companies that are looking at bringing their business to Reno. Again, consistent growth, especially 2425 and we're anticipating in 2526, which means there is more demand for Washer County to bring their conventions to our region. tourism sales. Mr. Jimenez, again, their region 696,000 room nights uh in this past year. Again, something very important to point out. Every segment has gone up across the board. Just jumping into our facilities. Um these are very important numbers because this is one area where we actually struggled this past fiscal year and our the first one is the arts convention center. You see a decline in overall revenue but an increase in occupancy. That's basically less spend even though more volume. Again, RSLEC, Reno Sparks Liftock Event Center, decline in revenue, increase when you f factor in the food and beverage component and increase in number of events. Reno Event Center, this is predominantly driven by the lack of concerts and events. Um, our board gave us approval this past year for the RCBA to take risk in booking our own events and concerts u with the ability for the CEO to approve up to $500,000 per event. We have six bids out for this fall. We anticipate at least four of those going to contract. And we really as part of our facility activation program is to bring concerts back into downtown Reno and the Reno Event Center. And then the National Bowling Stadium. This these numbers based on last year really been driven driven in comparison to 2324 because we had a women's open championship. So although you will see as it goes back to activation, uh Mr. Peters has done a fabulous job with the bowling stadium of taking the event total from 71 to 105 yearover-year. So what's next? Events. Allocating funds into event spending is a priority at the RCBA. So we have three funds. We have a special fund handled by the marketing department of half a million dollars. We have an event development fund of half a million dollars that is focused on arts and culture, music festivals, food and beverage and sports. And then we have a million dollars allocated towards concerts and events at the Reno Event Center. And then we just completed our strategic plan, both our annual and our three-year plan. And the reason why I bring this to the council's attention is this is not your cookie cutter plan. This isn't a plan that you just put on the shelf that could be cut and pasted into any CVB or DMO across the country. We really took over a year of planning out both the annual and the three-year plan. We had a stakeholder meeting. We brought in community leaders, hotel years, business partners, and we asked for their feedback in terms of what is important to you in a three-year strategic plan. Then we met with our board one-on- ones um with on strategy who wrote our our three-year and our one-year plan. And then we took it to our board and senior staff. So, complete collaboration. And when you see what the pri four priorities of our plan are, I think you'll understand why we went the direction we did. One, urban core revitalization. Be a strong advocate to make a difference in our urban centers, creating vibrant spaces for visitors and our community to live, work, and play. Venue activate and event attraction. Reno is known for hosting diverse events including concerts and major festivals to maximizing visitor engagement. Number three, visitor access to ensure the visitors have easy access to local attractions and venues throughout Reno Tahoe. and four, organizational sustainability and performance. RCB is known for operational excellence, transparency, and community leadership. And with that, thank you for your time. I know we went over um before I turn over to Alex. Any questions we can answer for Christina and I? >> No, we'll let Alex go and then um that might spark some more questions. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> All right. Good to see you again, M. Good to see you too, Alex. >> Um, yeah, my name is Alex Mim, research director at Future Partners. Future Partners is a market research firm shaping winning strategies for the travel and tourism um, industry. We've been partnering with the RSCBA for a few years now on their destination research program. What I'm going to show you today is findings from our 2024 visitor profile survey as well as our 2024 resident sentiment survey. Before I jump into those findings, I think it's beneficial to provide some broader context around what's happening kind of at that national level. Um, future partners, we actually have one of the longest standing studies um that tracks uh traveler sentiment over time. We've been doing the study since 2006. >> Would you mind moving closer to the mic? >> Yes, we've been conducting the study since 2006. Um, and every month we collect responses from 4,000 American travelers and we gauge their reactions to anything related to travel um, and trip planning. So, what I'm going to show you in the next few slides is a slice of that data set really focusing on travel and spending given the current economic context that we are living in. Um, so as you can see here, we are looking at how travelers feel now, whether it's a good time to be spending money on leisure. You can see kind of across these next slides I'll show you strong consistent positive sentiment 20 in 2024 2025 is showing a bit of that volatility. So you can see um in the past few months confidence that now is a good time to spend on leisure travel um has improved though July our recent most recent data point is showing a dip again. Looking at the near- term in the next three months, um we asked our travelers how much you expect to spend um the amount they expect to spend on travel and making travel a priority in their spending. Again, that has been up and down in 2025. It dipped last month in July. Looking at the projected um um spending for the next six months, we can see that projected travel spending does remain relatively consistent and strong and it's above that light blue line, our 43month running average. Now, we also ask about recession fears. Um we a statement of level of agreement on the statement. I expect the US will enter an economic recession the next six months. 2024, we are doing great. We want to see that line going down. 2025 huge spike. Um and um over the past few months we have seen those recession fears easing though this is a metric we are closely keeping our eyes on. And then looking forward um we are asking how our travelers are feeling about their financial outlook um a year from now. And you can see that that was um decreasing over the past few months um but in as of July we're showing a bit more steady increase. Also in that um national study that we conduct the state of the American traveler traveler we ask residents to rate um their brand health on a variety of different destinations. Those are domestic and international destinations. Reno, Nevada is one of the destinations we actually track in that study. So I just wanted to provide some broad level brand health metrics for the destination. So in terms of familiarity, we can see that 25% a quarter of travelers are familiar with the things to see and do in Reno. Over half find uh Reno to be an appealing destination to visit. Over half find unique uh Reno to be a unique place, experiences that they can't get in other destinations and almost um half say that Reno is rising in popularity um over the past few years. In terms of likelihood to visit, that number is at 25%. So that meaning a quarter of our travelers say they are likely to visit Reno in the next two years. We followed up why why aren't they why are you considering not visiting Reno? Um, about two in five say that Reno is just not on their radar. Another third say they just don't know enough about what there is to do in Reno. And another third say they just prefer other destinations. On the meeting side, about um two in five travelers find Reno an appealing place to um visit for a convention, conference, or group meeting. And about a third say that they find Reno to be an appealing place to live. Okay, so just providing that high level context diving now into your 2024 findings looking at visi of your visitor profile. So um the point of a visitor profile is to really understand who is coming to your area, how are they getting here, how how long are they staying, where are they staying, what are they doing, how much are they spending. Um so in order to address these objectives, we conducted an online survey with 600 visitors who visited in calendar year 2024. Now to be clear, these are visitors to the Reno Tahoe area. So that is Wo County. So few key takeaways. First, Reno Tahoe visitors are predominantly coming from California. Um they have a diverse demographic profile. We can see here over 50% are coming from within California. The largest shares are coming from San Francisco and Sacramento, Nevada, Texas, Oregon. Um those are your more larger feeder states. as Christina mentioned, really the Pacific Northwest. Those are the states where people are coming from. In terms of demographics, visitors are equally likely to be male or female. Average age is 46.8 years. Um about three in five are married and a third have children in the household. Most identify as white, although there are um sizable portions who also identify as Asian and or Hispanic. And the average household income is $103,000. Now, you might be asking, well, how does this compare to 2023? Well, um you're pretty consistent in terms of visitor profile. Um though they are leaning slightly more male in 2024, consistent age. Um and a thing to of note is that the average household income increased from 97,000 to about 103,000. So getting that slightly more affluent visitor to Reno Tahoe. Second key finding, visitors typically traveled to Reno Tahoe for leisure, to um gamble, and to enjoy the lake. um their primary reason for visiting for a vacation followed distantly by visiting friends and family. Visitors are motivated to come to Reno Tahoe to to gamble and to see the lake. Most visitors arrived by car, though one in five did arrive by airplane. And overnight visitors are staying an on average 3.2 nights in market and they are predominantly staying in a casino hotel. And this is more so among that boomer generation. Visitors are most commonly traveling with another companion, though the average travel party size is 2.6 person. That um typical companion is the spouse or significant other. But I do want to point out a quarter of all your visitors last year were family travelers. They were traveling with children under the age of 18. In terms of the areas they visited, um, downtown Reno was the top, followed by Incline Village and Sand Harbor. And the top activities they did in market were gambling and visiting the lake and engaging in those outdoor activities, which really align with their primary motivations for visiting the area. And for your overnight visitors, the average daily spend per person was $273. That amount translates to um $654 per party per day, accounting for 2.4 four persons covered. Second key finding here is visitors perceived Reno Tahoe as a vibrant, spirited, and outdoorsy destination. We asked our visitors to to um rate how well Reno Tahoe is exemplifying some brand statements. And what rises to the top here is that Reno Tahoe is a vibrant atmosphere. It's a great place to live life to the fullest and has a spirit of independence. We also asked our visitors to rate a set of attributes according to how important those attributes are. when selecting a vacation destination and later we asked them to rate Reno Tahoe on those same set of attributes. So what we are seeing here is Reno Taho's attribute ratings and what rises to the top are all of those outdoor attributes. Winter sports, convenient access to the outdoors, um outdoor recreation, water access, water activities, but also to note gambling and family-friendly activities also receive higher marks here. Now, this is a busy chart, but what I want to show you is we are looking at the percent of folks um who are rating each attribute on their importance when selecting a vacation destination. That is that light blue line, and it's ordered from most to least important. And that wavy blue line, that is Reno Tahoee's attribute ratings. Thing to take away from here is that Reno Tahoe is overperforming on most attributes tested and particularly on those outdoor attributes. Fourth key finding here, visitors typically planned or booked their trip shortly before their intended arrival. The average trip planning um window was one or planning window was 1.2 months. And in terms of visitors booking travel arrangements, they did that on average 0.9 months ahead of their trip. Looking at outcomes, visitors have a positive Reno Taho experience and they're likely to return. Visitors report high satisfaction with their overall trip experience. And when we look at different satisfaction factors, um, quality of accommodations really rises to the top among those that are tested. 75 74% of visitors would recommend Reno Tahoe to others as a place to visit and an even larger share say that they are likely to return to Reno Tahoe for vacation in the next few years. Turning our attention to the resident sentiment survey. Again, we predominantly ask this type of survey to understand perceptions that residents have of the local tourism industry and how it's impacting them personally. We conducted an online survey with 400 WO County residents and collected the results you'll see here. In terms of our key takeaways, residents have positive perceptions about the local tourism industry and how it impacts them personally. In general, residents feel that their quality of life has improved compared to last year and they are even more optimistic about their future quality of life. And then when we turn to um that impact of the tourism industry, they have positive perceptions about Wo County's tourism industry and agree that it results in a better life for themselves and their family. And when we track these two metrics year-over-year, we can really see consistent sentiment over time. There's also positive sentiment about how tourism impacts jobs and this has improved compared to last year. Um we can see here we ask our um residents to rate their level of agreement of how the local tourism industry is impacting jobs. About half say that Wo County tourism is providing um ample job opportunities. But I do want to call out on the right side of the screen um only a quarter say that those jobs actually pay well. So this is really suggesting that that while there might be readily available jobs, the perception of low wages may be preventing people from getting into the tourism industry. When we look at these over time, we can see though that the ample job opportunities and on the right that the tourism jobs pay well that sentiment has increased positively over time. Third takeaway, tourism is seen as important to Wo County's economy. So again, we asked residents to rate their level of agreement of how the tourism industry is impacting the local economy. What we can see here is that most residents agree that the tourism industry is important to Wo County's economy now and in the future. Though I do want to call out about a third say that people feel Wo County might be too dependent on tourism. And when we track this over time, we're seeing increases um in terms of the the sentiment that there is positive economic impact. Yet their concerns again that wash county may be too too dependent is also increasing. Finally, uh we also look at the tourism's impact um on the local community. Um and residents are kind of mixed here. They're expressing concerns about the impacts of the tourism industry on the local community, but they also acknowledge that has many many benefits. So again, this is a slew of statements we asked um residents to write their level of agreement on. What I do want to call out again is that um residents believe tourism is positively and negatively impacting the community. Just to call out the two bars here, we see that 74% say that tourism helps brings festivals, arts and cultural experience, sporting events to the area, but a similar share also um acknowledge that it's bringing crowds um and traffic to the area as well. This sentiment is um increasing on both the on both the positive and negative impact side. So again, um s suggesting that there's really opportunity here to um promote the benefits that the tourism industry has for the area while also helping to ease or minimize that level of concern. And with that, >> I will >> thank you so much. I I appreciate that. Um I think all of that is really important. What the biggest takeaway and why I I thought it was so important for the council to see the number one place to visit is, drum roll, downtown Reno. Why is that important? It's important for the entire council to understand why we have to work together with the city when we plan events and we plan them with the RSCVA and also the presentation of downtown. The cleanliness, the safety, it is critical because that's what their perception is when they come here. Everyone was blown away when we saw that number that the number one area that is visited is downtown Reno. And that goes back to my point that it doesn't matter where you stay. um you know whenever they get territorial in in the space or hotel years yours doesn't matter where you stay people are still coming to downtown Reno to see what it looks like I know when I go to a down or any city I want to see what is happening in downtown regardless of where I stay so it's so important to continue to activate um and provide um ways in which our visitors are having a great experience and why is that it goes back to tax and all of you up here and and myself we will have a lot less money to do the things in the city that we want to do for our community and our residents. So that's why I'm saying when we think about the things that are going to make the biggest impacts um of the perception of tourism and that's like keeping the river clean and so that people can enjoy all the amenities. You heard number one reason why we're killing it over um other cities. Again, I'm not going to mention names in the cities in Nevada, but is the outdoor influence. That is your river. That is your winter sports. Um that is your running. That's why we invested in the track because we play hard in the day and we play hard at night. And so I just thought it was really important so the council could understand the full dynamics of what your visitor looks like. They're traveling with families. they um want, you know, and also the impacts of the community they but you're traveling with families. So when you think about programming, what do those look like? It's more familyfriendly or you see the age demographic. So if you want to keep your eye on the prize and keep those numbers, which is impressive, we've been national news now because Reno's numbers are up and others in the state are down. and we are competitive and we have kept our eye on the prize there and we are not letting those numbers dip um because we're taking advantage when others are. Right now Reno Tahoe um has been on the map nationally and just to wrap it up and then I'm going to ask um any council members if they have questions. Christina is phenomenal and she's actually known nationally um when it comes to bringing influencers and creators here. She just did something called creator camp. It was phenomenal and it was how many creators came? It was pro I felt like >> creators and 40 attendees. >> Yeah, 40 attendees came and all their mission was and they were all super excited and these are people that visit the across the world the best destinations and they had the bucket list family. They had influencers that are like they are famous with millions and millions and millions of followers. They couldn't have been more excited to be in this destination. But what we got out of it, they went out there and created content for days about ranting and raving about what they what the experience was here. And you guys, that put us on the map nationally. No one has ever done that in a CVB. So, we are really at the forefront of innovation. You talked about AI, all those things. Um, where we can get advantages over other CVBs. It's impressive because this is an area that I study um day in and day out because I find it fascinating what drives people here psychologically. Why do they choose Reno Tahoe? And um bar none I'm so proud when I visit other other cities, mayors say to me all the time, your CVB is amazing. So I just want to say thank you so much. So with that >> Yeah. >> All right. Go ahead, Councilwoman Der three minutes. Sorry. >> Thank you. Um, that was a phenomenal presentation and thank you for bringing it, mayor. Um, because I have not served on the board, you know, I'm less familiar. Of course, as a resident, I'm pretty darn familiar about all the great things that our community has to offer. Um, but I know your goal is to bring people in, right? Um, but also to entertain and support the people that are here. Um, and and mayor, I'll be honest, I can't think of anybody better to chair this group. >> Thank you. >> No, I'm serious. I mean, this is your lane. This is your passion. Um, and I think that you have helped them reach the next level. I mean, I'm not there, so I don't know the details, but I do know the synergy between you and them. Um, all of that said, I like the new logos about, you know, no limits, and I had not, but I'll be honest, you may be advertising to the world. I have not heard it. Okay. I've not heard the use of that. So, um, you may want to broaden your messaging even locally. I only wanted to follow up with one question. One of your slides caught my attention and spoke about something about 92% with families it was either repeat visits or they wanted to bring their family. Could someone I think it was you showed that slide. Can anyone just address that? You know what is I know we're focused on the conventions which is usually not so much family but would anyone like to address that? >> I can try and then I know you probably there was a slide. Um yeah, family travel has been as we sorry as we've been seeing um the millennials growing older and um having families that average age of 46 is typically older millennials bringing their families now to this region. So they've come here over the years now they have kids now they're bringing their kids to do the outdoor activities, go to the events and they're bringing them along to experience it all with them. Um, so it's really and it's also that trend with that millennial group of I mean it's always happened but bringing the kids along for that ambitious adventure and that's where I feel Reno Taho is a good fit is we're all about ambition and no limits and so um we've been really leaning into um some of those family partnerships the past couple of years and I think two years ago we've seen it pretty consistently the past couple of years it's about a third to a fourth of our visitors are bringing families. >> Okay. And uh Mr. Dr. Laretta, um I wanted to mention that we um for a decade tried to increase the tourism use of the bowling stadium and I want to commend you because it looks like you've done it with this particular focus on the nonprofits I I think is sort of genius. Instead of just sort of having open bowling nights with no sort of function or or focus or purpose, you've actually expanded that and um you know, you're you're you're hitting two important milestones with that. you're you're expanding the use of the facility so the peruse cost goes down, but you're also helping our community which is so reliant on nonprofits. You know, we we don't believe in government gets it done. We believe in the whole community gets it done together and you are helping that. So, I just wanted to give a shout out on that. >> Thank you, council. We appreciate it. And and that is just the start. We we also and I didn't touch on it today, but um we have activated the theater upstairs. Oh. So, we'll be starting selling uh packaging and movies into the theater. We have a tenant going into the um museum downstairs u which will be announced here in the very near future. And we also are selling packages to the stadium club and the kingpin. So, it's all about just activating the stadium from old. >> And I'll add just one thing if I may. Um I keep working on the convention center. It's been in my ward forever. and keep working on the parking and shuttle options so that everybody doesn't have to park close to the door, but they can be dropped at the door with with freaking shuttles. It's so important. People still drive so much and they drive here. Your point, some of you made a point that most of the people are driving, not flying here, they've all got a place to park and even if they're at a local hotel, they want to drive here and we don't have great transportation. So, if you can keep the eye on the ball of improving its appearance interior and exterior and expanding the use of those adjacent parking lots, you know, which are north, ssoutheast, and west, that'd be great, I think. >> Absolutely. >> Thanks, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor, Mr. Loretta, and your team. Thank you so much for the presentation. Incredibly energetic, which I appreciate about the work that you do. Um, I also appreciated sort of your thoughtfulness about the state of the economy and what it means and how we have to be able to be flexible. pivot move and also some conservative approach to how we forecast for what our RSCVA's revenue will be. Um, Madame Mayor has been a gracious uh leader and member of that board for many years and we don't always get to see all of it. Um, and so it's nice to be able to see it here when you do come for the presentations. Uh, for my part, two things. One is as I traveled recently both in San Francisco and Seattle, I did notice us advertising there. So on the subways and on the cars, I would look up and I would see, you know, >> come to Reno Tahoe. I that wasn't the slogan, but you get the idea. I appreciate that, too, because obviously you're targeting um drive markets, flyin markets where there are direct flights. Um and I trust you to do your job in that area. So very good and I was proud to see it and gave me a moment to smile and pause about being from here. Um the one question I have for you, Mr. Loretta and I have raised this with you of course privately and want to share is I continue to believe that in the winter months when we are able that the convention center or any of our property should be um hopefully turned into pickle ball uh venues. So you put up the slide about this incredible track and wow um you had to take a lot of slings and arrows for people who said why are you spending $5 million on this track and now we know why. Uh very exciting. I talked to President Sandival about just and uh Stephanie Remp about that um and how incredible it is. What can we do to encourage the growth of pickle ball and the opportunity to be indoors? You know, we do not have indoor facilities for tennis or pickle ball here. Uh there are a couple of small private operators now and that's great and there may be soon a new one. Um and so tell me that there's a plan. I I I really want to see us being able to Vice Mayor Taylor and I need to get out there and play pickle ball against one another. Uh and so we've we've got to get moving on it. What What can you tell me about that? >> First of all, thank you for the comments, positive comments, council Reese. Appreciate it. Um there's not as I stand here today, there's not a concrete plan, right? And as we have had discussions um off record, it's it's the challenge is the number of courts you can fit within the facilities and the time to put them down and take them up. So at the convention center, we had a tenant that was utilizing significant space during the winter months that allowed the public to come and play. Um it was very affordable, was very convenient, um and it worked for everyone. The challenge we had is with that particular tenant um they were willing when the prior owner willing to tear the courts up and put them back down when we had other business come in that was room generating business. The new owner is a little bit more resilient to do that just because of the cost and the labor associated with tearing down and putting the courts up. Now I have been told that that they are definitely looking at this winter of bringing pickle ball back to the convention center and we would love that. We would love that opportunity. It's really uh on the tenant themselves on whether they want to absorb the cost uh and whether it's profitable for them. >> Well, and and for my part and madam mayor, if I may just go over by a little bit, um you had a line item on one of the slides that talked about the dollars that you all are willing to invest. In some ways, it was 500,000 for certain events. There was a sports related line item, I think, of a million dollars. I guess for my part, I would encourage you to consider and would like your board to think about whether or not an appropriate use might be the purchase of some of those type of sports courts that are kind of like Legos. They go down. It is true that the operator who operated there um uh well, one Matt Williams of course passed away, which is a very sad thing and a loss for our community. Um, and he was very gracious, but he did have an army of volunteers who would go in and unhook all the Lego pieces and pull the floors up when you had other business in there. Um, it may be that we have to um, subsidize the court purchases in order to get the exchange for a thing which is might be the labor to unnap it and put it back together. Um, I will tell you at the Reno Tennis Center, there has been a phenomenal growth and investment by this body into the Reno Tennis Center, which has caused pickle ball to be a tremendous growth opportunity. And of course, all of these slides point out the economic impact of the things we do. You're not doing it altruistically. Although I do believe you have the right heart about it, it's because it will drive some room nights. It will drive economic vitality. People will spend their dollars in the adjacent businesses and all that. I think if we will invest a little bit, there will be some greater community buyin and it will help us to keep people who would otherwise play outdoors during the summer months going so that they aren't having to like rebuild their client base at the Reno Tennis Center every year. Um, so something to think about and and something I know the mayor is also very passionate about and has been uh hearing me com ask beseech her for it for several years. Thank you so much. I I think those are absolutely great great comments and we have to continue to do what we can. I get a little frustrated over there because they have their own way of doing things which I it works and that's why they do what they do. But I'm I'm with you whenever I say hey we need to get to yes and help subsidize some of those things that can really make an impact. Um but we do have a board just like this and we vote up and we vote down and some of that does not happen. Um, and then you guys have to see me come here and and be cranky. Um, and so with that being said, I'm surprised that Vice Mayor Taylor has not opened her own chicken and pickle. Um, she wanted to I don't know how many years ago. Three. >> Four. >> It was three or four years ago. I think you where when was that when you went to >> Yeah, it was about three years. >> Yeah. Three years ago. And so she's wanted one ever since. So I think she's going to have the same sentiment. So with that, I'm going to hand it back to you. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Obviously, we have amazing leadership over at RSCBA with our mayor and with with you and your team. Thank you for being here. I actually had the opportunity to play in the RS in the convention center with my daughter to in preparation for beating Councilman Ree. We have >> she's practicing. You're in trouble. >> And we had we had no idea what we were doing and the team there was very fantastic. But I had the opportunity to look at your strategic plan and I just wanted to um call attention to the urban core revitalization as your as one of your goals and that is very important to me as Madame Mayor talked about and to our entire council. So in one of the uh the roadmap you have an increase of 60% of visitors going to downtown over the next two years which is fantastic and phenomenal. I'm extremely excited about that and I'd like to probably schedule some time with you offline to see how we can get there. I did have some concerns with the bowling stadium and the event center and those numbers going down, but it sounds like with your presentation, you are bringing events there and you are thinking differently to get those spaces activated. So, that's that's extremely important to me. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about particularly with this presentation is what is your role in the special events space because it seems like um you know we're all trying to do bring people here and have special events and the city of Reno is responsible for some stuff and you're responsible for some stuff. How does that work and is there a way to streamline the process and make it more efficient for everybody involved? >> So the special event process is is twofold. one, there's an existing process that has been in play for Christina, >> a decade, um, where marketing oversees a $500,000 special event fund. It requires anybody who's requesting sponsorship or financial support to go through the rigorous process of completing a form. Those forms have to meet certain criteria in order to qualify. Once they qualify, every one of those applications is vetted through a committee and we literally sit in a room for a day and go through every single application from top to bottom to assess the request and determine whether we want to award funding or if not the full amount, how much. I believe um we had 57 56 or 57 applications last fiscal year and we awarded all but one um to some amount and they vary. It can be from five $500 to $15,000, let's say. And so that is the role on the special events side. >> So with that being said, I think City of Reno, we also have a process for doing stuff like that. And I would be interested in learning how we maybe combine those processes and work together on that and pull pull resources. I think we're trying to streamline some of our stuff, but we can discuss that later. But thank you for being here and all the great work you're doing. Really appreciate it. >> And I should give a shout out to Ashley because um she meets with Mike regularly. So, >> I think we have coffee next week, actually. >> Yeah. >> So, thank you so much, Ashley. So, she's she's got our eye on it, too. Go ahead, Councilman Martinez. >> Thanks so much, Madame Mayor, and thank you to you all for being here and providing us with some of the information. I'm so good to glad to see that about three4ers of the people that visit our city are happy with their experience and are willing to come back. It seems like there is a lot of interest in terms of sports and maybe sports tourism. I'm just wondering if you can highlight I know you talked about um the track but there are some movements maybe for flat fields and just curious if there's any other spaces you all are looking at to expand to and look at when it comes to sports tourism. you are and we we are incredibly passionate about sports. Um and that is just not that is youth sports, adult sports, um that is competitive sports, that is a AU, that is professional, everything above above board. We are looking at the the challenge we have and to your point, Councilman Martinez, is we have a we have an inventory problem as it relates to fields and flat fields. We do not have an inventory in terms of where to house the attendees and the participants. And so we've been working with different entities. um the RCBA has been very involved and we definitely want to play our part in making that a reality and so there have been different locations throughout the region that have been identified as possibilities. I'm working looking at some. We're working with a prior board member who is very uh passionate about flat fields and we hope that becomes a reality in the near future because we know if if those flat fields are put in play, we will have the demand is there the demand is there for lacrosse, for soccer, um for all kinds of flatfield sports. And so we know that if we build it, they will come and we have the room inventory to accommodate their needs. That's the one thing when I do hear from families locally and visitors how un underinventoried we are in that space and how disappointing it is. I I hear that over and over again. So we everyone's focus on that's going to be a massive um generator if we can get that to happen. >> Again I know a lot of folks on the dice are uh taking the charge and hoping to get that across the line. So maybe you and I can connect after and discuss more of a plan how to get that across the assist. We'd love there's your champion right there. >> Thank you. Very good. >> Right there, Mr. Martinez. Okay, go ahead. Uh, Councilwoman Anderson, >> hi. Thanks for the presentation and all the accolades for all the amazing people that are doing the great work. Um, just before I forget about the flat fields, are we looking at all at like I'm coming for the ballroom and the event center as fields? like are we looking at that as having collapsible indoor fields in those two facilities? >> That has not been presented or discussed um just because there there hasn't been really brought to our our attention that there's a need for that or whether that would be financially um feasible to do that and does is the ROI there. Every conversation that I've been involved with as it relates to flat fields has been outdoor. >> Yeah. But the challenge too, there are two challenges is size because the board has looked at it. But the other is um the schedule. The hard part is the schedule of what's happening in there. You got to pull it up, put it down, pull it up, put it down. So you have to make sure that you're scheduling it in between what's already booked. And that's where we've ran into the biggest roadblocks. Um is it's either not enough time um or you know people are saying a week isn't enough of an investment or two weeks. That's the biggest biggest downside to anything is the schedule of the events that are going in and out of there. So you have to be really strategic how you do it. And some years are better than others. So because you might not have that conference that comes that year and then they come the next year. So you're like it's a cra it's a very hard schedule to maintain actually. And to that point, most people that aren't in that business, whether it's on the convention side, the event side, or the flat field, or assembling a product can become a flat field, is don't realize the lead time on the front end and the tear down on the back end. And so what we think is is an easy process just to put in a flat field and construct it. >> There's the labor on the front end and back end. And it's it's a process. It's to kind of put things in perspective. When we did our first run of building the portable track in hall four, it took us six weeks. Now, that will go down as we come more experienced, but it's a process. >> So, one of the things, um, not not that we're going to throw your your strategy or your budget off track, um, that million dollars that the RSCBA is looking at booking, um, you know, music downtown, we have a lot of music downtown. >> We don't have a lot >> of activation at those two those facilities when we don't have music or conventions. So, I'm just I'm saying if we have that million-doll budget, we might be able to redirect it in the future to leverage some of these youth um sports where we can drive up my next point, which is we have uh you guys have done amazing room or work increasing our visitors and our room nights and we're seeing their average spend go down. So, I'm asking you, is there something that we can do from the city of Reno or any of the businesses and partners that we have in the city of Reno to help the RSCBA move the needle on that one data point where average spending is going down, but we're getting more visitors here? What can we do right now to help you with that data point? Are there packages? Are there, you know, value ads that we could be throwing in to make the the area more attractive >> to drive up spending? I'll uh councilman Anderson let me try and tackle that last question first. So I think when you look at average spend that there's a direct correlation to the demographic of the clientele that's visiting our region. Right? So whether when we look at the segmentation that we're going after there is data that shows who is the most profitable segment whether that is a conventioneer an FIT free independent traveler a gambler a leisure customer uh someone here is visiting family whatever it may be and we break all that down and then Christina team and miles partnership was their agency of record they will market accordingly going after those segments. So when we see our average spend going down or ADR going down, um I would attribute that primarily based on overall what's happening in the world in the economy and domestically is people are just spending less and they are being more frugal with their dollars in terms of their spend. But in terms of yes, can we market do a better job of marketing to segments that are more profitable and introducing them to more product where they'll spend more? Absolutely. I was going to go to this. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was going to go to the next question. >> Well, my I think we have an opportunity here right now where we don't have to change who we're bringing in. Right. Is there is there an opportunity where we can enhance what we're offering to drive up the spending? That's what I'm wonder. I don't >> I I I think the answer is yes, of course. Right. We're doing we try to do everything we can to introduce what there is to do in our region, right? Whether that is from an entertainment, gaming restaurant retail um beverage outdoor hiking biking golf tennis, pickle ball, whatever it may be, right? We are always trying to put that messaging out there about there is so much to do in our region. Um, but we can always get better. Sure. >> Okay. We'll talk later about what we can do here in Reno to help you. >> Yeah. Okay. >> That's what I'm asking. >> And then and then the just to answer your question as it relates to the music, um, uh, yes, we would be open to having those discussions. Obviously, our core responsibility is try and drive room nights, um, heads and beds, room tax, economic impact, and that's what that money was approved through for the board to allocate towards. But that being said, we also have, um, as the mayor knows, a program that we created a year ago. Um, it's called an unsolicited request for sponsorship and funding. And we have a budget of $150,000 for anything that goes through senior staff above to the finance committee and possibly the board for a request of above $10,000. And anything below 10,000 has another $50,000 line item that we can improve at senior staff. And we get those requests and it's generally from the community and it can be anything. Um we just did uh one the other day and I think it was a 10,000 for a local event because we really felt that it was something that was important to the region. So we have that option as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Um Councilwoman Eert. >> Yeah. Thank you uh for the presentation. And I know there's a lot of work that you guys do and it's great to have you come in and and share uh a lot of that with the council and the community. Um I did want to ask about um any kind of partnerships with the Stead airport. Are there any kind of events we're working on bringing there? I know um the air races, losing the air races was a huge loss for my community and also for Reno as a whole. Um it was a great event and I know it also brought a lot of revenue for the um hotels, casinos, restaurants because it was a week-l long event. People would come and stay here and um I know we really focus on the downtown area a lot which is great. I think we need to um revitalize it but if anybody comes to event at the airport they're likely going to stay in downtown. We don't have any um hotels in W 4. So, um just want to hear like if you guys have anything you're working on, any thoughts you have? Um are you open to suggestions from the community? Um just, you know, kind of generally. >> So, yes, we um a little over a year ago, we hired uh an individual out based out of Las Vegas, Valerie Sigara, who's our director of event development, and her focus is on new event development. it is on with four four key anchors, sports, arts and culture, um food and beverage, and music. And so those are the four areas that she's really focused on. It's it's a process. I kind of relate it and compare it to convention sales where the lead time is almost a year if not 18 months where you have to visit, solicit, entertain, and host. And then you have to obviously identify the venue and then negotiate the terms and then in most cases I bring that back to my board for approval. So, it has been unfortunately a longer timeline than we anticipated, but but we're close. We're close to identifying new events. >> One thing I just want to point out to the council so you understand because this is critical. This took me a while to figure out, >> but they do not put on events. They sponsor them. So, if you have someone out in that area or you know of events or promoters that are doing certain events, um that's where they should go because they can sponsor and they can promote those because they have a large audience. But just remember, because I used to say, "Why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we doing this?" And they were they would say, "We need a promoter. We need a promoter." Because remember, that's what they do is they market and they brand and they promote, but they do not put on events. So just remember that. >> Yeah. Yeah. But in particular, there was um a group an organization that I was speaking with that was interested in doing some kind of festival uh at the Stead airport. Um I don't know like if I should just connect them directly with you. There was discussion about you know having like maybe a bluegrass kind of event there and having people fly in advertise it as you know come come to town for this weekend event or something like that. Yes, please do. >> Okay. Um I do have a couple more things, but >> I'm going to move on to Councilman Ree and then Councilwoman or Councilwoman Der >> and then um I'll go back to you unless I don't see anyone's green light over on this side. So, uh go ahead, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I'll try to be brief. I want to just expand on a thought that uh my colleague Mr. Martinez talked about and that is uh the concept of soccerbased recreational flatfield tourism whether it's lacrosse flag football whatever it is. You know our vision for many years has been flat fields over on uh the east side of Reno hopefully along the flood pathway along the Truckucky River and that's being discussed and debated in other environments. I think what I want us to think about is the idea of like soccer city USA whether it's those fields ones that might be built at Pemrook the refurbishment of the Miraloma fields you know this is a way in which we could have national level soccer tournaments so when you say we purchased the $5 million for the track right I seem it seems to me that we should be able to figure out a way to spend RCVA dollars towards that kind of sportsbased tourism so I'm hopeful that as uh Miss Stewart and Mr. Martinez advocate for those flat fields uh that there'll be an opportunity for those advocacies to find their way to the RSCBA so that we can really think about it. On top of that, Mr. Martinez was able to leverage some of our um goodwill uh with Alex Mel in the GSR Arena area to provide some additional dollars for sportsbased uh youth programming. And so it's like a little piece here from the flood project, a little piece here from a development project. you, us, Council Member Martinez and Miss Der really pulling hard because the the issue is it's real easy to have an idea. It's very difficult to make it happen, right? And between that and um you know uh Richard J and all the people that support all these uh tourismbbased sports programming things, we should be able to get something done. >> That's a great point. Absolutely. >> Well, I'm here to build on the same point and I started back with Mr. Martinez and moved on. Um, I want to talk about three points of um, sportsoriented and outdoor sports. So, I want to commend both of my colleagues for bringing it up and I want to add my voice to it. Um, I think that the it is it is prime for your involvement. It is demonstrated in communities throughout the country that bringing in these tourists, they're going to drive probably uh bringing them in and being able to have those kind of tournaments, put them up at the hotel, spend money on the dinners. They're not bringing their own food. Um we need to really push hard on that. We we have such great opportunities. So I too want to press you a little bit and say if we can do five million for the Mondo, we should be able to also do five million for the flat fields. Um the second thing I wanted to mention since the focus on outdoor recreation is that um like we have the rim trail up at Tahoe and it's a real draw and people talk about all the time um for that segment whether it's walking, biking, running, whatever. Um we have something similar right here in in our area and that is we have a trail network about around Reno similar to McCarron Road but it's a walking biking type trail. The missing piece is the Virginia range. I started an ARPA project um to do the planning to fill in this missing gap. But I can tell you if we can finish the gap and and Edon understood this, they uh put in 75,000 a while back to develop the trail network, a map, um information about it, but we are missing this piece and we need to finish the planning. It's not going to directly turn into tourist dollars as soon as we finish the planning. But as each development comes in, we want them to be part of this. And so without the outlined, without the um drawing of where it goes, we're we're kind of dead in the water. I would like to reach out to you to consider that. And then finally, a number of years ago, I visited with RCVA about um using I believe it was the ballroom uh for ice hockey uh tournament events, which apparently and I partnered with um Holly Mlean. He's on the um International Olympic Committee. He knows about the draw. Uh tremendous TV coverage, which is again a way to pull people in without spending our advertising dollars. we are advertising while these games are being um transmitted you know on media and um at the time I brought the ice facility to you from Germany um I also presented it to um Joel Grace over down the ice ring well he grabbed on to it and he said we're going to put it in but our CVA still did not pick up on that and I would love to have that conversation again as again another way to activate this in a downtime >> that's not about music that's not about you know some nonprofit event. It's about utilizing the facility for something that will 100% get TV coverage here. So >> yeah, I mean that was um I think prior to my regime because we have as going back to the bowling stadium, one of the things we are exploring is the screens above the lanes. Yeah, >> you have the ability to live stream. Yes. >> And so we're looking at opportunities as it relates to March Madness or Indy500 or F1 of using that venue as a a visual. So, same concept, same receipt. So, and it does take some to put it down, but apparently it's a really easy system, relatively speaking. Not six weeks, but two days to put down and take up. So, >> love it. >> Okay. >> Okay. I And I'm so glad um she brought up ICE. One of the things and I I just want to put it on the council's radar. If you ever get the opportunity to bring ICE back in any capacity and even at the city level, we had people that came and and they were partners. Um, and unfortunately, I don't think that we were clear on what we wanted to see from them and they did one year and then forgot it. And I really think that um, ice skating is such a sort of traditional winter sport and we could have offered it more to our community. So, I think it's one of the biggest regrets that I will have on council is that allowing someone else to sort of take that over and then dropping the ball instead of bringing it, you know, to the community. It really is unfortunate. um and no one has brought it back since. So I would just urge this council if you ever get the opportunity to do it. Um it's a it's a really good opportunity to but >> apparently it's the hottest growing sport. >> Disappointed disappointed that we you know gave um that equipment and it has not been brought back and we were under the impression it would and it was really unfortunate. Okay. Uh Councilwoman Eert. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to kind of um reiterate what some of my fellow council members said with regards to flat fields. Um, it it's just so important. When my kids were in soccer, um, we would have games at the North Valley's Regional Park and there would be parents there from like south end of Reno. Like there people are driving all over because there's just just a shortage of fields and if we could bring um tournaments here um that would be wonderful for for people to stay in the rooms and all that too. So just um wanted to kind of you know >> echo that as well. >> Absolutely. And we we we are an advocate. We are in line. We would love to have that discussion about what that opportunity would look like. And because for us we know there's an inventory problem yet there's not an inventory problem on the room side or restaurant side. It's just a matter of having the fields available to host these tournaments. >> Yeah. Great. Okay. And so to wrap this up and then let you guys go, there is no vote on um this presentation. So, you don't have to worry. But I am going to um two things I want to touch on. Again, stressing so much. Why is this important to the council? You never hear about Las Vegas worrying about their budgets. Why? Because they have so much tourism and gaming that supports what they want to get done and accomplish. And not that we are Las Vegas, but I'm just saying this is why it's so critical to support your tourism core um in every every capacity because once that dips um it's even more and more challenging to provide the services that council members and the city want to provide back to the community. So keep that in mind. It's one of the reasons why I was like this is just you got to keep this gold right here. Going back to Councilwoman Anderson's point, great point about how can you support this? And I even think for the media back there um one of the stories that you can tell um is bring your conference home. Bring your conference home. All of you are in industries whether it's architecture or city planning or maybe you're on um some curling congress or it doesn't matter what it is. Um we want you to bring your conference home right here to Reno Tahoe. We're happy to host you. I brought the conference of mayors here because I know how important what that generates and the economic impact when we bring our conferences home. Um so every community member out there uh if you want to help the city generate um more revenue for the things that you love from flowers on our streets to street cleaning those types of things like that all helps us pay for things like that. So if there's one thing I can stress bring your conference home. And last but not least, I just want to say to you guys, and I think my entire council would um totally agree, and I'd like to see more of it, and I I don't think the board um and I should put it on the agenda so we can see where everyone's priorities are. River investment, river investment, keeping it clean, keeping it safe. Um it's one of the most coveted areas in the city. People are jealous that we have it. Uh Mayor Goodman always said to me, "If I could trade you that, I would." And so, um, I can't stress enough, we should probably put it on agenda, but we've never hashed out what that should really, really entail. We do the river rangers thanks to, um, our city manager over here. And it's critical because our visitors are going there. Our community is going there. We need it safe. We need it healthy. We need it vibrant. And we need we need it ready for people to enjoy. So, I'm just going to leave with that. So, they know what's going to be next on the agenda. All right, you guys. Thank you so much. I know it was long, but you haven't been here in a long time and so, uh, I appreciate your time and I just really felt it was important that everyone needs to know why tourism, um, is critical. So, >> thank you very much. >> Thanks for everything. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, I'm going to hand it over to Vice Mayor. You are going to take us into this next item, correct? >> Uh, yes, Madame Mayor. We're going to move into item D1. All right. Uh let let the record reflect the council is opening the public hearing on item D1. Madame clerk, was proper notice given and any correspondence received? >> Madame vice mayor, proper notice was given on this item. We did receive corres Oh, I apologize. We did receive correspondence on this item as three letters of support, 11 letters of opposition, and two letters of neutral or concern. >> Okay. Thank you. Do we have any disclosures from the body? >> I don't see any. We'll move now into a presentation. Welcome, Jeff. >> Thank you. Um, good afternoon, Vice Mayor, uh, members of the council. Jeff Foster, associate planner. Uh, today I'm bringing you an abandonment request by the Reno Housing Authority. >> So, uh, the abandonment uh, request is for a an approximately 6,197 ft alley between Reno Avenue and West Taylor Street. Uh this is about 265 ft east of South Arlington Avenue and 250 ft west of Lander Street. You can see the abandonment uh the alley here. Uh and then this is north of Mount Rose Elementary School there. Uh the proposed uh abandonment is uh to facilitate a more usable project area as the Reno Housing Authority considers housing opportunities for properties on both sides of the alley. So, as we zoom in here, the parcels adjoining the western boundary of the proposed abandonment area are developed with a former early childhood uh education center. As you can see there, the big white building and associated outdoor play equipment. The adjoining parcels to the east of the alley include two two single family residences on the north and the south that you can see here. one is occupied and one is vacant and one parcel containing uh playground equipment uh for the now non-operational early childhood education center across the alley. The key issues that staff analyzed are abandon the abandonment background as well as financial. So getting into the background, the alley was dedicated to the city by track map. Um, all five properties on both sides of the alley um were directly sorry that are directly affected uh by the abandonment were purchased approximately a year ago from the Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada. Uh there are no bus stops, city-owned trees, benches, or other public amenities in the alley. And last but not least, there are existing utilities within the abandonment area, including telephone and electric lines, a storm drain, and sanitary sewer. There are the five parcels that the RHA owns uh circled in blue there. So, continuing with background, the uh if the abandonment goes through and the alley is abandoned, uh the par the abandonment area would be merged with the parcels on both sides. Uh this would not have a negative impact on the adjacent street network or overall traffic circulation. Keep in mind that the applicant owns all parcels on both sides of the abandonment area and is the primary user of the existing alley. There are north south streets with sufficient capacity on both sides uh namely uh Lander and Arlington and um the alley does not continue across the next block to the south. RPD and RFD were both consulted and neither has uh concerns with the pro proposed abandonment request. moving into zoning. The adjacent parcels are zoned multif family 30 and multif family 14. Uh when the abandonment goes through, if it's approved, the uh the alley would be split at the center line and would revert to the parcels on both sides and take up the corresponding MF30 and MF14 zoning. Moving into financial, um the right of way is held in easement only, uh not in fee title. If it's abandoned, the area would revert back to the adjacent properties on either side with no associated fee. The city would benefit from reduced liability and maintenance responsibilities associated with the alley as the adjacent property owner again RHA would be responsible for all maintenance of the subject area. I wanted to turn to uh the finding in approving any abandonment, the city council shall find that the public will not be materially injured by by the proposed abandonment. That is the one and only finding that must be made in order to approve an abandonment. While there are many public comments, some positive, mostly negative, addressing the potential development of the site with affordable housing, that is not within the purview of today's proceedings. Um, while many of the comments point out that affordable housing should be built elsewhere, i.e. Lemon Valley or the city of Sparks, again, that is not what we're looking at today. We're only looking at whether or not the proposed abandonment would have a material uh negative impact or injury to the public. Again, there are no bus stops, benches, trees, or other public amenities. There are no negative impacts on the adjacent street network and RPD and RFD were both consulted and have no concerns. Therefore, staff is able to make the recommendation that the public will not be materially injured and therefore u we can support the proposed abandonment. Uh here's the recommended motion. Um I'm available for questions. The applicant is here. They will not be making a presentation, but they are here to answer any questions. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Jeff. Um appreciate your presentation. Madame Clerk, do we have any public comment on this item? >> We do have public comment, Madame Vice Mayor. Our first public commenter today is Richard Hill, followed by Sherry Hill, followed by Matthew Rston. >> Good morning. My name is Richard Hill. I live directly across the street from this alley. I have lived there 45 years. We have seen huge changes in that part of the community. We've gone from an area that was exclusively rentals. It's all now owner occupied with the exception of the block that's at issue today. This project is going to dramatically and adversely change the neighborhood. Now, I understand what Mr. Foster said that we're here today to focus on negative impacts on the public. Mr. Foster made a misstatement. He said there were no city assets to be taken here. That's not true. This alley is one of many in this area. If you look at a map, you will see that every city block in this area from California to Mount Rose, from Plumis to Arlington, they are all bisected by alleys. The alleys are a critical part of these neighborhoods and you're going to lose them. The city paid, I have no idea how much to put all of those alleys into concrete. Some of them were just in horrible shape. And four or five years ago, the city came in and put all of them into concrete. The one message that you're getting here today is the access for this project is going to move. That's what they want the alley for is so they can build on it. They wish to increase the density even further. Now, you heard from Dr. Chrome this morning that he's losing a buffer. You're going to hear from another gentleman who is going to tell you that the statement by Reno Fire Department that they're not going to be using the alley for fire is a misstatement. His house is in the alley. He needs access. Waste management uses these alleys. Where's the Well, I submit to you that you cannot do your duty in this case because what are they going to do with it? We don't know. Give it to us. Trust us. We know more than you do. That's what you're hearing. And there is no basis for you to be able to gauge adverse impact because you don't know what they're going to do with it. That neighborhood is a transition between the historic Newand's neighborhood and Midtown. And this project, we've been told by Reno Housing Authority, this is the only time this project is ever going to see any public hearing. And they've told us they think this is a slam dunk. Please don't do that to us. This project needs to be reigned in. What are they going to do? >> Thank you, Mr. Hill. >> Thank you. >> Our next public commenter is Sher Hill, followed by Matthew Rston. >> Um, hello. My name is Sher Y. Um, I do oppose this abandonment, but I don't wish to make any further statements at this. Thank you. >> Matthew Rston, followed by Nanette Frink Eaton, followed by Sam Gtle. >> My name is Matthew Rston. I live at 865 Lander Street. The back of my house is directly against where they're going to be building this, and I will be in the shadow of a three-story building. Like they say, it is a historic southwest neighborhood. Is it do we just keep building up? I just want to go on the record for opposing this alley to be abandonment. Thank you. >> Nette Finink Eaton followed by Sam Gtle followed by Cario Krent. >> Thank you. Nette Finink Eaton. Madame Chair, council members, thank you for letting us talk today. You know, I'm strongly opposed to this abandonment of the alley. This alley is far more than just a strip of pavement. It is an access that's very necessary, not just for the community at large, but you have children going through there quite often to the Mount Rose um uh elementary school. And as already mentioned, the alley is part of the characteristic of our district. We have alleys throughout this whole neighborhood and it gives it that pleasantry that we like about the oldw world charm of Old Southwest. We also have a question. What about emergency responders? We all know the big pink elephant in the room is going to be this 44 plus or 40 plus, whatever it is. We don't know what it is quite frankly at this point because they haven't told us definitively because they haven't proposed a definitive plan. They're going to put in an apartment complex there that is going to bring in a lot of of traffic and we're going to have cars. I don't care what level of socioeconomic status these individuals have. They need their cars. I need my car. You need your car. So parking is an issue with that whole aspect of it. Let's look at that um the the actual abandonment of this alley. If we go back historically in 1986, a clear president for handling this matter responsibly and respectfully to the neighborhood was the city of Reno. City of Reno granted an approval of the abandonment of this predicated on a stipulation that 42 parking spaces must be put on site in order to to feed the holy child daycare at that time. Why not implement that same rule as a respect and a a mandate towards the Reno Housing Authority? I think it's very necessary. We're concerned. Yeah, we're concerned about the high density. Absolutely. Do they have a right to build on their property? Absolutely. But not at the detriment of those around them. So, as Mr. Foster had said that there was no detriment, there is a detriment to the to the community there. We absolutely have a negative effect from this. And as Mr. Foster referred to my house at 450 Reno Avenue in 800 South Arlington as ground zero, well, dog gone it, I thought ground zero is where the bomb goes off. So, I'm asking you to consider this, please. And Madame Chair, council members, what if this was your neighborhood? Wouldn't you want to preserve the historic charm and loveliness of your neighborhood? >> Yeah. >> Sam Gtle followed by Carly O'Red by Isaac Morrison. >> Hi, I'm Sam Gtle. I was here before. I just wanted to bring back a couple. This is a picture of what ground zero most I'm not saying it is, but it most likely will be. And this is the Renaissance Hotel. So, I'm definitely against this and after the meeting two weeks ago, I'm double downing on it that no, this should not be done. They're they're confusing trying to confuse you that they're only taking into fact material document or material fact as it stands now. As soon as you grant the the easement, it becomes a huge material fact. And I'm going to refer the most important point is I I mentioned the name Dave Dave Az. He was a council person 20 years ago when all the when the Renaissance Hotel when the um alley was abandoned on on Mil Street and it and he was at and now he's the director of the RCA and so I will say he's a wonderful person. He was a fabulous council member, but he I there was a message that that I took away. He regretted voting for that and the council really regretted it because everything's change. Everything will change once that's approved. You have no say. You have to have cause and effect. You can't just cart blanch give this to people and then everything change. What if they never get financing? They're cutting financing back. What happens if you have an emergency report? Because because when this when this project goes through, you're going to have to have an evacuation report from the schools. That's not here. Also, they didn't tell you that this alley was um appraised at nearly $600,000. Who's are you going to give it away free? Where does that money go? These are all material effects. So, the second you approve of it, this is probably what's going to happen. They say no, but they don't have financing. They don't have a plan. They have all these excuses. And Mr. Foster and others, I've spoken with him before. Everybody thinks this is a done deal. They're just walking through it because you're going to automatically approve it. >> I I've heard this sentiment a couple of times. I I'm just curious like where where does this come from? Whenever like um the gentleman before you mentioned, oh, they've heard it's a slam dunk, it's a done deal. I mean, you know, really, honestly, the council likes to hear entirety so that because if they're giving you that perception, >> that's what they're they they were saying this is this is it from the second floor as well as the engineers. This is just a matter of rubber stamp and they basically said that in that meeting and the fact that they didn't disclose that this is a valuable alley, it's worth 600,000. It's like another lot. >> Like, who funds that? So, it's not like we picked it out of the air. It was it was a huge part of their their message that people got >> and I and I apologize for that because um that would be very inaccurate, >> right? >> So, thank you very much >> because I know most of you and you guys are very fair and you analyze things. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Sam. >> Cario Krent, followed by Isaac Morrison. >> Good morning. I'm Carlio Krent. I live with my partner and our dog on Reno Avenue directly across from the alley and the next RHD site. >> I just read this. >> Yep. And I'm about to say exactly what that says, but I think there's power in appearing and I took the day off and I'm appreciating being part of the process. So, um, I'll continue. I didn't grow up here, but it's the kind of neighborhood I dreamed of. Homes with character, big trees, neighbors from all walks of life. We've made this our home for the past eight years, making careful updates as time and budget have allowed. And this year, we planted four new trees we're excited to watch grow. I've spent almost 15 years in state government, usually on the other side of the DAS, listening to public comment. This is my first time speaking. I'm here as a private resident. These are my views, not my employers. But in my professional experience, the process exists to ensure the best outcome and to give neighbors like me a meaningful chance to participate before decisions are made. How this decision is made could very well shape everything that follows. For that reason, I'm asking the city to hold off on the abandonment request. A brief pause now until a more complete plan and its impacts are on the table will lead to a better, more transparent, and more defensible outcome for everyone. Right now, the project is still conceptual. Approving the abandonment now would grant the project thousands of additional feet of buildable area without clarity about the design or its impacts. If this were a private developer, the city of Reno would almost certainly wait for a full plan before giving up public right of way. The fact that RHA is a governmental entity shouldn't lower that bar. If anything, it should raise it. Public agencies may earn some special consideration because of that mission. But that status comes with a responsibility to serve the broader public interest, not just the residents of a single project. And right now, we simply don't know what RHA is going to do. That uncertainty is exactly why the abandonment decision should come after the full plan and its impacts are known. And because the site is directly next to a public elementary and middle school, traffic and safety should be part of the discussion before the alley is abandoned, not after. School drop off and pickup already create congestion and heavy pedestrian activity. If this project significantly cuts on-site parking, it will add even more pressure to these streets. There's no reason to rush. RHA can keep designing without the alley and the city can consider abandonment later after a complete plan or at least a clear concept and its impacts are on the table. That approach keeps options open, avoids locking in a design too soon, and protects the integrity of the process. This isn't just about neighborhood impacts. It's about making a decision that's transparent, defensible, and aligned with the city's long-term goals and master plan. Please wait to decide until you have the full picture so the result truly works for the neighborhood, for Reno, and for the people who will call this project home. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, >> Isaac Morrison. >> Morning, council mayor. Uh my name is Isaac Morrison, AICP, uh certified land use planner. Um worked on a few different master plan communities in the area. Um, I know that this is about the alley abandonment. I definitely wanted to bring up the change that has happened in the zoning code, the density bonuses for affordable housing. Um, basically a blanket density that gives us almost double the density. Um, we could previous to this new zoning code, I did the math, we could put in maybe 26 units there. Now we're up to I think I got um uh 50 or 48. Um because of that density bonus. Um I just want to paint that picture that suddenly a community an old community of 100-y old homes mine's 98 years. I live 200 feet away from this project now could be up to 45 48 units instead of 26 on one acre. We're talking about one acre. Um uh what I would really like to discuss here is that this character of the neighborhood and and the current problems that we already have, parking congestion, the intersections. I walk my kids to school every morning. I understand what happens at these intersections and how hard that can be. Um and and sometimes actually even dangerous. Um, but what I would really like to do uh is describe that because of these blanket density bonuses, we as the residents suffer the consequence of them but without reaping the benefits. We can't smash in all the units on our own property as well unless we go through the whole um affordable housing and I and I just want to point out I think Reno Housing afford uh Reno Housing Authority does a fantastic job. They're awesome. They're great. Um, I don't want to speak about them or the even the affordable housing component of this. I just want to focus on the density bonus. Um, with that being said, um, I hope that you guys can think about if you're going to approve this, put a couple conditions. For one, do not allow the density to increase. It comes out to about nine more units. I know on the grand scheme of things, pretty small for our community, it's big. Um, so cap their density at what they have now. So they can't use the alley area square footage um to increase their density, their unit total. Um, and then also and and I would I would hope that you could have at least one parking spot per unit. I know that some of these um um incentives decrease that that um that requirement, but if you could put those conditions on, it would make this pro project a lot more tolerable for us to swallow. So, >> can you can you repeat that again? >> Um cap the density to what it is right now because their acreage is like I think it's 1.08 and and it's split zoning so you got to kind of got to do some complicated math. I came out with um um 50 uh let's see 45 units pre-abandonment and I came out with 56 post. I could be off by a couple units but I just >> I see where you're what you're saying. Okay. >> Yeah. And then the other one was let's require at least one parking spot per unit. Um so because parking is is an issue out there especially during the school day. So >> Okay. >> Um those just that's all I have. >> Thank you. Were you a planner here? No, I do private private work. Um I've worked on a few communities. I will leave those unnamed. >> All right. Impressive. Good job. Thank you, >> Madame Mayor. With that, we have no additional public comment. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> All right, Jeff. How are you feeling? You doing fine? You're doing great. >> Sure. >> Um Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to bring it back to the body um for questions. Um, so make sure everyone has their lights on if they want to speak. Okay. I'm going to start with you, Councilwoman Der. It's your board. >> Yeah. I don't want to start with questions. I've had some time to dive into the project a bit, tour the site with RHA, um, speak to our staff. Um, what I wanted to do was really follow up on this last gentleman's comment, which was how good is RHA? They are an amazing partner. And um we have JD here today and Hillary Lopez not with us, but I've had the opportunity to work with her for almost a decade um in different roles. So she's only been I think at RHA for five years or something. Um but she and her team do a tremendous job in trying to look out for the community um think through our needs and really put packages together. Um the second person I wanted to compliment and thank is Kathleen Taylor um our vice mayor. Um she's currently chair of our um of RHA and I um again I think she's been doing a phenomenal job. Look at the projects that RHA has been involved with and that have come to us and even ones that haven't come to us um they have all been stellar projects. I also wanted to compliment u Miguel Martinez. I had a chance to talk to him a little earlier today and um he obviously has a passion for affordable housing and getting people housed. Um, all of that said, um, I just want to again, um, I I I guess my next point was I really wanted to support the concept of affordable housing in all of our neighborhoods. Um, I have one that's diagonally across from mine. While we might have larger lots in my development, across the street is essentially affordable apartments. Um, I have sponsored them throughout W. Um, even sometimes we've had split votes on council, but I've continued to support because I know it is our one of our most pressing needs. So, I just wanted to thank RHA and the board members here for their leadership on this. I we've heard from the public and I wanted to commend RHA for having a public workshop that was not required to have it, but they held it and I don't know who videoed it. Um it unfortunately was scheduled on the day of our council meeting so I couldn't attend in person but I was able to watch it online and I heard a lot of very important commentary and um when I visited with RHA I asked them what is your plan for design how do you incorporate the community and they said that they've made a pledge to the community to continue coordinating and that possibly as soon as December they're hoping to have some kind of sketch or understanding of the project that they plan to build. I came into this thinking, well, maybe it's one large apartment complex. And it turns out they're thinking of maybe two smaller complexes. They're concerned about parking. They know how tight it is in these areas. So, I'll be counting on them um assuming this project moves forward to address those issues to continue outreaching to the community. I'm not sure today what kind of permitting is going to be required by the city. And I think it's largely driven by the amount of units in each. Is this true, Jeff? the amount of units in each and what is the cutoff is it 20 40 >> so anywhere between uh 20 and 99 units would require a minor conditional use administrative staff level review 100 or more is a full conditional use permit with >> minor would go to the staff >> what's that >> minor would staff yes >> and um today those minor um staff permits don't come to the NAB um I don't think it's anticipated that they would and that's why I'm particularly appreciative of RHA continuing to old public outreach. Um, and then anything else that we can do to provide certainty to the community about what this would look like, what process would be followed, I think would be very valuable. So, thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to go on record kind of a initial position of where I'm at. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Go ahead, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Foster, or maybe this is a question for our legal team. So I understand that our entire focus today is supposed to be about the alley abandonment. Um and of course we try to wear the hat that we're tasked with and what's in front of us. So the hard part of course is that the alley abandonment has an impact to the overall parcelage assemblage or parcel assemblage that's happening here. So I I want to understand if we agree today that there is no material impact and therefore agree with the abandonment. Are we cart blanch saying the the some unidentified and unknown project must be built there? What what would the next steps be? >> Uh Jeff Foster, associate planner definitely not must be built there, but certainly um would be allowed to be built there in an easier fashion. In other words, right now you have five parcels bisected by an alley. So you've got parcel lines and things like that. You've got split zoning between MF30 and MF14. So by um if abandoned if the alley was abandoned and the adj that area was merged into the parcels, then you know you have more land. Uh they would probably do some kind of a merger and resub or a merger process uh to um make it one big parcel, maybe a couple of different parcels, but that way it would be easier to kind of develop the site. Keep in mind that anything that's allowed under MF30 or MF14 zoning could be built today without the abandonment um or with any kind of subsequent review process. Um so including multif family. So they could build up to 19 units on those on that land without by going straight to building permit. So they wouldn't it wouldn't even it would skip the whole administrative review. They could just go straight to building permit with 19 units two stories tall. >> Yeah. >> Well, and I understand all that. I'm not sure you've yet answered my question. Okay. >> Uh you have neighbors who are concerned about a project. >> The first thing that they have to do though is they have to come here and express their concerns about the abandonment of an alley. Right. And these are disconnected legally in our code. Right. And so I'm trying to understand when would the city council have the ability to weigh in on an ultimate project that would be built there? Not today. Is that correct? >> Not today. And you wouldn't unless it was unless the decision of the minor conditional use permit assuming that they built 20 or more units. Um if that was appealed it would come before council otherwise you wouldn't see it again. >> Understand? So um the commenter who was a planner who said let's condition some things today. Do we have the ability to condition things today on alley abandonments? >> Yes. Unlike a zone change, you do. And in fact there are a handful of conditions that are on the in the staff report currently. Um, you could further condition things like parking and whatnot. >> Jeeoff, can you can you go through those conditions for us, please? >> Um, so I don't have a So, generally the standard conditions for abandonments deal with things like uh maintenance of water rights um uh maintaining the utilities or abandoning them to the satis or relocating them to the satisfaction of, you know, NB Energy or whoever it is. It's just standard conditions in terms of time frames. There's nothing specific to a subsequent development of the site. And also I'm just curious and I'm not sure if council was going there but I was just curious because it made me think so if you did the abandonment let's say later on someone else wanted to come in let's say RHA didn't do the project. So does that abandonment run with what we do today? >> So the abandonment has to be recorded within 12 months. Um that's condition number two I believe. So if if if that if it's not recorded then it it it's not abandoned. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Or I think I got you. But if it is, let's say RHA says, "No, we're not going to do that." Someone else comes in, buys the land from them, and says, "We're going to do it." >> Do would they have the abandonment then? I assume they would. >> If it had been recorded, it would Yeah. The the Yes. Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Okay. All right. I'm going to send it to Vice Mayor. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, just a couple questions. As the chair of RHA, I am very excited about the things that we are doing and I appreciate the kudos. Um JD, can I ask you a couple quick questions? >> Uh JD Clippenstein, deputy executive director with RHA for the record. >> Great. Thank you so much for being here. Um there was reference made to RHA saying that this was a dead done deal or everything was yeah it was a done deal in the public comment and I wasn't able to attend the public meeting but I did see the deck and the presentation before that and then I watched the meeting and I don't think that I heard that. Is that something that you would be conveying? >> No I I definitely not intentionally conveying that and that's not our thought about the project either. In the community meeting, I believe the gentleman was referring to, we mult multiple times said pending approval from city council and also following all the codes, relevant codes for the project. >> And I think from that meeting, we also took back some public comment with the intent if you wanted to talk to work with the neighbors and have more meetings moving forward. Was that is that accurate? >> Yes, that's correct. We committed to having a meeting uh to discuss a conceptual design prior to submitting for any financing on the project. So ideally, >> why do you need the alleyway at this time? Why do you need the alleyway abandonment at this time? >> So there's a couple of reasons we're seeking it at this point. Uh one to uh know what we can design feasibly design on the site. Uh we wanted to pursue the abandonment primarily to increase on-site amenities like parking and to allow for a more flexible site plan. Um there is existing uh zoning that would allow us to build multif family there. We think that ultimately there would be a better project that would meet the needs of the community and our residents if we had some more flexibility on that site. So that's primarily why we're doing that. Also financing affordable housing is really difficult. So you want to have you have a lot of due diligence from investor for tax credits for a lender and having a set map is really critical for that. >> What do delays do to the cost of the project? Um well a delay would hold we'd have to hold off on starting uh more formally starting design which would make it difficult to meet the commitment we made to the community in terms of having a concept before the holidays. We have to procure an architect. We have to go through that process. So a delay would adversely impact that and it makes it very difficult to start the kind of heavy >> and ultimately it makes the project costs go up. Nothing never gets cheaper we've said over time. >> Yeah. Harder more soft costs. My last question is we have to make a determination that the public the public will not be materially um injured by this. How many people do we have on the RHA waiting list at this time? >> Oh, 3,000. >> It's actually 4,800. We have 4,800 people on the waiting list for affordable housing >> in this community. >> 4,800. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Martinez. >> Thanks so much, Madam Mayor. Uh Mr. Foster, I think my question is for you in terms of zoning. If the alleyway were to be abandoned, does it because it's surrounded by 14 and 30, what does it revert to? >> So, you can see that the portion of the alley that's surrounded by MF30, the northern portion that would become MF MF30. the southern portion would become MF14 directly adjacent to those parcels. >> Okay, I see what you're saying. And in terms of the process, I mean, there seems to be not just today, but in the public meeting that the Reno Housing Authority held, uh, there seemed to be some commentary about hiding information or not going through the normal processes. From what you from your experience, is this process that was followed for this alleyway abandonment similar to other abandonments or was there anything special about this process? >> No, nothing special. Nothing special at all. This is it's a straightforward abandonment request. Um, these do come forward prior to actual development plans on a fairly regular basis. Um, they're not required to come in with any kind of specific development plan. So there were no specific um allowances given to them to apply for the abandonment. It's it's a straightforward request as far as the timing goes. >> And when we talk about material injury or damage to the public in terms of the alleyway abandonment, did you consider uh walking children walking and pedestrians going to Mount Rose Elementary School or using the alleyway as transportation? I know you had mentioned that there was Arlington and I think Lander Street on the other side. just curious if you could expand a little bit more on that. >> So, um, great question. Thank you very much. So, the the material injury that that staff typically looks at in abandonments are, uh, the criteria are are there public amenities, i.e. again, benches, trees, um, things like that that would be lost? In this case, the answer is no. um would anyone on either side of that alley um uh not no longer have access to their property? Again, the answer is no because every parcel on both sides of the alley um are are owned by the Reno Housing Authority. So, no one loses access. Um and then we look at the ability of Reno Police and Reno Fire to respond to things in terms of emergencies. Uh, as one of the commenters brought up again, the answer was no impact. No, you've got north south streets, Lander, and Arlington within 200 feet. And so, getting back to your very specific question about um folks walking through the alley to get to Mount Rose Elementary School. Um, did I do that? Okay. Uh, certain certainly I'm sure some folks walk through the alley. I you know I don't have any data to suggest they do or they don't but I suspect that they do. Um but then as I would point out um as we can no longer see you do have Lander and Arlington within a couple hundred feet of that north south alley with sidewalks and everything else. Right. So you you still have complete means of uh egress or ingress or or transport or you know walking ability to get to Mount Rose Elementary. And when you're considering ingress and egress to the neighboring parcels, do you just look at frontage or do you look at maybe a side entrance or a back entrance when you look at those parcels? >> Um, all of the above. U but in this case again the totality of the site the parcels on both sides >> are owned by the Reno Housing Authority. So no one owns a parcel that uh that is abuing the alley other than the Reno Housing Authority. >> Okay, I think I'm out of time so I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Foster. >> Miguel, you never go over time. I will always let you go over time. Anything you need. Okay, go ahead, Councilman Anderson. >> Um, thank you. Thank you, my to my colleagues. >> The other ones down here, these these offenders. No, I'm just kidding. >> For the smart questions, I just have one question about the utilities on the site. When I went and toured the site, I noticed that there were above ground utilities going through that site and somebody mentioned they may be underground which I think would be or put underground which would be a huge improvement in terms of the safety of that neighborhood. We know that wind and the aging infrastructure in there can be very dangerous on the fire side. Is there a plan for that or does this resoning require that those utilities go underground? So um the conditions three and four on the abandonment deal with the utilities. Um basically they either need to be perpetuated easements need to be perpetuated um or the or the utilities need to be relocated to the satisfaction of AT&T for example and AT&T was one of the commenters uh during the during the review process. they acknowledged or pointed out that they had lines in the alley and they wanted to make sure that their lines would continue to either exist or be relocated. And again, conditions three and four um as a part of the abandonment uh ensure that they either continue to exist or that they are relocated. Um that would happen as a part of the development of the site. So there's not a specific plan in terms of undergrounding or anything like that. All of that would come out during the subsequent development of the site, whether it's a minor conditional use permit, the building permit review process, all of that would be handled dur at that time. >> Okay. Thanks. That's all I had. Thank you. >> All right. Um, go ahead. >> Me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, you know, Jeeoff, I'm very sensitive to um trying to work with developers like RHA to ensure that they fit into the community. Um it's been a hallmark of my tenure here. Um what I'm wondering is if RHA was to build two separate buildings, which was one of the options they posed to me, um would that trigger the need for a minor cup? >> So anything more than 20 units >> whether it's in two buildings, three buildings, four buildings, right? >> Is that because this is considered one site or >> Yes. Even though it has different zoning >> because it would be it would be being proposed as as one project >> from one applicant. >> Exactly. >> Okay. And so that would I mean they they've said they plan to build more than 20 units and the and the site even without a push would allow something like 25 26 units even without pushing it. So what's the process for public participation in a minor cup? How would people who have written to us, who have spoken here today, how do they get you to consider because you would be the one, right? You and only you, uh, would be the reviewer, I assume, how how do they get their voices heard and how do you balance those things? >> Um, great question. Thank you, Council Member Door. So, um, whether it was assigned to me or one of the other planners, the process for a minor conditional use permit is they submit the application. Um, we send out our development review memo that goes to, you know, various agencies. Anyone who who actually wants to get the DRM can get it on a bi-weekly basis when we have our intake. Um, including members of the public not specifically representing any kind of agency. Um, so they could be on that list, for example. But it the reality is you have a 750 foot noticing radius from all points of that property. So our GIS system would extrapolate 750 ft out from every point of that property and everyone within that 750 ft notice noticing radius would receive a public notification card much like they did for the abandonment today. >> Okay. >> Um and when they receive that they then can provide either written or or you know verbal commentary uh to the planner who is processing the case. Um, aside from that, there's not a specific uh hearing or or NAB meeting or anything like that as you pointed out earlier. Um, it would just be a staff level review complete within 30 days from when the application is submitted. >> So, let me ask you, um, we did have recently we received 450 comments on a proposed Jify Lube just to cement this in people's minds. And while it isn't scheduled to come to the NAB, um we I asked the developer if they would come to the NAB because that's a way to notify people. It's more formal and official than an informal meeting held by a developer, in this case, R.J. And so we held that meeting here in this room. I mean, they agreed. We held the meeting here in this room. The room was filled up. Um the public got a chance to express even though this permit was not going to planning commission or to council. Is that an option? >> Absolutely, it's an option. Yes. It's just not part of the normal process, but absolutely it is an option. >> We we have done it when we've heard significant concern. We want to make sure that those things are addressed. >> Yes. >> And it helped me certainly um in hearing what the public had to say. Um it was recorded so it helped any member of council that wanted to listen in. Like I had just listened into the RHA meeting, they can listen into this meeting. So I think Thank you. >> Thank you. So >> I just wanted the public to know what the process is. Yeah. Should we approve this today? Yeah. When they can be heard and even special efforts we can make. >> All right. Thank you so much. Um quick couple quick questions. I I think the residents brought up some really really good points. I will say um you know it is very very difficult. I want people to understand how hard this is to balance what your residents want and then also what we have other residents who are experiencing housing shortages and extreme misfortune because it's incredibly hard um every single day to see what's happening across the country whether it's in our economies or just politically um there is a there are people really really struggling and I will say that the RHA is one of the brightest um shining stars s in this community. It is not I'm not kidding you. It It made me so proud to be on that board to see the heart and soul that they do and putting roofs over people's heads, especially if you understand anything about mental illness and the addiction crisis that we're facing. People are in serious serious need. Um and and I will tell you the work that they do is is just phenomenal and and people really don't don't see it to that level. But I would just say because um you know those are areas that we we don't invest enough in and sometimes just putting a roof over someone's head can change your life dramatically um in more ways than one. But I also understand you know when you live next to something that's going to be developed there is a lot of anxiety. You don't know um the outcome the potential that that could cause right which causes harm to someone else's mental health. So, it's a very tough balance. It is not easy. And especially when we approve projects. Oh, see the city council, they're corrupt that that's all they do is they approve projects. You know, it's very tough. Very tough. And then you see those people that are living and dying on streets. And you think, gosh, if we could have gotten them before, could we have gotten a roof over their head and gotten them help and saved their lives? It's hard. It's not easy. I do think that you that you have brought up some great points today um with the residents. I absolutely hear you and I think um it was so well said by all of you JD with that being you know part of the concern and I want the council to hear it because it's it is important. The RHA has a stellar reputation. You are not in the business to come and ruin it over a project. That is not how this works. I've never seen it before. But I will say what um I I'm grateful that you did community outreach. You're going to have to do a lot more. I am hearing two stories, three, you know, three stories. I don't know what that is. Those poor residents, they do live in those areas for that historical significance for for those rare things, right? Which make those neighborhoods super um attractive to a lot of people. And I, you know, I see it all the time where someone didn't have to come to council. Just so everyone knows, there's something called functional obsolescence where I drive down a neighborhood, it's charming, it's beautiful, and then you have this monstrosity that we had nothing to do with. And I love how people come back. Mayor Shivy, how dare you? But I'm in charge of the weather, too. So, I get a lot of I get a flack for everything that that I do. But it it makes me a little understand how people that live in those neighborhoods could feel when they see a monstrosity sitting there in this charming neighborhood and it just doesn't conform. It's really hard to watch when I see that. And so I I just want everyone to know the council oftentimes that did not come to the council, but sometimes it does. And um we also don't have a right, everyone should know this, we don't have a right to what it also looks like aesthetically. I would say though, I wish we did because I do think in those areas you need to continue with the same historical charm and think about things like that, but you need to kind of clarify JD. I don't know. I I don't know because I haven't heard I don't know what outreach you've done to the council done with the council. I never seriously have to worry about RHA because you guys are such good partners. Um, so I want I I wish I could stress this enough for everyone to understand in here today that has concerns. They will listen to every single thing. And if they don't, um, I will be on the phone, the first one to be on the phone, and they they don't like the wrath of me over there. That's why they couldn't wait till I got off their board, I'm sure. But anyway, JD, talk a little bit about that because I completely understand there. I don't even know what it looks like and I got to tell you I'm really uncomfortable with giving an abandonment to someone down the line that could they could go and do something else. RHA I think should absolutely you know that that's one thing. It's another thing for someone else to come in because this could fall through. We know how projects go and then at the end of the day you we're giving an abandonment to someone else that we don't know their intentions. So I really have concern there. Um, I don't know what you can help me ease my fears of, but kind of talk a little bit about RHA, the reputation, but also what you guys are going to do to help mitigate this. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. JD Cliffstein with the Reno Housing Authority for the record. >> So, there's a there's a handful of things there I'll try to go through. Um, >> I'm sorry. >> No, one I think an important detail to share in terms of uh this situ uh scenario where RHA doesn't pursue development there. Uh we purchased this property in part through homies Nevada funds state uh ARPA funds that came through the state and at that uh point of purchase we recorded uh there's a deed restriction on the property that would live with the property in perpetuity for or through I think for 50 years at least for afford it has to be developed to be affordable housing. So that deed restriction uh isn't just for RHA it's recorded on the property itself. So future >> anyone coming in could has to do >> yes afford it would be >> he's saying no so >> yet >> well I maybe we can look into that we okay >> I I had to close on that so I I remember there being a a recording so we can we can dig into >> we'll get into that >> where where that is recorded but it is a stipulation of the funds that were we purchased the property got >> um in terms of heights understand the concern and actually some of the helpful feedback we got from the community meeting was concerns about height. Someone had mentioned an overlay. So, our planning consultant looked into it more. It does fall into what is the Plumis corridor planning overlay, I believe is what it's called, which regardless of zoning restricts height to 25 ft. So, three stories is actually not currently allowed on this site. >> Okay. So, everyone heard that no three stories. >> Yes. So we had uh we the the feedback helped us look a little bit deeper into it and yes currently um unless we requested a major deviation I believe the unless we requested a major deviation which I believe would be another public process. Um we would be restricted to two stories. Um at the community meeting we did say our concept was two to three stories. Uh since then uh our concept currently is two stories. I imagine it will stay that way because we can uh build the project that we're looking for at two stories. >> Okay. >> Uh and then in terms of some of the other things, uh we absolutely want to provide as much on-site parking as possible. It's an amenity that nearly every resident looks for. It is near a bus line and would qualify for a parking reduction with affordable housing and it's I think less than a quarter mile from a bus line. Um that being said, we're not looking to maximize that um the the parking reduction uh current concepts that we're throwing around. We're trying to figure out if we need one at all. Again, um it is uh it's early on. We have no set concept plan. We have been in discussions with the planning consultant and I would imagine that uh the I'm hoping in December when we have this conversation with the members and we have an actual plan for for folks to take a look at that there will be less concerns about parking. >> Okay. I I think that's really important. And how are you going to ensure that you're working with the residents and hearing them? I can't have, >> you know, sort of the silo going on in war two, whatever that looks like. I have got to have you guys at the table. >> Absolutely. >> Um, holding the hands every step of the way. >> Yeah. I mean, honestly, >> based on feedback, uh, we, our executive director, Hilly Lopez, made a commitment to bring, uh, a conceptual design back to the residents for feedback prior to submitting for funding. And in order for us to actually meet that in a meaningful way, we moved up our formal design process. So, we're in the process of developing the RFP for an architect for that site um a good three or four months earlier than we anticipated doing that so that we would have a more tangible conceptual plan to bring to them in December. We're hoping to release that RFP by end of this month, early September. You know, as a public agency, we have to go through a whole a procurement process. Um, and our hope is that we have a conceptual plan early to mid- November that could then be discussed with the the community in more detail come then. >> Okay, perfect. Thanks so much. Okay, go ahead, Councilwoman Der. And then we're >> one great thing is that we do >> this is our last round >> two RHA board members here. So, not just relying on the staff and all their commitments, but I mean both of you um Vice Mayor Taylor and um Council Member Martinez have heard this discussion and I think that we could count on them probably to to basically hold our staff's feet the staff's feet to the fire and addressing those things and if they think see a a problem to do course correction. Is that is that probably true? I mean from Mr. Martinez or Miss Taylor. I mean, you're in the capird seat. You will see these plans and drawings. You will hear the issues. >> I I can't hear you. Go ahead. Are you >> Are you asking me a question? I >> I am. I'm just I'm I'm saying I'm counting on you and I to to understand this dynamic and it sounds like you will. >> Of course. >> Yeah. >> You just weren't responding. I don't know if I could hear. >> Yeah. I mean, that's why we have you over there, right? is to help forward the council's um viewpoints and concerns. And I'm I'm very grateful to you both. >> I am I um I am ready. Go ahead, Councilman Ree. And >> Mr. Foster, I I hate to bring you back up again, but I >> No problem. >> And I asked you this question earlier about conditions. Uh you said yes, there can be conditions. So, I pulled up the staff report and the conditions are all about the abandonment. I was asking whether there could be conditions placed today on the project and I don't know that I've gotten an answer from that. If you don't know the answer, I'll turn to our city attorney and ask for that. But you heard residents say, for example, and a planning resident, right, with some planning background, could we condition on density? I do not believe that I have the legal authority to make that condition today, even if I felt it was appropriate. So the conditions that you have in here are not related to an underlying project. They're related to the abandonment. >> Is that correct? >> That is correct. The conditions all are specific. >> And Mr. uh Shipman or Mr. Hall, can you confirm for us so that we as a body understand the guard rails for alley abandonments? >> Yeah. So for the record, John Shipman, City Attorney's Office. Yeah. So, what's in front of you today is you're looking at potentially the material um damage to the public of abandoning that piece of land. Uh you have codes for zoning and for building um that would that would govern the development that are not in play today. You are just looking at um just that piece of property today, whether if it were abandoned. And by abandoned, we're taking the public easement off the um the property and then the land reverts to the property owners. Um that whether that is going to somehow impair or be a material injury to the public and and if the answer is no and you there's evidence in the record that shows otherwise, um you just have to uh that would be your decision point. If you think it does, then you would deny it. If you think that um it wouldn't be a material damage then you can approve it. I >> I think perhaps I am not asking the question in the way most lawyers as I am you know Mr. Shipman a lawyer know the answer to the question before they get the answer right and so I'm trying to figure out am I in a position today to condition density of an underlying project on an alley abandonment. >> No that is not >> I don't know why that was so hard to get to. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm frustrated that we cannot get a straight answer. One of the commenters from the audience is a planner. He asked a very specific thing and wanted to know about conditions and I want him to know why I cannot go with him even if my heart says I would like to. Right. So you've now answered the question. I appreciate that. Um what I want to come down to now is the item number three. Item number three says the order of abandonment shall be recorded with the WO county recorder within 12 months of the date of council approval. So now I have to understand this particular condition of approval. Right. Um what I understand is that people are concerned and I think Mr. Clippenstein has answered this from a factual issue but I want to now answer it from a legal one about what happens when we abandon a thing and we have let that thing go from now in all perpetuity into the future. Right. Um, this seems to suggest another path and I'm trying to figure out if in that 12-month period, Mr. Clippenstein and RHA will come through this process and show what it is that they can build there because they can't do it before the abandonment happens because they're trying to do it on a unified parcel. So, what happens in that scenario >> if they do not get it recorded within 12 months? Well, in that 12-month period, can they provide a more concrete conceptual >> drawing and rendering of what they want to build? >> Yes. >> So that we have >> Yes. Yes, they can. >> Okay. So, and if they do not do that and cannot record it, then the abandonment comes back to the city in that period. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> No. >> Okay. Anyone else? Okay. I'm I'm going to try here and um it's probably not going to be very popular and I and I disagree a little bit um maybe on the legal and until we get challenged. I don't know if I I'm sure I have council members that would highly disagree with that. I would say, Jeff, for me, I I absolutely think that we should be able to say the abandonment goes only with this possible project and nothing else. Um I So I would love I'm I'm going to put that condition in there. And then also that um you could cap the density which seems like you could so that it can't be um more than what what you have proposed. Now JD correct. >> So do you see what I'm saying? >> Uh JD Cliffstein with the housing authority for the record. Madame Mayor I just want to be clear. I'm not authorized to accept any conditions on behalf of the agency today. So I'm can just be for what's on the >> Thank you so much. And the one thing is I would also commit that I will um do whatever I can to work with the RHA and the residents and I know Miguel will and and Kathleen will. That's what we have them there for. But I do think um making sure that everyone is living cohesively and respectfully of some, you know, some of the issues. Um because I can certainly see both sides. Um, and there's a balance there. And sometimes both sides walk away a little unhappy and that's that's tough. I get it. But that that's the way that I think we could easily get there and we can all feel, you know, maybe not 100% happy, but we all at least walked away with a little bit of something and to ease um some of the angst that is happening between both parties. We have seen this many times before um some of my new council members over here uh to the right. We've seen many times like in Ver Verdai with some of the projects how when we really stay connected to the community concerns with the development process and the design and the build and I really believe with the parking those things we get pretty good outcomes and matter of fact they come back later and say you know what we worked with them it was great and we've had awesome outcomes um and but that has to work both both sides so that's what I would ask. So I would uh that would be my motion. Is there something that I'm missing since it's your word? >> I would second it, but I I want to make sure your main points I heard only for this project and I don't know how that works. >> I would like to say the abandonment only goes with this project. If another project should come in, they should not be granted the abandonment. We don't know what that's look that looks like and someone else could have a completely different idea. And so I I just I think that that um it poses a problem. Okay. And then the second one, I heard you say cap density, but I wasn't sure. Did you have a number or >> Well, I thought to the current density. Yes. >> No, density bonus. >> Bonus. >> Gotcha. And then was it there or a third one? I got I didn't hear a third. >> I don't think there was a third one. >> Oh, fine. So, you're saying it would only be for this project and it would cap density at the current density. No density bonus. >> Yeah, I can second that. >> Okay. So, I have I have a motion and a sec. JD, do you have something you need to say? JD, is there a concern? >> Uh, JD Clevenstein, RHA. For the record, I um just wanted to understand, we're saying the current density. I'm just trying to make >> Yeah. >> What's the what is the city's opinion of what the current density is? >> 30 um homes per >> So Jeff Foster, associate planners, >> whatever is required. >> So as I understand what the this is all coming from the one comment from the gentleman who's an AICP, yeah, who said that the the affordable housing density bonus. So what I'm understanding this discussion to be is a limit uh to what would be allowed based on the zoning and the acreage without any additional affordable housing density bonus. >> Yeah. So that's what that number is. >> We don't know it. Right. Right. Exactly. >> Without any density bonus. >> So you're saying today you have MF30 and MF14. I think >> that's correct. >> Okay. So if we add it, can we just add those and say that's 44 or there's a little more than an acre. So, is that what you're saying? >> So, so if I could, I'm just I just want to be clear that we we're not changing zoning currently today. >> What you are looking at as a body is whether or not >> um the public would be materially injured if that property that is currently a a a strip of land um was given to the adjacent property owners and the public could no longer access it. That's it. and and so what comes after that point is governed by your development code and by everything that you currently already have in place and would go through the normal process as you've already decided it is. So I just want to make that clear that there's some risk that if you start put adding these conditions that do things like vary the zoning, change the zoning, um that's not going to be upheld by a court. >> Yeah. Uh that's fine. I'm willing to take that risk, >> but but you're not changing the zoning. You're saying just go with the zoning, >> right? Go with what we have. The zoning right there. Go with what we have. I'm just saying that, you know, if if someone wants to challenge it, go right ahead. Um we'll we'll see. >> Uh Judy Clifson for the record housing authority. I just want to get clarity. Are we is the condition that the density bonus currently available for affordable housing would not be available for this affordable housing project? >> I just want to flag that likely impacts the financial feasibility of the project as a whole. >> Okay. And that's also really important to know. How much do you know? >> I just don't understand why we would take away a affordable housing density bonus for affordable housing on an affordable housing. >> What what I just don't understand this conversation at all. >> You don't have to understand. Do you know what it looks like? >> Do I know what what looks like? >> Do you know what what it looks like? What the bonus would be? >> Well, it depends on the design and and what they can get in there, but the property is deed affordable housing for 50 years. So it qualifies for affordable >> mean that it shouldn't have affordable housing. I want I want to know what it >> but as a council we we have said that we have an afford we want affordable housing. We want housing. So we provided a density bonus for >> what I just motioned for to abandon it for that reason. >> Yeah. So you're my understanding that to get rid of the affordable housing bonus density bonus. >> How much more is it? They can still do affordable housing but there's a bonus more to cap. Why don't you come up, sir? You you he he's he's trying to >> I don't want sidetrack. >> Yeah. Um again, Isaac Morrison, I think my original comment got a little bit misconstrued. My whole thing was let's just not include the acreage of the alley, >> right? >> The density bonuses are there. That's part of code, >> right? But let's if you're going to give the alley then and it comes out to a very small amount of acreage but again it's about nine nine units more or less if I did my calculations correct with the density bonus. >> Um that was my point. I I didn't want to sidetrack try to get rid of density bonuses or anything but just to clarify my statement. >> I want to make sure that everyone is getting heard and we're being thoughtful. >> Um but here's the thing. The council's very supportive of affordable housing. We always have been. I've sat on RHA for a long time, so I understand completely and I and I absolutely um am grateful you're there and we have the same goal. I'm just trying to say that nothing more than part of that that abandonment piece. Correct. That's what what I heard. And so then you do get the bonus in there if you need it. Correct. You you have the right to use that additional space. Jeff um >> under the bonus m >> if I could ask Jeff Mr. Clippenstein, you you met with me and you told me that you were planning to build around 44 45 units. That is what you said you want to build. And so that is what the mayor's motion would get you. I It's 454 44 45 units. It's the same. So is there I want to ask you, are we missing something? >> JD Clenstein, RHA for the record. Uh Council Member Madur, that was directed to me. Correct? Yes. >> Okay. Um, sorry, I was just trying to clarify you um, you are correct in our conversation and our concept is 40 to 45 units. I I I do want to a huge driver of this is the ability to finance the project. So, we're we're actually not nor were we ever looking to maximize density based on existing bonuses, right? >> So, there's different math that says there's an up to number and the other contributing factors. How much based on the tools we use to finance it, we could actually construct. >> I guess that's a better way to say it. Are you going over the 45? >> I do not see a world in which we're going over the 45. >> Okay. All right. I guess that was my point to expand it to not give that over that reach. I guess >> may I interject something >> so that you could do the project in what you envisioned. JD, >> so uh Jeff Foster, associate planner. Um I think part of what uh Mr. Shipment is indicating is that there is a process, there is a code that is in place that will kind of work with all of this without conditions of approval tied to the abandonment for the subsequent development of the project because we have a code that's in place that will ensure things. We also have a a specific site size. So, however big it is times the zoning, um, with a limitation of two stories for the Plumeis neighborhood overlay with a with a requirement for parking to be on the site, all of these things, you're you're not you're not going to get some fantastical number of apartment units with all of those requirements. >> Okay. I was just trying to make sure that there wasn't over 45 and then, you know, all of a sudden someone's like, "Oh, there was 60 because you put in more bonus space is what I was trying to say." and keep it at the 45, but not this additional that we all of a sudden end up with a 100 units. >> But but Jeff, if I may, you you stated to us you can get an exemption from the Plumis overlay. You are not required to do on-site parking as far as I know. And um >> so so >> I mean the things you just said though there's exceptions. >> Um let's let's clarify please. >> The Palumis neighborhood overlay is limited to two stories or 25 ft in height. a major deviation which is a public process that would come back before the planning commission and and is appealable to the council would allow up to a 50% increase in height thereby allowing effectively a third story. So there is a process but it's not an exemption in the sense of it's administrative or anything. It would it' be a public process. Um parking is required to be on site. Okay. um code requires um a ma a minimum of so each apartment has to have a minimum of one parking space um up to,250 ft. So in all likelihood these apartments would have a requirement for one individual parking space per unit. >> Okay. >> Um and up to 50% of those can be on the street. So there is not a code requirement that all parking shall be on site. Up to 50% could be offsite. But what I'm saying is as a part of the minor conditional use permit process, whether I'm the planner or another planner takes that case, um we would certainly knowing what the conversation is and the concerns are here, want to make sure, and I think it's RHA's commitment to also making sure that they uh provide all of the required parking on the site. and a condition could be added to the minor conditional use permit requiring all parking to be on site even though code allows up to 50% to be offsite. >> And Jeff, there was a comment made earlier that in the earlier abandonment request that they that the council did put a condition, I thought it was council of 42 parking spots. Did that happen? I mean, our attorney saying it couldn't happen. It's not legal, but yet there's uh evidence that it did happen. I mean, there was a >> Well, and I I was confused about that because if the alley had been abandoned, then it would have been abandoned. >> It wasn't recorded, I'm guessing. >> Maybe. Maybe. So, >> but the original staff work required 42 or the council did. I I don't know the history on that. >> I and I don't either. I apologize. >> Okay. But it sounds for our attorneys like it did happen and they should know about it. >> So, um So, Angela pointed out that if you're referring to Stevenson, that was an application that was withdrawn that never happened. >> Not Stephen. This project got a a ballet abandonment and it required 42 parking spots. It was never recorded. JD himself did all the research and he told me he found it. >> It exists, but it was never recorded. >> We'll look at that, but I'm not aware of this. >> Let's move on. I want to get I want to get to a place because we we have a really big presentation coming up and I'm excited to to hear it. Um, but I want to I also want to get back to this. Um to make it much more clear, I would say to approve the abandonment with the stipulation that the abandonment goes with the RHA in case for some reason it doesn't get built, that something else cannot come in and end up in another capacity. So I want that's one of my conditions. Um, so thank you, Jeff. >> You have a motion in a second. >> Oh, I already have a motion in a second. But she basically said, >> but I'm just trying to reiterate because I don't want everyone to come back and say I'm confused because Kathleen and I are were clearly on a different page when it came to the density bonus. I'm not sure I was >> being clear. >> Okay. >> And if I may, Madam Mayor, I just want to make sure that we're on the same page and we don't do something here that's going to cause a problem. And the issue is is at the time of the recordation the condition has to be met. So what is that condition and um that's because if we have a condition that we don't know if it can be met at time of recordreditdation there will not be a recordreditation. So that creates a problem for the project moving forward. So I just want to make sure that we understand what this condition is. >> I don't understand why that >> so if you were to say RHA would get the abandonment. No one else would, if they wanted to abandon it, they would have to come back before council. >> So the problem with that is as soon as you record that, if the property gets sold, it's been recorded. It can't come back. >> Got it. >> That that condition. >> Can we put that condition in? >> No. >> No. Why not? >> Because the condition has to be fulfilled at the time of recordation. So, you can't basically say that RHA has to own this property forever. >> You can't do that. >> What about John, if I may, if they could um hold up recording recordation until they get their cup or or minor cup or something, that would provide some assurance, do you think? >> I >> then it's RHA. It isn't recorded. We're not violating anything. They're moving forward. It's it's again I I'm concerned about creating a problem for the project that is. Um the the issue's got to be what is in front of the council today. Is it will is the standard is will it materially hurt the public if this is a >> I don't care. I don't care. Okay. We're gonna >> All right. I can feel tension up here. You got staff who's angry. I You've got you know um over here to my right. So, we're going to take um 15 minutes and we're going to come back. Okay. And so, I I appreciate everyone. All right. Thank Thank you everyone for taking a break. I really appreciate it. Sometimes it just breaks up. Are you okay, Jackie? >> Okay. I think she might have choked on water or something, >> but she has an asthma, so I worry. Yeah. >> Okay. Um All right. We were going to bring it back. I had a motion um on the table and it had been seconded. >> Then there was discussion. That discussion was not very favorable. One of the things that is so hard about I think what we do is that we would like to make everyone happy. And that's sometimes like I said, you know, both sides work together to both get something that they want. Um I think unfortunately I'm very disappointed that we cannot put that condition with uh the abandonment. I I don't like that at all um in any way and I think that that is disappointing. Um but that being said, I also understand you know the needs. The good the good thing is I will say this I am confident that the project will be done by RHA and out of anyone I've ever worked with they have been the most respectful so by far and JD I don't think you will move another muscle um doing something and I'd like to make sure you have a neighborhood um group that you work with we do that sometimes and it's really effective and vice mayor has also um said that she will you be there every step of the way because I do think there are things that um need to stay in place like you know it's two story not three story those types of things um I also wasn't sure on those conditions Jeff um I don't know what what they really are what those conditions are so I apologize I know that they were not these conditions so um I understand that um that being said Councilwoman Der do you have anything else that you want to put on the record because I'm going to send it over to >> Well, only if you're if you're withdrawing your motion, they'll withdraw my second to withdraw it because they won't be able to. >> Right. But I have to withdraw my second. I was reading into what you were saying that you were withdrawing your motion. I prepared to draw withdraw my second. >> And I did I was looking for ways to figure out how we could include that in the motion. And based on legal, that is not possible. So my my plea is going to be every uh step of the way that you work with the neighbors um in every capacity. Usually there's one person that leads the charge and be just hyper sensitive to what their needs are every everything about it. Um and this is different. I want to also say like development I know a lot of people say negative things about development. Um, RHA, you know, is is a different animal in that sense. They're not, you know, big-time developers that are, you know, because there's this sediment that everyone's like lining their pockets and all this conspiracy that we live in front of today. Um, really their their goal is to do really good work and help those that are most vulnerable in the community. Um, and also but not to but also take care of the community. Go. I would love it if you would even take them to their properties. We have some of the most impressive properties. You know, the tour is phenomenal. JD, offer a tour to every single one of them so that they can see um what your requirements are and how amazing um the all the RHA properties look. They're incredible. They invested in them. They take care of them. They I mean honestly, we are one of the best housing authorities in the country, which is makes me very proud, but that is true. And so, um, and they know that we're paying attention and we've got two people over here that are going to pay attention and they've given us our word. So, um, I'm I'm confident that you'll come out with something good. So, I'm going to hand it over to you, Councilwoman Taylor. >> Uh, thank you, Madam Mayor. And as the chair of RHA to the neighbors, you have our commitment that we will work with all of the neighbors and all of the parties in involved. Um, in the matter of case ABN25004, I move that council make a determination that the public will not be materially injured by the proposed vacation and approve the abandonment subject to the conditions in the staff report and I can make the findings. >> Um, okay. I have a motion. >> Second. >> I have I have a second um from Councilwoman Der. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed? >> Motion carries. All right. Thanks everyone. J D make sure you get everyone's contact, please. Okay, thank you. All right, we are going to move right along. We have a very special guest in the house. For those of you that are not familiar with Mr. Aguero, we're excited for >> Are you okay? >> Yeah. Okay, you're okay. You had me scared. >> I didn't know if you were having an asthma attack, >> but I'm good now. >> Okay. >> Know if you saw something or if it was Thank you. Yeah. Okay. that allergies don't help. >> Okay. I Well, that's true. Um, so I am super excited. Everyone should be excited about CATX and presentations of such. Um, but everyone He's laughing, but it's true. Um, and if you don't know Jeremy Aguero, he is one of the best um, in the state of Nevada. And he's also um, actually known across the country for his work and being incredibly accurate and precise and one of the leading experts. And so we're lucky to have him. He flew up here from Las Vegas just to do this. Uh, so if you haven't met him, please make time uh, before he leaves council chambers. But we're excited to have you and hear your presentation. and I'm grateful that um you're here today. So Jeremy, the floor is yours. >> Jeremy Aguero. Um mayor, thank you for the very kind introduction. It means a great deal to me to be here. I I was asked to talk a little bit, as you said, about the uh consolidated tax. I also want to just take a moment and acknowledge the fact that I'm going to go through some slides, but many of them were developed in coordination uh with the city manager and your team. They have been remarkable in terms of not only their effort in this regard, but also their acumen and so thank you for both that and the weather was lovely. So, thank you for that. >> That's my fault. So, yes, thank you. >> I appreciate that. Um, in terms of the consolidated tax and I I'll go through this and I'll go through it relatively quickly. I don't want to to make to to make it too terribly long but there's also some pieces that are not included here right um we are a state uh of diversity uh in terms of size of location structure of government how things operate and the consolidated tax sort of evolved over time and in doing that there have been things that have changed along those lines as well. My job here is to provide you something of an introduction to talk about how it works to give you sort of the basics and the fundamentals of the fact that you have 12 billion dollars worth of activity that happens within this county that generates this important tax and how is it that it's collected? How is it that it's distributed? Where does it ultimately go? That's what we're here to do. So, let's start with just what the consolidated tax is. You'll hear me refer to it as the C tax. I think that's what most folks do. And I'm not going to try and read every word that's on any slide, but it's been around with for us for a while. It goes dates all the way back to the mid 1990s. And it's actually a function of things that have come up over really the past better part of the past 40 years. There was a time when all of these taxes were kind of out there, if you will, liquor tax and cigarette tax and retail sales and use tax. There was a time when our property tax was higher and we went through this whole tax shift and we restructured everything and the consolidated tax or the components of it or the pieces of it are what came out of that and that's was what we're living with today. And I think it's not only important to recognize that there are some counties that are bigger and some that are smaller and sometimes we have things that are right across a border that can impact all of the things that we're going to talk about. But our world is a very different place than it was in 1979. >> Our world is a very different state is a very different state than it was in 1981 or 1997. As I've worked on this throughout my career, what we've learned is that as these things change, sometimes we have to find ways to to understand them differently. Sometimes there can be unintended consequences. And I'm just not talking about consolidated tax. I'm talking about taxes and revenues across the board. evolution happens across the board and we're going to have a lot of of conversation about that. Much of our conversation is going to focus on two key elements. That's the basic city county relief tax and the supplemental city county relief tax. We're going to talk a lot about those two pieces because they're the biggest components, but there's more to it than that. And so we're going to talk about all the pieces. I would like to at least start with dispelling some common myths or make sure that we're all on the same page relative to the understanding of this. Right. Local governments receive all of the tax revenue from the various components of tax. We had this conversation who were writing in uh the elevator on the way down. Right? Often times um constituents of folks that come into Nevada, maybe visitors or residents that are here don't draw any distinction between what is a state service or what is a local service, what is a state revenue or what is a local revenue. Forget the fact of understanding like the distinction between a county and a city or something along those lines. oftentimes I go out and I go to eat and I pay my tax and I oh no but you all are the elected officials so apparently you're the ones that all impose that upon right at the end of the day I think sometimes people also forget that we're a Dillan's rule state and ultimately what that means is that local governments only have the power that are bestowed upon them from the state and so when we're talking about the imposition of taxes whether it's consolidated tax or the components that we're going to talk about today or whether it's any other tax the reality is that the state authorizes this to take place and and sometimes puts it into place and ultimately those dollars annure to the benefit of governments at all levels. The second is if you buy something in Wo County, the sales tax revenue comes back to Wo County. We're going to talk a lot about this today because generally speaking, that is true. Generally speaking, that from a sales tax perspective, if you buy something here, those dollars are going to come back. But it's not 100% true. And sometimes that can create a little bit of confusion. And I also want to draw a distinction between bullet number two and bullet number three because the idea that it goes to the county of origin is very different than if it goes to the city of origin or an unincorporated county of origin. That is not the case in the state of Nevada. As a matter of fact, those are distributed using a formula that we are going to spend um at least some time talking about here today. So if I buy something here in the city of Reno, yeah, those dollars come back to Wo County, but they may not necessarily come back to the city to provide the the services that the city provides. They could go special districts, they could go to the county, they could go many different places. I often get this question and maybe it's because of the work that I do, but why do local governments care so much? What what is this cax? Why does it matter so much? And the answer is always so simple. It's because it generates a whole lot of money, right? And money is what provides services from public safety to parks to all of the things that we care about as citizens of this state. And this particular tax for the city of Reno is the single largest source of general fund revenue that you have, right? A $100 million a year out of 312. That is about 33%. One out of every $3 is sourced as revenue. And that isn't to minimize the importance of property tax and franchise fees. I know we're going to have some conversations at a later date around some of those type of things, but this consolidated tax is a big revenue source. It's a big revenue source for the city of Sparks. It's a big revenue source for Wo County. Poundforpound, it's among the largest sources of revenue that we have anywhere in the state of Nevada because it doesn't just go to these jurisdictions. It goes to school districts, goes to the state, which we're also going to talk about. So, if that's why local governments care about it, why should everyone else citizens like me? Why should we care about this consolidated tax? And I think the answer to that question is also as simple as it gets because it funds every service that when we think about what government does for us every day. It's the way that those services are funded. We think about police protection. We think about fire service. We think about emergency response. We think about parks and buildings and planning and code enforcement and all of the things that make the communities that we live in in this state great. They are all funded through this little animal called consolidated tax. In absence of that, imagine what a world would be like if onethird of the revenue that you had for the general fund was just gone, right? You wouldn't be able to almost function. Well, you wouldn't be able to function as a city. I think it is also important to understand that we have overlapping governments in the state of Nevada, right? The state overall and then we have all these counties and inside all those counties we have cities and sometimes we have towns, all of those type of things. There are also regional services that are provided, right? And we think about all of those regional services that go to provide everyone in the county. And so we have this this distinction in in some ways a dual purpose from the county's standpoint. So if that's the reason why we all care and what the consolidated tax is, then I would suggest that the next thing is we need to sort of understand what the components of this what what are the building blocks that generate this $100 million that we have every year. And these are the building blocks. Liquor tax, cigarette tax, governmental services tax, car registration fees, real property transfer tax, BCCRT and SECRT, which is the basic city county relief tax and the supplemental city county relief tax. As I mentioned earlier, those are the components. I can just do that and show it to you that way. Those are the components of the sales tax. Now, there was a time when every one of those taxes in one way or another were collected and distributed completely separately and that led to inequity. It led to challenges. It's administratively burdensome. So, we get this brilliant idea. We're going to consolidate all those. And really, really smart people like Marvin Levit and Guy Hobbs, Carol, God bless her soul, right? work together to come up with a way to do it a little bit better. And that's what we have today. And is it perfect? No. We've had to change it. We've had to augment it. We've made adjustments, the bases and the way calculations take place. But nonetheless, it is a function that works. So, we start with the liquor tax. Everybody knows the liquor tax, right? This is a tax that is paid by wholesalers for any liquor or spirits over 22% alcohol. We've charged $3.60 per gallon. And I think the bottom of the chart is probably as important as anything that you're going to see on any of these slides. Right? Again, everybody kind of believes, oh gosh, I'm paying this tax when I have when I buy anything that we're talking about here that somehow that just goes to local governments. And of course, it does not. The state general fund is the single largest beneficiary of the liquor tax in this particular case. Let's go forward to cigarettes. Now, cigarettes of course been declining somewhat, but although this revenue source is part of our six element consolidated tax, only 10 cents of every pack ultimately come uh into the consolidated tax formula. What about governmental services tax? It's a big one, right? Governmental services tax is a manifestation of really property tax, right? In the state of Nevada, property tax is legislatively capped at $3.66. Although from a property standpoint, we can increase that a little bit, which is up to five cents, four cents of which are imposed in Wo County. And if we look at that, it's a pretty big source of that revenue. We just picked a random sort of uh $30,000 MSRP car to sort of show here. But that $420 fee, $26 bucks of that end up going to the consolidated tax. Pretty good share overall, a pretty good source of revenue. real property transfer tax. This is $25 per $500 of value in Wo County. And just to be clear, everybody asked the question, why would anyone create a rate based on $500 of value, right? Why wouldn't you do it based on $100 or $1 or just make it a percentage? I have asked everyone I know and no one has ever been able to answer that question for me. I'm going to guess this was just a legislative argument that somebody said, "I want the rate to be lower, so let's make uh the base higher or something along those lines." I have absolutely no idea. Now, we'll get to the big the big two, right? And the big two are ultimately the sales tax components, BCCRT, SECRT, and really important here is what is this tax? This tax is imposed at goods sold at retail. And we're going to talk a lot about that and we're going to go into a couple of slides to get into that. But we have among the narrowest sales taxes anywhere in the United States. I grew up, my grandmother was my best friend growing up. We used to love to play Scrabble, right? And we have to buy go out and I buy Scrabble. That's a tangible good that I would go out and buy. And now with my kids in order to pass it forward, I play that words with friends. My kids beat me all the time just like my grandmother used to beat me. Lady never let me win anything. Um, but from there that is that is not a tangible good and so it doesn't create the same thing. We are much more of a services-based economy than we were when the sales tax became a thing like 60 70 years ago and that's a challenge for us that we're dealing with still today. Nonetheless, we have this BCCRT and this SECRT and these are pretty significant components of that 8.265% tax rate that everybody bears. But again, I want to make sure that those that are watching and and as we talk about this that it's important that this is a source of revenue that goes to every function of government, the biggest single beneficiary in the state of Nevada relative to the sales tax is not the city of Reno or any local government. It is schools. That is where the money goes. As a matter of fact, we have something uh called the local school support tax. Up until 2019, it kind of went to schools. Now, it definitely goes to schools, but nonetheless, it's a big component that SECRT was added in after the basic city county relief tax. And so, you get an idea. Combine those two and you get this sales tax component in our consolidated tax. There is no mystery here. There is nothing along those lines. If you take the piece for the basic city county relief and the supplemental county relief, my little footnote here, right, that about 27% of that tax goes to the C tax which is distributed to counties and local governments. The balance is going to all of those other government service providers that are out there. So while we incur that tax as taxpayers, many things that we buy, that should not be confused with the fact that all of this money in all of these categories is somehow coming to any one government by any stretch of the imagination. Now I created this little chart to talk about the things that are taxable versus not taxable. Again, in the back of our mind, we just want to remember it is tangible goods sold at retail. Also, if it goes into something, so the construction materials that go in to the building of an office building or a a hotel or a house or a hospital, those will be subject to tax because they are put to use ultimately. There are also exemptions to the tax and we have both explicit and implicit exemptions. Within Nevada revised statutes, it specifically says you can't tax things like food for home consumption, for example, which be a tangible good, but we don't do that in the state of Nevada. Things like gasoline are not subject to the same way. Energy, I should say, more broadly across the board, right? So then we ask the question, how do individual components contribute? What shares, how big are things when we take a look at that overall? And I I really like this chart because I think it demonstrates just how important that sales tax component is to the consolidated tax overall. That SEC and BCCRT, those are proportional to the others on the right hand side. And of the $2.2 billion in revenue that is generated statewide, not just in Wo County, relative to this tax, about 20% of it, excuse me, about six, you can see the chart. I don't need to read each one of the percentages. The vast majority of this is is essentially coming from that BCCRT and SECRT as the makeup of that consolidated tax. If we look at it for Nevada as a whole or we look at it for Wo County as an individual jurisdiction, it makes up more than 80% of all the revenue approaching 85% in Wo County and approaching 87% for the state of Nevada overall. pound-for-pound that sales tax component is more important than any other element of that that the hundred million dollars that we looked at. Now, I mentioned this earlier, so I'll reiterate it here again of the 8.265% combined rate overall, right? We look at where that is the state sales tax and local government, local school support tax. And why do I put those as both going to the state? Because school districts are a ward of the state. The state education fund is how those dollars go. And so when those dollars are generated in Wo County, they're going up to the state of Nevada and they are being redistributed to school districts all over the totality of the state without a doubt. When we look at it in terms of that basic city county relief tax and supplemental city can relief tax, those two component parts, right, they make up about that 27%. That's what we're really focused on today. And I would be at least a little bit remiss if I didn't talk about the fair share component under the local government tax act of mid90s uh and the railroad grade project retract as you all talk about in terms of also being a distribution. Those matter but our focus is on the BCCRT and the SECRT. So now the this conversation gets a little wild and this is where it gets a little fun and this is where how is this money like actually distributed? Okay, Jeremy, we collect this money. Okay, we get it. Liquor tax and cigarette tax. We get it right now. You put all that money and you put it into a giant bucket and somehow I got to get it out to all of the of the people in the state of Nevada. But I've got to get that out through the allocations that go to counties to the counties and then ultimately beyond that. And this is a two-step process. The first of those steps is all of that money, the consolidated tax by the Department of Taxation is put into a giant bucket and then it is distributed to all 17 counties based on a statutory formula for each component of the tax. Some of them are distributed based on population, others based on more complicated formulas, but you get the general idea. Step two is where it gets a little bit more difficult. And because step two is where we're returning in step one, we're returning the dollars to the county in which they originated. Under step two, we are redistributing that money among all of these jurisdictions. We don't have exact locations in terms of where every one of those dollars was sourced to where it could go back. And as a matter of policy, we've made the decision that it is the right thing to do to have some reallocation of these dollars. So let's start with the liquor tax of the total that we looked at earlier. It's about $4.5 million. It is distributed based on population. We take the population of each county and we distribute it. Now obviously that is going to create some redistribution between the state. Why? Because we have things like the Las Vegas strip in Clark County. And this is not going to come as a shocker. People consume a lot of liquor along the Las Vegas strip and part of that tourism industry. And so those dollars are all accumulated and then redistributed. Same thing is kind of true with the sales tax, although it's not as um robust in in in in our mind in terms of liquor anymore, but cigarette tax is $7.2 million. It is also distributed that way. And again, perhaps on the right hand side, you can see how those funds are allocated out about 73% goes to Clark County about 15 16% goes to Wo County and all of the other counties combined are about 11.4%. So roughly 90% is going to the urban counties throughout the state of Nevada. We look at governmental services tax and the numbers get a little bigger. We're now looking at $222 million and it's returned back based on the point of origin. This is not based on pop on population. This is based on wherever those taxes whatever county those taxes were generated where they come. And what do we see here? Right? We see that the percentages are a little different on the far right hand side of our chart. Right? Clark County is getting a little less than its 73% of liquor and cigarettes and that's largely because the makeup of the automobiles and the cost of those is a little bit different. So, it's going back to where it is. We then have the real property transfer tax. Revenue is distributed again based on point of origin generates about $47 million. And of all of the taxes we have in our consolidated tax, this is the least stable of them. Housing markets have a tendency to eb and flow. If I had my way about it, we would actually take real property transfer tax out of this because it adds a layer of instability, which I don't think is terribly helpful. But nonetheless, you get the idea. We're back. The point of origin is very similar uh to what we see historically. Now, now we get into BCCRT and SECRT and all of those type of things. So, here we have it. And the basic city county relief tax is $430 million in total. It then goes through this step one, this first tier allocation. It is point of origin. Those $428 million are going to go back to the county, generally speaking, in where they were allocated from. And you can see those percentages on the far right hand side. We see where that sales tax is generated. It's not really that far off from our population. Now, we get to the supplemental city county relief tax. And you will note I've gotten rid of the pieces on the right hand side because the complication is made from this thing that we created a while back called a guarantee and a non-g guaranteed county. And in the state of Nevada, we have very large counties. We all have folks like Esmeralda County who's a very very small county. And so when we have that, they're not generating enough sales tax independently to be able to support almost anything. So when all this was constructed as Moralda County, Lander County Lincoln Mineral Persing and White Pine counties were identified as guaranteed counties, which means no matter how much revenue that they generate, they are guaranteed to get this cut off the top of the consolidated tax. It's a very small amount, which we're going to go to. These are very small. This is a balancing and an e balancing of the equities, if you will, relative to that. But this is a piece where it has and that's that guaranteed county construct. Part B is the non-g guaranteed counties and this is where it's going to come back and then get redistributed which we're going to talk about in step two. Right? Of that $1.5 billion dollar those six counties get less than 1% of the total. And so while we spend a lot of time talking about wow look we're like giving people money or something along those lines. It is so dimminimous in the big calculation of things and it has such a profound effect on these counties. It's been relatively important uh overall and so you know and let me be clear they can also grow their way out of being a guaranteed county and while there's been crossber effects that have constraed some concern uh along these lines nonetheless it's relatively modest. If we put up the balance of the counties there's the other nine there. getting 10%. You get Wo County there that is getting about 14, let's call it 13.5% to be a little more precise in Clark County is getting $1.1 billion. So, let me be clear so we're all clear in terms of exactly how this works. We take the little bit of that cut, less than 1%, we give that to the guaranteed counties and then for the first step, all the money goes back to the county to be redistributed between all the local governments that participate in that going forward. So, at the end of the day, what do we have? $2.2 billion dollars, a number of formulaic calculations, too complicated. It could be easier, but nonetheless, this is how it was designed and it works. And then the distribution on the right hand side where there's our $313 million ultimately coming uh to the region. And you get the idea here too, right? The 74.6%, the 14.2%. These are not that different. These formulas are put in place because we argue with each other and sometimes we have to, you know, try to manipulate something to be a little different in a formula basis. But nonetheless, they're all very very close to one another. If we look at it in terms of step two, let's go to this second piece. Right? If we go to that, now remember, we've taken all six of these elements. We've pulled them together. We've taken this little piece off for the guaranteed counties. And then we've said, "Okay, Wo County, every other county, you have this money. Somehow you're going to have to distribute all of this to all of the jurisdictions that are within your border." The first part of that is we refer to it as part A, right? Which is enterprise districts. They're very small as well. They get a piece right off the top. And then we have local governments and all of the special districts that are out there. Again, I get asked a lot of questions about things like enterprise districts. just a bit that is onetenth of 1% of total revenue. It's totally small overall. But when we get to step two, how are those dollars allocated county as an entity, right, gets 51% of those dollars? City of Reno 31%, city of Sparks 12 and special districts, which are all kinds, we'll talk a little bit about those as we go forward, get about 6% of that total overall. This is the distribution. This is where we are today. And I would at least argue, not argue, but submit that these are some of the things that have changed so significantly over time, right? This community doesn't look like what it looked like 40 years ago. Clark County doesn't look like what it looked like 40 years ago. And I assure you, it will not look like what it looks like today, 40 years from now. Right? We have two component parts that are really important. And and I I you're going to have to forgive me here a little bit only from the standpoint that these two calculations have been arguably the most uh definitive and argued about elements of how the consolidated tax works from a base standpoint and an excess standpoint. Historically, this is prior to 2013. It used to be that each jurisdiction had its individual base calculation and then the excess would grow and grow and grow and then we'd use a formula to redistribute all that excess. And so if you were growing and somebody else wasn't, you'd get a little bit more excess. But what happened was you all remember we had an economic downturn not that long ago. We had an economic downturn. The money would only come out of the excess or would come out of the excess first. So if you were the growing jurisdiction, you were the one that got penalized as a result of that change. That didn't work very well. And obviously things have changed relative to these bases and those were set like 40 years ago. So we changed all of that and we went to a formula that was a little bit more based on growth and resale and and assessed value and looking at all of that. And then we add a little thing on the right hand side that I just want to mention which is called the 0.02 02 plus formula. So if you are growing at zero, you still get 0.2. Nobody goes. Now there could be a point in which you decline to such a degree because it takes extended periods of time, but you at least start with your your being in the game relative to the distribution of this. In addition to that, relative to the base, the one on the bottom left hand side also incredibly important. If there is not enough revenue to provide each entity its full base amount, that's the amount that it had from the prior year today. Revenue is distributed on the proportional shares of each entity's base allocation. There is no more penalty for being new to the game overall. So what is that final distribution look like? This is what that final distribution ultimately looks like relative to that. Again, this is not different than the chart that I showed you a moment ago, but let's just dig into it just a little bit more deeply. Right? This is that first piece. Those enterprise and special districts, those type of things. How much is sort of being pulled off the top? And then how much is also going to some special districts that are out there? Again, it is a relatively small share of that aggregate total. It's $8.8 million that is actually going there. With all that said, perhaps just taking one step back before we take a step for forward relative to where these stack up, let's look at some real life examples. Right? I buy a $50 bottle of wine. Um the tax on that is $166. A $143 goes to the Nevada general fund and the liquor program at the state. The amount that goes to local governments is only 23 cents out of the$166 that I paid in tax. Actually, I didn't pay. a wholesaler paid on the tax. In this particular case, you look at the step one distribution which is based on population. And even though that liquor uh that bottle of wine was purchased here in Wo County, a little bit's going to go to Clark, a little bit's going to go to Wo County, a little bit's going to go to those other 15. And then once it gets there, it's going to be distributed. That four cents here in Wo County is going to be distributed to each one of those jurisdictions based on the numbers on the far right side of our chart. Right? But I think it is so important that as people are thinking about this, I paid $50. The tax on that was a $166 in terms of the liquor tax that was imposed. Wo county gets 4 cents of that that money, right? You look at it and you think about a carton of cigarettes, $80. I completely made up the $80. I have no idea how much a carton of cigarette actually makes. So sorry if I'm offending anyone. I apologize. The tax on that would be about 18 bucks. $17 goes to the state. $1 goes to all local governments. One dollar of that amount, right? So that distribution, again, you can see how the mathematics ultimately work out. What if we have a a car, $30,000 automobile, it's the one we talked about before, $420. $214 of those dollars go for the DMV, the state highway fund, also go to K through2 education. 206 of the 420 come back to Wo County. The amount that would actually make it for purposes of our discussion here today that would actually make it to the city of Reno for all the services that are provided by the city to its constituents would be $63 out of the 420. It's amazing when you start cutting and carving some of these dollars how much we go from what seems like such a big number to one that seems like such a small number. What about a $500,000 home, right? $2,50 in property taxes. 1,500 of those dollars would ultimately go to the state's general fund, the affordable housing, and the local government act distribution. For some of those, we have $550 that would make it through our consolidated tax formula. Now, you'll notice this is point of origin. So, all those dollars come back to Wo County. The others are zero. And you can see the ones on the far right hand side. So, of that property tax when I get my property tax bill and it's about $2,000. The amount that's actually making it to the city of Reno is about a buck 69. Now, now that's the real property transfer tax here. I want to be clear. This is not property tax. So, let's be clear relative to what that is. It's a it's the form of this. But if I sell that house and that's what gets generated, the city gets about a buck $169 out of that total. We add the BCCRT and the SECTRT, the two big ones that we talked about. I go out and I go out to dinner, for example, or I buy some other piece of merchandise for $100. The tax that's imposed on me is $827. $6 of that ultimately go to the state, local schools, public transit, all of those type of things. $225, that's the combination of that BCCRT rate and that SECRT rate go to local governments. You see that? That little tiny amount that goes to some of those guarantee counties in the bottom gets pulled off the top. The balance comes right back here to Wo County. And then you see the numbers on the far right hand side. The city gets about 69 out of that $827 imposed upon the tax on that $100 night that my wife and I decided to go out. So we think about it versus the balance and population and some of those things. And I think this is really kind of an important point to understand the history in terms of how the consolidate consolidated tax sort of came to be. Right? The idea was largely almost significantly focused on southern Nevada where the strip is located in unincorporated Clark County. And as a result of that, the need to create a mechanism to say, okay, we're going to have all of these visitors. They're going to come and spend all this money and generate that. We have folks that are living all over the Urban Valley. We have to do that. And what we did is took a formula that seemed like it was working in that regard and it was and we applied it to the entirety of the state of Nevada and we made some tweaks here and there but that's exactly how we got to where we are. And if you think about the distinction between economic activity where people live where growth is taking place and how that's evolved in a place like Clark County versus how it's evolved in a place like Wo County those two patterns are not the same. The economic distribution is not the same. And so it does we run into some challenges and I'd like to show you kind of what some of those challenges look like. Right? This is the cities of Reno and Sparks as well as unincorporated Wo County relative to their share of the population versus their share of the consolidated tax distribution. And what you see is that these numbers are very different. And look before anyone says, "Oh my gosh, you know, this is crazy." There are reasons behind this, some of which we talked about before. There are regional services that have to be provided. there are other sort of pieces and component parts. This is not a mistake. It may have grown to be exacerbated, but this is by design relative to how it was intended to work. Now, that growth, of course, has made it very different than it was before. Let's do the exact same thing, but do it for Clark County and look at how Clark County is distributed relative to these two numbers. Right? You can see that if we look at unincorporated Clark County, we look at the others, the numbers have a tendency to be very close to each other. Now, as we were preparing this slide, I went back and forth a dozen times trying to create something that was as close to apples to apples as I could do. In Clark County, they have this animal called townships. And if I was to put those townships and I was to add them into the Clark County total, their number would go up to about 40. Well, it would go up. So, they're about plus 4% on that side. The the the the overall total, I wouldn't know where to to make such an allocation or make a comparison. And we could certainly show it both ways, but if we compare what the chart looks like here versus what the chart looks like here, there is no there's no um uh conclusionary difference relative to which way to present it. I just want to make sure that we're clear and transparent. At the end of the day, this is not something to be a conclusory statement, nor is my presentation as a whole. What this is a reflection of is that we have a formula that has existed for a long period of time. That formula is incredibly important to state local governments across the entirety of the state of Nevada and of course uh municipal governments like this one. As a result of that, those changes that have taken place, there's at least some challenges that could be presented as a result of that. And as I mentioned before, county provided regional services are an important part of this puzzle. They have a responsibility to provide both regional services as well as municipal services to the residents within their borders. And so recognizing that that is where it is is a balance against the distribution effects that I just showed you. Nonetheless, our consolidated tax is an efficient and uh well operated uh sense. The department of taxation does a very good job. The forefathers of this tax designed it as was intended. However, you know, I would at least respectively submit to this group or any others that this, like every other tax in the state of Nevada's arsenal, always needs to be evaluated because we are not the same thing as we were 40 years ago. And I assure you, we will not be the same thing 40 years from today. Madame Mayor, I cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to be here. If there are questions, I am happy to try and answer. >> Well, Jeremy, thank you. You guys can all see why Jeremy is very wellliked and um famous. So, um he is very very well uh regarded in the state of Nevada and actually um in other in other states by the way uh because I I get to work with a lot of other mayors and they say gosh that guy is amazing and he keeps you on your toes too and you learn something. So if all of our presentations could be like that we wouldn't fall asleep. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you Jeremy. Okay, we're gonna open it up to questions. Go ahead, Councilwoman Dur. Usually you have questions. >> Look at that. Yes. >> Oh, okay. Um, >> I don't see anyone's lights on, but usually you have questions. Go with you. >> Um, thank you so much for the presentation. >> I'm sorry. Are you >> No, no, go. We're going to let her go. >> Okay. >> I leaned over. Remember, green lights, everyone. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Um, thank you so much for the presentation, Mr. Aguero. Um I we are lucky because we had a preview of this presentation from our city manager um at a slower pace so we could absorb it maybe that way and then your way. Um, we got the point that the numbers are rather >> biggest income is due to property tax and um the property tax, you know, it um declines. We have depreciation for the the land um excuse me, for the house and um we at the same time we have houses going up in value, land going up in value, and at the same time when it falls, it falls. There's no cap on how far it can fall during a recession type period. Well, there is no cap, but how it climbs, there is a cap. 3% for some, 8% for others, as I recall. And this is something we've struggled with um seriously here. But it's incredibly important for us to understand all the pieces of this puzzle. And I don't know you you've made the point that so much thought analysis fighting argument negotiation has gone into where we are today. And I know and I mean maybe this is some sacred cow, but I know that the city's been a little bit uncomfortable with our distribution of sea tax. um you made the point as things grow things get out of whack and I think we've made a case or discussed the fact that it's kind of out of whack here. Um we don't believe that based on our population and the services we need to provide um that we're probably getting our quote fair share if there is such a thing with quotes on it um knowing that that's in the eye of the beholder. So I don't know if there's a if you've been tasked or asked by our city manager to help us through that process of analysis. Have you >> um I I there's a little bit to unpack there, so I answer that. >> And I was gonna say everyone thinks their dis distributions is unfair. >> That's why I said quote. >> Yeah. No, I get it. I I'm totally I appreciate the question. The city manager has asked us to look at all the property tax elements. So, I'm going to hold those to the side for a moment because I think the way that you outlined it was >> remarkably accurate in terms of how all those things work. >> In terms of distribution, look, I I'm an analyst. I'm not an advocate, right? My job is to put all the numbers in and make sure that as I'm working with your team that they have the right information. There's a lot that goes into it. A portion is what we talked about here today. And I would say that that is a part of that discussion. That is a part of that calculus. I don't know that I could draw any conclusion today because I we haven't been asked to do that. And I think that there would be much more than what >> that was really my question. Have you been asked to help us understand or unpack the distribution of what goes to the county for sea tax on various items versus what comes to us? >> Only Thank you for the record, Jeremy. Forgive me for the folks that are keeping it. Only to the extent of what have we provided you here today looking at where the money goes and understanding the different services at the city level versus the regional county level. >> Okay. because there have been some reports and I'm just if in a second round I just want to ask >> you know that we do take a closer look at that. >> Thank you. >> Okay, council. >> Thank you madam mayor. I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before so this was a real treat. Fantastic for the presentation. I want to ask kind of a pointed question based on what councilwoman Der said on slide 58. you have a chart and it shows 28% gap and where I am looking at that between the population and the sea tax share. So my question is maybe to get at what my colleague was saying are the services that are being supplied on slide 60 at the regional level is that equitable to the 28% in additional revenue >> appreciate the question >> that they are making up and how do we evaluate that and I guess it seems like the distribution isn't necessarily um equitable very complicated but how do we make sure that we are receiving our fair share for the services that we provide and the services that the city or the county provides. >> Yeah. First of all, thank you for the very kind comment. That was nice of you and I appreciate it. Um I I I would tell you that I I think it'd be premature to draw any such conclusion. Understanding what those services are, understanding what the cost of those services are, understanding how they're distributed throughout county, I think are all really important elements of understanding that. And I can tell you um whether it's been crossjurisdiction or intrajurisdiction analyses, I think that there's a lot more that goes into it. This is probably the first step down a journey that was intended to say, okay, this is how the underlying math works. This is kind of the what and I think that there's probably a longer conversation and I'll certainly defer to the city manager about the why and how and is this right or wrong? That type of thing. >> Well, and I've tried to, you know, fight for Reno here. So in that 28% it looks like you know the sea tax 51% is going the 51% is Wo County and city of Reno gets 31% and then you look at the population distribution and I guess I'm looking at the 28% and the 24%. That gives me some concern. Is there is that a valid question? >> It is 100% a valid question. I'm gonna play devil's advocate for just a moment if that's okay. Right. Okay. Right. The idea is that we have to always understand or I I would like to convey that Wo County I'm looking at the unincorporated portion of Wo County, right? In some ways they also have to provide services to a 100% of the population of the county. Again, the idea here >> and I would argue that we do too. >> And I'm not again I'm not here to argue that point. My only issue here is that this is part of a dialogue, not the answer to that question. >> Perfect. Thank you very much. >> You bet. All right, Councilman Ree, go ahead. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Mr. Guo, thank you for laying this out so very clearly um and in such an animated fashion. You've made seax discussions rather uh interesting and fun today or sexy. I don't know what it is. >> And I'm excited. Our guests, I think, are learning something. They're they're excited, too. See their faces? They're all smiling. They They're never smiling. They're always like angry. But no, they're happy today. I I think in fairness, this discussion isn't just about numbers on a page, right? It's about whether Reno has the resources to deliver the services our residents need and that they count on, right? Public safety, parks and recreation, streets, more just like that. Uh what I take from your presentation is that the current formula uh which was written decades ago does not reflect the realities of today's population growth. It doesn't talk about service demands or economic footprint. And while Reno's needs are growing, our share of the sea tax has not kept pace. Is that a fairly high level way of analyzing it? >> I think that is 100% correct, Councilman. The other only other piece that I would offer is I want to make sure that there's two buckets and this that councilwoman maybe a bit of a directed redirect uh question answer to her question earlier and that is we have these global economic issues. You just alluded to them. the fact that our sales tax the the the the components of that have been about the same as they were in like 1960, right? We just spend money differently. This is not a city of Reno thing or a Wo County thing or a state of Nevada thing. This is across the board the fact that the sales tax is eroding >> relative to where we are now. We have this sort of interesting post-pandemic issue. I apologize. You're asking for the ham sandwich. I'm giving you the history of the pig here just a little bit, but your question is really a good one because you also have this secondary component which in a postcoavid environment with all that stimulus that was floating around, we know folks spent a little bit more money than they did before, right? That increase that put upward pressure on that sales tax. So the combination of uh of what the council woman was asking before about the distribution also has to be married up with the analysis that I think you just provided remarkably eloquently and that is if we're not putting as much money into the bucket. It's going to make it so much harder for the distribution that has to happen to everyone. And I would suggest that those are two parts of the same issue. Well, and I I think my role as I see it is to take the facts and then work with our county partners, other cities, lawmakers, and Carson to find a way that's more fair, sustainable, and rooted in actual needs. Right? I don't think it's about taking away from others or harming their ability to help the residents that they serve. It's about out sort of modernizing an outdated formula so it works for the Nevada of today, not the Nevada of the past. I think also what I take from your presentation is a need to be honest with the public. Under the current formula, some communities are receiving more than their fair share relative to the services being provided while others like Reno are underfunded despite the fact that they carry the larger share of the region's urban um service load is if that were the terminology. I think you pointed out a little differently, but the imbalance means that either raising taxes locally or doing less for our residents. And neither one of those is a good idea, I don't think, because it does not benefit our long-term health of our residents. While revisions to CAX are about equity, not competition in my mind, right? We all benefit when every city and county in our state has the resources it needs to meet the demands that they face. But if the road if the data is a roadmap, not for division, but for greater collaboration. That's how I see it. We have to lift up our entire populace, not pit each one of them against each other in some kind of hunger style games. And so for my part, that's what I took from the presentation. And I really have to focus it because otherwise you've just given me, you know, the history of the pig and not the ham sandwich when what we do as policy makers oftent times is we try to figure out, well, what does he mean us to do with this stack of documents? How can we carry it out into action? Because it doesn't benefit us for you to come in here and tell us all of these things and for us to quietly move on to agenda item number C5 and keep going with our meeting. Right. >> All right. Anyone else? >> Oh, yeah. Go right ahead. Oh, wait. Hold on. Councilwoman Eert, go ahead. >> Yeah. Um, yeah, I think everybody's pretty much hit on it that that there's maybe some inequities on how the the um C tax is distributed. I would be interested to see how we could address that. I'm not sure how that would work, but I had a question about the property taxes. Um, you had mentioned that that's the area that has the most potential fluctuation. Um, >> can you just kind of explain that a little bit more? I know there's depreciation. >> Council member, we're going to have that presentation in September. >> Okay. >> Do you think you could >> I think what she meant was the real estate transfer tax, not the property. >> Sorry. Tax on property. I I understand what you're asking. Is the question why why does it happen that way? Because >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. just kind of explain more about how that fluctuation happens. >> So, so sort of two component parts. One is value, one is volume, right? You'll recall that it wasn't that long ago that we went through a foreclosure crisis in the state of Nevada. The number of transactions went way down, right? Because the number of transactions go down, so too does the real property transfer tax. >> In addition to that, you also have a value issue. If prices go up significantly, great. that means you have more real property transfer tax so long as they're selling. But if those prices start to get variable or they start to change or they start to come down, then that tax, if there's lower volume or there's lower value, it generates less revenue. And of the taxes that we looked at, it is the single most volatile of any of those in terms of that tax that's imposed on the transfer of property. >> Okay? So like let's say what's happening now with the higher interest rates, there's not as many homes being sold. So even though the property values are higher, the volume is lower. So that's why we're getting less funds from that. >> That would be exactly right. Although I'd need to go in and just take a look at it to get a sense of whether the value has offset the volume. Yeah. >> Right. Because look, if the value goes up by 10% and the volume goes down by five, you're still ahead. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, Councilman Ree. Well, I just had one other question and part of what happens on our dis is we are trying to communicate to the public and the public is not going to have the privilege of sitting here and listening to the entirety of your cax presentation and perhaps they don't want to um it's just you know the nature of it there's other things that people have interest in. So, I often want to distill things down into the most basic component. And a question that I received from a a resident last night during my neighborhood advisory board meeting was it's like a fill-in- thelank. And so, the question is, the city of Reno receives the smallest portion of local taxes. For every dollar spent, we receive approximately blank. Now, you broke it down into pennies because it was from different component parts. Is there a way to summarize the thing for a person who maybe has not got a PhD in applied economics or all the things that you have? >> Councilman, the answer to your question is absolutely yes. I mean, if what you're looking for is to be able to go back to a constituent and essentially say for every dollar that is generated in consolidated tax, we get about X%, I'll get you that percent. >> Um, well, and it's even more than X percent, it's the dollar amount, right? There there's something powerful about saying like for every dollar that is generated >> in some you know hypothetical universe we get 0.1 cent of it or whatever it is. >> Yeah. And I'm going to give you just so that we're on the same page in terms of when you get the number I think there's also a number that you have to think about which is the aggregate volume of transactions. Right. You're talking about billions of dollars of transactions generating hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue that's ultimately going to give you the value you're looking for and the percentage, but I'll make sure we get that to you. >> Thank you so much, >> Council Dur. Your your light was on. Nope, nothing. I'm going to send it to city manager Bryant. >> Thank you. Thank you so much for doing this presentation. This has been something we've been working on for about eight months now and have been providing this presentation in a variety of settings around the community. So I just wanted council to know what we were doing next. So one thing we did launch today reno.gov/cax where this presentation will be along with the one sheeter and some FAQs for our public. This project began because we received a fair amount of questions from the public of what were we doing with all the sales tax money and we couldn't answer that question because I didn't understand that we only received 69 cents out of every $827 we got when we spent $100. >> So it we went down a rabbit trail. We ended up with this. We're doing the same thing with property tax. You'll see that in September. We'll come back in October on fuel tax. And we're really just beginning to collect the facts and then we will be able to once we get all of the information we'll be able to start having more conversations about what are we going to do with this information. I can tell you some of the things that we have talked about internally is when you saw the WO county slide what are some of the regional services. Um some of those the city of Reno writes a check for also over the years. For example, the city of Reno writes a check for elections even though the city of Reno and um and Sparks city uh residents pay towards regional services. So, that's just one area that we are creating a list of things to bring back to this body to then make some decisions. So, I just wanted you to know kind of where we were headed and what we're bringing back to you for your feedback. >> I love um the transparency. Jackie, I know you've worked hard on this. We've also been doing a listening tour and an education tour across the community. I'm getting great feedback on that. Bless you. Um, great feedback on that and I appreciate it because I don't think um, you know, a lot of people sort of do understand how challenging it is on the local side and um, don't get me into Dylan's role. That's a whole other Maybe we can talk about that one at a different one. Let's talk about Dylan's role. Um, but anyway, I I just want to say thank you, Jackie. I think you're doing a phenomenal job on this and I and I know people are paying attention. >> Yeah. So, thank you very much and that it's transparent online. Um, I assume you guys did some press around that. Maybe talk a little bit about that so people know how uh especially people on Zoom that are watching how they can access it and see what that information >> reno.govax >> and there is media here. We will be doing some media spots immediately after this presentation. >> And maybe one you guys can grab Jeremy on his way out and get some interviews from him because see they they like you. They're all going like this. Anyway, um Jeremy, thank you so much for being here and I hope we will get him back for property. Perfect. Uh that's exciting news. But thank you for all you do for this great state of Nevada as we always say and um just your years of service and I know you've seen a lot of dynamics and a lot of change. You should write a book one day my friend. Um but thank you. I love how he said I'm an analyst not an advocate. That's his way of saying I'm not getting into the politics. >> Right. Right. Because he's always got the best answer. He you always have the best answer. I always thought uh he should run for office for sure. you guys all know. Well, anyway, um, thank you so much and we'll get to see you soon. All right. And the press, I think, is right there waiting to interview you. Thanks, Jeremy. Safe travels back. >> Okay. >> Um, I did have a question. >> Go right ahead. Yeah. So, I know we're getting a lot of information coming and I just want to make sure that um I think you said this, but I just want to make sure I got it right that we will get kind of an analysis of things that we are writing a check to Wo County for that uh citizens of Reno are already paying for through other tax revenue streams. Um, >> correct. We are working on that now. >> Okay. Okay. And then uh I don't know if there's a way we can try and negotiate a way to not do that anymore. It just doesn't make sense that we the citizens arena would have to pay twice for the same services. >> And those are some of the questions we'll be bringing back to the body for discussion. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Great. Okay. Here we go. Madame clerk. I believe we are now on item C. What are we? C3. >> C3. >> Perfect. C3. Madam clerk, do you have any public comment on this item? >> Madam Mayor, we do not have any public comment on this item and we have not received any correspondence. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I know we've got Cody here, the one and only. Thank you for everything you do. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. You have a tough tough job. >> Thank you. And I know um we were running down some information over the last few days with you and I just appreciate you being um very responsive and quickly. So I'm a big fan of Cody's. Anyway, absolutely. Okay, Cody, take it away. >> The appreciation goes to our staff who does just an incredible job. Um my name is Cody Shadel, director for Reno Public Safety Dispatch. I'm also the executive chair of our governance board that oversees the Hexagon project. I'm about here to get you an update on uh the last time I was here was about a year ago and unfortunately I have to follow Mr. Aguero who is very charismatic and I don't think I possess that as well. So just bear with me as best you can. I'll try to get through it fast or quickly for you. So last time I was here was August or September of last year giving you an update saying hey September 9th 2025 we will go live. We will be ready. Unfortunately I can't provide you that same news today. We are a little bit delayed but I'll get to that shortly. >> Okay. Um, we're going to get into some background first for those who weren't on the board or maybe just need some orientation of the to the project. Uh, we actually started this program back in 2019. So, as much as you feel belleaguered in this process, I'm there with you. I was there in 2019 when we started talking about it. Uh, but we did go through an RFQ. We did do an RFP process. We brought on a consultant. We've had a regionalization workshop in the middle of this to kind of reguide the process and get other partners on board. Um, today we have a better group. We're, you know, we have not just Reno Sparks and Wash, but we've invited REMA to the table as well. And so we have four strong partners working on this project with us. We've also brought in a govern or we've created a governance agreement which was brought to this body and you guys, I'm sorry, this body was able to pass as well as Wo County and and Sparks as well. And today we're actually in the middle and pretty much finishing up our configuration and implementation of this platform. So when I talk about it, what we're talking about is computerated dispatch and records management systems. This is the backbone of our public safety systems. This is what your dispatch centers are using, your officers, your firefighters, your medical personnel um out in the field as well as your records departments behind the scenes, your jail management clerks are using these systems. Our courts are to accessing these systems and the informations within. This is how our criminal justice system is started or this is the entry point into the criminal justice system and our medical emergency response system. I think if I didn't mention there are fire partners as well, I think I left them off that that list. So, as I talk about the governance boards, we did create this. We have a manager board comprised of our city manager, county manager, um the city managers for Reno and Sparks and our county manager as well as the CEO for REMA. They oversee and provide oversight to the other boards and make sure that we all play nice in the sandbox if I kind of say it in a really minimal way. Uh we have an executive board who operates underneath them. Those are comprised of our stakeholders, our chiefs, our fire chiefs, police chiefs, our directors and managers who oversee the products that we use. uh their responsibilities to the actual operations of what we're doing. And the last thing is a change advisory board. They're there to make sure that any new changes or things that are brought into this system are done so in a way that the system can be healthy and can maintain resiliency for the long term. We don't want to be put in a position that 10 years from now we can't u maintain this system or that it's it's just done in such a way that we've added so many things that it's no longer healthy or sustainable. So they're there to kind of ensure not only that everybody has a voice but that we can maintain it as well. This is kind of the first governance agreement that we've had of this kind in our region, especially on the public safety side. Um, so I I like to highlight this one because it really is an achievement that all of our boards and commissions were actually able to come to the table and agree on this because we're really excited to to, you know, have this keep our voice intact and kind of keep our system intact for the long-term future. As I mentioned, we're talking about on call dispatch and on call records. What you see in front of you on the screen, that's just a visual of dispatch. Obviously, that's not our map. We don't have an ocean in our area. Um, but this is a version of our of the map that we have. Uh, there are some incidents listed there. It's very colorful. It's very bright. The the point of this is to really show you that we're bringing a f a future system um, a future technology to us. Right now, our system is over 20 years old. This is not what we see. We're going to be switching to something that's a lot more reasonable. This helps us in a lot of ways by modernizing is because as we recruit new people into our system, as we bring in new firefighters and officers and dispatchers, bringing them a technology that makes sense and is more realistic to what they use in their everyday lives improves our processes. It helps our recruitment, it helps our training, it helps get people on the street faster and it helps improve our processes when we're trying to provide these really critical services. So, some of the key accomplishments in the staff report, there's many listed. We've done a lot. We've been on this project for over 18 months. Obviously, we've we've completed a lot. These are kind of the highest the high key pieces. Um, we've installed our hardware and software. That's done. We've brought in our system build. So, we had to go in and configure every piece of the system. It is highly configurable. We asked for that. We asked for a system that could meet the needs of Reno and Sparks and Wo and REMA and all of the 17 independent organizations that operate under those four partners. As a result, that means we've had to touch every single piece of every piece of this system. and that's why it's taken us so long and that's why we're still here. We're about 95% complete on our configuration and our teams are still working through it right now. Um, for thirdparty integrations, the other thing we've tried to do is really make our systems work together. We've tried to have them work cohesively in an environment. That way information can be processed and transferred digitally. We no more, you know, try to eliminate some phone calls, try to eliminate paper processes, eliminate those emails back and forth where we're trying to resolve, you know, this person's name is this, this person's vehicle is this. Let's eliminate that. Let's make it more automated. let's make this better. So the using those thirdparty integrations, uh we're bringing out, you know, something as simple as our fire department uses a staffing program. That staffing program lists all of the capabilities, all of the personnel, all of the equipment every single day. Well, why don't we make that system just talk to our CAD system? That way, a dispatcher doesn't have to go in every single day and make those changes manually. We can feed this in. We can eliminate that. We can make it better. 80% of those integrations are done. We still have, I believe, six to deploy. um overall. So, we're actually that's quite an achievement. Working with thirdparty vendors and getting them to talk to our vendor can be difficult at times. The la and the last big achievement we did over the summer was we got our disaster recovery site up and installed. So, we've actually created a separate redundant site that is not in this area. That way, if there's failure to our system, it automatically fails over and we don't run into the case where there's an outage in our system. So, our dispatchers don't have to experience an outage. we don't have to worry about losing data or our citizens are not going to get response because our CAD or records management systems are down. Instead, we've created a whole redundant site that actually is in California. Um, and it's supposed to run with extreme availability. So, 99.9999% available, which is pretty impressive. So, what does all this mean and why is it important to you? Well, we're meeting the regional goals. We've heard this body. We've heard the bodies of Wo County. We've heard REMA's needs. We've heard Sparks's needs and we've said the way we deliver 911 services and response isn't the most effective way. We continue to work on that. This is one of the lynch pins. We continue to point back at our CAD system and say, "Hey, we want to improve fire service response, but we really need to improve our CAD system. We need to get on the same system. We need to be better." So, in looking at those regional goals, how are we doing that? Where we're coming to a common language. Sorry if you guys have heard this before. I think I've said this before. We're coming to a common language. We're going to call the We're going to call things the same thing. At REMA, if they call it a heart attack or a cardiac arrest, at Reno we're going to call it the same thing. At Sparks, if they're going to call it a battery, we're going to call it a battery. And by doing that and creating a common language, we make it simpler when we interact with our agencies as well as when we create reports and when we create uh when we're looking for data and when Mayor, as you mentioned, when we're trying to find and source data, we can say that we're saying the same things. We can tell the public and it's not confusing. We can say collectively we had this many calls and this means the same thing. integrated responses. This is us just being better. This is us saying, you know, when we're looking at fire regionalization and or we're looking at providing mutual aid, you've heard automatic aid, mutual aid. These terms come up over and over again. We get tasked and told that this is something we need to do better. Well, now we can by putting everybody in the same environment, we can integrate responses. We can take the decision part out of the dispatcher who has to go through a flowchart and look and say, does TMF need to respond with Reno fire in this call? We can actually pre-program that into the system and say Reno spot re or based on the location Reno and TMF will respond and the system will automatically make those recommendations. Every time we can take a decision out of a dispatcher, we're we're making it better not only on the dispatcher, but we're making it better on the process because every decision point is a potential failure point. It's the same across all public safety. It's the same across people, right? Every time you manually have to make a decision, there's a potential that something's going to go wrong. Um, the other thing that one of the new accomplishments that we've had is by delaying this process or by having additional time, we've been able to source AI tools within Hexagon's environment. So, within our CAD system, we're going to be deploying AI artificial intelligence tools that allow us to automate some of the some of the pieces that our dispatchers are very good at and, you know, recognizing this call might be related to this call or these details might be related to details. Our dispatchers and officers are very good at this, but they don't catch a lot of all. they aren't able to catch it all the time. They're busy. They're doing other tasks. By bringing in artificial intelligence, we can actually set that AI system on missions to go look for commonalities and call types. It might help us find and resolve crimes faster. It might help us recognize that this fire here and this fire at this location have a lot of commonality and might come from the same source and we can make our responses better. So, that's what we're going to task it with and that's what we're going to use. I come back to regional processes. This is us saying initially when we went to that regionalization workshop and this body along with the others said hey we need to make the user experience better from a 911 perspective. If a citizen calls us, they shouldn't have to worry about being transferred from here to here to here. They shouldn't have to worry about being asked what the location is three or four or five times. Um they shouldn't be asked to repeat information. So by bringing everybody into the same system, we can revise those regional processes. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to say I'm going to accept this information. I can transmit it to this agency. They can accept it and we can resolve these questions and improve our response times. That's what we're working on. And then information access. Again, this is sharing not only information about calls, but sharing safety information. Anytime that we have responders responding in different systems, we run the risk that information may live in system A and it may not be available in system B, which means the firefighter coming from Reno may have information or not that the REMA technician or REMA medic does not have. And that puts people in at a safety or that creates a safety issue. By having everybody on the same system, we can now more easily pass that information along whether it comes from Reno Police Department to the Reno Fire Department to REMA to Sparks to WASHA. we can share that information across and make sure that responses are safe. It also helps the citizens in the fact that if we need to pass their information along, it is much easier than a phone call. Now, we can just digitally transmit it. I think I the last time I was in front of this body or maybe the time before that, um, one of the terms I heard was, you know, we can just send an email. I don't understand why this is so difficult. I can send an email digitally to this person. Why can't our CAD system just digitally send this information from person to person? Well, that's what we're looking to resolve here. All right, I mentioned at the very beginning our timeline has changed. I'm sorry about this. This is frustrating for me as well. So, we initially where we're at today, we actually have teams in office today that are testing our system. They are functionally testing the record system. That means they've completed a large majority of the configuration and now they're at the point to test it. We're going to complete and start te we start testing next week in CAD which means from now until midepptember we're going to be testing. It's a back and forth dance between us and our vendor uh where we tell them these are the things we need you to fix. They come back and say we fixed them. We retest them and this goes on for about a month and a half to two months. If everything is working well, then November we're planning on moving into training. We'll train our trainers on all systems. Again, this is not just CAD and RMS. This is records, CAD, CAD in the field, CAD on a cell phone, um analytics, it's some of the AI tools I mentioned. It's um there's a lot for a lot of programs here. And then we have to teach new workflows because it's a brand new system. No one is keeping the same system. This is new for everybody across the region. If everything goes well from training, which I anticipate training will it's a large beast, but we own it. Once we say the system is good, then we just have to train everybody. That's that's an easier easier thing for us to resolve. I'm hoping that everything goes well on February 23rd, 2026, we'll be ready to go live. That's our production go live date. And then we have about three months, the following three months for a reliability period where we have 90 days to work with the vendor and say, is it stable? Is it working the way we wanted? Is everything perfect? Um, and they're not leaving us until it is. So the other important thing is here we have we have milestone payments built in here as well. So these are the financial tools that allow us to make sure that the system is working well. We can hold those milestones until we achieve each one of these benchmarks. So, if I had to summarize this in a in a in a general way for you, project status, you'll see a red check mark there. We are delayed. This there's no way about it. We are four months delayed from what we originally anticipated in September. It's not uncommon. This is a massive project. We have four government agencies, well, three government agencies and a private agency uh that are involved and invested in this. There's 17 user agencies under that and multiple departments under that. This is not uncommon. We are on budget. We feel that we are fully supported. Our vendor has put a lot of resources into this to get us across the finish line. We've put a lot of personnel resources into this. Um, so we're very, very excited and I think we are prepared for go live. We feel pretty confident on that. Now, I say that today. I said that a year ago. So, if that changes, you know where I work. I'm sorry. Uh, we are going to do our best to hit that benchmark uh February 23rd, 2026. And I guarantee our teams want to hit that benchmark. They're ready to be to get this project across the finish line. Um I am joined today I forgot to mention I am joined today by our agency coordinators from Reno Sparks and um sorry I'm Reno Sparks WOO and REMA who are joining me as well as one of our project managers from Hexagon who's also here to join us today. So that's all I have for you. If you have questions I'm happy to answer them anything I can do for you. >> Okay. Well Cody thank you so much and all I hear is uh praise for you. JW, thank you for all your work. JW never takes praise very well and um and he works a lot behind the scenes, but both of you together have really done a phenomenal job. I've been in meetings with you guys making it happen. I mean, it's just even miraculous that we're here now. Um because I thought, oh, we're never going to get this done. This is never going to happen. And so and also everyone knows working with jurisdictions, different ideas, different dynamics, and you guys have done a phenomenal job, but everyone is saying both of your praises. So I hope the council knows um how hard you guys have worked to make this happen because it was so long overdue. How long do you think this is should I even ask should I ask that question? How long overdue is this >> overdue? I mean, if we started, we really started talking about it in honest in 2019 and it was probably occurring a little bit before that. >> Yeah. >> So, we're six years into this, >> right? But how long has this been needed? >> Longer. Much longer. >> Much longer. Longer. Before I even got here. So, just the fact that we could get it done. Um, so I hope this council is proud, the staff is proud, and JW, we're all proud of you and Cody. Tremendous job. like this is not I I never in a million years thought this would be possible. So great job. Any questions? Go ahead. >> I never in >> Wait, hold on. Hold on. I I keep going to you. I'm going to start with you. >> Oh, I just I had a quick Thank you so much for all your work. I really appreciate it. Is there anything that you need from us to keep this schedule moving? Do you need any resources? Is there anything that we can do to support you in this effort of meeting your schedule? >> No, that's a great question. Um at this time, no. I think we have the re right resources in the right places. We have the support from the vendor. Um when we've asked the vendor to show up, and I say vendor, I keep saying hexagon. When we've asked Hexagon to show up to the room and answer tough questions with our chiefs in the room, they've done it. Um and they've been very understanding behind the scenes. We've even talked about kind of the financial burdens of a schedule delay. You know, we have to extend our maintenance on our current CAD project and that costs our community money. Um, so in fa in good faith they're talking to us about how they can lessen that impact and how what they can do from their side to make sure that this is a positive action for us. So right now I I do appreciate the question. No, I think from this board uh just your continued support when you hear if you hear the community talking or you hear concerns from the community, feel free to direct them to us. Feel free to direct them to me and let me answer those questions. I'm happy to I'm really happy to walk somebody through what the process is and why it feels painful, but why it's important. So >> perfect. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Councilman Anderson. >> I just wanted to thank you um both and the teams that are behind you for this work. This is the most important public safety work that we can be doing right now to launch all of the rest of the important work that we need to do in the future to make sure that we have the best, you know, public safety system and delivery of services for the community. So, we are all watching and we all want to help you get this done. Um, but I cannot state enough for the amount of times that I've heard your name and JW that the two of you have just been absolutely the lynch pins in making this very complicated process stay on track. I'm I'm actually blown away that we're only four months off based on what we know. So, congratulations and thank you for seeing this through. >> Yeah, and I'm sure Brandy had to hear a lot over the years, right? So, she knows how important it is. So, that's great. Um, okay, Councilwoman Der. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, thanks so much for the update. Um, this is something we've watched with eagle eyes for a very long time. And, uh, as the others have said, you JW and I know there's a larger team are to be commended for where we are today. Um, the mayor said, "I never thought it would get done, but my comment was about to be, I never thought in a million years that it could be this complicated, >> and it clearly clearly is." Um, the one thing I just wanted to note is that I think m most people don't know the back end, like incorrect data or only some groups only having access and others don't. But the part they do know is how many times they're asked to say their name, their address, their phone number, and to repeat the issue. And I know that by the third time they've repeated it. They're like, "Don't you guys talk to each other." You know, um, they get so frustrated because they're in a panic state, usually calling 911. um they're worried that every minute they're talking to you that their um significant other kid who a neighbor isn't getting help and they they are sure that you're holding their call and not forwarding it on uh for quick response and this drives them even to a greater anxiety. I've been on that line, you know, I've been calling and I've been transferred, you know, and I'm thinking I this has been a minute and a half. I need them here now to deal with, you know, my person. So, um, and I assume you hear that the most, too. But is it true? Is that the pinch point? >> Yeah, I mean, that is that is a major concern that we definitely hear. Um, and it's one that we feel. I think our dispatchers feel that, too. Every time they make a transfer, they're listening to a line ringing. And when in an emergency, that is one of the most helpless feelings, right, >> where you can't do anything, right? >> Um, and so I think we're excited to try to fix that. Now, there is work to be done. I'm not going to say this is not going to solve every issue that we have in the system. There's still work to be done after this. There's still agreements. There's still processes that we'll have to figure out. It probably won't it won't um correct a call transfer built into our system right off the bat because we have to agree to a new process that works. We have >> working on that now. So that okay parallel >> something we're working on and it's it's there's a lot of other pieces that go into that. But you know right now REMA does EMD processing for this is an example I'll give you. EM Rem's role is to do EMD processing. So for the medical calls they get transferred to them. Um we might be able to come to an agreement where we say well maybe we can do more EMD processing on the front end and alleviate some of those at least in the most critical of calls so we can eliminate that. Um it's something we've talked about. It's it's up for discussion and we're trying to figure out what makes the most sense for the community. What alleviates that burden. Now, in absence of that occurring sooner, um I will tell you being on the same system, even if you go through a call transfer, all that information can be digitally processed well out of a transfer. And we can eliminate a lot of the redundant questions. A transfer still may occur, but we can eliminate redundant questions. We can eliminate >> what's the problem? Oh, they're not breathing. And and they said, I told that to the last person. Yep. >> You know, >> we can get well ahead of that even in absence of changing some of the other processes. >> Okay. Well, fantastic. I'm so glad that in our lifetime, so to speak, uh on council, we'll be able to see this change. >> I'm very excited as well. >> I had one council. >> Okay, go ahead, Councilwoman um Eert. >> Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to um kind of echo what Council Member Der said about the transferring. I know that that's um scary when you do that cuz I know I have a family member I have to call um 911 sometimes for for um assistance and I um I always feel like uh are they not sending anybody until I get transferred to the right place, >> you know, like okay, did you send somebody the first time I I said that or is it going to somebody else and then someone will come? So I just I'm really um hopeful that we can get that that aspect um changed as soon as possible. That's you know from the the public facing side um that's probably the most um distressing thing you know that happens. Um, so just really if there's anything we could do to help with that, to speed that along, if it's because of um, you know, um, regionaliz regionalizing or anything like that, um, just let us know how we can help that move faster. >> Absolutely. And I I will say the technology behind it is really that first step and it's the reason we kept pointing to here is like we need to resolve this. >> Yeah. if we can resolve this, the door is open for many other discussions because >> at every time we've talked about it, this has kind of been the one impenetrable thing we can't get past. And so, >> yeah, and I know I've talked to um uh some firefighters about, you know, trying to figure out how to do regional um fire service if that's going to be a viable thing for us to accomplish. I know that they've all told me that there's been studies done about how how do we um come together and make that happen and it's always come down to you have to be on the same dispatch. So, um I'm excited to see what happens in the future for you know what kind of services we provide too. So, thank you >> Cody. Um I don't know ma'am follow up to what um council member Eert just said. Is there a way to change the language even in this interim to where they say we've dispatched? We we need, you know, to assure the people that people are on their way. Are there words that we could say or is it just wrong? They're not dispatched until it gets to the third place. >> So, there are asurances that we can provide. Um, we do run some liability risks depending on whether resources have been sent or not. Um, but there are asurances we can provide people to say, "Hey, I know I'm transferring your call. we you know help is being sent or help will be sent something to help assure it >> you think >> and that is something that's in our it is in our pro protocols and is our processes to do I can't say it happens with 100% consistency nor can I say in crisis whether citizens really hear it a lot of times you know we ask questions that citizens cannot hear there's just too much happening and I can't tell you how many times >> my dispatchers have answered a phone or I've answered a phone and someone is screaming and I'm like what's your location and they're they're five minutes ahead of the call and they're trying to tell me where the car is going and what it's doing and I'm like I need to know where you're at and just getting through to that. So even in those crisis moments when you're like helps on the way they they don't hear it. All they hear is transfer. >> Um but I >> it is something that we we focus on and we want to make sure that we are providing assurances to the public. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Appreciate you very much. Good luck. Please keep us posted with anything that you need. Thank you JW. >> Okay, Madame Clerk. I think we are moving on to item C4. >> That's correct. >> Do we have to open E1 through E8 at the same time or will we hear C4 and then go to E13? >> We will hear C4. Um if the body decides to adopt the resolution at that point, we will move into the ordinance introductions E1 through E8. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Do we require a presentation? >> We council, do we want a presentation on this? No, you do not. Uh >> oh. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I do. >> Welcome. >> And madame vice mayor, just for the record, we did receive two comments associated with this item. One letter in favor and one letter um as neutral or concerned for the item. >> Thank you, madame vice mayor and councel. Tyler Shaw, agenda manager for the city of Reno. For the record, as requested, I am back before all of you today with an updated board and commission resolution, which incorporates your feedback from the July 23rd Reno City Council meeting. Starting with our strategic plan alignment. This presentation falls into the governance and organizational effectiveness category. Before we get started, here's a quick road map for my presentation today. First, I'm going to walk through some background and reminder slides. These are meant to ground us in how we got here, what sparked this modernization effort, what problems we're trying to solve, and how the resolution aims to address them. After that, I'll take a closer look at the feedback we received from council at the July 23rd meeting in the changes we've made in direct response. And I'll also highlight a few things that are staying the same based on that feedback. And finally, I'll wrap up by addressing a few common questions about what the resolution on today's agenda actually does. So, starting with how we got here, back in November of last year, council directed staff to bring forward a comprehensive overhaul of our boards and commission system. In May, you received a presentation from Cynthia Esparza on a proposed public engagement process. Then, in June, the city clerk presented an overview of the boards and commissions program and some proposed guiding principles for change along with a request for a one-year hiatus on all boards and commissions. Council initially approved that pause. However, following a request from council to revisit the pause, staff returned to council on July 23rd with the resolution in a series of ordinances that would allow boards to resume meetings immediately while also implementing several key changes to the program. During that meeting, council provided additional feedback and directed staff to return with a revised resolution at the first meeting in August, which brings us to today. So, what problems have been identified that warrant a change like the one proposed here today? Well, based on council feedback, community feedback, and internal review, several structural issues have been identified with the program. First, our boards were created one by one over the course of many decades uh with different ordinances, resolutions, and bylaws, some of which conflict with Nevada open Meeting Law, other sections of Reno Municipal Code, and one another. These conflicts have created a system that's difficult to administer and which has gaps and expectations for membership, attendance, and reporting for both board members as well as members of the public. We also found that public input lacks clear pathways to council decision-making, which was a theme heavily reflected in the community engagement feedback. people feel like their comments and recommendations to our boards do not translate into council action and the result is a fragmented and siloed system that is disconnected from its purpose. So my last reminder slide, the resolution and ordinances before you today lay the groundwork for all of the structural changes we're recommending together. They aim to solve the issues we just discussed by achieving four key goals. The first goal is to create consistent, transparent meeting structures. The resolution and ordinances accomplish this goal by removing the boards from Reno Municipal Code and reestablishing them under a unified governance model with centralized program oversight within the city manager's office. The resolution creates this unified governance model by including a new section of general governance provisions that apply to all of the newly reestablished boards. These general provisions do some pretty important things in helping us meet our other goals. For example, they make participation easier and more impactful by simplifying and standardizing meeting procedures to reduce barriers for public volunteers. Specifically, the resolution accomplishes this goal by requiring boards to adopt bylaw templates standardizing previously confusing and conflicting meeting procedures. Next, these general governance provisions ensure public input reaches council by establishing annual reporting requirements for all included boards. This reporting requirement is the formal mechanism by which board input and recommendations will be shared with council, thereby closing the feedback loop between community input and council awareness. As a whole, this resolution establishes a flexible system that can and will evolve over time. By establishing boards and commissions through a single resolution rather than multiple ordinances, council is empowered to make updates more easily as community needs change without having to rewrite the municipal code and undertake the ordinance revision process every time. This allows the system to stay responsive, transparent, and aligned with evolving council priorities. So, moving on to what has changed since the last time I was before this body. On this slide, column one shows what the 723 draft resolution proposed. Column two captures council's direction from that meeting. Column three lists staff edits made in response to that feedback. And column 4 is what the 813 resolution proposes today. Starting with the senior citizens advisory committee, the 723 draft would have repealed the SCAC and spread the senior perspective across other boards. Council asked for a standalone senior body to remain. So staff restored it as the senior residence advisory board, renamed to align with the updated naming conventions established by this resolution, but with duties unchanged. Next is the access advisory committee. The 723 draft would have repealed the committee and dispersed its perspective across other boards. Council asked for a standalone access body to remain. So staff restored it as the access advisory board. Again renamed to align with the new naming conventions but with duties unchanged. Looking at the urban forestry commission, the 723 draft would have placed this body under parks and under the parks and recreation advisory board as a subcommittee. Council asked for it to remain a standalone commission. So article three of the resolution now reflects that structure. Looking at neighborhood advisory boards, the 723 draft would have limited agendas to development items only. Council asked staff to allow non-development topics. So, article 3 now enables council leaison to route non-development items to the respective NAB agendas. Eligibility criteria. The 723 draft would have added new eligibility criteria across the boards for senior access and human rights perspectives. council asked to remove those additions to avoid redundancy and so article 3 of the resolution no longer includes those extra criteria. Lastly, looking at the council liaison role, the 723 draft would have introduced an expanded definition. Council requested clearer language. So, article 2 now uses the verbatim definition from the adopted council rules. These are the substantive changes that were carried into the 813 resolution. But as I mentioned earlier during the 723 meeting, council also directed staff to keep some things the same. First, the 723 resolution would have centralized administration of the board and commission program within the city manager's office. Council directed staff to move forward with this administrative change. Program administration within the city manager's office will ensure increased program efficiency, consistent meeting structures with hybrid participation options, and a more accessible advisory system. This language is included in article one of the resolution. Next, council directed staff to retain the youth city council. This was included in the 723 resolution and it is included in the resolution before you today. The 723 resolution would have combined the arts and culture commission with the public art committee. Council directed staff to move forward with this change and the language effectuating this change is included in article 2 of today's resolution. The 723 resolution would have required all NAV meetings to be hybrid meetings held only at Reno City Hall and via Zoom. Staff received mixed direction from council on this change and as a result, it's been included in this resolution before you today in article 3, section 25K and is being flagged for additional consideration. As a reminder for your discussion on this topic, requiring NAB meetings to be held at city hall allows for a security presence and weapon screenings, enhanced ADA access, and reliable hybrid participation via Zoom. People are often scared to speak up when they know there are guns in the room. So, holding meetings in a location with screenings helps ensure everyone can participate without fear. It is the only location that guarantees a consistent, safe, and equitable experience for all residents. Now, I'm going to shift to what today's resolution actually does. There's been a lot of discussion about what's changing, but it's equally important to be clear about the improvements and safeguards that this resolution puts in place. First, this initiative is designed to enhance public engagement. It ensures public input is not just heard, but funneled into actionable recommendations through standardized processes like the annual reports. It does not eliminate public input. It enhances public input. While the ordinances on today's agenda technically reveal out repeal outdated code sections, every single board is being reestablished within the new unified resolution. Some have also worried that moving boards from the municipal code to a resolution reduces transparency. But resolution changes still require public notice, a council vote, and an opportunity for public comment. This shift allows council to make more regular updates to the system without having to undertake the ordinance revision process. There's also been some confusion about the council liaison role. With the proposed resolution, your role remains intact. You can still attend meetings, communicate priorities, answer questions, and recommend board appointments. This resolution simply adopts the same role definition that is in the previously adopted council rules. The shift for NAVS is focused on aligning them more closely with development related feedback, but they're still open to broader topics based on council direction. And hybrid meetings at city hall and via Zoom will enable increased safety and ADA accessibility while ensuring community members are still able to participate in person or online. And finally, while some have felt that this was rushed, staff has conducted outreach through surveys, public dropins, and stakeholder sessions on just the first phase of this effort. And I want to emphasize that this resolution is just the beginning, and it kicks off a year-long phased process. So, what does this year-long process look like? Well, starting with today, many of our boards have already resumed their regular meeting schedules following council's direction in the July 23rd meeting. This resolution puts in place the administrative structure needed to move the rest of the implementation forward, including training prioritization evaluation and engagement efforts. In September, agenda management, me, will launch a new training program for boards and commissions. This will cover open meeting law, public records requirements, and key board specific responsibilities. In October, council will hold a strategic planning workshop, and the outcomes of that workshop will help guide and inform the priorities boards should be working toward in the year ahead. In December, Cynthia and her team will roll out a citywide public engagement framework, which will include board visits to gather direct feedback from board members. This effort ensures that every board has a voice in shaping future improvements and priorities. Then in May, we'll return to council with any proposed updates to the resolution. Those changes will be based on what we've learned from council strategic priorities, feedback collected through the engagement framework, and insights shared by board members during regular meetings. Then finally, in July, all boards and commissions will submit their first annual reports to council via memo. And this will kick off the five-year review cycle where council can look at the performance, purpose, and structure of each board in greater detail. I want to end by thanking council for your ongoing leadership in helping us modernize this program. This resolution and ordinances are the first critical step in the process and give us the structure we need to support our boards moving forward with training, alignment to council priorities, and a consistent framework for community input and performance evaluation. As you move into your discussion, I want you to think of this resolution as a buffet for council. You can pick and choose which elements you would would like to include or remove so that the final structure reflects your priorities while still providing a strong consistent foundation for the program. The recommended motions are in the following slides and I'm available for any questions. >> Tyler, I am so impressed. You are doing amazing. Is this your second time? >> Yes, second. I Last time was my first time. So, second time. >> Wow. I am. Are were you nervous? >> Uh, I was a little nervous, but we do moot counsel here, so I got to practice many times. >> So, I got to practice. >> Well, I could not tell at all if you were. And it's very hard to be up here and think about your presentation and get it right and just and you did such a good job. I'm I'm I'm so impressed. But, you know, I'm a big fan, too. Big Tyler fan. Um, okay. I'm going to ask Madam Clerk, do you have any public comment on this item at all? >> We do not have any registered. >> I'm going to start over to my right. Councilwoman Anderson, any comments? >> Yes. Thanks. Um I'm just so appreciative of the work that you have done. Um you and the entire team. You've been very responsive to a variety of different directions and um needs from a variety of different stakeholders. I just want to let my fellow council members know that I'm just here to support whatever it is that you need to get this moving so that we can get back to some normal business. Um, however that's going to look. So, I'm not going to ask for any additional changes here. I'm just here to support what it's going to take to move forward with this. So, um, I look forward to your feedback and what is important to my fellow council members and hopefully we can move this along. >> Okay. Thank you so much, Councilman Martinez. Thanks so much, Madame Mayor, and thank you uh Tyler for the presentation. It was good to get a recap of kind of where we were at and sort of the extensive outreach that you've provided. I really appreciated the next steps and still having some of that feedback loop and evaluation process in place even as we move forward and we continue to modernize our boards and commissions and making sure that those voices make it all the way up to the DIA when we're making the decision. So, I want to give kudos um to you, Director Sparza, and uh the person who likes to hide in the background, Mrs. Smith, uh who doesn't uh who come up a lot, but I know she's heavily integrated into the work that's happening here, and so I appreciate uh her work on this. I think it I s share similar sentiments to council member Anderson where I feel like you've listened to a lot of the concerns that were voiced over the last feedback sessions not just with the council but with the community about the changes that were happening and the desire to continue to stay engaged from our public and the decisions that we make up here and how they're going to affect their day-to-day lives. So, if I could, I would just suggest maybe during your public engagement framework or looking at those strategies is going out to some of those community cleanups like I know uh Director Spars and I had talked about and making sure that folks that are already engaging in our activities and our uh events have the opportunity to provide feedback on that as well since they're already engaging and willing to commit to some of the things that the city is doing. so they might be more apt to provide some of that feedback. So, I just wanted to throw that up there and I look forward to more of the comments from our fellow council members. Thank you. >> All right, Vice Mayor Taylor. >> Thank you very much for all the work and I am here to get to a yes in any way that I can support my colleagues. So, I will leave my comments very short. Thank you very much. >> Okay, Councilman Re. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you um very much for the presentation and for all the hard work that's gone in behind the scenes. Um, part of it is been a slow grind because we all have strong opinions about uh things that are very important to us. Uh, for my part, I think you've made the right choice in terms of a mix of um revisions, some things that we have required and requested. Uh, obviously when this started, there were lots of things about a year-long pause. There were things about eliminating certain boards and commissions. I think at one point in time there was even the elimination of some of the fundamental commissions and boards that we had. Uh but I know that we're in a good place now and so I'm supportive of staff recommendations and I'm prepared to move forward on that basis. >> Okay, Councilwoman Der. >> Yeah. Um thanks Tyler. I know how much energy and effort you put into everything you do, so it shows. Um you definitely heard us and um the motion last time was to continue the item and try to implement incorporate the things that we recommended. Unfortunately, we are under a strict threeminut timeline and I did not go into a whole detail of some nuances that I think that council members should know about and so I just wanted to highlight a few of those that I do think should be changed in this ordinance um in case you're still taking input which it sounded like you were. >> Yeah. Can you just clarify because it says because it sounds like you are still um doing a lot of community outreach and which is really really nice to see. >> Yes. So Tyler Shaw, agenda manager for the record. As I mentioned, this is the start of a one-year process. So the goal would be to get the framework in place and do community feedback and engagement over the next year so that we can make any adjustments we need to the resolution moving forward. And of course, part of that feedback would include council feedback and council liaison feedback in your perspectives on whether or not the boards are working. >> Okay. I and can I just say I'm I don't know if we need like a full year and I just worry because that's a lot of staff like downloading and things like that and maybe we could do it sooner. I don't know what the sentiment is of the body, but I feel like that is excessive. I think there's just a few tweaks and we should be able to bring it back and get you guys on your way. There's there's some things I want to see like limiting staff time, you know, to two hours and a nab and if another council member wants to go over then that's on them and they can do that. But like I think we need to limit some of those things and then maybe add some other things in. Maybe it's not just development. I think each council member should probably have a lot of freedom to talk about whatever they want to talk about. um you know it just even though I think development is probably the number one I mean you guys know better than anyone that that's probably the biggest um issues where people come out the most um but I just think people feeling a little restricted we heard some feedback today at um public comment where you know they they feel that and so but again I do think I just think that all of you um as ward representatives should have the purview to do your your nabs or whatever those meetings look like, however you see fit. But also, we got to put some guidelines in because I also know we're doing, you know, le we're doing a lot more with less. And I want to be very um I guess aware of staff's time. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Tyler Shaw, general manager. For the record, I do want to make it clear for the record that the resolution before you today would enable council liaison to add non-development items to their NAV agendas. >> Okay. So while the NAVS would remain development focused, each council leaison can run their NAV as they see fit and add other presentations, other things that were brought up today during public comment. >> Perfect. All right, go ahead council. >> We could uh Mickey restart my time. >> Yeah, and I'm sorry. I just I just wanted to I honestly what I wanted to tackle is the year because I don't want you thinking about this for an entire year. That gives me anxiety because I think we're re really close, right? >> Yeah. So, to that point, I think three months would be more than fine uh to get to some of these neighborhood cleanups to visit uh the NAB, any of the specific boards that request a meeting and then you could maybe fine-tune this. But while you're fine-tuning it and for today's consideration, I'd like to recommend a few changes. One of those is that um um you talk about uh term limits and um you talk about a break in service and historically historically it's been one year break in service but you change that to equal to one full term length and I want to point out that the finance advisory board you have five years as their term and what you're saying is if you go off finance you can't go back on for five years. I I don't think I think we're missing out on loss of that knowledge and possible engagement and I would like to to see one year. I think one year break is more than fine. Um but that's an extreme but other boards are three years and I why would we want to lose those people for three years? I I if especially and this is my second point sometimes it's hard to fill the rosters and what I would recommend um this is still on page four on flexibility and appointment you have waiverss of specific eligibility requirements and I would add or term limits should be granted when no qualified applicants are available despite reasonable recruitment efforts and then you go on to say the council member has to document all these steps that were taken but we're not responsible for recruitment we have no say on that process And I really think it should be an administrative function, not up to the council member to demonstrate in a written document that we've beat the bushes. Um that all is done centralized at the city. So those are um three changes I think would even up the playing field. These are for all boards. This isn't the NABS or any particular board. Um there's a few more subtle details. You you want a new secretary and I support that at the um boards. But the thing is that you want this. >> We be careful of saying you want I feel like >> I don't know Taylor's like us >> the city the staff. What would you like me to say? >> It recommends. How about this? It recommends >> our recommendations. >> The secretary um do the attendance. This is a volunteer member and we have a staff person there. >> No, I'm sorry. I will I will not say that. But I'll just say this document recommends that um we have one of our volunteers tracking attendance and yet so much is writing on attendance like you get thrown off a board you know uh if you don't attend and such and what if the secretary isn't there that day. So I'm a little worried I'm not making any change but I'm just pointing that this could be a little unworkable. And then to the point that the mayor was asking about before about other agenda items, while you make it that change in one place, you don't consistently make the change like when you're describing the duties of the NAB, for example. And I just think it has to be reflected in all the places that you it it you make it in one place, but then or the document, excuse me, makes it in one place, but then every time it talks about it, it only talks about development projects again. So that would be a recommendation. And then I'll have a round two. Thank you. But these are just very fine. >> Yeah, I'm almost done. But do you want me to keep going? Okay, sure. >> Yeah, I don't know if I can do it in 30 seconds, but um I'll try. Um when you say the members of the city council, I actually thought your list of the duties was good. Um what the council did, saying what our role is, I thought was good. What I felt was egregious was this part that you put in highlight, and I know you took it right out of our council rules, but it does seem to quash or censor our speech. So, only if we're asked a question may we respond. I think that is extremely awkward. I mean, I don't mind it remaining in the council rules, but I would actually change it there, too. But I really don't think it has to be repeated here. It's it's it's almost um it's almost offensive in terms of what we're allowed to say and not say at our NAB meeting. And it isn't just about development. It's about a variety of topics, whether it's police, you know, crime, what whatever the topic might be. Um and cut you off. >> Okay. Well, I'll come back. I think there was only one more yellow, but that's okay. >> Yeah. So, I know that in the last discussion um I had requested that we had more opportunity for feedback from Ward 4 constituents. I know that there was outreach done at community cleanups for other wards. Um, and I just want to kind of stress that again. I I didn't expect this to come back until we had had at least that level of outreach at the next community cleanup. I think the W4 one is is is it September? Anyways, it's coming up quick. Um and I just really, you know, want to remind everybody that we need to get feedback from everybody. And I know that um I think we had one dropin meeting or something for Ward 4. Um, I just would like to see more outreach out there. I know we're all rooting for Reno and that includes Ward Four all the way up to Cold Springs area. So, I want to make sure they're given the opportunity and a lot of times these are people that can't make it to meetings for work related reasons. So, I just want to provide every opportunity we can for those community members to provide feedback. So, I don't know how that direction fits into what's being presented today. Thank you for your question. So in the process that staff's laid out, the way it fits in is really looking at this phase cycle over the next year. >> So the goal would be to implement the resolution and ordinances today and go through the next year and get more community feedback from every ward including W 4. Um and we heard your comments at the 723 meeting about going to the word for cleanup. Um Cynthia and her team are going to undertake a very robust public engagement process in general and it will include feedback on the board and commission resolution. Um and the reason we're back before you today is the motion at the 723 council meeting was to come back to the first meeting in August with an updated and adjusted resolution. But as I mentioned, it is a buffet and we're hoping to get more feedback over the course of the next year from everyone, including the community, and make any changes from there. Um, passing this resolution today puts the structure we need in place to get started. But it also makes it easier for council to make changes moving forward instead of having to do the ordinance process. It's just a resolution on the agenda and we can change one word if we need to to council member Derer's point or change a whole section um whatever council desires to make the program fit their needs. >> Okay. All right. I do Oh, we still have a little bit of time. Um I I have a little bit of hesitation doing that. Like if we wanted to do specific boards like do the resolution um for individual ones, I'd feel a little more comfortable. I think um with regard to the NAB um I agree with council member Derer that I think council members should be able to you know speak or ask questions. Um I also um would really like to see flexibility in the location of where we can have the nabs. I know that um city hall is not really close to the majority of the people in my ward. So that's something that's really important to me to have flexibility to have it in different places. Um, and uh, um, yeah, I think those are the two biggest ones for me on on the NAB. Thanks. >> Sorry, Megan. I think I just missed your comments. What did you say something about having the NABs in your area? >> Yeah, I'd like to have some flexibility um, to have them not just at city hall. >> I understand. And I'm just going to tell you why. um if you have a hot topic especially but and and I would say you know both but um just city hall you got the staff here and it's also I think more efficient with staff time and then the other thing is you also have security here you might need it at times I've needed it um at certain meetings and so I always feel better here because we have Reno's finest over there in the corner And um so I that's where I was sort of recommending it because I don't I'm trying to understand the amount of staff time um city manager Bryant because that's where I think you know it should be no more than a twohour meeting with staff if you guys want to go longer or go have to go eight hours but I do think we have to have I'm just saying I'm just giving you an example. Let's say you're like, I want to do a day nab or whatever, all day nab. Um, stuff like that. I was just really advocating to have it inside city hall. >> Yeah. I don't It's It's just difficult for my constituents to get here. Um, also, you know, it's a neighborhood advisory board, so I think there's value in having it, you know, in your neighborhood if there's, you know, special things that you want to have presented at city hall. But um I think it should be um you know at the discretion of the council member um to you know decide where the council or the nav meeting is going to be. >> You could do that. I would just limit how how much staff that you get if you hold it outside of city hall. >> Yeah. >> You get you know a staff member but you're not going to get as much. Just know that. >> Well and I've offered also to just not have staff like if that's an issue too. It could be, you know, this the staff maybe somebody >> joins over Zoom or something but doesn't necessarily need to come out. So, >> um yeah, and you know, >> like it >> I get people that just >> don't like coming to city hall. They don't like having to go to the parking structure. They don't like to have to walk around the building. Um and then also, you know, my ward is pretty far north of here. I mean, you figure there's people in Cold Springs that live there that come to my nabs. This is a pretty far drive for them. >> So, >> no, I understand. I was just, you know, in in the effort to really keep nabs >> and keep them going. >> What that's how that happened is we could be more effective with staff here in the building and because that was really the biggest challenge is utilizing the um staff time that we have. So, that was my thought is it would be a way to continue to have the naps. And I know there was some discussion too about, you know, having um different people that come to the NABS maybe paying for uh you know to support the NABS. Um I don't know if that's something that's um you know still on the table. Maybe they could also contribute to the cost of um security if they feel like it's something that they would like. So, Tyler, I I if I'm correct, and this is just what I'm thinking, we're resuming NABS, and I would also say I would allow council members to put people on their nav so they can continue to do the work that they want to do. Um, but also in the meantime, bring it back like in two, three months. But I I want to get this done quick. I think we can, but I do want you to get that input. you guys um still feel that we should get um community input because I'm I'm just hearing, oh, I didn't know. But I think people sometimes don't realize where we communicate. There's a lot of communication channels and it just depends on which one they choose. And sometimes when we're not using that channel or they're not using that channel, then they're like, "Oh, I didn't know this." And I would say reach out to past NAV members or boards and commission members because remember some of them expired and they wanted to stay on but it did expire. But they do have insight that others might not have because they've served on them. But I think we're close. I I again I think this goes back to being really intentional about staff's time and the resources that we have. That's why I recommended city hall. It's one of those things that, you know, um I'd like to limit two hours to for staff to be at a meeting if they have to be just, you know, those they're just little fine points, you know. So anyway, um any more comments? >> Madam Mayor, I I'm uh have not weighed in, I think, on this particular important point, which is to say what I think we should do today is move forward with the adoption of this resolution. And if there are changes that we learn in the coming months are relevant, uh, we can do that. And now that you've given us a path to do it, it means we can bring discrete uh, various resolutions back and and line through them. Um, I also think my concern about the safety issue is more um, about the nature of the environment we live in today. When you have elected officials who are being set on fire and assassinated, that means the public is also at the same risk. And I would hate for uh people who are attending these to be placing themselves at a risk of harm. So I think being in city hall just lends the aura era of credibility aura of credibility to um being there. You know, we are we are government whether we're small or not. People can continue to have coffees with the counselor and neighborhood uh gettogethers um and uh the different kinds of um town halls that we were sort of doing um if they choose to do that. But the NABS are the effective um governing uh body. So those should be at city hall. Um so those are my thoughts on it. And again, I'm happy to move forward with the proposed resolution that's in the packet. >> Okay. And I just think bottom line, you you guys all have different styles of what you want to see, what you want to communicate. Have them when you want to have them. Don't have them if you don't. do them the way that you guys feel makes sense in your neighborhood or however you want them. Just, you know, these are some recommendations and just I think everyone's different and if Brandy you want to have one every week, go for it. >> Madame Mayor, I'm not suggesting that people cannot change the type or nature of them, but I do think it is important that they be held here in this building just for safety purposes and also because of staff time. I just think yeah, you get more staff, you get safety. Um, I wouldn't expect that if you're going to go outside and maybe change those areas, but Megan understood that and she, >> you know, again, where you want to adapt to where you guys want to adapt, what works for you. But I I agree. I mean, I do my meetings here because of the safety measure and to your point, someone might be coming for me, but then go after someone innocently. And I, you know, we all signed up for this. We get that, but it's the public too. You have to think about they're exposed. So, >> so I'd like to comment on this particular issue as well. Um, so I moved one of my meetings to city hall and I was asked to pay personally from my council funds for security. So, I did except that when we had the meeting, there was no police here. There were no um screening of guns or anything with a a thing. So, I paid money with the expectation that we're going to have extra security at the recommendation of the staff and and I didn't have any extra. Is there an expectation? >> Um, this is recently. This is >> was it during office hours? >> No, it's in the evening with the >> after hours. >> Yeah. Isn't that what we're talking about? Like the nab is at 5:30 for the public. >> But we have we have um security here, so that shouldn't be a thing. >> Well, it was a thing. I'm just saying real life experience. I'm asking a question. >> No, it's good to hear. I'm glad to hear it. >> Is this is the city going to provide the metal detector, the police presence that you pointed to me? >> So, two things are happening. One, I believe, council member Der, there was security present in the room. >> Not not at my meeting. >> You're saying there was absolutely no security at all that was present in the room for you? >> Before the meeting, there was someone in the hall because the meeting started at 5:30. Okay. That they were just there and I said, "Are you coming?" I will look into that because there should have been extra security for you. >> You brought it up. I said are you doing the screening? No. I said I wonder what exactly I paid for. >> I don't know. Let me look into that. But uh to satisfy the issue, we have asked developers to pay and we've identified the amount of money. And uh Tyler, can you remind me what that money is? >> $285 per meeting. That includes the metal detectors and weapon screening. So it would be security staff here and screening participants before they enter the chamber. >> So you can imagine my confusion though with the expectation. We weren't informed to this moment that somebody was going to be paying for this extra level of security. And I will just go on record. I've had 11 years of nabs. I've never had a single incident. I understand the world's changing. But I also, you know, I'm supportive of where where um uh Megan is coming from because I'll tell you what, I understand two staff driving out to my ward to Moana. Um but what's challenging is having her 11 people drive into the city and any members of the public that want to attend, 10, 20, 40, however many. So you want to have 60 people drive here, go through screening. I I mean it really takes away from this informal nature of the NAB. Um and I'm I'm not very supportive of it. I I don't think it buys us a lot. But the the other issue is that um you there's also this portrayal that somehow we have better camera and better zoom. Well, in my experience, there was a fixed camera in the back. You could see the heads back of heads of all the attendees, the back of head of the presenter. The nab were very far away. you couldn't tell their facial features or who they were, read their uh name plate and so there was no like live dynamic video at the NAB at least I have an owl so when someone speaks it points to them you can see their face and so that's actually a a negative to me and so I'm having a meeting here in two weeks and I'm paying to have SOSU come and have better video so that when we have the video you can actually see who's speaking what they said and you can see the NAB members So I'm wondering are are you going to be uh you the city this time are we planning to pay for enhanced video of the meetings as well? >> Thank you council member Derer Tyler Shaw general manager for the record that is a planned improvement for the council chambers and to your point your feedback is very wellreceived and the zoom or the angle for NAV meetings isn't the best. So, one of the things that it is looking at changing for the chambers tech is the ability for the staff member who's running the NAB meetings to change to different camera views. So, there could be a dynamic camera view during the meetings so that we can switch around to >> the person who's talking and get a better view. >> And last point, thank you for addressing all that. And the last point is that Megan made a suggestion, have the staff member on Zoom. They don't have to get out of their chair, leave their home, leave the comfort of their home. Um, if a person wants the NAB out in their ward, they can come get the equipment and bring it back. I mean, that, you know, rather than have the staff do it. I just worry about having 40 people have to come here from, they probably live blocks from Megan, as an example, but they have to come 40 minutes each way to visit with her. Just it seems odd, but I'm sharing my concerns or or observations. on Zoom. >> What I'm explaining is that you might have missed it. Um, for example, at Moana, that's what I can speak to. We have something called Owl. It's like this big. >> Everyone did theirs on Zoom, too. >> I do. >> No, everyone. >> Well, I >> All the NAB meetings at city hall would be hybrid. So, they would be open for in person and Zoom attendance. >> They can do both, which is great. 100%. Okay. Okay. That's great because let's say to Megan's point, she really doesn't, you know, want people I mean, she I guess people have a hard time coming here, which I'm sure they do. Some people really do. Um, but that way at least technologywise they could be on Zoom, too. >> Yeah. I just You don't have to. Yeah, >> Megan, you don't have to do it here. I'm just saying like if you guys have access to the technology then it's great. >> There are some people that it doesn't matter what word you live in. I don't care. Brandy might have people that don't want to come here or go where or she wants whatever. I just think technology should be available to jump on Zoom or follow along on Zoom. I just think that that's important especially there are a lot of people with disabilities or seniors that just don't want to travel and I don't blame them. So, I just wanted to make sure cuz my impression was Jackie that we always had Zoom options. >> It depends on where someone holds it. If someone holds an AB in a park, >> we don't have Zoom in a park. >> That's true. You can't >> if they hold it in a particular building where they don't have the technology, a restaurant, we don't have that ability. Now, there are >> some things that you can bring to those locations and set up, but it is difficult. It is clunky. It is not >> got it >> as good as it is here. >> Yeah. >> So, I just wanted to make sure that um it sounds like Miss Eert, you'll be able to host your meetings in your ward and potentially staff is running the meeting from potentially city hall or there's, you know, maybe there's a hybrid where somebody could come to city hall and participate, but the meeting is being held in person in your ward. Are you comfortable with that? And I just want to make sure you feel supported in that area. >> The suggestion was just have staff be over Zoom. Um they don't necessarily need to come out there. For me, the focus is really more on, you know, the the presentation regarding developments or updates from RPD or um Reno Fire. Like that's kind of I feel like the the focus of the NABS. And if we have the staff member not there, that's fine. I don't really um have an expectation of the staff member to present or anything. Um I there's probably some things that they need to be there for. Um but I don't know that that needs to be like physically in person. >> I was going to say let me this one step further is the presenters. >> They may want to be at city hall, but if they can present at city hall to your NAB via Zoom, >> that's a layer though because it's one thing to like join from online but to give a presentation like would we have to like all have our laptops? Would we have like a projection of the presentation? Like that that gets a little different too. Um you know >> so those are details we can work out but I just want to make sure if we move forward with the motion that the mayor is suggesting you are you feel comfortable. >> Well does that >> um motion include being able to have them where we want to have them? I think that's what what the mayor was indicating to you. >> I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if that's included, but I haven't I don't I don't I think I missed that. >> Madame Mayor, uh we're sort of all over the place a little bit because we all have strong opinions on the topic. The meeting should be held in city hall across all of the wards. It has nothing to do >> What? >> Wait, wait, hold on. Let him speak and then >> Okay. the the meetings should all be at city hall. There's a variety of reasons for it. It's safety related. It's related to the staff time. It's related to technology. You're now seeing through Miss Anderson's questions how this plays out in the permutations. Who is going to be there? Originally, it was just that it was somehow related to the people in the neighborhood being able to get there quicker. Um and my point is even Miss Eert has said when she wants to have RE RPD there that means RPD has to go there. Um when they want to have developer presentations now the developer has to be there because the technology is not the same. Some people might say I want to have it in the park because it's beautiful outside and it's beautiful evening. We want to highlight our parks. We don't have the technology. If we want to make these accessible for everyone it has to have a hybrid option which then allows people with disabilities to be there. It allows people to be there if they're sick. They can attend if they're raising children and have to be at home. Whatever the reason is, we are making it more complicated than it needs to be. All NAB should be held at city hall. That's the motion that's in the packet. That's the motion I've indicated I will be supporting. >> Okay. Go ahead, Councilman I. Your turn. >> Yeah. I just respectfully disagree. I don't think that it's up to one council member to kind of dictate what is the correct thing to do to all of us. Um I'm here to represent the people that elected me and have a neighborhood advisory board. So um I'm sorry. This is this is um an absolute like necessity for me to be able to have my my NABS in my community. >> Okay. All right. Go ahead, Councilwoman Der. >> Okay. Well, I think we've explained this topic. I I support having them out. I've never had a problem and I I don't want to create problems um unnecessarily. Um I really think if the council member is more um comfortable here that he should have the meetings here. It's not a problem. I I don't have a judgment. Okay. Where he hop, but I do have a recommendation on a change. One of the things that came up at the public discussion last time was about subcommittees. I just want to daylight that we didn't change that. But I didn't hear you mention it, Tyler, but um the question was does the city council have to formally approve each subcommittee or can the boards set up their own subcommittee? And you I already know what you think or you have put in this document. So I read it, but I don't know what others I mean it was the parks and recreation person who brought it up. It isn't really a Naomi issue. I'm just trying to reflect where I don't I I tend to agree with them. Okay. Otherwise, it wouldn't daylight it. And so, lastly, I just want to ask something. I brought up earlier during the RHA item that I had a special meeting of my NAB. It was it was on the regular day, but I asked um the um a person that doesn't have to go to planning commission, a developer to come to the meeting and meet with the public in this setting. It was a large group, so I'm going to default here when I have a group that exceeds the size. And I would love to see at least some flexibility that says it it seems to be very cut and dried. This is what comes to the NAB. And I think that there should be just back on this section on flexibility. Uh if we want to ask somebody to come, um they don't have to come, but if we want to ask them, we should they should be able to come, not forbid them from coming. And the one other piece on that that was very confusing to me was it said something like, let me just go to it. if they'd already it said if a project was approved um they didn't need to come to the NAB like if they asked for a continuence well I could see everybody asking for a continuence and not coming to the NAB I didn't understand that piece is that something you could explain >> yes thank you council member Derer Tyler Shaw agenda manager for the record starting with subcommittees um this resolution requires subcommittees to be approved by the Reno City Council so it does not allow boards to create their own subcommittees I'm going to die over but I'm just daylighting >> this. To be clear for the record, this resolution requires council to create their own subcommittees. >> As far as the NAB items and asking items which typically wouldn't come to a NAB to come, this resolution would enable council leaison to make the ask of a specific developer, but it doesn't require them to come. >> One of the things that this resolution does change is it now requires specific projects to come to NABS before going to planning commission. The way the NAB resolution is currently written, it says developers may attend if present. And for example, at the W one NAB, two days ago, there was a project where no developer came. And so the NAB requirement was skipped and the project now goes straight to planning commission. >> So this resolution would change that to make it so specific projects have to go to the NAB before they come to planning commission. >> I thought it was a great change. I mean, let me I only get so many minutes so I don't want to >> of course, >> you know, but thank you for daylighting that. I think that was a great change. Um, but it does also say, and I'm I'm just looking for my page and I apologize. I thought I had everything flagged. It says something like if if a project right in that section about having to come, it says if a project um asked for a continuence, they didn't have to come. >> I think the last Thank you for reminding me of the last section. Um, that section, I believe, refers to extensions for time. So the request would be to prevent a developer from having to go to a NAB twice. So if a project came to a NAB and they got a lot of community feedback and decided they wanted to request more time before they go to planning commission, that request is categorized as a separate application to my understanding and wouldn't have to go back to the NAB again to say NAB, we need more time. >> Well, let me just give you an example. We had one Mount Rose Junction that came. They were they had no idea really what they were proposing. There was very vague and so the NAB was very frustrated because there was no detail and so they said look when you firm up the detail of your project come back to the NAB with your project and they are coming back at my next NAB meeting >> you know and and so my point here is sometimes they're extremely vague and it's very hard for the NAB to comment on anything. So I'm not sure that's a good provision, but I'm just sharing they should at least present the project that and we heard it again here today that projects change. So they go to the NAB, projects change, and then they're completely different animal. So okay. Well, I just wanted to share that there's a few things I I bring all this up in the interest of just making this as good as it can. If we pass this today, I really want to make sure it comes back within three months to make these updates because we don't need a year after three NAB meetings to figure out what's working, what's not working. >> The one thing I do want to say and and I will tell you this is a real concern and I need council members to be very very serious about it. um whe it's there really there are people that attend um your NABS particularly even developers are not liked um on a lot of levels. You have to understand there there is a lot of anxiety out there um for their safety as well. We've heard it. So just just remember that. Um you know I just want you to be aware of that. So, if you're hosting it somewhere else, just try to be aware of what's happening around you. >> One thing I'd really like to make sure we identify, some of the boards just don't have enough applicants. And I don't I didn't know whether that's why I said waivers of specific eligibility requirements or term limits could be waved. But if you don't want to write it that way, um, under term limits, I really again think it should only be a one-year break. And then that this provision may be waved if there's no eligible persons. If we have a finance board and we haven't asked, you know, there's nobody in waiting, we have some great members and we've put them on a five-year hold, you know, why should we not be able to bring them back and serve until we get some other members? >> You're going to. >> Okay. So, that's that's a change I'd really like to see to make sure all the boards have enough members. >> See the you know, >> mayor. >> Yes. Go right ahead. >> Thanks so much. I've been trying to keep some notes on some stuff and I don't know if uh I'm trying to get to a motion if that's the will of the body, but it seems to be that there maybe five or six different edits that need to happen in order for us to get across the finish line. I'm just wondering if that should be included in the motion and that'll update those ordinances and or the resolution and we can move forward there. Is that do we have to wait another two to three months to bring all those changes back? >> I'll defer to legal. >> No. No. If you have changes in the resolution, you can make those today as long as it's not like really way outside the scope of the resolution, which I don't imagine they are. Um and and you're fine there. Yeah. >> I'll just list them out for those of you that and I'm not making a motion yet, but I just wanted to get sort of those out there. So the first one is changing the the term the gap in term limits from the amount of the term to one year. Uh the second thing is reflecting the ability to have more than just development projects come to the NAB and making that consistent in the language throughout all the NAB section. Shifting attendance tracking onto staff and not necessarily the council liaison role. uh having and then this is where I'm willing to have a conversation obviously with my colleagues but having flexibility in the location with the understanding that there's a limit to staff time to two hours. >> So those were the four or five conditions. >> Did you address the location Miguel? Um Brandy did a pretty good job I think. >> Yeah. I think I I wanted to see if there was allowing the flexibility and location with the understanding that staff only has two hours for every board and commission. So, I don't know if what the thoughts are, but just wanted to throw all that out there. >> Yeah, I would support that. >> Was that was that a motion? No. Okay. Yeah, >> not yet. I wanted to get more feedback. >> I want you to keep >> I would add one more thing just that flexibility that if you don't have applicants for you city council, for example, that or or um finance advisory board or urban forestry that you could um bring that bring a person back. You know, it says flexibility right here. I'm just making sure it also addresses term limits. >> Okay. Yeah. And I think that's where I was talking about like the gap in between. >> That's the gap terms. >> That's a serve three years and then you have one year off. But this is let's say you've you're termed out >> and let's say you have four vacant positions on your NAB because a bunch of people termed out. >> Sure. >> But you don't have four eligible people. You can either just not have those people or you could uh appoint a person to continue to serve for a period of time. That was my suggestion. We we've done it on every board up till now for the last over decade. So to not be able to do it would be a change. >> I again I feel like this just goes back to if a NAV member wants to appoint someone on there for 10 years, let them do that. I don't understand why. >> Well, because right here there's very specific. Maybe there's a reason >> I can provide that because someone has to manage the appointment. A NAB is a legal entity to which must follow certain rules and it must be trained to behave in a particular way or else it can get sued, the members can get sued, the city can get sued and we have a legal obligation to follow laws. And so if they someone has to manage unless you want to authorize council to do that, someone in staff has to manage how long someone is on a meeting board, how long they are there for, when do they come off, when do new appointments get made, and if every single council member has differences in time frames for their NAB members, it will be a wreck. >> But please understand, I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting that they have terms as you have outlined. Yeah. I'm simply saying there are occasional issues where we don't have enough >> and I think that's fine that you can say there can exceptions can be made with the will of the body. I think that's easy enough. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. I'm fine. >> All right. Here's what I'm thinking. Your motion exceptions can be made on the term limits. >> Miguel, what would you like to see? Yeah, I I think I agree with the sentiment is making sure that we get to a yes on this um and a supporting staff with some of the changes that we've heard from the dis and those are outlined in what I mentioned earlier, but I'm happy to repeat those if needed for the motion. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Naomi, was your go he addressed Miguel accepted the motion uh change of exceptions. >> Okay, >> madame mayor. Um because I'm trying to create a a legally defensible record for the uh um clerk. I I think the better part of value is valor is to do the proposed motion. All the things that >> Yeah, I was thinking that. >> Okay. Well, all the things Miguel said with the exception of the location I am on board with. I think I have not heard Miss Bryant's opinion on the location question. Why that was staff recommendation. I think I know why it is my recommendation. And of course, I'm one vote on a body of seven. It's not me saying I will tell any one of you how to run your NAB. You'll run your NAB how you want to, but the seven of us are going to decide on the parameters. That's how this works when we're a voting body. Um and so that would be my uh my preference is to do it in the form as proposed in the um packet in the staff report. And if those changes that you've identified are things that you think are important, the staff will have to work through those. I think with Miss Bryant's direction um about them. >> So then, Madame Mayor, I will make the motion formally that the uh council adopt uh the resolution which establishes the general rules and standards for the city's advisory boards and commissions and reestablish standing non-mandate boards previously codified in reunipal code or by resolution repealing any prior inconsistent provisions and providing other matters properly related there too. >> Okay. All right. So I have a motion. Do I have a second >> uh for the u madam mayor just to clarify? So the motion as I'm hearing it right now since council member Martens did not do a motion is a clean motion. So do you you have changes that you want to this motion correct? I >> I did not have any changes. I read the motion as it was. I have yet a second. >> Yeah. >> All right. So motion dice. Council member Martinez then I'm going to send it to you. Give you can give >> I'm sorry. What? What? I I will second the motion for discussion purposes. >> No, I already Councilman member Martinez, >> do you want to come up with the motion? >> Yeah, I'll do my best. Um, so, uh, do I have to repeat the the changes >> if you could so we could be clear. So I move to adopt the resolution establishing general rules and standards for the city's advisory boards and commissions and reestablishing standing non-mandating boards previously codified in Reno municipal core code or by resolution repealing any prior inconsistent provisions and providing other matters properly related there too with the changes that term limits for boards and commission members uh are at the free will of the council liaison and if they need to appoint a member they can there the change that there's only one year between terms for members updating the consistency on the NAB section to include development plus other items that need to be included there adding flexibility in the location of the NAB uh meetings to be held and limiting staff time to two hours per board and commission and shifting attendance tracking onto staff and not onto the council leaison role was the last one that I missed. >> Second. >> Okay. So, I have a motion. >> All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. All right. Thank you, Tyler. Moving along. I I do want to just say and I'm going to work with everyone to know this to for some flexibility, but also to I'll keep bringing it back if I need to. Just so you know, Tyler, I'm going to let you know. >> I don't mind. >> But I'm going to keep bringing it back if there are things because we got to watch the staff time and how they're done. And you know, poor Jackie has probably lost a lot of sleep over this. But at the same time, we also have to make sure that staff um is being used uh wisely. And so I want to just make sure that it works for everyone and we will come up with ways to work together. We're not going to make this a you know a difficult process for either side. So if they're not working, like Jackie said, we're going to try these out. If they're not working, we're going to bring it back. And so I need that feedback from you guys if you feel like this isn't working and I want to bring it back right away. But I also didn't want to wait a year to go down this road and then you don't have clarity and you're doing a lot of work. But thanks Tyler. >> Thank you mayor. There's several ordinance items that go along with this and I have the proposed motions in the following slides. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> We're on item B1 to be read by the city attorney. All right, Carl, it's all you. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Ordinance introduction. Bill number 7309, an ordinance amending title 2, chapter 2.08, article 1, entitled in general, section 208010, to transfer the city ledgers listing all of the city boards and commissions authorized by the city council from the city clerk's office to the city manager's office and other matters properly relating there, too. >> All right. May I get a motion to adopt? Move to refer the bill for a second reading and adoption. >> Right. I have a motion. >> Second. >> I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries. >> Back to you. >> Ordinance introduction bill number 7310 an ordinance repealing title 2 chapter 2.08 08 article 12 entitled access advisory commission sections 2084 840 through 208920 of the Reno Municipal Code and other matters properly relating there too. >> All right, I get adoption. I move to refer the bill for a second reading and adoption. >> All right, I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries. Item E3, ordinance introduction, bill number 7311 for possible action. An ordinance repealing title 2, chapter 2.08, article 11, entitled City of Reno Arts and Culture Commission, sections 2.08.760 through 2.08. 830 of the Reno Municipal Code and other matters properly relating there too. >> All right. I move to refer the bill for a second reading and adoption. All right. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. >> Item E4, ordinance introduction, bill number 7312, an ordinance repealing title 2, chapter 2.08, article 7 entitled financial advisory board, sections 2.08.380 through 2.08.474 of the reimal code and other matters properly relating there, too. >> I have a question on this one. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Um, it says that and and just making sure everybody's good with this. It says this is the longest serving board at five years. Um, even our own terms are only four years. Planning commission four years. I I didn't know is this a reasonable amount of time or should we make it four years? Um, three years. Every other board's like three years. >> Council member Derer, this ordinance just repeals the financial advisory board out of Reno Municipal Code. The resolution establishes the five-year terms. Well, maybe when we come back you can look at that u madam manager but it just seems like it's longer than any term of anything and it just you know you do get stale. I mean um this is on finance advisory board. I understand repealing it but at least I thought I thought I should at least daylight this. I mean even on debt management commission which is a a big reason >> I just want to make sure I understand this is the fab. >> Yes. >> They're already at five years. >> Yes. the the current term for the financial advisory board is 5 years is that's how it was written in the ordinance and that's how it's written in the resolution. >> I'm just doing a check that it still makes sense. That's what we're doing here. >> Got it. Thank you. Okay. >> We'll make a note. >> Okay. >> Okay. I move to refer the bill for a second reading and adoption. >> Second. >> We have a motion to second. All those in favor? >> I. >> Motion carries. >> E5. >> E5. Ordinance introduction bill number 7313 an ordinance repealing title 2 chapter 2.08 08 article 2 entitled recreation and parks commission sections 2.08.020 through 2.08.090 of the Renom Municipal Code and other matters properly relating there too. >> Do I have a motion? >> Um I'll make a motion. Uh this is F6. >> Is that right? >> E5. >> E5 I mean. >> Yes. I'll make a motion to uh refer >> for second reading. >> All those in favor I. Motion carries. >> Item E6, ordinance introduction, bill number 7314, an ordinance repealing title 2, chapter 2.08, article 10, entitled Senior Citizen Advisory Committee, sections 2.08.660 through 2.08.730, the reunipal code and other matters properly relating there too. >> I'll make a motion uh to refer the bill for second reading and adoption. >> A second. Uh all those in favor? I. Motion carries unanimously. >> Item E 7 ordinance introduction bill number 7315 an ordinance repealing title 2 chapter 2.08 article 13 entitled urban forestry commission sections 2.08.930 through 2.08.100 of the reen municipal code and other matters properly relating there too. >> I'll make a motion to refer the bill for second reading and adoption. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> motion carries unanimous. >> Item E8, ordinance introduction, bill number 7316, an ordinance repealing title 2, chapter 2.08, article 8 entitled Youth City Council, sections 2.08.480 through 2.08.555 of the Mun Reno municipal code and other matters properly relating there too. I'll make a motion to refer the bill for second reading and adoption. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> Thank you very much. I believe, madame clerk, we are on to consent agenda items. >> No. >> Item F1 is an ordinance adoption to be read by the city attorney. >> Ordinance adoption. Ordinance number 6714, case number LDC2-000046, Milness Family Zoning Map Amendment, Ordinance to amend Title 18, Chapter 18.02, the Reno Municipal Code, entitled Zoning Reszone, Reszoning Plus 132.2 acres, located plus or - 650 ft northwest of the terminus of Slandestine Drive, plus or - 450 ft north of the Peine Pines Court, extending north to the northern city limits from Ventana Point. specific plan district to plus or minus 38.5 acres of large lot residential 1 acre and plus or minus 93.7 acres of parks, greenways, and open space together with matters which pertain to or are necessarily connected there with word five. >> Move to adopt. >> Second. >> We have a motion to second. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I I motion carries unanimously. Item F2, ordinance adoption. Ordinance to ordinance number 6715, ordinance to repeal title six, chapter 6.16 of the Reno municipal code titled operation of aircraft section 6.16.040 altitude and other matters relating there too. >> Move to adopt. >> Second. Any discussion? >> Yeah, I'm sorry question. This is all supposed to be handled through like the uh the airport or that's why we're getting rid of this. Okay. Did we have anything in there regarding like drones or anything like that? Is that anything we should have a city ordinance regarding? No. Okay. Thank you. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I motion carries unanimously. Item F3, ordinance adoption, ordinance number 6716, case number LDC2-000070, Bethl AM Church Historic Resource Designation, Ordinance to amend Title 18, Chapter 18.02 of the Reno Municipal Code entitled zoning reszoning a plus or minus 0.06 acre site for mixed use downtown northwest quadrant to plus or minus 0.06 06 acres of MD-NWQ with the historic landmark overlay zoning district. The subject property is located at 220 Bell Street and has a master plan land use designation of downtown mixed use ward one. >> Move to adopt. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I >> I motion carries unanimously. Now I believe we are going back to the consent agenda items and I do not have a list. >> Item B6 pulled by council member Gore. >> Yep. And these will go quite quickly. Um I wanted to give public works an opportunity to just um highlight for the public and us the um the citywide school zone beacon project um for 1.8 or almost $ 1.9 million which is a congressional allocation uh of community project funding. also comes from the street fund and it's in all wards and it's so important to pedestrian safety uh especially our kids. Can you just tell us where these projects are and and how you've picked them? >> Yes. >> And the reason I'm asking I know a lot of council members have made um contributions of their own council funds to pay for these ARPA money to pay for these. We have been trying desperately to make sure our our kids are safe and this is amazing. So >> yeah absolutely. So, Jonathan Smith, um, senior civil engineer public works. So, as you can see on this vicinity map, we're installing 114 flashing beacons at 36 different school zones around all over Reno. Um, all those little yellow dots represent the beacons that are going to be installed with this project. We worked closely with Wo, our traffic engineering team worked closely with county school district and safe routes to school program to prioritize these locations based on data. So like um traffic volumes um accident data and road condition to prioritize the schools based on the risk safety risks associated with it. >> So 114 >> and is that the number of beacons or is that individual school locations? >> That's the number of beacons at 36 schools. >> 36 schools. Yeah. >> Okay. And then I know that Carrie Kofsky has worked very diligently to upgrade our design manual to require um the school district to install these when they're building new schools, but it sounded like these are retrofits. >> That's correct. >> Like these schools exist. They already are substandard in terms of flashing beacons. And is this so there's multiple beacons at each of the 36 schools. We'll each have like three or four beacons. >> Yeah. So in here's a list. >> Yep. of the schools that are on this project. >> Yeah, I just think it's incredible. >> Kids are on the right. >> For how hard we've tried and almost $2 million to to get to kids safety is amazing. So, that's all the questions or comments I had. I would like to recommend. >> Oh, I And you have a comment. Okay. >> Yeah. So, um I I was one of those people. I used my entire allocation at ARPA funds to fund um uh crosswalk flashing beacons and some of my discretionary funds too. And I remember at the time um Mayor Shivi was upset that there wasn't more um uh help from other agencies in paying for these that it shouldn't be up to the the one specific council member to make sure that happens in their ward that there are things like the Wo County School District and safe routes to school. So um happy to see that. I did have a question though on your map. It was kind of hard to see. >> Yeah. Um, it looked like there was only one or two going into Ward 4 and I'm curious like why that is. Is that because there's less schools there? Is that because I've already paid to have them installed? I'm just curious if there's over, you know, 130 of them going in and it looks like there's maybe two in Ward 4. >> Correct. Yeah, there's there's definitely, you know, a density population around the the center of the city, right? And then less as you go out. Uh there are more schools in the middle. Um the the idea of this project is just the start of it. We're the goal of public works is to get uh these flashing beacons in in all school zones. So, this is just the start and eventually we'll get to all of them. >> Okay. So, I don't know if that really answered like is there >> less schools there? Like is it the schools that don't need it up there? Is it not triggered by traffic studies or why would the schools in W 4 not have more? >> Yeah. So this this was prioritized by a school district and traffic our traffic engineering team and it used data like accident driven data to determine which schools had high risk. So it is potentially there's more risks in the more densely populated areas than uh the north valleys. >> Okay. Yeah. Maybe didn't phrase that right. I was just more curious on, you know, the identification of which schools would get them. Um, you know, what what was that criteria? And, um, again, just like I said, I'm just curious. Um, >> yeah, the the criteria was road condition, traffic volume, and accident data. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other? >> If not, I'll make a motion >> uh to approve this item. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I motion carries unanously. Uh B9. >> Yep. On B9. Um this has been long discussed. Barbara Bennett Park basketball rehab. Um many many kids at least used to use this as it it fell apart. There was less usage. Um my question that I asked at my briefing they could the staff could not answer and that's why I have it for you Jackie actually. So there was a whole entire master plan done on Barbara Bennett Park and I asked did we adopt the master plan and then go with the projects. That's like how RTC did it. They did a South Reno study and then they started picking out projects within that. But I was told they they that the plan was not adopted. Maybe it's on your desk or maybe you want some revisions. I'm not really sure. But I just wondered when we could expect it. That's all. Will it come to council to adopt this master plan? And I don't want to hold up this project because I love it. I just want to know, you know, is there a plan go forward for the rest of the park? >> Sure. We can we can always address those questions at any time, but I'm going to let uh Mr. Iliot respond to your question about the Barbara Bennett plan, the master plan, >> which I brought up at my Yes. Yes. As I said last week, we we have the plan has been through Wreck and Parks Commission. We have a preferred model. So, it's just a matter of getting it on the agenda and uh when council wants to see it. Yes. Council >> agenda. What is a preferred model? What do you mean a model? Do you mean >> after it's been through all Yes. a preferred. Yeah, it's it's a kind of a 10 15% design where it's this is what it could look like. >> Well, you have an answer today. Last time on you said you didn't know. So, that's why I brought it >> for when you'd want to have it on the agenda, but that's the same answer. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Well, I'm sure. >> Let me ask you looked at the three-month agenda the other day. Was it on there anywhere? So, we'll look at it and see when it's coming forward. We always try to balance. >> I didn't see it. >> Yeah. We'll look and see if we can figure out when it's coming forward. >> Okay. Great. >> All right. >> Was that your only question? >> Yes. Thank you. Okay, I'd make a motion to approve this B9. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? >> I. >> Motion carries unanimously. Uh B14. >> Okay. Um that was not my item. >> Yeah, that was mine. >> Okay. If we could just get kind of like a highle, you know, overview of what this is. I It doesn't need to be a big thing, but it's from uh 2010. So, if we could just kind of, you know, >> Yes. Matt Taylor, assistant finance director for the city of Reno. Um, the item before you is to the the city's issued um recovery zone redevelopment bonds in 2010 for the amount of $10 million. And as part of that, it was to do energy improvements throughout the city. And it was through Bank of America. And they have placed leans on various >> buildings and facilities that we own. We're currently trying to sell three of those facilities. So, this amendment would allow um Bank of America to remove those leans before we paid the remaining portion off so we can move forward with those sales. >> Great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Uh motion to approve. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. Motion carries unanimously. Uh B21. >> Yep. This is my item. Um I pulled it because I'm so impressed with the work that parks is doing. Uh Landon in particular, working with Nathan in particular. um to go out and look for funds. We've been historically so short. This is over $200,000 from the state's land and water conservation fund. And to my knowledge, these are first sets of grants that we're getting from that fund. I don't know if that's accurate. >> You know, I so I can speak uh Landon Miller, fund development manager for the city of Reno for the record there. Uh yeah, so this money that we got here, $27,000, is to replace uh a path right along the Treky River. Uh, and it's a neglected path that's been uh kind of kind of overlooked, including a bridge, tree roots removal, and getting it up to uh uh getting it up to stuff for everyone there. So, yeah, last year we were able to apply for this grant along with another project here in parks and wreck. We were awarded this um I think would have been maybe about April, but we actually were not formally notified of the award uh until June because of the the issue issues at the federal level. So yeah, we're trying to go out, get a little bit more grants, do more research, and put some more time uh into getting some of these taken care of. >> Right. And are these federal funds that are administered by parks or are they state funds administered by parks? >> So they are federal funds that are passed through the state of Nevada that then go to us. >> Okay. So at my briefing, I asked if we could one be notified because this coincidentally I went on a tour with uh Mr. Olot. Uh we did see this park. We did discuss it. Um, but I didn't know you applied for the grant and I didn't know it was awarded until I saw this agenda item and I just wondered um if you guys could make a little extra effort with all the council members to let us know that you're advocating for park project in our district and and we could be supportive in some way, write a letter or whatever. Um, and then the second thing I I wanted to ask is in particular, and this is no longer my ward, but um we started a Virginia Range Trail project. It seemed like the kind of thing that people want to support and I wondered if it could get onto our next list of submitts and you said that was going to be opening again I think soon. >> Yeah. So, uh my understanding is that the another round of applications will open up in the fall. Yeah. >> Um and what we are able to do is is uh take a look at some of the priorities within the department and see if if that trail if that project were to land on it um and see if that would fit some of the criteria. Well, it said in your overall um is it called the pros plan that we were woefully short of um city trails uh as well as ball fields and um I hope you can because as you might have heard in my previous comments on the um uh RCVA um this would complete a whole ring of trail around the entire Reno Sparks Wo County area just like the rim trail up at Tahoe is a real appealing thing for a lot of people. So I think it it'd satisfy a lot. So, hope you'll consider it. With that, I if there's no other questions, I would make a motion to approve this item. >> Second. >> We have a motion, a second. All those in favor? >> I I motion carries. >> I had >> I It's an I, but I just wanted to throw this out because I always like to um make sure everybody hears me complaining. Um um if we could just keep our eyes on what's happening with Virginia Lake too and if there's any way we can get additional grant funds for that. I know the banks around there need some repair. It's a beautiful park, great community asset. Just want to make sure I keep keep that on everybody's mind if there's a way to apply for grants. I think the last estimate we had to replace it was like over a million dollars now. So just it's a big project. Reno itself is probably not going to be able to lift on its own, but just every chance I get, I like to to talk about that. So, thanks. >> No, for sure. Thank you. >> I want to thank you >> for highlighting it. >> B25. >> So, for B25 was also mine. I don't I wanted to highlight this because I don't requ um minerals company actually supporting a city initiative. They're usually focused out in the rest of Nevada. and the fact that um they were drawn in by our um releo and that they wanted to support and you had a little backstory I think when we talked about this at my agenda briefing but with or without a backstory I just wanted to acknowledge um first mining exploration or mining development company I've seen help the city of Reno with one of their initiatives any initiative so I wanted to thank them any other comments all right well with that I' a motion to approve uh we accept this donation. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Motion carries. Uh B26. >> Thank you. >> I did not pull this. >> That is mine. Sorry, I was just writing something down. Okay. B26. That's the like hazard. Yeah, multi-hazard mitig mitigation plan. So I am not looking for a big presentation today, but just to get it on public record for people that might watch this in the future. Where would they be able to find this information for a hazard mitigation plan? Like is this for public to you know know about or what what is can you >> It's on the county >> okay >> uh website and you can actually just type in regional hazard mitigation plan on Wo Countyy's website. It'll pop right up. Yeah. >> So not on city of Reno's website. >> We have links to it. Okay. Yeah. >> Okay. So, that was really kind of it. Just for people that are curious about that type of thing. I know that there's a lot of concern about different kinds of um issues that can happen. So, just want to make sure people know where to find that information. >> Sure. >> Thanks, Madam Mayor. Vice Mayor, I had a question too. So, at my agenda briefing again, I brought up about this too because we had just gone over and approved this and I said, "Why is it coming back to us? It's within the same year." And what I recall saying uh what I recall is that you guys said that FEMA had an exception to our plan that it didn't provide a certain amount of flexibility for staff to amend the plan or for them to without coming back to council. And that was the whole reason the plan is ginormous. It's like this big. It's like a thousand pages. >> Last week in the agenda briefing, we did discuss this. So if this looks familiar, it's because it is. is I was here June 4th right before this body >> asking for approval and adoption of the this plan >> subsequent to your approval >> FEMA came back with a revision saying this doesn't have the required flexible language in the plan >> now this was an oversight by the third party vendor >> right >> and so this is not Reno specific all the agencies that participated in this plan have to go back for readoption so the language allows for these small revisions to get this plan over the finish line with FEMA, right? >> And without having to go back with every little change for the p the respective agencies, city councils and commissions, otherwise it would never get done, right? >> And so by taking this new resolution with this flexible language, what you're doing is you're entrusting FEMA, the regional partners, and the third party vendor to make these small revisions without coming back for adoption every time. >> Gotcha. Thank you. >> You bet. >> To you. Oh yeah. Uh make a motion to uh accept. Is it approve? >> Adopt. Motion to adopt. Thank you. >> We have a motion to second. All those in favor? >> I >> I >> Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. And I believe we are on our last item of B27. >> Yeah. And this was mine. The reason I pulled this item was I was so pleased to see that this is record street. This is the development of this affordable housing project and we're making a decision to put all of our bond cap, all of our bond volume cap for this project. And it was one of their uncertainties in terms of their financing was whether they'd be able to get this across the finish line in terms of this kind of financing. And here it is on our agenda. And I thought it should be remarked upon that, you know, we are making progress with that project. And I was just really happy to see it. and I thought we would all cheer. So, >> great. Well, thank you for pulling it. Um, for the record, Elaine Weisman, housing manager with Housing and Neighborhood Development. Yes, the Prospector Apartments is um the apartments that will be built on record street. I have the developer here. Um, Ulys's development group, Tyler Hurst. He's been waiting. If you have any questions about the progress of the development or the financing, it is on track. Um, they are doing well and it's very much going to move across the finish line. Well, and I just wanted to say when we voted to support this, we were making a leap of faith. We had not worked with them directly and this is such an important visible site to the community and what happens there matters and it's really a reflection of our ability to execute, our ability to follow through, our ability to work with developers and the fact that we're now here um is is was a significant milestone to me and I want to thank you. I didn't realize you were with you Lissy, so thanks for being with us. Um, and and or how how much more uh milestones do we have to pass before >> I'll turn that over to him. >> Okay. >> I should said how many, not how much, but >> All right. Tyler Hurst with Ulys's Development Group. For the record, um, thanks all to for having me. Um so Ulysus Development Group uh has formally applied for all project financing from the Nevada Housing Division to um make our project financially feasible. Uh this happened on July 10th uh just last or couple weeks ago. Um and so essentially the uh approvals that we have applied for um is the award of our remaining balance of private activity bonds. Uh the project s is estimated um an approximate amount of 28.6 million total. Um the award of federal low-income housing tax credits of 25.3 million. Uh Nevada state tax credits in the amount of 2 million uh as well as a subordinate growing affordable housing program GHP loan of $5 million uh which will complete the project's capital stack. Um, Nevada Housing Division has approved this request at the staff level by both, uh, Christine Hes, the chief financial officer, uh, and Maggie Marshall, who is their senior managing consultant, uh, with PFM Financial Adviserss. Um, UDG is expecting formal approval of these financing commitments at the Nevada Board of Finance next week at Wednesday, August 20th. Um, and the Nevada Housing Division has continuously voiced, you know, strong support for the Prospector Apartments and we expect the project to do uh very well and be very well received by board of finance. Um, also important to note that UDG is currently tracking for a first permit submittal to the city of Reno by the end of September and on track for building permit issuance and project financial closing by Q4 of this year. uh this timeline would not be feasible obviously without the continued support from the city of Reno and all of our stakeholders. So just want to thank everybody for that. Um but yeah, there's a kind of a holistic financing and project update. >> All right. Thank you. That was so helpful. Well, I'd love to I don't know if anyone else has comments. >> Madam Vice Mayor, um I I want to say thank you for being with us today. I know it's been a long day probably for you and you've traveled. Um uh great update. Make sure you pronounce the state of Nevada correctly because this is one thing that will great like chalk uh you know nails on a chalkboard. Um it it happens because various places do pronounce it differently, but here we say Nevada. Can you say it with me? Nevada. >> Nevada. >> Nevada. >> You're the best. Thank you so much for being here. I I'm so excited for your project and and really thrilled that you've taken a leap of faith with us together. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you all. really excited about it as well. >> Yeah, I just wanted to kind of echo that too. We're all looking forward to seeing it completed. So, thank you. >> Of course. Thanks all. >> Okay. If Yeah, I'm like made a motion. >> Um all those in favor? >> I motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. >> Okay. Um Madame Clerk, do we have any um Oh, sorry. Council comments, council members comments. >> I just have one. Um with uh JW's team's support and with the mayor's support, we've been digging into the ebike um data and issues and we have a plan. We have a media event tomorrow to um kind of discuss what we've learned and what we're working on. And um madame manager, the mayor has asked if we can bring that information to the council and do a presentation in the future in the next month or so. So, just wanted to formally request that. >> Perfect. Thank you very much. Other council members? Okay. Do we have any public comment? >> Madame Vice Mayor, we don't have any public comment registered, but let me just verify what type of public comment we have for the remaining. We did receive one comment after 4 PM yesterday. It has been distributed to council as one letter of concern. And with that, we have no additional public comment. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Thank you.