All right, Madame Clerk. Good morning. >> Good morning, Madame Mayor. >> Okay, we are going to get started. I think everyone's connected uh on Zoom. Uh, welcome everyone to the Reno City Council meeting, Wednesday, October 8th, 2025. We are going to start with the pledge of allegiance. And I would love for Jamie Peak to lead us in the pledge. She's going to kill me. Her face is all red now. All right, Madame Clerk, I am going to send it to you to call the role. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. We're calling roll for Wednesday, October 8th, 2025. >> Council member Taylor >> here. >> Dor >> here. >> Martinez >> here. >> Eert >> here. >> Reese >> here. >> Anderson >> here. Mayor Shivy >> here. >> You do have a quorum of the Reno City Council. >> Okay. Okay, I'm going to send it to you for public comment. >> Would you like to do our proclamations? >> Oh, great. Let's do those first. >> Perfect. >> We have two. >> We have two today. Our first proclamation is National Fire Present Week. >> All right, Chief Cochran and friends, >> our wonderful fire marshal >> and Boston. Boston is here of course Dave Cochrano fire chief and I am proud to introduce uh fire marshal John Beck is directly behind me who's going to read the proclamation because this focuses on his department the fire prevention bureau. So John take it away. >> So Reno Fire Department um fire marshall John Beck and appreciate the time today to push out this proclamation on this very important um fire prevention week. So without further ado, whereas the Reno Fire Department is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living and visiting the city of Reno. And whereas most electronics today are powered by lithium ion batteries which can overheat, start a fire, or explode. And the National Fire Protection Association reports an increase in battery related fires, underscoring the need for education on lithium-ion batteries. And whereas residents should follow three key calls to action. Buy only listed products, charge batteries safely, and recycle them responsibly to prevent battery related fires. And whereas proper disposal and recycling of lithium-ion batteries helps prevent environmental hazards and reduces fire risks. And RFD is dedicated to using community outreach and education to promote battery safety. And whereas the 2025 fire prevention week theme, charge into fire safety, lithium ion batteries in your home, serves to remind us to safely charge and recycle lithium ion batteries to reduce the risk of fires. Now, therefore, I, John Beck, Fire Marshall, Reno Fire Department, on behalf of Hillary El Shivi, mayor of the city of Reno, Nevada, do hereby declare October 5th to October 11th, 2025 Fire Prevention Week. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. >> Excuse me. Sorry, John. I just wanted to add one thing kind of to brag on this department because I've been having conversations with fire chiefs and other fire departments and they tell me, "Well, our fire prevention bureau can do A but not B or B but not C. This team covers the whole alphabet and they do it very well. This is just a part of the team. Um, and they are amazing from fire investigations to fire inspections to public outreach. They're just a tremendous team and I really just wanted to brag on them a little bit. >> Yeah, thank you. And and I think we have a program coming up exactly to address this situation for businesses that have lithium battery um chargers, a lot of them. And I would just say to kind of highlight um the chargers I want everyone to know try to always use the original charger that the phone came with because a lot of those secondary chargers um you know we see fires and they're they're not meant for those phones so they overheat and so just if there's a word of caution always try to use that original battery that came with your your phone or what ebikes things like that because I know a lot of people buy them secondary and lot they're not compatible. So we see a lot of fires and >> No, that's that's great advice, great direction. >> Yeah. But thank you so much. >> Do a quick picture. >> Yeah. >> Can I add one more thing? >> Yes, please. >> Um I just wanted to um send appreciation to council member Eert. We did a media event on Monday um at Reno Fire Station 9 and really appreciate her for bringing um some some attention to this, you know, and allowing us to the platform to get this message out to the public. So thank you very much. >> Yeah. And I really really appreciate you guys um for making this a priority. It means a lot. >> Madam Mayor, if I may just >> Please go ahead. >> Yeah. Thank you guys so much for um really highlighting the um the risks of of lithium battery fires. And I just also want to say thanks for um the simplicity of um what we can look for to improve our safety with that that UL certification on our chargers. Um, once you look at one and see that symbol, it's very recognizable. It's a universal symbol with a circle and a U and L in it. And it's really just a quick way to go through your chargers and devices and and make sure you're using things that are are held to the highest standard. Um, so I just wanted to also thank um, Reno Fire um, for just kind of making it easy and something that could be kind of um, overwhelming or concerning. So, I just wanted to to highlight that specifically and say thank you and just a reminder, look for the UL symbol on your chargers to make sure that that they're safe. >> Yeah, that's a great advice. Isn't there? >> And and I will say um I just have to shout out because I get to meet with a lot of entrepreneurs. There is an incredible entrepreneur by the name of Jesse Corletto. Some of you might know him. He was actually part of the fire tribe with uh Truckucky Meadows and he has um an incredible apparatus extinguisher that really Yeah. It's E FireX and it's made specifically to put out lithium fires because they are so difficult to put out and so he's doing amazing things and getting national recognition for saving lives in this particular space and um I hope we get the opportunity to share with businesses um some of those extinguishers uh the ones that we can identify as higher risk because um it's remarkable when we see our our local our own local um you know folks doing incredible things and I appreciate you for your innovation, Chief Cochran, you know. >> Yeah. Um okay. Do you want to get a quick picture? Let's do it. Um and also I want to highlight Mark. I always highlight Mark because Mark was here in a different capacity at city hall and then one day he said I have an interview with the fire department and every time I see him I feel like a proud mama. So I always have to highlight that. How are you? It's so nice to see you. Yes. >> All right, >> AJ. Make me tall. All right. Our next proclamation is housing America month. >> Good morning. Uh Corey Fischer, housing manager for the record. I'm honored to be here with the the hand team to read this proclamation. Uh whereas safe and attainable housing is a basic human need and foundation for strong families and thriving communities. And whereas attainable housing supports public safety, education, economic stability, and the health and quality of life of residents. And whereas the city of Reno recognizes that many families, seniors, veterans, and individuals with disabilities continue to face challenges in securing housing, making it essential to advance innovative and collaborative solutions. And whereas in 2007, the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment designated October as Housing America Month, a time to raise awareness of the need for and the importance of safe, decent, and affordable housing while highlighting the programs, policies, and partnerships that make housing more accessible to all. And whereas the city of Reno is committed to strengthening housing resources, promoting equitable development, supporting innovative solutions that improve access to safe and affordable housing for residents across our community, and upholding our mission to create a community that residents are proud to call home. Now, therefore, I, Corey Fischer, on behalf of uh Hillary L. She mayor of the city of Reno, do hereby declare October 2025 Housing America Month. Wow, you guys are all getting those proclamations like perfect. >> Congratulations, Corey. Um, I want you just to tell a little bit about what you do on a daily basis because I don't know if people understand how important um the job is and how you literally are working with people one- on-one in a capacity that I I don't know if people really see the human element. Sure. >> And the compassion. I mean, I have called, you know, Jamie so many times saying, "Help me." And you guys have jumped in and done remarkable work, but you guys see it on a daily basis. And you're you're very very close to the people that this affects so dramatically. >> Just give us a little idea of kind of what that looks like. >> Sure. We have such a wide variety of programs in hand. We touch everything from those one-on-one um communications with the unhoused population. Um we have such an incredible team that is so compassionate towards these folks that um they're they're just incredible. I can't say enough um at how the good they are at that. We have rental and deposit assistance programs for those folks that just need that last little boost to get into permanent housing. um with our CDBG program, we touch infrastructure and federal funding, oversight for um parks and roads and all sorts of things. So, anything that we do, we we have our our home program which Julie oversees and um that is really to give incentives to developers to create and build more affordable housing. So, such a wide variety of programs um with a very small team and just really really proud of this this group. >> It's it's remarkable. I'm just going to brag a little bit. Um, I have witnessed Jamie drive two hours to get someone an ID uh to go to the ends of the earth. Um, people probably don't know that. And all three of you right here, I watched you one day um call out to the community that you needed donations for furniture. You guys set it all up. You moved it all in. Um, you know, I just I don't know if um you get recognized for just those things that you go above and beyond for and it really touches your heart. So, I've I've had to witness it firsthand. So, >> the work you guys do every see the work it really should it really should when you see their faces and they're crying and because someone didn't show them that compassion. You guys are the team that does and it's it's very very special. So, thanks you guys. What are you going to do to celebrate? >> Go to Disneyland. >> Go to Disneyland. >> No, you can't go there. >> We're celebrating Housing America Month with all sorts of stuff. We are launching our older adults home modification program which >> is awesome. >> Um so we're launching that this week. >> Can you talk just briefly 30 seconds about that? >> Yeah, absolutely. The older adults home modification program is for seniors 62 and older um who make 80% of the area median income and below. anything that we can do to help them safely stay in their homes so that they can are able to live independently from that can be from wheelchair ramps to accessible tubs, raised toilets, any of those kinds of things they can apply for with us. Um, and Rebuilding Together Northern Nevada is the project management manager for um those those those uh projects. >> So um yeah, >> how do they apply? >> They can apply on the um we have the link on our website to the application. It's an online application and a phone number. If the uh seniors need to call and don't have access to a computer, they can just give us a call, too. >> Okay. So, call >> call. >> What's the number? >> Oh, that's a good question. But it's on our website on >> Reno. Call Reno Direct. >> Yes. And Reno Direct is aware as well. >> Yes. Thank you so much. That's an awesome program. >> Thanks. >> All right, you guys. Congratulations. Thanks, Jamie. Jamie's all red now. >> Okay, Madame Clerk. picture. >> Oh, we're going to do a picture. >> Jamie's never gonna speak to me again. >> Okay, perfect. >> AJ, are you making me taller? I hope >> you promise. >> Yeah. >> Okay. He's all Yeah. And then I see the picture. I'm like, I look so short. >> Photoshop. >> Yeah, Photoshop. There you go. Okay, Madame Clerk, I'm going to send it back to you. >> All right, Madame Mayor, 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 /meings https colon slash slashl i n ks period e n o period go ov sl i l10-08. 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've stated 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 and would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Our first public commenter today is Ron Trevor on behalf of SAVE, followed by Ron Bell, followed by Terry Brooks. >> Ron, are you ready for the Christmas party? >> The question is it? Are you? >> Yes. >> I have a good surprise this year. >> Okay. >> Okay. I'm excited for your update. tell us what's going on. >> Okay. Well, good morning. My name is Ron Trevor and I'd like to thank the council for allowing me to speak today. Uh today I've got the recaps for third quarter 2025. Um SAFE currently has 77 active members and two more in training. During the third quarter, there was a total of 5,335 hours volunteered by members of SAVE, which represents a savings of approximately $164,638 to the city of Reno. Some of the key areas that were covered are as follows. We had 8,800 citizen contacts. We had 2,435 48 hour notice se pardon me, 72-hour notices placed on vehicles. Good job. >> Um 708 school patrols, 501 handicap violations, and we located uh 15 stolen vehicles and/or fictitious plates. Now, I normally don't do any kind of annual statistics until January. However, uh after the third quarter, SAFE hit a milestone of accumulated dollars saved to the city of Reno since we started keeping track in 2001. We hit $10 million. >> Wow, that's impressive. >> Okay, then today I've got two members of SAVE. Lucy Lucy Walker on my right and Lucy's in charge of our members uh the new member orientations given and she's also going to be my backup should I not show up one of these days. >> No. >> And then >> we expect you. >> Next we have we have Brenda House who's the lady in charge of soliciting our Halloween candy. >> Oh, you got the good job. busy lady and just making sure that we get candy out for all the kids in Reno for the trunk or treats or the evening patrols. >> Okay, great. Do you know uh what's the date on that this year? >> Trunk or treat. >> The trunk or treat. Uh >> which one are we doing more than one? >> Yeah, there's there's several. We I I can tell you the 26 is the one at the DMV. >> Uh we still need to verify the date for um Trainer and and uh Paradise Park. >> Okay. Um, could you send me an email? And then I I also have someone to connect you to because I've had a couple people say, "How can I be a SAVE officer?" So, if you could just send me a quick email, that would be amazing. And then I can send you their names and coordinate um >> very good >> some Christmas uh celebration with you, my friend. >> Thank you. >> All right. Great job, >> Madame Mayor. Council Pensburg. Uh may I have a moment? Sure. >> I just wanted to thank SA for the work that they do. Um it's been a huge help in Ward 4 in the industrial area. There was a really large um uh volume of uh big rigs and truck trailers just kind of abandoned in the um some of the industrial areas in my ward. And they were huge help and um getting those areas cleared out. Um, and I just want to say thank you for that. And also thank you to the volunteers that came out to my fall festival um, last Saturday. And um, I just uh, want to say thanks again for their continued presence in the community. And hopefully um, you know, you meet people that decide that they also want to um, volunteer or just become more familiar with you guys and and um, find out how to reach out to you guys for help. So, just want to say thank you um for for the work you've done in my community and just your presence in general. And I know that you handed out pamphlets for parents to um get their children's identification um stored in case, god forbid, anything happens or they become missing. So, I just want to say, you know, you guys do a huge um service and uh there your services are wide ranging. So, thanks so much. >> Thank you for your kind comments. >> Really quickly, just what's the requirement to become a SAVE officer? >> 50 years old and uh have an ID, either license or state issued ID. Okay. >> And should have recent uh decent mobility. >> Yeah. Okay. That's great. Good to know. All right. Thanks, my friend. >> Ron Bell, followed by Terry Brooks, followed by Ian Anderson and Mary. >> Madame Mayor, members of the board, >> my name is Ron Bell, local realtor, investor, and rehabber. I moved down from Tahoe years ago because I got drove out by the short-term rentals. And here we are getting ready to put these ADUs behind us, which now all of a sudden they snuck in the 28-day limit on us. And I can tell you one of the reasons I moved down here was for the peace and quiet of Midtown, not to have a bunch of Harley's run rumbling by me, as in the case of last week, classic cars without mufflers and that kind of thing. It's really disrupted these neighborhoods. It's just it's it's surreal to be honest with you. I've got them in my backyard totally surrounded by them. There's one large house that had a family of four move out only to be bought by an investor filled every weekend with partygoers out there hot tubbing and jumping off the deck into the hot tub. It's like I say, it's it's just surreal. myself, co-workers, people in coffee shops, restaurants I talked to, were so looking forward to ADUs and having a place for locals to live and employees to live in, not getting bought by investors. Do you know that right now there are websites that analyze single family homes that turn them into investments? It's called cap rate, gross rent multiplier, stuff like that. Our town's getting bought up by investors. wake up. We don't need ADUs now that were originally intended. Many of those in the room spoke on behalf of them now turned into rentals for short-term. It's ironic that who were cheering the accomplishments with homelessness and adus well now in this case short-term rentals create more gentrification and lack of housing than almost anywhere. You can look at studies all around the world. I used to live in Shaman, France. In that place, you can't even find rentals anymore for that. So, a lot of us feel tricked and betrayed that all of a sudden at the last meeting or the September 10th meeting, all of a sudden now we allow the short-term rentals. It's really a betrayal. I feel we have over a thousand short-term rentals. Last time I checked here in Reno, we've got a silent war going on now all across the United States of the have and have nots. And now the halves are winning again. We only have to look outside to see the blight and these empty motel rooms. That'd be a thousand more beds filled. Thousand more rentals we would have. These things have just really just taken over our whole entire country and even the world. Everybody's afraid of the South Lake Tahoe litigation. I think is why they backed off. Well, guess what? We've got a clean canvas to adopt regulations if you're going to allow these monsters and these genies out of the bottle in our neighborhood. So, at least regulate the heck out of them. The application fees should go towards offsetting local affordable housing if you are going to allow these monsters in our neighborhood. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Are you still in Midtown? >> Yes. >> Yes, you are. Okay. Yeah. >> And um just leave your contact information with our clerk. >> Yeah, I will. Naomi has it as well. Thank you so much. >> You guys are just awesome. >> And and if I may, Madam Mayor Ron, thank you for your or Mr. Bell, thank you for your letter this morning. I'm I'm glad I could respond so quickly you could come today. And what I got from your letter was something you didn't actually mention. And that was I think you were asking us to take action on the short-term rentals >> and I think that the council is planning to do that at some point. Is that correct? I just that's what I got out of your letter, but >> Absolutely. And it's if there if they're going to allow these things, I don't care if it's ADU or what we have. It's just there should be some kind of mitigation and fees to offset and and help the local housing. >> There's help wanted signs everywhere. There's nowhere for people to live. We got a catastrophe. >> Great. Great idea. >> You look at Taho, all the businesses are closed. >> Midtown's next. >> Help. You can't get help. >> Yeah. Don't say that. >> Chucky Bagel, they had to close because they couldn't get help. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks so much, Ron. Um, I didn't see it, but I'll look at it. I can forward it. Okay. Yeah, forward it to me. Okay. Go ahead, Madam Clerk. Sorry. >> Terry Brooks, followed by Mary and Ian Anderson, followed by Thomas Tate. >> Terry, good morning. >> Good morning. It's me, Terry Brooks, again, and today I'd like to share with you my thoughts on physical abilities and what seniors go through. As we get older, it lessens some of our abilities, which then lessens some of our capabilities. As we get older, it affects our vision, which then weakens our level of precision. We gradually lose our hearing which lessens our communication which then lowers our abilities for participation. We can lose our sense of smell for such things as food which then lowers our desire for more food. And as we lose our sense of smell, we lower our sense of taste. That can lead to a lot of food going to waste. And by eating less food, it weakens our abilities, gradually turning them into disabilities. It weakens our nervous system and other senses such as our reflexes and our sense of touch. And then with less activity, it's more difficult to fall asleep. And when we finally do, it's harder to stay asleep. All of these problems added together affect our cardiovascular system and then also affects our respiratory system and these problems also affect our muscularkeeletal system as well as affecting our gastrointestinal system. Age weakens our sense of balance causing us to fall and makes it more difficult to stand up. So instead we may have to crawl. And when all of this weakens our physical life, it also weakens everything else in our life. I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and I look forward to coming back if I'm able to that day. >> No, I love it. Thank you so much, Terry. Do you wear your name badge in public? >> Uh, sometimes. >> I bet a lot of people recognize you. >> Yeah, I do some public speaking places, too. I love that you're famous. >> I didn't know that. >> Well, I think you are. >> That's why I grow a beard sometimes. People hide it. >> Good job, Terry. Thank you. Okay, Madame Clerk. >> Mary and Ian Anderson, followed by Thomas Tate, followed by Sally Tate. >> All right. Good morning. >> Morning. >> I am Mary Charles. I'm the RISE outreach manager. And then I wanted to say something to all of the clean and safe team, to the city council, to Jackie, Cynthia, Mary Ortega, Caitlyn, Cody, and everyone who's been a part of this amazing team. On behalf of Rise Outreach, I just want to say thank you. It's been such an honor to work beside people who care as deeply as you do. The compassion, dedication, and heart this team has shown will always matter, not just in the work itself, but in the connections made in the lives touched along the way. We also want to say thank you to the city council for their partnership and for believing in us and the work we do to support our community. That support made it possible for us all to reach people in ways that truly mattered. I believe I speak for the entire RISE outreach team when I say how much we value working alongside you. The way this team shows up with empathy, teamwork, and genuine care is something truly special. Together, we've built relationships, offered hope, and created moments of trust that will stay with us and those we served. Thank you for your commitment, your collaboration, and your kindness you've brought to every part of this work. It's been a privilege to work with all of you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for recognizing them. I don't I don't think they they're sort of in the background and so people don't really get to see how it affects people one-on-one and that was very kind of you. >> Thank you. >> Very, very appreciated. Great. Uh, I'm Ian Anderson and I'm from Karma Box Project. I work closely with Mary and the RISE team. Uh, madame mayor and council members. Thank you for your time. I want to thank you all and city staff for a wonderful two-year partnership between the city of Reno, the Karma Box Project, and Rise for Homeless Outreach. A quick summary, the program had two components. Interacting with homeless neighbors to remove barriers, access resources, and help them move forward toward a life off the streets. Another component was a pre-employment program in which clients volunteered to do to do community service cleanups at public spaces such as Paradise Park and Record Street. The program was both cost-effective and met the needs of our homeless neighbors and the community in general. Over 1500 resources and 400 IDs were accessed by just the Karmox team, not all the work that the RISE team did. 130 families were reunited. 6,000 bags of trash were picked up by 1,800 volunteers representing 7,600 hours of community service. At the heart of the program is a dynamic partnership between the city of Reno Clean and Safe team and both Rise and Karma Box project outreach workers. Staff from these three organizations work seamlessly to meet the needs of our clients, reaching out to each other to seek and offer support access resources on our clients behalf. This coordinated effort is led by city staff members Caitlyn Cannor, Mary Ortega, and Cody Dillis. They are a fantastic team and provided excellent leadership to the group. They were always available to support outreach efforts and develop developed a collegial working atmosphere that served both team members and clients. It's been a joy to get up every morning knowing you get to spend the day helping our homeless neighbors clean the city and to do so with a committed group of amazing people. Karma Box is moving forward with a private funded homeless response team to continue to meet the needs of our unhoused neighbors and also local businesses. So, will we continue to be on the streets and don't hesitate to call if you need anything. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. >> Well, I I have to say this is kind of an emotional one. I don't know if people understand. Um, we want to continue this partnership in any way possible. We really need our county partners to see how valuable it is. I think they do. I will be sending them a letter asking them to fund these programs. They are some of the most needed that touch lives in ways that we can't even imagine. We have no idea. And so I I'm going to CC you on that. Um and I think that they do value, but I think it's in coordination with all of us and the responsibility to continue this program. So, um, I want you to know this is not over and I have to believe that, um, there are some wonderful people over there, Kate Thomas, Alexis Hill, that want to do this work and help in every capacity. So, I will be asking them to please help us fund this because this was a partnership and program that we had through the city and they also um do get state funds for these programs. And so, we want them to continue to live on and um it's very very difficult, but I want you to know um I have I have some faith and we got to keep the faith. So, I'm going to keep you guys in the loop and I will be sending that letter and we will um include you on that letter. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> Thomas Tate followed by Sally Tate. I'm Tom Tate and I live in the Newland's historic district of W 2. But you already knew that because I've spoken against ADUs at almost every ADU meeting since 2018. I thought this issue was done, but a resident found a procedural error at the last meeting that was missed by all six council members, the mayor, city manager, city attorney, and a building full of staff. you need to be more diligent and conscientious about your job. So once again, I'm here so you can ignore my comments. I missed the meeting because I was in Honolulu. The streets were clean and the parks were immaculate. I saw hordes of tourists shopping at trendy stores, all having a good time. I had a delicious fish sandwich at an independent fast food style restaurant and a Mai at a historic hotel. What I didn't see were bums, vagrants, and drunk people sleeping in doorways. Honolulu has a ban on short-term rentals in some areas with fines of up to $10,000 per night. Other cities have also imposed bans or severely restricted STRs. But here in Reno, two meetings ago, I saw a craven capitulation to Airbnb. Upon returning, I drove down Virginia Street. There were a handful of tourists, but nothing for them to do. It was like the results of a zombie apocalypse with the so-called homeless taking the role of zombies. But at least when there's a zombie crawl, downtown is alive and people are having fun. More than a hundred years ago, south of the river and west of Arlington, a development started based on city beautiful principles. Now it's a hidden gem near downtown with stately trees, a few large houses, but mainly small funky houses, all different. In a few weeks, thousands of children from all over the city will trickor treat there. There are good reasons why this is a registered historic district. In contrast, the area west of downtown is a vast wasteland of missed opportunities. I've explained how to build lowcost owneroccupied single family housing, but instead we get less housing and more parking lots. More recently, you gave away $60 million for a private stadium, which has very little direct benefit to downtown. It's difficult to create a beautiful city with a great quality of life, but it's easy to destroy one. Reno is deteriorating and losing its soul. Look around and you can see it. Opportunities for young people to buy small basic houses are disappearing and the American dream is dying. You, our local government, need to do better. >> Thank you. Do you do the trick-or-treating in your neighborhood? Do you open your door? >> Um, is is what? Could you repeat the question? Sorry. >> We get a thousand. >> We we get thou >> Yeah. You get a thousand kids, don't you? >> We're we're we're actually in one of the more quiet areas and uh we probably get about 800 maybe, but there there are other areas that get a lot more. >> It's remarkable. I don't know. I don't know how you guys do it. It is remarkable. >> It's fun. It's fun. >> It's nice that they close the street. >> Street. It's a lot safer. It's a lot safer, but it's remarkable. I don't think people have any idea. >> We We get dressed up. I'm a wizard. Uh and what are you going to be this year? >> I'm a magician. >> A magic. Oh yeah. Yeah. And and we love the kids coming around. Uh I just wish they wouldn't leave candy grappers on the street, but you can't have everything, >> Tom. Great. That's awesome. Thank you, Sally. Go ahead. >> Well, good morning. >> Good morning. >> Um I love Reno. I think you all know that. Um >> well, here we are again. Um probably the final straw regarding the ADU's approval. insane on 5,000 square foot lots. But then we need to implement rules and regulations for short-term rentals which benefit those who live in those neighborhoods, not the investors and corporations, and enforce them. I am disappointed in the council for not protecting the historic district, especially the single family regions. I guess it is now a mute point and as much as we were vocal, you didn't listen. Um, your minds are already made up. Sad for our city. I hope you read the article I sent to all of you about the 15 cities where short-term rentals are about to be outlawed. Moving on, the state of downtown continues to go downhill. Um, we have had lots of open lots with no plans for affordable housing. Why let Jay Resort still delay on more housing? How much property does the city actually own here? Perhaps it's time to put her energy into assisting small builders with plans for roadtype houses where people could afford to buy small units and not rent. Why can't TMCC create housing as projects for learning construction, plumbing, and electricity and get building support from the city and larger construction companies. These must not be sold to investors, but only individual buyers. Let's turn our downtown around before it's reached the point of no return. We are close now. The ambassadors seem to spend most of their time picking up horrendous amounts of garbage. We used to spend lots of time downtown, but less and less. Homeless is still a major issue and affects tourism. The homeless are more bold and aggressive. I recently went downtown to attend a ward meeting at 5:00 a few weeks ago, but what I saw in the city plaza was horrifying. For you city workers, you never have to walk the street to access your car in the garage, but all visitors do. There were tons of homeless hanging out waiting for a meal to be served. I understand this happens two times a week. The city parks and recreation were trying to hold some activities for inner city families, but these homeless were interfering and harassing the participants. The city and county have spent tons of money to create an environment for the homeless out of downtown. Yet, like this, but yet events like this draw them back. It's time to reclaim our downtown and put a stop to such nonsense. I was planning to eat downtown, but that changed my mind, especially since it would be dark soon. I worked with the homeless for eight years and feel that the city must take a hard line and if they don't want help then ship them out. I spent much time talking to the security guards and got it earful. As I hear it, people are being shipped up from Vegas and told that if they return there, they will get charged with a felony in due jail time. What is our vision? I am so confused. >> Right. Thanks, Sally. Thank you so much. >> Laurel Johnson, Gabe Castanova, and Noah Robinson, followed by Aiden Casey. That was the same night she came to my >> Hello, my name is Laurel Johnson. >> I'm Gabriel Kashnova. >> And I'm Noah Robinson. >> Nice to see you. >> Hi. Hey. Um, we just wanted to mention that we're here for our civic engagement project for Reno High School. Um, representing our school's we the people program. We the people is a civic competition uh where we prepare testimonies relating to the citizen and the constitution and then participate in mock congressional hearings. We are then cross-examined by legal professionals such as judges or lawyers at the regional level and hopefully state and national levels. Uh we are specifically part of unit one which focuses on the philosophical foundations of American government. We wanted to be here today to observe city control council because we know that it is a key place to hear local issues and see the way our city government functions. >> And unfortunately we can't be here the whole time because we have to go work on one of the drafts of our testimony. Um but we just wanted to thank you and mention our program and our purpose. >> Well, that's great. Are you guys enjoying it? >> Yeah, >> you are. So, future senators right here >> hopefully. >> Uhhuh. >> Go Huskys. >> Right. That's where I went to school. >> Um well, I'm so glad you guys could join us. We also have a youth city council if you guys want to ever get involved. Um have you been to the museum that you guys have uh on campus? >> Yes. >> Have you? >> I was just there and I found my yearbook. It was like whoa. But that is impressive. Yeah. I was literally there last week. Brian and I took a field trip and it was it was very cool. I think you guys are the only school in the country that actually has a museum um for their high school. So, >> there's a lot of history in there, but it was very it was a lot of fun. Um well, thanks you guys and please um continue to be engaged. You're our future. We're relying on you and I know it's a tough time, you know, nationally, but you guys are what's going to be that changes the world. So, don't don't give up and continue to be engaged. It makes a difference. >> Thank you, >> Madam Mayor. If I may. >> Yes, please. >> Um, first of all, thank you for being here. Um, I've had the privilege of working uh with the We the People competition the last several years, including uh last year's team that really had some incredible success in DC. It's going to be a transition year with Mr. Clark moving to um the new Debbie Smith CTE Academy. Um, so I'm excited for you all to have the opportunity to kind of spread your wings. Um, I'm going to share with my colleagues that in December, uh, there will be opportunities for judging and for witnessing the regional level competition and I'll send you the invites for that as well the state level. Um, the school board trustee, Chris, uh, Miss Hull, uh, she is one of the regional coordinators statewide for it. And so, uh, we'll all be invited to participate in any way that you all would like to if you want to judge or anything like that. >> Did you guys go to DC? Not this group. >> Last year the team did >> the la last year. Do you guys get to go? >> We're hoping this year able to go. >> I saw the pictures. >> We have to get to state first. >> Oh, you got to get there first. Okay. I got it. I got it. Well, we're going to be counting on you. So, come back and let us know how you guys are how you're doing if you're going to make it to state. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Thanks you guys. >> Aiden Casey. Uh, good morning, Mayor Shivy and the Reno City Council. My name is Aiden Casey. I serve as the advocacy director in the Department of Government Affairs for the Associated Students of the University of Nevada. Since 1898, ASUN has represented the undergraduate student body at UNR. Uh, we're pleased to continue fostering a strong relationship between students and local government by sharing updates on upcoming events hosted by ASUN for both the Reno community and UNR students. Our Department of Sustainability would like to inform you guys of a new partnership with Keep Truckucky Meadows Beautiful. They'll be cleaning up Dick Taylor Memorial Park once a month. This month it'll take place from October 11th from 3:00 to 4:30. They just hosted one in September and they'd love to see you guys there. Uh, in other news, the return of the University of Nevada's homecoming parade is near. On Sunday, October 19th at 5:00 p.m. the parade will begin in front of the Joe Crowley Student Union. There will be many activities and vendors and it should be a very fun time for all members of the Reno community, not just university students. Please help us spread the word. We're trying to get as much community involvement as possible and we're excited for those of you who have already signed up to join us that evening. Lastly, help us clean the end uh this Sunday, October 12th, from noon to 5:00 p.m. at the Reno Sports Complex. Uh we're going to be meeting in order to beautify the end. Uh please bring a pair of gloves, some sun protection, a trash bag, and water. We'll be weeding the end so we can repaint it. Uh we do the hike up the end through the Evans Canyon trail head. So for any further information, please call 775-784-6589. A lot of our students take pride in this tradition and we'd love to extend it to the community. Uh we hope that our elected officials will spread the word about these events to their respective wards and we hope to see you all at the homecoming parade. Uh and we're excited for more updates to come in the future. Thank you for your time and as always, go back. >> Wow, I I am impressed. Are do you want to be in politics? Uh, I mean, yeah. Yeah, maybe. Actually, funny enough, >> I was a We the people student two years ago. >> Oh, you were? >> At Reno High School with Mr. Clark. Went to nationals with them, too. So, >> Oh, that is so funny. >> It was funny seeing them seeing them. >> Well, Reno's small. >> Yeah, definitely. We all kind of know each other in some weird roundabout way, but you did a great job. Were you nervous? >> Uh, I've I've given testimony at the legislature before. >> I was going to say you seem like a pro. >> Like you've done it. You've done it a few times. >> I've I've done it before, but I wouldn't say a pro. >> Well, that's so great. Well, send us make sure you send us emails on all this and the events that you want us to attend. >> Definitely. And I know that some of you guys have signed up for the homecom. >> I am supposed to be there. Okay. On Sunday. >> Sweet. >> So, um I look forward to seeing you guys. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thanks so much. Good job. >> All right, Madam Mayor. With that, we have no additional public comment. For the record, we did receive um written comment which was general in nature or not directly associated with an agenda item prior to 4 p.m. yesterday, Tuesday, October 7th. These comments were written correspondents received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office. Copies of these have been distributed to the Reno City Council and are available to the public on reno.gov/meings. One letter in favor, zero letters of opposition, and 19 letters of neutral or concerned comments. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I just want to remind everyone in the room that um please reach out to the clerk. Uh let her know what item you're here for. I like to sort of move those up so you guys can get going with your day. Um, so that's important. So, whatever that item is you're here for, please let our clerk know and then we'll move the agenda accordingly. So, thanks Mickey. Okay, with that being said, um, I'm going to um, shall I hand it over to you? Yes. >> Uh, Miss Bryant, our city manager, is going to weigh in on some changes to the agenda and any housekeeping notes. >> Thank you very much, Madame Mayor. We don't have any adjustments to the agenda order today. Absent, any changes you would like to make based on the attendees in the room and we do not have a attorney client meeting today. >> Okay. Thank you so much. We're going to head into approval of the agenda. >> Move to approve. >> I've got a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. We're going to head into approval of the minutes. >> Move to approve item A51. Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, we're going to head into uh consent items. That's B. And I'm going to start with council members. Um bless you. Um I'm going to start with you, Miss Anderson. Go ahead. Nothing today. >> Nothing. Okay. Councilwoman Taylor? >> No. >> Councilwoman Reese? >> Nothing. Madame Mayor. >> Councilwoman Der. >> Nothing. Thank you. >> Um Eber and Martinez. >> Nothing for me, Madam Mayor. Okay. >> Yeah. I don't see either, Madam Mayor. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> To approve consent. >> Said I have a motion to approve consent items. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Madame clerk, I'm going to send it back to you really quick. >> All right. Madame Mayor, we're moving on to item C1. Charlie 1, which is a presentation from REMA Health. >> Okay. I'm excited to see this. Um, it's been a while, but I always love their updates because they do such important work in the community. Are they here yet? Yeah. Hi. Good morning, Barry. Come on up. It's so good to see you. >> Thank you so very much. It's my pleasure to be here. >> Yeah, the floor is yours. So, Mayor Shivi, members of the council, I'm Barry Duplantis, CEO and president of REMA, today I'd like to pro provide you with a a bit of an update of the EMS franchise known as REMA and REMA Health in this community. REMA Health was established with an interlocal agreement about 40 years ago. In fact, 2024 will be I'm sorry, 2026 will be uh four year 40 years um that the organization's been in existence. >> Rem was established as an exclusive provider of EMS service. Uh it was established as a private not for-profit 501c3 that's essentially owned by the community. We have no shareholders, no outside of the community stakeholders. We're owned and we exist by and for the community. We built an outstanding reputation of trust and always being ready uh for our community. We're governed by a seven member board of directors inclusive of the three hospital systems. And I'd like to just take a moment today and just acknowledge that uh our vice chair uh Mr. Mike Bonnie is is present and with us today. >> He's no stranger to us. He's he's been here for a long time >> and we're so different capacities. Well, we're completely honored that you got a good one. >> He's part of our organization. Um, members of our board of directors include Miss Shirley Roberts, Mike, as I just mentioned, Miss Cory Casease, Mr. Louie Test, Miss Katie Grim, Mr. Eric Glum, and Mr. Chris Nicholas. So, those are the seven members. So, four of them come essentially from the health system and three are appointed by the District Board of Health. um with our respect to our commit commitment to the community. Ah >> yeah that might be a little >> technology >> um >> with respect to our commitment to the community over one-third of the responses that we handle in the course of a year which works out to be about 32,000 responses meaning ambulances going to people and providing care really result in no transport. Our model is built upon uh one that only uh there's only a charge generated when we transport a patient. So if about 32,000 times we go to a patient provide care on scene, there's no bill. Uh and every everyone gets care. No one's denied. The value of providing that care on scene is worth about $7.1 million. When we do our accounting and we do the cost of what it takes to respond to a call, the cost of uncompensated care, because as I mentioned, we deny no one. Um the cost of providing care to people that just simply can't pay um is $1.4 million annually. In 2025, we invested $7.6 million in new equipment in the community. We we spend money every year to replace ambulances because it's very important as as community members that we have good equipment to operate in part because our our employees need a good office just like all of us would like a good office and our patients uh deserve to be treated in good uh up-to-date equipment. Also too, I'd like to just kind of comment on the fact that as a high performance system, oftentimes we might ask ourselves what makes a high performance EMS system. reality is we locate every day where people are. >> Uh people move, we move, which is why you see our equipment sometimes parked in a Walmart parking lot or at a Starbucks or at a raies or you know whatever grocery store whatever because as a um a dynamic high performance system we try to look at the data of where calls our next calls are going to come from. Yeah. So you can kind of tell yourself when you see an ambulance, huh, this is kind of interesting because RIMA anticipates that the next incident is going to be in this region. Um, and largely that that is true and it's also how we managed to respond to calls very expeditiously. >> Yeah. specific to the city of Reno. In 2025, 26,455 citizens located in Reno zip codes received care on scene without any charge regardless of their ability to pay. So, bringing it home specific to the jurisdiction of the city of Reno, 26,455 received care regardless of their ability to pay. The value of that was $6.9 million. I'm proud to say also that 322 Rimsa employees which is about 54% of our employees reside at rims at Reno addresses. So they are residents and taxpaying members of the community uh located in the city of Reno. We're proud that so many of our people are local. Uh I think local matters. Yeah. >> Um 622. I just kind of want to talk about the you know we were referring to uh some of our younger members of society a moment ago and even younger than that when we start looking at the babies in the community we installed 622 car seats uh for babies >> I I my jaw is on the floor with this it's incredible >> so and that's specific to I mean there are more if you include the rest of the county and sparks but specific to the city of Reno uh in the last 12 months we installed 622 car seats That's incredible. I I did not know that you guys did that ever. >> Something we are very proud to do. It's it's the right thing to do. >> That's so cool. >> Um we also have an education center. We provide CPR classes uh on a regular basis to members of the community. I think uh many of you probably know because you've come to know me over the last few years uh is that we work regularly with the Reno Fire Chief, the EMS chief, the city manager's office, the police um organization. We actively participate in the downtown Reno partners group. Um, we work collaboratively with the Reno Ambassadors Organization and for what it's worth, um, we day in and day out care for all members of our our society, uh, including the unhoused population by meeting them where they are. >> Terms of sustainability and community impact, we employ over 600 people. As I mentioned, these are people who reside in the community. Uh so we're people caring for people within the community which is precious. Uh we provide compassionate clinically excellent out of hospital care. We're a supporter of and a participant in modernizing the regional CAD system for which we're excited you know to see where this goes uh in the early part of next year when it looks like we will go live. >> Yeah. >> We are also a value added community partner. When I tell you uh a little bit about REMA, REMA is a $75 million notfor-profit because that's what it takes to provide care uh to this vast community. Um and as I said, we employ 600 people, so that's a sizable group. As a notfor-profit, we're designed, our business model is designed to cover costs and generate funds that are all reinvested in the community. As I mentioned, we have no outside stakeholders. So all of our money is spent, reinvested, and deployed right here in the community that we live and serve. In conclusion, I I want to say very sincerely, it's my uh pleasure uh to serve our community um work with men and women who reside, live, raise their children uh in this community. Uh it's our real pleasure to serve the community from within knowing that we are embedded in the community. Many of our employees have homes in Reno and we take great pride in serving our neighbors. I'd like to especially thank you for allowing me the time to come and update you here today. Um and I I don't know if in your agenda you wanted to entertain questions, but as always I will entertain any and all questions that you might have. Okay. Um, fantastic. I am going to ask uh council if they have any questions, but I want to let you know, Barry, you are one of the most kindest, compassionate people that I get to work with um on a regular basis. Um, you have just been the true community public servant. I have to tell you, you are just such a kind man. I I wish everyone um knew you in that capacity because um you you have such a heart for the people. So I want to say thank you so much. Um let me ask you my question is um do we have sort of a date well not a date exactly a month where when we're deploying our our CAD system together? >> The best information I have at this point is end of February. >> Okay. >> Uh but I do believe we have some upcoming mean meetings which will give us a little bit more clarity on how that's going to roll out. Well, I want to say thank you for your partnership. There is someone I do need to recognize. I don't see him over there. Where is JW? >> Oh, it's JW Hajj. And I know that we have tasked him with our side of our representation and um he has just spoken so highly of you and the work that you guys are doing collaboratively. We didn't always see that in the past. So, congratulations. It makes me feel really good. But I also know that JW has been a big supporter. He's been a big help on our part being at the table. So, um, thank you so much. I did want to recognize him, but hopefully he's having fun someplace in the sun. But anyway, I'm going to open it up to questions, but um, I look forward to this continued partnership, and I think do I the next step is you get a um, presentation over at the District Board of Health. This is our wonderful chair of the district board of health and I'd love an update uh from the wonderful chair of that body um when we go back around. Okay, I'm going to start with um uh Councilwoman Anderson. No, I'm going to start with Councilwoman Taylor. Any questions? No. Okay. Um go ahead. I'm going to send it to you, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor, Mr. Duplanis. It's always a privilege to see you. I I think the depth of the presentation really cannot convey all the things that you're doing. Um so certainly I was excited to see you on the agenda and the presentation was excellent but for my colleagues I want to share with you that I have the fortunate privilege of being the chair of the district board of health which oversees the franchise for rema um it is part of a and it's a long history there in 1984 when the joint powers between Wo County the city of Reno and the city of Sparks agreed to enter into this relationship um we have had really incredible partner in rema um rema has saved thousands and thousands of lives and certainly is doing the laboring ore in a health care system today that's quite frankly the most challenging time that has ever happened in this country and so REMA continues to adapt to that and evolve and fortunately um we've done that together right each of the joint powers authorities um what I think the the for our city council to know is that um you work in collaboration with our fire chiefs not only here in the city of Reno, but of course with the other agency jurisdictions, Truckucky Meadows and Sparks, and that a lot of the moving parts require an incredible depth of knowledge and and so I commend you and your staff for taking on the role that you have because I think it is a challenging time to provide health care, especially in a environment where more and more people are being forced to use ambulance services as a last resort for their health care. And so I think it's a complex thing. I will share with my colleagues that this month we will have at the district board of health uh the opportunity to extend our franchise agreement. Um there have been a year and a half or more of discussions and conversations and meetings and working groups and so many things and so we're we're this close. Um and I think that it'll be made a presentation here in a couple of weeks and then I'll be able to come back to this body and report on the activities going on there. Um, but we're in very good hands and I'm so grateful for the partnership that REMA presents to this community and I can't wait to see what the next 10 years holds. >> Okay, that's fantastic. Then I'm going to put it on the agenda in November. >> Okay, sounds >> you're going to come and give us an update. >> It's a plan >> on our continued partnership. Thank you so much. I'm going to hand it over to Councilwoman Anderson. Um, I have mostly just comments and one question towards the end, but I just wanted to um echo my fellow council members comments about how vital having you in the in the market in the region in our neighborhoods is um and really how seamless I look at public safety as a relay race of sorts and you know each each member that shows up to a call is assessing the scene and handing off the baton to the next most appropriate person. But REMA, what most people don't understand, you're either first or second on almost every single call. So the emotional toll that your team takes in just deescalation and assessment, it I think it goes unnoticed because that'sn't something that you bill for, right? So I just wanted to recognize your team for that and um really being a leader for the rest of the first responders that are um in route to each of those calls. Um, so I just wanted to bring back I really really love the way that you framed um, Remza as you know really a member of our community. You're not only doing a service, performing a service in the community, but you are our neighbors. You are, you know, our coaches. You are um, married to our teachers and our, you know, nurses and um, whatnot in the community. And so you're a very important part of the fabric, but there's a real number up there that you you talked about which was unfunded care that is received on calls. I was just wondering if you could do us all a favor and tell us what kind of care somebody would receive if they didn't require transport just to give a little bit more light to what your your people do in the field. >> Sure. Would be happy to. Um someone may have a sprain or they I mean it could be anything. maybe they've fallen off of a ladder um and they just want to be checked out. I mean it it's a multitude of things. Um obviously if someone needs to go to the hospital we air on the side of caution they will go to the hospital. Um but given that we have become the safety net of health health care uh and that continues to grow and quite candidly it was a question that Councilman Ree asked me in the last district board of health meeting. What do I anticipate in the future? And I think that the burden on our 911 system and the need for safety net care is going to grow as a result of people falling out of other programs. Um so it could be anything. It could be a fever. I don't know what to do. Um and also to you raised an interesting point that I think is really important for me to to articulate for you and is that care does not begin when an ambulance arrives. Care begins when we receive the call. which is why we we're participating in the CAD project because that is where care begins really critical because we do chest compressions, we give instructions for delivering babies for example. Yeah. I mean the list goes on and on of what we do but care begins when the phone rings uh and then from there immediately we're dispatching ambulances moving to to the caller. Um and you know we're doing call triage and prioritization etc. So, very good question. Um, it could be anything. Uh, if we have a concern that maybe care is needed, um, we're we're there. >> That's for sure. Thanks. And that's a woman that knows. She studies her her public safety like nobody's business, don't you, Brandy? See? Okay. Go ahead, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to just also make sure that I clarified a term that I used which was the franchise agreement. So this body spends a lot of time working on franchise agreements largely in the area of public utilities. So we think about franchise agreement for example with waste management and I want to make sure that people understand that this is not the same kind of relationship. Uh it is uh really um probably an outdated word. I I'm not even sure it really encapsulates what the relationship is. It is true that you are not us and we are not you and in that regard there is some distance between us that is required to be memorialized in a contract a memorandum of understanding that sort of thing but we are not uh it's not like an open competitive thing where we've got all these folks who are coming into the market. It really was a decision made back in 1984 to invest in this community's public safety infrastructure so that we didn't have 12 or 18 different ambulance providers. Uh that most of them would point the other direction and say not me, not my responsibility. When the call goes out, you answer the call. And so we're very grateful for that. Um, and perhaps what we need to do is think about the franchise being described in some other word because I think, you know, most people think franchise and they're thinking, you know, port of subs and and that sort of thing. They're not really thinking about the the kind of care that we took to create um this opportunity and the care with which REMA holds the trust of this community. So, um, I wanted to make sure that my colleagues, it's taken me the better part of five years to understand the unique relationship and the district board of health's role in it. So, thank you for the opportunity just to clarify that and and again, thank you for the presentation. >> Okay, Councilman Doer. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, I'm sorry I had to miss a portion of your presentation, but I did want to comment on one thing. One of the next items, in fact, it may be the next item is about a community survey that we did and I'm really looking forward to hearing the results, but I got a chance to read the report and um the services that quote the city provides um that were highest ranked was fire response and emergency response. And truly, you are the element that's providing a lot of the emergency response. It was about that. It was about uh calling 911 and getting someone to help them. And both things were really highly ranked above everything else that the city does. And so you are an extension of us in this way. >> Yeah. >> You know, you're providing this service for us. People don't know that. They don't know the details of all the arrangements to council member uh Reese's point about a franchise and our agreement and so on. But um but you are doing that and you know I it just shows that we're getting ever better uh with this sort of 911 and consolidation and uh dishing out the calls to the to the right space. And of course, we want to bring it home with this full CAD system and this full UL UVL system and I know um Council Member Anderson's working on our fire consolidation efforts and certainly the dispatch is a big part of that and and getting people out where they need to be. So, I just wanted to recognize that especially since it's on our agenda today and this is the first time we're going to be reviewing that data. So, thank you. >> Appreciate the comment. Councilwoman Iver or uh Martinez, anything? Any questions? I don't think so. Okay. Um, you know, someone reminded me. >> Are you there? >> Yeah. It's Council Member Eert. I thought you were um addressing uh Council Member Martinez. I did have a couple >> Go ahead. >> questions. Thank you. So, um I know that your job is really um emergency services, helping people maybe um go from a a serious emergency back to, you know, being safe. Um whether it's like um I know in my experience, I have a family member with type 1 diabetes that sometimes just needs help bringing their blood sugar up. It is an emergency, but um it's a situation that's remedied usually with a glucose or um you know glucose in an IV. So um that's my experience with emergencies that get solved on location, but are there services that you provide for the community that are not emergency? Say a senior that has doctor's appointment they need to go to um and they are not able to drive or don't have a car or there's not public transportation in their area. Is there anything that you or REMA does to help people in that situation? >> Yes, there is. As a matter of fact, um um whenever we identify an opportunity where someone maybe needs an alternate path of care, one of the relations we have set up is with uh Uber Health um to get people to the appropriate place they need to go. uh because if we recognize that they need help um but it's not necessarily an ambulance to an ER um we we do we do try to look at what can we do uh to help that person >> and would that type of assistance have the same fee as going to a hospital or what what does that look like in that situation? In the case of Uber Health, uh we would generally find that to be like going to an urgent care or or maybe a ride to get a prescription or whatever the case may be the problem we're trying to solve. Um if if it's hospital related, that would typically be an ER type situation. Um so it would be anything but a hospital. Um so we're not limited in the kinds of solutions that we can craft. uh because for for practice p practical purposes of serving the community we want to align the patient with the appropriate level of care which quite candidly even goes back to the you know local agreement that was done by the three governments um I guess about three four years ago now um where we collectively were asked to provide the citizen with the closest appropriate response um so we're always thinking in terms of how do we provide the right path of air um for the caller. >> Okay. And just to kind of circle back, is there a fee to the person that needs services in that type of situation where they need help coordinating um a ride to an appointment or something of that nature? >> We we absorb that cost just like we absorb the cost of providing care without transport. So the answer is there's no charge to the uh citizen. Yeah, I that was what I just really wanted to highlight. Um um being the uh liaison to the senior advisory board. I do hear from people that are um having difficulty getting to appointments and um I think that's really a great service that you provide. So I absolutely tell people that you know you can talk to REMA and get help getting to your appointments. Um especially in areas where there isn't maybe public transportation. So, it's extremely difficult and people just don't know um what resources are out there. So, I really wanted to highlight um that service that you provide and just, you know, um call out what a tremendous benefit is to the community and I just really appreciate um that REMA is capable of doing that and does it. So, thank you for for answering that. And um I I don't have any other questions, but I do want to thank you for the work that you've done and that Rem has done in the community. >> All right. Thank you so much. Uh Councilman Martinez, anything. >> Maybe he's not on. Um, one thing that I know that I um heard rave reviews about, but I know it, you know, it was um just at a specific time because I think there was um you know, grants just provided for that and I'm just curious, but I heard um so much positive feedback was the nurs's health line and is that something that you still have because I know it was just a very limited um amount of grants that you had for it. We no longer offer the nurse health line. Yeah. However, we do acknowledge that there is a need for something. Um we discontinued the nurse health line because it had no utilization. >> Right. >> Um and so we said, gosh, this is a million dollars of our money that we could better deploy in the in the community. Uh so we about a year ago, uh we suspended the nurse healthline. Um we were also having a challenge staffing it u because it's a very difficult job. Um and so at the present time we're looking at what our options are. I think you might remember for example during co um there was a time when teleaalth was a new concept that very few people understood then co came upon us and instantly overnight it became a standard um and so now we look at teleaalth as being like yesterday's news um technology is advancing so quickly um that we're looking at what are the options available uh because u in fact it's one of the questions I've asked even in in in with regard to our CAD project because we hear AI every day. >> Yeah. >> So what's the plan for AI to integrate in some of these things coming up? >> Exactly. And uh so I think there's a lot to figure out in our future which is one of the the reasons why I will tell you day in and day out it's really important that we all talk u so that we are understanding what is available what do we know about it um do we have the latest greatest what would the latest greatest cost us what's the risk of that latest greatest that it might be obsolete in six months from now um as um some of the folks in the AI space are talking about they're saying a a chip today is going to absolute obsolete next year, you know. So when we start looking at technology, we want to look at are we doing the right things using the right alternative care methods to provide the best paths of care. One of the things we did do, I'm glad you mentioned that, is we rebooted our integrated health program, however, which is where we use essentially our um uh our parame medicine um to to care for people, particularly those that tend to fall through the cracks. Um, so we have rebooted. We've got an alliance with the uh with University of Nevada. Yeah. Um, where we've got people that are working on the social component of of a segment of our population who call. >> Yeah. I just remember when you launched it, it was so popular to your point. everyone because of COVID, you know, jumped on it and you had some remarkable stories, but I I knew that it was like a grant and but my point is is that you had those services when people needed them the most in the capacity you met them um in that way uh whenever you might not have met so many in person because of um the pandemic. And so I just had I remember hearing remarkable stories and they were talking about you know what are the services you provide and that was one of them where you would walk through you know with a patient um in any capacity you know it could have been big or small but I just remember the stories coming into my office and they were so heartfelt from delivering babies over the phone right um and just making sure that you know the community was safe. So I just want you to know it was it was very wellreceived and I think it's smart to pivot to where you're saying the future of technology is because if you stay I think antiquated then you're giving you're getting antiquated services and um I love you know your vision. So thank you so much Mr. Dlantis and um and then we're going to invite you back in November to give us an update on your outcomes at District Board of Health. I know they're appreciative of your partnership. I I do want to point out because someone did point this out to me yesterday and Brandy knows this very well. Our fire um our um you know fire personnel, our um our police department, our REMA team, you guys actually meet people on their very worst day. On their very worst day. And so what you do takes a lot of care and compassion and it's a very difficult job um on every level. But I think people forget that you don't get to meet people on their best day. You meet them on their worst day. And when that happens um you just become forever grateful for what you do that there's someone there uh when you need them the most and you are. And so I just want you to know that we appreciate it and we appreciate our fire department, our police department. That's what you guys do day in and day out. It's one of the toughest jobs um in the city. So, thank you so much. Anything else you want to throw at the kitchen sink? >> I'm just so honored to be here with you today and uh I look forward to the journey ahead of us um as we explore how to best serve our community. Uh, I I I will say that we've got a lot of smart people in this community and that's a blessing we do have and we need to take advantage of it. >> That's great. Well, thank you so much and then um I let Jackie know we will put you on the schedule for the last meeting in November. >> Okay. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I may um I just also wanted to kind of echo what my fellow council members have said about regionalization. Um, it's so great to have you as a partner and I know that we all are looking to just provide the best service to everyone in the region and I I'm just want to say thank you for your engagement um in this process and um you know you're you're not fire but you you work with fire. Um, so I just really want to thank you for for being a partner and looking for ways that we can um work together. So, thank you. >> My pleasure. >> All right. Thanks so much. We got to let you go. You got to go and save people. >> All right. Thanks so much. >> All right. Um, I am going to head back to Madame Clerk. We are actually going to head into item C2. Correct. >> That's correct. Thank you. >> Okay. Fantastic. We are going to have a presentation discussion of the city of Reno's community survey findings. Cali. Hi you guys. Okay, we're excited. Us too. Make sure. Alrighty. Am I good to go? >> Hello. >> Hello. >> How's everybody? >> Take it away. >> Hi. Uh, well, thank you. Good morning, Madame Mayor and members of the city council. My name is >> Oh, wait. One one second. Madame Clerk, do we have any public comment on this item? I don't think I asked you. I >> We do not have any public comment. It's a discussion item. >> Okay. I just didn't want to forget anyone. Okay, take it away. I >> was thinking the same thing. Great. Well, uh, my name is Cararissa Bradley Cusack. I am the strategic initiatives manager for the city of Reno. And today I'm excited to share with you the community survey findings report from our survey that we did earlier this year. So, these are the results ma the major findings. So the alignment with our strategic plan priorities is governance and organizational effectiveness. And why did we do this survey? We wanted to understand from our residents perspectives how they felt about Reno as a whole, how they feel about some of the services that the city of Reno is responsible for providing or things that they might be pretty familiar with. And the last thing here I'll I'll mention is what engagement opportunities residents are currently participating in and if there's any barriers to them uh engaging with us. So these are some of the three main things that we wanted to understand from our survey uh this year. It's also I want to note here that we wanted to set a baseline. We'd like to start doing a survey of this nature every couple of years to set kind of do a temperature check with our community. Where are they feeling? How would they feel about some of our services? So, the 2025 community survey, it was available in uh online and in in person via paper format. We had it at about five to 10 different locations across the city and people could take it in person if they'd like to. We saw the majority of our responses from our online form. However, it was available in four different languages. We had it open for seven weeks in the spring from March 3rd through the April 30th. It had 63 questions, so it was a fairly large survey uh with one open response. We went into this not knowing how many people would take this survey. We came in with a goal of about 1500 and we smashed that goal uh within the first two weeks. We actually ended up having with it 3,247 surveys completed. So very proud of that work. Uh we managed that through a cross departmental city team with everyone from the city manager's office to the comm's team to our community engagement folks and of course here in um policy and strategy. So, how did we get that large response base? We were out in our community working hard to try to get as many people to take this survey as possible. What did that look like? We attended 40 different community events within that 7-week time frame. We were at Earth Day. We were at the farmers market. We were at the community cleanups that were scheduled for that time frame. We also created a digital toolkit. So if people wanted to share about the survey themselves or our um staff or electeds wanted to, we created this digital toolkit which is that kind of to the left middle box with pre-written text um graphics, social media posts, etc. wanting to make this as accessible and helping us elevate the word as much as possible. We also introduced a pilot program called the community partners network. So, we we engaged with our community um nonprofits and business leaders to say, "Hey, we're doing this community survey. We'd really like for you to help us get the word out." And we recruited 22 partners from a variety of different sectors. So, we're really proud of that work and hope to replicate it in future surveys or future efforts that the city does. We also presented at 12 different boards and commissions that were meeting during that time period, including all of the NABs that had meetings. Uh on the media front, we had 41 local news story placements, which is great for our numbers. We've reached over um 150,000 different people through those media reaches, including 39,000 in our Spanish speaking media. We did have two unique newsletter distributions, which our city newsletters have a huge subscriber rate. 33,000 people subscribe to our newsletters. And that is where we saw the biggest uh spike in our in our respondents. And I want to say here's our 22 uh community partners. I want to say thank you to them uh first and foremost for putting that in their newsletters, talking to it with their communities, and really helping us elevate the word. Now, before we go into all of the data, I want to set some sort of orienting our expectations around interpreting survey data broadly. So survey data really functions as a starting point. It's a snapshot of how people felt in that time. And there are some things to be aware of and our our survey is no different. So surveys in general can have sampling bias. Um that might be from demographic skews, higher proportions of one population than another, etc. Um, and there's also because our survey was open to all, there's a self- selection bias already sort of baked into some of this, meaning that some of our most highly engaged, either positively or negatively community members were likely to take this survey. Also, within the question design limitations, some of the structure of our questions limited some of the nuance that we'd want to understand, and we're hoping to make some changes in our future surveys uh to account for that. Uh, The last thing I'll say here is that the contextual constraints, the fact that our survey was done in April um April of this year means that this is how the community felt at that point in time. They might feel a little different now um but we don't know that definitively. Um and we also didn't ask questions that really got down to the nuances. This is why I say here that survey findings can be viewed as an input into decision-m but it's not a definitive road map. Now, not to scare you all um not to throw the baby out with the bath water, the data here is actually really interesting and I want I'm excited to share it with you all. So, the first section here is around perception about Reno as a whole. So, this doesn't have to do necessarily with the city of Reno or the services we provide. This is just as a community member, how do they feel about Reno as a whole? So, the next slide is a little overwhelming. So, let me orient you a little bit to what this is showing. So these are the sets of questions where we asked participants to to rate on a scale of very good, good, acceptable, poor and very poor for the different things here on the left hand side. So very good is in that dark navy, good is in the light blue, acceptable is in yellow, poor is in the light gray, and the dark gray almost black is very poor. They are ranked in the most positive to the least positive. So just kind of orienting you to this this overwhelming slide. As you can see here, if we look just at the positive ratings, so these are the combination of good and very good. People in the respondent pool said that they enjoy Reno as a place to live, visit, work, and travel by car. Majority positive response there. Shifting a little bit to more of the negative perceptions around these things. Um we can see here that travel a lot of our different travel uh options whether it might grow mobility like riding a bike or scootering, walking or public transportation all fell within this majority negative um category as well as downtown which we know we're we're working actively to to address. Now moving into perceptions of city services. So, we did not poll on every single city service that we offer obviously, but we did do some that we felt that the average person might have a pretty good understanding that their local government provides or has some relation to. So, looking here, we started the section by asking in your opinion, what are your top three government services that we provide for the community? As you can see here, 56% of respondents said that emergency response was there was part of that. Police presence and neighborhood safety was selected 49% of the time and maintaining and improving our public infrastructure was selected 44% of the time. So that helps us to understand what are our people they value essentially. When we go into the next section that helps us better interpret some of this data. Moving on to another very overwhelming chart when I look at it up here. Uh these are the quality of city services. So we asked people to rank same as that earlier slide on a scale of very good, good, acceptable, poor and very poor. How they felt uh about the quality of some of our services. So here you can see that fire services, 911 and the activities that we provide and customer service from staff all ranked in the majority positive which we love to see. That is where we want to start to see more of these numbers move towards is that majority positive. Again, these are the combination of good and very good. Skewing now uh changing our lens a little bit to the more negative ratings. You can see here that none of our services were in the majority negative, which I think is a huge win. There are some areas that we can work on, but we are constantly working on all of these things. Now on the topic of civic participation and engagement, these are some questions that we asked residents to or the respondents how do they engage with the city and what um what if any barriers exist to that. So as you can see here in the civic participation 96% of the respondents of this survey had voted in the last election. That is amazingly high numbers. If you know anything about people who vote, this is a very engaged group of individuals who took this survey, nearly half of them had attended a public meeting or contacted a a local official. So this is you're seeing very engaged participants of this survey and 31% of them had volunteered within the last six months. So these are huge numbers. On the topic of barriers, right? So we wanting our residents to feel comfortable engaging with us. if what if any are there barriers to that? The top three selected were scheduling conflicts, lack of trust in government, and difficulty finding the information that we provide. So, these are all areas that we can work on um improving over the over the next couple of years. Now, on the topic of levels informed, on the bottom here, you can see we asked the question, how well informed are you about the the work that the city of Reno is doing? We had 47.6% of people said that they feel informed or very informed. So that to me is an area where we might want to improve upon, but is is good here and and very high in the neutral. They're just like, "Yep, you're doing what you're doing." And shifting slightly here to activities that people engage in versus want more of. So the yellow bars here, these are the question we asked people to select which activities people currently are participating in. So we have pulled on before and before and after school programs for our youth, senior engagement activities, recreation activities, cultural etc. and special events. Here you can see special events had the highest amount of participation currently. And when you compare it to what is more desired in the blue bar here, you can see that special events has both the highest currently attended and that they'd like to see more of. What's really interesting here is the gap is really small, which is what you'd want to have in this this scale. So, they're really reinforcing the popularity here. Now, on the topic of of barriers to attending our our events, specifically events and activities, the top three selected here were lack of information, scheduling conflicts, and safety concerns. We're already working on a lot of initiatives to help improve these things. uh but it is important to understand how the people who took this survey felt about um engaging in these activities. Now on to communication preferences. So where are the respondents getting their information? The top one was local news outlets followed by us our city of Reno platforms. If you break it down um oh my thing is not there. Just kidding. If you break it down to preferred communication channels, uh the respondents said that email was the highest that they preferred, which makes sense. We saw the highest level of participation from our newsletter blasts. We would see a very large spike. So people who are getting those emails also like getting emails. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Uh they also indicated that our website was where they like to get their information and city of Reno media social media platforms. We also included a question about automated text messaging alerts to see if people would be generally in favor or or interested in that uh because internally we're looking at potentially expanding that on the topic of satisfaction. So with these communications and getting our word out, how satisfied do people feel about those um communications? Over 67% of people were very satisfied or satisfied. Good numbers there. Now shifting a little bit into demographics about who took this survey. Right? It's important to think about data from a perspective of who is being represented in this data. Here you can see a quick snapshot of the most recent American uh community survey done by the US Census Bureau. Reno's total population is a little bit over 650,000 or 66 264,000 people. Median age of 36. We've got a pretty even split of male female. highest uh racial demographics are white, Hispanic, and Asian. H median household income. As you can see, we've got bachelor's degree and home ownership. We're going to be going over each of these indicators in the following slides, and I'll remind you of some of these SKs. Where were our respondents living? So, 84% of our respondents have lived in Reno for more than six years. They have a pretty good sense of what we do, how we do it, and what's going on in the community. um because they've been here for longer than six years. The location of respondents, we had the highest response rate from W 2 followed by Ward 5. And interestingly, the I don't know or can't remember was selected 15% of the time, which means we either need to help educate on whose ward you're in. Um that's also just important to kind of note here. We did not limit the survey to people who only lived in Reno. We did have some people who said I live in unincorporated wash or I live in Sparks and we had them just select one the I don't live here. Uh in the bottom here you can see the the specific to the people who said I know my ward what that breakdown looks like. Shifting now into those demographic data points. So we had the highest respondent rate from our white population followed by um we had a the majority female with 58% and our age respondents we had a large uh pop the majority of people were in the 55 plus age range. Shifting to more of those socioeconomic factors of 73.8% 8% of the people who took the survey own their home. Uh with the snapshot I provided earlier, only a little under half of people in Reno own their home at this point. And within the income levels here, you can see that um the 75 plus um income level actually had the highest majority of respondents. And in educational attainment, this is probably the largest skew I would say. So, as I mentioned earlier, 40% of our our total population has a bachelor's degree or higher, but this is closer to about 70% of our respondent base has a bachelor's degree or higher. So, lessons learned. This was the first time we've done a survey like this in many years. We are wanting to kind of highlight what worked well. We had a really high response rate. Our community partner network pilot, we felt like that was something that it has legs and we want to try it out on other things. And again, like I said, this is setting a baseline for future surveys. So, we want to understand in 2025, how did this data look and in future years, how might it look? Um, based on some of the work that we'll do through our strategic initiatives. And then what could be improved? Demographic representation. I just outlined some of those skews that we saw in our data. And I I mentioned at the forefront some of the question formatting limited some of our analysis on the back end and we want to accommodate for those in future surveys. Next steps, we're planning to share our community part share all this data with our community partners, setting up one-on- ones with them if they'd like to them. Next week, we're hosting a community webinar on our findings. It'll be at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. And then utilizing these insights for our strategic planning workshop scheduled for the end of the month. And then also, as I've mentioned over and over again, we'd like to replicate a similar style survey in 2027 to assess our progress. Thank you all for allowing me to uh share these results with you today. >> Okay, good. Thank you so much. Okay, I'm going to start with you, Councilwoman Anderson. Any questions? >> Okay, Councilwoman Taylor. >> Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's um very informative. I am interested to how we are going to use this information to make decisions specifically on our October 29th strategic planning >> meeting. It seems like this data is going to be very helpful focus to help us focus on where we should be um I guess making decisions and putting our resources. But I want to make sure that the survey is necessarily it's valid and that there's a confidence level in it. And um you know we always hear like how did you do the survey? Who helped you do the survey? Is it a real survey? So when I'm looking at the data and it says uh the highest importance is emergency services, police, public infrastructure, and parks and open space. Those are the basically the top three things that people are interested in us focusing on. At what confidence do you have that that is accurate representation? >> Uh thank you for the question Carissa Bradley for the record. >> So our confidence level is very high. So with an open response survey like this you statistically need about like 400 respondents. We tripled eight times the amount of respondents. So we are confident of the people who took this um survey that it represents within that bell curve of of people's perceptions. However, I will say because there are demographic skews to the the amount of responses that's where earlier in the presentation I mentioned that survey data really is that first piece and then you do some further inquiry. >> So I'm really going to be interested in making datadriven decisions on October 29th. Will is this will we be seeing some of this information on in that too? >> Yes. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Great work. >> Okay, Councilman Ree. >> Thank you so much. Um outstanding work and and I think uh many months in the planning process. Like Vice Mayor Taylor, I am interested to see the ways in which we can implement. It's one thing to measure, but it's another thing to change. And so some of the things on there uh were disconcerting, right? I mean the things where we're having lower response or we have I I think you highlighted them a lot in transportation but I thought there were also some other areas. I just want to make sure that we are getting better >> once we identify the issues. I think some of the times uh we feel like we're communicating and communicating effectively but we aren't and we know that because people say we aren't right and so that's the difficult part. I like you I also think that there is some bias in the self- selection process. Right. I know that some people would maybe take the survey 8 n 10 times to game the system because they think that's funny and I think that's a waste of time. But I do think if you've acknowledged that there is some of that uh then we can work through that, right? Um by and large I think that our community are so busy with their daily lives. They're just trying to raise a family. They're putting food on their table. they're working that it's hard to stop and say, well, this is the thing which I find most objectionable about insert issue. And so I want to make sure that we're not overlooking the people who might not even had the opportunity to respond. Right? I sometimes see a lot of um response um to social media where people are airing their legitimate grievances. Maybe they're not doing it as kindly as one would hope. Um, but you know, you think about some of the traffic issues right in the north valleys or in other parts of the town where they're just tired of seeing the traffic cones out there and we just have to figure out a way to work through that. And so I'm hopeful that I I don't know if it'll be so much in the strategic planning. Perhaps it will be a part of it, but I'm hopeful that we will figure out the ways in which we can implement the things that we see areas that need for improvement and then we'll be able to measure them going forward. Right? So you've given us the starting point. Now, we need some concrete things that we're going to be able to do with it. And then we've got to measure and check in along the way. Um, so that the good work you've done doesn't just sit on a shelf because we hate that. We we don't want to see things sit on the shelf. But awesome work, >> Councilman Der. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Thank you. Um, first of all, I'm just super pleased that we did the survey. It's something I believe in. Um, I'm always wanting community feedback. it's just one different kind of way and um a little bit more egalitarian and that you did so much outreach. Um I was part of your outreach. So I was at Earth Day on a booth and I was running up and down the aisles asking people, "Did you take the survey? Would you like to take the survey?" And I think I probably got 50 people to take the survey just out of our booth. I mean, they're like, "Sure." And um I'll do it tonight or I'll do it right now, you know. And so I think that that did help, you know. um one of the a couple follow-ups on some specifics that you had. So, city newsletters, you said that people were interested in getting information in city newsletters and you also said you had the biggest response. And one of the things I'm curious about is we have um newsletters for each of the the wards and the navs. And in the past, I've said, can we use that ward 2 check the box to send out information about something else? And people have said, "Well, no, they just signed up for Word two, so we don't want to send them information about something else." >> And so I'm wondering if we could modify our signups so that we say Word two or whatever word, but you also are you open to receiving information on other topics, other related topics. And in that way, I think that um we could get more information pushed out um in a way that wouldn't violate any laws, you know, because there's these requirements that you have to opt in to to take. Right. And so I'm just thinking if we worded our opt-in phrase differently, if we could have more of an opportunity to use all of the different newsletters that we have. And I was wondering, you said you used two newsletters. Do you know which ones they were? >> Uh cursor Bradley for the record. So we sent it to the full city newsletter 33,000 subscribers. >> So you were able to like send it toward two and three and four and five or >> uh there's like a Yeah. Yeah. There's one that comms uses for um it's like their their large one has 33. >> Well, I'm not sure though. I think it it bears some further research on this. Okay, good. Well, then I wanted to ask you something else. I thought you made a really important point about the time in which the survey is being held. >> There could have been a dramatic event, a huge snowstorm, a drought, a uh something on the national scene that could have influenced people's perceptions generally about the world, about themselves, their community safety. And so I think you're really right that that can really skew and we have to understand the context. And it would be good if you sort of captured what was in the news for the month before um the survey to understand the so we will forget in two years what was exactly happening in spring of 2025 anything particular um one of the things that I wanted to ask about is is this and I may need a round two here uh you say that people are most concerned about let's say emergency response fire and so and so but one of their biggest criticisms or concerns was about mobility or transportation, >> but it's not in their top category, but it's in their least favorable. And I'm wondering going forward how you match those things up. Like they say they're least impressed, >> and they might want more, but when they have to only list three things that they care about, it's not in their, you know, they're always going to say my personal safety, etc., etc. So, any answer to that thought? Um, that to me is the the sticky question we all have to answer every day in our work, right? But I do want to be able in future surveys to be able to map that out a little bit better. Some of the analysis that we did, we're like, I wish I would have framed the question a little differently. So, we could have done more of that mapping of it's really high on the their importance, but it's really low on quality. So, how do we understand or maybe there's a matrix? So, uh, not on this survey because it's just wasn't designed to do that analysis, but it is something that our team has flagged as we'd like to make that improvement for a future iteration. >> Really interesting. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> And then Cassie can answer the newsletter. >> Yeah. Good morning. Still Cass Harris, communications manager for the record. Um, we do have an option on our newsletter subscription page to sign up to receive all City of Reno news. So a lot of people can sign up for their ward and to receive all news. So the survey did go out to that list which I think is over 20,000 people. So quite a big reach there. Thanks. >> Well, even I even though I signed up for every ward, I didn't sign up for all newsletters. So and I'm really interested right? >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Um Councilman Martinez. >> Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Um thanks so much for the presentation. I appreciate the breakdown in data and certainly for some of the comments that have already been made. I think it is important that we use this data to inform our decisions. I know you mentioned at the beginning of your presentation that it may not be the one thing to completely drive our decisions, but I think it's a good starting point for us to uh look at when we make the decisions that we do in a strategic planning meeting coming up. I was curious about some of that outreach. It seems like you've hit on um the demographic uh disparities that happened when it came to respondents and just curious if there are any things that you have learned throughout this process that we can maybe implement in the future or things we can do better. And I think it's been iterated multiple times by this council, but just making sure you are uh let's put it again on the record that we're here to help and whatever we can do to get the word out. making sure I know Casu mentioned some of the stuff that she was doing to help get the word out. So, whatever we can do, feel free to let us know how you can tap on our resources to make sure we get the word out there for these things. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, Councilwoman Eert. >> Sorry about that. Yeah. Um just wanted to um thank you for all your work first of all, but I also wanted to touch on the engagement piece and I know that there was this did this have outreach at the community cleanups as well. >> It did. Yes. Carissa Bradley for the record. So we did attend the I think there was two community cleanups within that seven-week period. One of them was in W four and I believe the other was in W five uh six six. Um so we did and we did attend the NABS that were available at that time. >> Okay. Are you sure it was w because I thought that we did not get included on that. >> It was at Ward 4. Sorry, I don't have the exhaustive list of our engagement in front of me, but I can get back to you on the exact dates, but it was in coordination with our uh housing and neighborhood development team that day. They were the ones passing out. >> Great. So, I really just want to highlight um the the kind of lack of engagement, I hate to say that, from people in my ward. Um, and I don't think it's because they don't care. I think there's a lot of people that are just kind of um think that their opinion doesn't matter to the city of Reno. Um, and I hope to kind of change that perception. Um, but I just really want to stress the um outreach that's needed for this community um in particular and um just make sure we're listening to them, too. I'm really would like to get um word for more engaged. Um and I think we can only benefit with what our planning could be for goals and and uh things like that if we have like kind of a unified um vision. So just really want to stress, you know, that there's um kind of a um a perception of not being cared about. And I just want to make sure that we're all working collectively um to uh fix that out in Ward 4 in particular. I'm not saying it doesn't happen other places too, but it's a very common comment that I receive from members of my uh ward. So, just wanted to say that it's not a criticism. Just um I want to make sure that we're really thinking about maybe different ways to engage in different wards. There's always a different kind of I always say it's a different vibe in every ward. Um but there this this area is definitely unique and I just want to make sure that we're trying to find ways that um fit each community to do outreach. >> Um that was it. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Another but yeah sorry I'm ready. Um yes, thank you for this information. In my in my private capacity, this is where usually I get to get involved where the data comes to, you know, a group where we get to go out and start solving problems or creating communication or whatnot around this information. So, it's fantastic. I do have one concern um with the demographics that just who naturally took the survey. Um, we're planning on our, you know, our planning session on October 29th is going to be, dare I say, more relevant to the age demographic of 20 to 50. The decisions we make and and prioritize and invest in are going to have the largest impact on that demographic, and they're the the ones that didn't take the survey at the highest level. Also, I'm concerned about that the survey respondents largely are home owners. Um, so there I see that not as necessarily I said the word concern, but it's an opportunity and I think it's an opportunity where we can pivot. I don't know how much a survey like this costs or how often um is best practices to re retake it, but I think that um drilling down into that specific demographic would be very valuable for our future planning here. Um there are things that the 55 and you know older crowd they move here for a certain thing and they are committed to that and I'm I'm almost there. So I'm not saying that those priorities are different than my own. What I am concerned about is that we're not addressing the willingness or necessarily getting enough of the information about maybe with public transport or different ways to um live and grow in this community um what people are really looking for now that they want to build a life here. So, if there are opportunities moving forward to do um surveys really specifically to those demographics, that would be great. and also the number of um I think we'll get a much higher response rate in that demographic if there are fewer questions and possibly multiple surveys around topics so that they can kind of bite off certain you know surveys topic by topic. Um but that's you know there's lots of different ways to go about that. So thank you for that work and um just wanted to ask for more digging into that demographic when we have the opportunity. >> Right council. Yeah. Um, thank you. I I just had one followup and that is that when I read the report, one of the things that stood out to me, um, aside from the thing about that I mentioned with our emergency services and all, but the other thing that stood out to me was that the environment was mentioned a couple times. So much so that I was surprised. I thought this many people care. Um, and we don't have something at the city either in our strategic plan specifically called environment. We might call it sustainability. We might call it parks and it's a proxy for the environment. But I saw nowhere on your presentation a reflection of that. And what struck me when I read the report um was that we should make sure this time that we come up with some ways to address these environmental initiatives. It it could be data centers. It could be wildlife. It could be our air quality. Could be our water quality. I don't know the specifics about what they're concerned about, but I see it nowhere reflected in your presentation today. And what I I remember when I read it, I was thinking, well, gosh, maybe we need a um you know, a commission or a body or an advisory group that's about the environment. It might be a good place to start. And I have mentioned it when we were reviewing boards and commissions. And I know our goal was to reduce the number, but sometimes, you know, if you take away one, there's an opportunity, which we did, I think one or two or three. There's an opportunity to add something back. And we have pretty much one person at the city working on environment and sustainability. They can't possibly capture all the many issues, whether it's electricity rates or nuclear power at data centers or um you know, uh water quality pollution in in our ponds. You know, I I just got an email about algae bloom in a pond in South Reno as an example. And it's something people who care about. And it may be that this public transportation issue too is tied into the environment issue about better health, uh more walking, but also uh better ways to get around that that aren't spewing carbon. Um, so I guess I would ask you in in preparation for our strategic planning, if you can relook at that data, you you mentioned it in the report again, but it's not in this presentation, and maybe think about because ways to improve our engagement in that area, and here's why I'm actually saying it. So, I've been on this council now go I'm in my 12th year, and um, we have done very little in this arena. We just really have. We we've done occasional spot activities. The cleanups, for example, are amazing. Um, and the fact that we're expanding them and providing better, but in the beginning when I got here, people were asking for compost pickups all the time, you know, tree uh waste to be able to compost. And uh we just got these all these butterfly uh petition in the last two days about not picking up leaf litter, leaving it so that we're not killing half the butterflies when we pick up the leaves. Um, we didn't know we were doing it, including me. I don't really pick mine up. I push them over. But the point is is that if the environment issues may be unmbedded in some of these other issues, and I'd love to see a point placed on it, maybe an advisory board, maybe another initiative, something more specific. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um, I want Jackie, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Jackie really was the one that said, um, I want to go out there and make sure we're getting all the feedback that we possibly can. Um, and and I think it's a space where I've really tried to lean into for a long time, but we get a lot of resistance. Um, I because I think we don't do criticism well, but I think uh that those are really opportunities that we can sort of uh shape our communication prop pro process and do a better job. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart, Jackie. she was like, "Nope, we're doing it. We We need to hear this." And I love that about her. She's not afraid um to dig in. And I think this is just the start, but it makes me really glad to see and I and Jackie is just all in. And so it makes such a big difference. And she wants to hear the feedback and wants to sit down with people one-on-one and it it really um has made a difference in my office. And so I just want to say thank you. I I'll send her emails all the time. Hey, can you meet with this person that no problem, she's so accessible, but the fact that she um really led the charge on this because we haven't seen that in a long time. Um and I think for us, this is really how we communicate is knowing what the public wants to see and what directions and those kinds of things. Um versus the way that staff wants to take us. They're very, very, very different. Um and so I think it's important to continue on with getting um these surveys out in as many hands as possible. And one of the best ways uh that I think we can do that is also going through the housing authority. they um I want us to be so careful about the technology aspect because I do see not just us but other um organizations that think that the technology is really going to capture what the broad view is and there are so many older folks or people with disabilities that are not using technology and and it still can be very challenging. the housing authority is a really great place um because they are some of our most vulnerable, lots of seniors um and so it can just be a remarkable way to hear from a group of residents um that aren't at the table certainly when it comes to technology. So I think that would be amazing. But I I know that this is evolving and you're just wanting to get the feedback and Naomi had the idea of you know the environmental side. I think that it's going to evolve and we'll be able to start to use that data in much more effective ways, but I'm really really glad to see this because I think it's the piece for the council that we live in the most >> and Jackie actually lives there. Um, and I haven't seen that before. And so it just I think it it just brings a whole new level to make our jobs connecting with the community in such a a different way. And then we actually have the data to back it up. So you don't think, oh, Hillary's, you know, going at me 10 times with this issue or that issue. You guys get to see from the data that it really does exist and it's not just, I think, siloed in in the council department. So that's going to make a huge difference. But I just I really want to commend Jackie for leaning into this and saying, I want to hear I want to hear from everyone. I I want to make sure um their concerns are being met. And it's very refreshing. So good job. I I hope you enjoyed this process. I know it's a lot. I know it's a lot, but it's going to make us so much better and some stuff we're not going to want to hear, but you know what? That's the only way that we're going to be better. >> Yes. Exactly, Madame May. This is, you know, I've been calling this like our baseline year. We're going to make a couple of mistakes in this and we're going to figure out how to learn from those and make it better in future iterations. And to your point, connecting what council is hearing, what staff is hearing, what we're all really figuring out what to make sense of that. Yeah, that would be great. And I think um reaching out to the housing authority um Councilwoman Taylor is on their board. She should put up a you know some sort of session where we used to knock on doors a lot over there and I think it can be super effective and the seniors love to interact. Um I know some people don't want to answer their doors, but over there the seniors really love when you knock on their doors and you know you take them food or you know want to chat about a survey. They're very very receptive. And so, um, I would just encourage it and happy to help. >> Mayor, could I have one more minute? Um, hold on one second. Um, Councilwoman Eert and, uh, Martinez, do you have any a second round? >> Uh, Council Member Eert here. Yeah. Um, I think that's a really great point that this is kind of a baseline and we'll see how we're improving um, as this outreach continues. And um again, just I'm a broken record, just really want to stress the importance of finding ways to engage uh with um the Ward 4 residents. We have people that are all the way up in the Cold Springs area, so um it's important that we get them, too. Um and I know you guys are doing your best and and uh everybody has a hard time figuring out how to reach everyone, but just we can keep trying to think outside the box on that. and uh get more engagement. I would appreciate it. Thank you. >> Okay. Thanks, Councilman Martinez. >> Thanks so much, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I think just reiterating some of the questions or comments that I heard um or that I mentioned earlier along with some of the opportunities that council member Anderson mentioned is looking at ways that we can reach some of those populations, whether it is racially diverse folks within our community or those renters that make up about half of the population in Reno. I think it's important that we capture some of that, especially if we're going to uh make sure to base our decisions in the strategic planning meeting on this data. We need to just make sure that it's concrete and informative in terms and representative of our communities. But really appreciate the efforts and getting this baseline established and you all taking the opportunities to be uh willing to listen to some of the hard conversations and sometimes it is difficult to hear these things but as an organization we want to continue to grow and make sure that we're meeting the needs of our community. This is the best way to do it. So I applaud uh your efforts and looking forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Really quickly uh Councilwoman Der. >> Yeah. I just wanted to flag uh three a couple more areas for when we get into our strategic planning based on this. >> So here's another disconnect. >> Public safety was very highly rated and yet the provision of service was kind of in the middle and in fact on on one of your quality of service charts it was right down at the bottom with code enforcement that they didn't feel safe but they really want to feel safe. So I think we have that's something we need to address. Um same with code enforcement. It wasn't as highly ranked as important, but it was low ranked as our how we're doing. Um, and then finally, it was very interesting. Traffic, traffic, traffic. We hear it all the time at council on these development projects, and it's something we say, "Well, we don't know what to do or we can't do it or it's an F." But the the residents do care. The residents do care. It comes up again and again. And then finally, I just wanted to say kudos to our city both. Um, Jackie, I wanted to reiterate the mayor's comments about doing this and being uh ready to hear the feedback. And then to the staff, I mean, look at what was very highly ranked city customer service, >> right? I I think we'd be remiss to not highlight that >> and and that's the note I wanted to end on is that overall we're doing pretty dang good um in terms of people being happy with with the response they get. The city, not everything, we're at 50%. you know, some agencies get even higher marks, so we have room to grow, but we're already doing pretty darn good. So kudos. >> Okay. >> All right. Okay. Anything else? Thank you so much. >> Um, sorry, this is Councilwoman Eber. >> Um, yeah, I just >> I want to also kind of piggy back off of Council Member Der with regard to traffic enforcement. that is a huge area of concern in my ward and I know that submitting these um issues to Reno Direct is helpful to get the resources where they're needed. Um but I'm I'm having a difficult time getting people to engage. Um the feedback I get is often that the phone number is not working for Reno Direct or the the um portal to submit um a uh an issue is too cumbersome. They don't necessarily want to create a profile and it's kind of hard to go through everything. So, I don't know if there's a way to simplify that or maybe we could collect feedback on um how to simplify that process in future outreach. Um but I just want to highlight that because it's something that I'm I'm constantly trying to um get into people's minds to submit things to Reno Direct, but it's not it's not easy to do if you're driving or um you know, if you're not really computer savvy. So, just wanted to share that feedback that I personally received. >> Councilwoman Eert, I'm going to have um our city manager address it. C >> Council Member Eert, will you please direct those people to me either via my mobile number or my email and then we can use that information. Well, first we'll get the information into the Reno Direct and then get their issue handled. But we'll also use that information kind of as a way to test where are we not serving, you know, at the excellent level. So just direct them to me and we'll get them not only the help they receive and we'll kind of figure out how to improve our system. >> I appreciate that, Jackie. And I have I know we've kind of discussed this before. I have shared your number with people, but again, I think they just don't don't want to do that. They don't want to take the time for whatever reason. it's easier for them to just kind of tell me and expect me to, you know, wave a wand and fix everything. But, um, I I do know and appreciate your willingness to just connect with anybody and try and find solutions. So, I'm going to thank you for that, too. >> Okay. All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Good work. Let us know how we can help if there's anything we can do. Okay. Yeah, there you go. I like it. Okay. All right, madame clerk, we are going to head into item C3. Um, do you have any public comment on this item? >> We do not have any public comment registered and have not received any correspondence for this item. >> Okay, Mr. Flansberg, the floor is all yours. >> I wanted to say good morning, but I looked up at the clock, so it's going to be good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. Right. >> All right. For the record, John Flansburg, regional infrastructure administrator. Um wanted to just uh bring back uh you you we came to you in April. Uh you had asked us to go out and do public feedback. We wanted to bring that here today and some options as it relates to our sewer fund and our user fees. Alignment with our strategic plan and strategic priorities of course fiscal sustainability. Uh sewer fund is its own enterprise fund. Uh it's a it's not a tax. It's a pay for service. Uh and also the infrastructure and environmental sustainability um able to do the things that we need to do. So, brought this back to you about six months ago. We did a two-month outreach uh to the public. Um took that public feedback, created some additional options, and we're here today to discuss them. So, one, I'm looking for direction today on those proposed sewer rate alternatives that we're going to be discussing. And two, also direction on the proposed changes to our uh sewer rebate program. So, those are the two things that we brought to you and the two things that we're seeking feedback on today. Um this describes the problem. So every two years we go through and do the uh analysis and when we did the last this last time about towards the end of uh of this past year um and and ran the analysis out it was uh we got a Houston we got a problem. So our sewer funds based on the program that we have in place uh we were going to be uh spending more than the revenues coming in. And why is that? And so we want to definitely uh go through those items today. Our sewer utility is runless like any other utility, just like Envy Energy, just like Tumla. We bill for a service. Um we are not a private business. We're not here to try to figure out how much revenue we can actually accumulate for the service we provide. We're just trying to get the revenues in to pay for the services that we need to provide. Um all the revenues go into the sewer enterprise fund. And uh today we're talking about the user fees and those that's what's paid by the residents and businesses on a quarterly basis for the use of the sewer, taking your water away and treating it. Uh we're not talking about connection fees as you uh know. We we went through that um discussion a couple years ago and made those uh increases to the connections. That's the one-time payment by developers. So again, user fees today. Thought it'd be interesting just to talk about what is it that I'm that I'm paying for. People always want to know, well, what what am I getting? Well, what you're getting is kind of important, I think. Um, health and sanitation is the uh number one priority that we have, and that's what um that's what we are able to provide. So, I thought it'd be interesting to just go through and say, you know, the rates that we pay today, it's about $2 a day uh for your single family home. Uh when you flush the toilet, it's 2 cents. Um so, that's about that's based on how much water you use and goes into a flush. That's not the water going into the bowl, it's the water going out of the bowl. So, of course, you have a water based charge on top of that. But for the sewer and the drainage, the drain, removing that water from your home going into the sewer, it's 2 cents a flush. When you take a shower, about a 10-minute shower is going to cost about 30 cents. Uh so, um I think that's kind of important to talk about. If you're going to do a bath, it's going to actually be quite a bit more. Baths are at least two times that of a shower. It depends on how big the bath is and how much you're filling in. When I have a my uh one of my grandchildren taking a bath, we don't fill up very big, but when somebody else takes a bath, they want to fill up much higher. So, uh just interesting fun fact. Uh dishwasher 10 cents a load. So, uh every time you run the dishwasher, it's about 10 cents. Um interesting. Uh when you run the sink, you want to wash your dishes by hand, it's 25 to 30 cents, about two and a half, three times uh or more depending on what you have. Of course, we don't just use uh we don't just wash run the dishwasher. We also are going to be uh uh rinsing off our vegetables. We're going to be cleaning off the the plates, the things that we do before we even load the dishwasher. So, of course, you're using water for that. Uh when you do your laundry, 21 cents a load. That's what we're talking about. 21 cents a load to when you do the laundry and and it goes down the drain. That's the cost of the sewer service. Um just thought it'd be interesting to kind of put in perspective. $2 a day is what we're looking at. What are the problems that we're trying to solve? Again, this isn't anything that we've changed the program and that we've got some, you know, big things that we're trying to do. We're just trying to keep up with the programs that we already have. And as we talked about, we're going to go through and talk about the construction costs, um, how those have outpaced our general inflation by by over 20%. We're trying to take care of our existing infrastructure at our Truckucky Meadows Water Reclamation Facility. It's 1965. It's 60 years old, and we um have a need now to do uh the deatering building. What is the deatering building? It's how we separate the solids from the from the liquid and uh and that's very important and it's time for us to uh to rebuild that. And so those are some of the big projects that we have. We want to make sure we can maintain our current service levels uh and solve the effluent management challenges. I I came to you uh seems like just yesterday, but I'm sure it's been a couple months by now uh to talk about the sewer and the challenges that we have and it's the water out once we treat it and what we do with the water out and how that challen those challenges are in the various areas. This is the graph that we use. This is for all construction types. Um uh that shows that about 20 little more than 20% increase over and above our general inflation that we've had. Water and sewer projects have actually been a little bit higher. You think about what you do in water and sewer. A lot of concrete, a lot of steel, aluminum, mechanical systems, that rate's a little bit higher. Um this is takes into effect, you know, even building construction, um highway construction, those types of things. But all levels of construction have seen increases. It's been at least this 20 21%. We showed this slide last time. Uh we were going through and saying we've done some lot some really great things in the last 10 years and being able to replace our infrastructure aging. Everything in black on the left 2015 uh being able to do a lot of that uh in 2025. But as you can see, we have more black coming on because time marches on. And so we're here uh we want to make sure that we can continue doing the uh the in infrastructure improvements that we need. We thought I thought uh you know we talked about what we did in the last 10 years. Maybe we should bring up a slide and talk about what we want to do in the next 10 years. And so in the last 10 years uh in the collection system improvements little about $108 million. We're looking at $162.3 million in the next 10 years. That isn't because we're doing a whole bunch more pipe than we did in the last 10 years. It's because the inflation on the construction is such that it's going to take that much more money now to do the same amount of work that we were doing in the construction contracts. Um lift stations. uh 38 million the last 10 years about another 29 million and we're just about done. We got a couple this year and next year and I think we're going to be done for a season on our list stations. We really uh emphasized those uh RZWorf uh we had last 10 years 6 point about $7 million. We said well how that can that possibly be we just expanded the situation just spent $55 million. That's because the $55 million expansion was all towards growth. That all goes towards the connection fee side. This is the portion that we spent that comes out of this fund and the what we're talking about today, which are the user fees. Uh Tumbarf improvements, we had $43.5 million in the last 10 years. Uh if we had just squeaked that two more years previously, you would have probably seen about another 25 million that we spent um because we had a major headworks problem, some things that were going on at that time. But in the next 10 years, we're looking about 156 million. Of course, I talked about the dewatering um building and there's some other very large projects uh in that horizon. reuse. We spent about nine a little over $9 million going forward. $94 million. Why? Wow, that's a big number. Why is that? Well, it's because $84 million of that is actually the advanced purified water project, which is that's half of the project um that is is included in the in the user fees, the other half in the um connection fees. Why are we doing that? Well, it's because we looked at it and council wanted to have a different option than having to discharge to Swan Lake. That's what the advanced purified water project does. Immediately as we do that, we're able to treat that water uh put it up put it into the ground and we get a we get a return on that because we actually create water rights and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Storm water 28 million in the last 10 years about 22 million in the next 10 years. Um again, these are specific to the uh replacement of storm water, not not for expansion. And so that's that's the investment we're looking in the next 10 years. I thought it was important to kind of spend a little bit of time on that. However, in the next couple years, we're looking at spending about 180 million. So, next two, three years. Uh these are the programs. Uh it says resorf, but really it's the reuse advanced purified water 84 million. Um tumorf uh 62 million the next couple years to three that we'll be committing uh the collection system storm waters we see. So, 180 million. The more detailed list is here, but that gets kind of busy and hard to see. So, we we just wanted to provide that um overview slide. happy to go through any other uh discussions. The big one here of course is expanded as the green is all the stuff at Torf. So recap on the sewer user rate study we conducted every two years. We've been great for the last 10 years uh with just CPI increases. We really got caught in that 2019 to 2024 uh uh increases in construction. The majority of our funds expended in the sewer user fee fund are not for people. They're not for uh those things. They are for projects, construction projects, a lot of contracts as you guys know because you you're they come here for you to approve and uh consultant agreements. And then of course uh the treatment costs, our everyday treatment costs are are big portions of that. Last true rate increase uh was approved by council in 2011. That was 8% per year for five years. Uh that completed in 2015 and since then we've only gone to um the inflationary uh index um from there on. So what did we put put into the model? Uh we updated all of our capital improvement projects um based on the actual inflation and what we're seeing in those costs. Uh we uh we actually reduced from our program. So this is so actually what we're bringing today isn't a continuation completely of what we're doing. We actually looked at where we thought we could reduce uh and that's about 22 million in the next 10 years. Um it does assume that we're going to be spending down our sewer fund balance because we've had these plan capital projects out there for a long time. the dewatering building, advanced purified water. Uh some of these things have been on the books for a while and we knew we're going to have them. So, we've been accumulating a fund balance. We're going to we plan to spend some of that fund balance down obviously to build these projects. And we're looking, of course, at this large near-term uh capital improvement projects of 180 million. So, public outreach, um we came to you said, "Here's what we need. We're going to need to have uh we need a 10% total increase. That's 5% per year uh was what the recommendation came through and we had to assume a cap uh an inflationary factor. We assume 3%. And so that was the 8 plus 8. So when we brought to you the 8 plus 8, that's what we did. This is what it looked like. This is what we went to public with from that. Um we put a sewer bill insert into all the bills, whether that's a digital bill or whether it was a physical bill. 80,326 customers. We sent out the e newswsletter. 32,735 recipients of the newsletter. Uh in that we had a a place uh both in the sewer bill, but you could either click or you had a QR code um that you could uh put in place. The e newswsletter had a place you could click to take the survey. Um we had press release. We had 42 news broadcasts, seven online articles and one public meeting. And from that we received 281 comments. Um, and so when you look at that, that is like that's three and a half comments for every 1,000 sewer accounts. That was the um that was the uh return on on what we ended up uh with in the public outreach. But there were themes from the 281 that we had and it was just concerns over just generally a fixed income and affordability. Uh it was request to um to not do just a flat rate. So in all of our residential bills there are flat rate building. I think it was said, can we do this more based on a usage building or can we create a monthly billing structure instead of a quarterly billing structure? Um, there were concerns about growth and development receiving breaks or waiverss or um that um that uh we we're using this fund to uh to bolster development. Uh there was opposition to the timing of the proposed increases and and the amount of the proposed increases. um in in the 281 comments we had uh concern about the the pattern, you know, how how quickly they would be going up. Um they wanted us to reduce our spending, revise our CIP. Uh um and we had one comment about advanced purified water about taking that out. Um what does that do to the rates? And so we we ran some of those. And then there was just general frustration overall with all government spending. It wasn't even it wasn't necessarily the sewer fund. It was just looking at all things So top reasonings reasons for opposing a sewer rate increase just general inflation concerns you know that's also our concern if it wasn't for the general inflation concerns that we are already experiencing and just running the utility we wouldn't need to have the rate um but we we take we understand that just the cost of everything we we hear that a lot um wanting to reduce the expenses ofstead that was 27 of those charge charge the developers more uh that's 23 three. If you go down two, it was new customers should bear a rate increase. Um, so just a a a thought on on, you know, a different way of doing it. Uh, 18 were um changing how we do the the billing. So these were these were some of the top reasons for opposing the rate increase. We had some generally supportive comments. Um, 20 2122 uh comments um they were supportive. They don't want to they want to make sure the system's sustainable and keeps running. They they understand that. Uh, appreciate that. Uh, they were saying we we can support it, but can you do a lower rate for longer, lower increase for longer? Um, uh, can you delay the increase to 2026? Um, again, remember we were we had this meeting back in in June. Um, and and these other reports that are there, too. So, with that, we took the public feedback and said, well, what can we do? So, um, we looked at a couple different rates. Um, we looked at going instead of just two years, what would it look like if we spread it out over three or spread it out over four? Um, we would have gone longer than that, but even our we you'll see the four-year, we had to have higher increases the first two years in order to make the everything work out. Um we did do one option to remove uh or to to to take out the advanced purified water project just to see we call that um kind of experiment with taking that out. Call that like a uh um thank you sensitivity um analysis. You take something out, you see how sensitive the rates were to that one that one particular project. And then we didn't have a consideration for this, but we did um receive those comments on usagebased billing and monthly billing and maybe there's something that you would like to that you would like to have us consider in that regard. And so I want to make sure I pointed that out. So what are the alternatives? Oh, one slide before we get there. I need to make you aware um because our inflationary index is uh in place uh in RMC um the uh CPI increase that we had estimated at three but actually came in at 2 and a half% did go into effect. It will be going out in these October bills. Um so that's uh so I want to make sure that um I communicate that to you. That equates to about $145 for a single family home per month and a$120 for a multif family home. So um so there is that increase. we are not trying to double dip on that increase or anything else. So when we present um the alternatives to you uh we we are including that this the CPI for right now. So we want to make sure everything was based on the same item but I do want to make you aware that this that people will be seeing their bills and it will have a slight increase based on the inflationary only for this past year. So rate alternatives alternative one that we brought to you was the eight on eight. It actually ended up being the 5%. It's 5% is is uh first year and 3% but it was only 2.5. So it's actually 7 and 12% plus five um plus the CPI for next year. So we'll just say that's assume 3% and it's going to be um that's that was the 8 plus 8 that's now 7 and a half plus 8. Alternative two, we looked at it from a little bit different approach. Um we said rather than talk about percentages all the time, what if we just talked about a dollar amount? And so we said, what if we just said $4 a month increase um each year uh for three years? So maybe that's easier to communicate. Um so I I I'm I know we're we are mixing a little bit of apples and oranges here, but I but you'll see what the rates look like on the next slide. Um but I just that was the thought behind it rather than talking about things get confusing. It's just it's $4 a month per year um the next three years. So $4 now cumulative eight the next year cumulative 12 the following the third year. Um alternative three was looking spreading it over four years. Again we tried to make those incrementals the same. Couldn't make the math work uh in the model. So under under our current program. So it was 4% plus the CPI uh for the first two years and one and a half% plus CPI for the next two. And finally alternative four was that experiment looking at sensitivity analysis. Um, if we remove the APWF project and we only had CPI, what does that do? And, uh, and we'll show that to you. Um, I will, um, say that even if we took out our largest capital improvement program, um, we are still spending $9 million more a year over and above our revenues. And so, we're spending down our cash um, uh, for projects that we had been saving the money for, but not getting that that a benefit. So, we'll talk about that. This is a super super busy slide and I'm sorry but I don't know how else to convey this uh to so you could see the numbers side by side. Um alternative one the first two boxes there year one uh are in solid green. That's because that's that's the rate increase. Years three and four with the dash boxes around it. That's because it's only um inflation just just CPI. And we had to do that because you'd want to see what the end result was for all four years if we're looking at a four-year model. Um, so I wanted to make sure I was clear about that. So, um, again, that's the, uh, the first year. Uh, these are all single family homes and and I don't blame you if you have questions, so please, uh, alternative two was the three-year. Again, the reason the numbers don't change is because we said $4 a month a year increase over three years. Um, that's where we would end up. It'd be a three-year alternative and we would have the dash box on the bottom, the $211. That fourth year would be based on uh CPI. Again, assuming 3% for CPI for all across the board. Alternative three, uh the four-year um you can see the uh the numbers uh didn't change that much. uh but that that gave us that option to have the 4% uh the first two years and one and a half the last two and then finally alternative four was just CPI only. That's just assuming 3% each year except for the year one which is 2 and a half% because we know what that number is. We don't know what CPI is going to be uh in the years going forward. So, um, with that, um, again, single family homes, if you were looking at multifamily homes, it would be 85% of this. Uh, so just, uh, be clear, but it's a lot of numbers. It's a lot of graphs, a lot of charts. There whole bunch of ways we could do it. This, we kind of landed on this. So, next cash flow. This is the cash flow under alternative one. Again, we have these huge $180 million worth of projects in the first three years. We're going to be spending down that fund balance. Uh and then we kind of level out um going forward with the remaining number of projects we have and we still have significant amount of projects coming in. Uh but we are able to handle it. We have the revenues that are coming in that are um that are covering our expenditures. We're not outspending um the revenues. Uh I want to talk about cash flow for a second. Cash flow is only one indicator of financial health. This is just the fund balance in your checking account um looking out going forward as we project forward in in what what we see here. And uh and it's not it's not all the parameters, but it's a good parameter for us to compare revenues and expenses to see if we're if we're balancing out or if we're getting uh if if we're getting unbalanced. And that's that's the purpose of doing a cash flow analysis. I bring this up because we're going to show the cash flow balance for number two. Again, when we look at these things, that's what we're looking for. You'll if you look really, really close at 2028, you'll see that it's actually slightly below that line. When we run these models, we have to end up taking the expenditures in that year. Um, we we can we can we can manage through that small of a of a difference and still maintain our our uh um cash the cash operating reserves that we have. But I just wanted to and and when we ran these analysis first, we were looking at an October 1 implementation date and we we we have not made that obviously because so the earliest we could do this is now January 1st. So I just wanted to point that out. Um alternative three looks very similar. Um and it's but it's got a little bit more of a gap. So it's a little bit more of a concern there and just how we manage through that 2028. Um but we but but this this techn we we believe we can get through this uh which is why we're still bringing it back as an alternative. And finally, the fourth picture is removing the advanced purified water project. And again, that looks great when you're looking at cash flow until it doesn't. Um and the problem with this one, as I mentioned, is $9 million a year we're spending down our cash reserves. Um and we don't get uh the project. Well, what does that mean? Well, $84 million is in our rate model, so that's it's obviously a huge project. Um, we're spending down 9 million more than we're taking in, which is a problem. Um, and then we still have some other issues with with taking this one out. We did it for sensitivity analysis, but then we we understand that there's been some, well, maybe that's what we should do. Well, we've got a $55 million investment up in Resworf for the expansion from two to four. Uh, we can't take in advantage of till we have the water out. We've got $14 million in the design cost for advanced purified water. Um, where we stand today, uh, we have $39 million in grant. And just the great news, uh, that we we had the $30 million grant from Bureau of Rec. We were a little concerned about what was going to happen with that. We did receive the paperwork. The agreement is in place. That one is now solid. Um, uh, Wo County, um, they want to decommission their plant and when they do so, they're going to have to pay our connection fee to connect to us. And so there is some money coming from them um that would help offset the the cost of of that project. And uh and then we we create water rights. And so in our model um we actually have revenues coming back into the sewer fund uh under the first three alternatives, but we have to remove that out and that kind of makes it so towards the end of that 10-year things dip a little bit faster. Um and then of course we're still four to five years out when we finally have everything in place and running and going well up at North Valley's. Um if we delay that anymore, it's going to that's going to push that four to five years out and we we can't project that far out. But I just wanted to share that in versus the the alternatives. So this is this picture that shows you the the four alternatives all next to each other. Um so you can kind of see the differences. You can tell that one, two, and three. We we made it so that those in in the model we made it so that those would basically kind of help balance out and they and they generally do. Um and then we have alternative four. Going through my notes because I don't want to miss anything. [Applause] All right. Linger here just for a moment. If you guys are all good here, see the differences. we'll go to the final recap of just the rate portion of this. So based on the alternatives, um we're looking at financial targets, making sure we have the operating reserves that we would need under each of the different scenarios. Alternative one, we hit we are able to do that. Alternatives two and three, we're going to have to manage through that one year where things are, you know, they're they're certainly manageable, but but a little bit cautionary. Um in alternative four, we don't at the end. If we only go by inflation only, we're not going to be solvent at the end of that 10-year period, and we're spending down those uh our our cash reserves. Um and not getting a project. Uh taking care of our existing infrastructure, all of the alternatives would do that. Maintaining our current service levels, all of the alternatives would do that. And then finally, that effluent management solution. Um the first three we get, we have that. And number four, we do not have that. We would not have an effluent management solution water out for north valleys. Um, so I will pause there um and take uh ask for questions. >> Okay. All right. Thank you, Jonathan. I'm going to start to the right of me. Uh, Councilwoman Anderson, go ahead. >> Thank you for the education that you've provided me in the last year on how important this is. I don't remember which um which slide it was, but I really appreciated how you broke down the cost of every day clean water is the number one ingredient in all of us being able to live our lives. And so, um I appreciate you break, you know, breaking it down to what it costs each time somebody takes a shower, takes a bath, flushes their toilet, um rinses their vegetables. It's you can't have a life without clean water. So, it's very helpful to be able to turn around um with very concerned constituents that don't want their cost to go up. It's it helps us turn around and say, "But let's really talk about how much of a priority this is." So, that kind of education is very helpful. So, I just wanted to um acknowledge your team for that. And I might have more questions in a bit. >> Right. Counciloman Taylor. >> Thank you. Um John, do we have a GMP for APWF yet? We do not have the GMP. We're sitting at 90% design, approaching 100% design. So, we will not have that for um a few several a few months. So, >> Weren't we supposed to have it in December? >> We Yes. But that date has pushed a little bit. So, I would say we're probably by the time we can bring something back to you, I'm saying it's probably five or six months is what I'm understanding. >> We're five or six months out from having what happened. I think it's just the uh um review of review of the getting that final 90% design to 100% design um so that the they can actually finalize those estimates. >> So how do we look at a rate increase without having that final number when it's such a significant part of our and I'm not necessarily against a rate increase. I just don't want to do this more than once. So, how do how do we look at a rate increase right now without having that information with such a large project? >> No, that's a great question. Um, you know, the the the real big changes happen in a project happen between 30% and 90%. Those are when you're really, you know, new processes may come in, which they did. Um, and and so, do we do we know the exact process? No. But do we feel that we have a a really good handle on where the process are going to be? We do. But we have the actual cost. No, we don't. Um and so >> so what was that at like two what was the cost of that at 90%. >> So we are at um and I'm I apologize because there's the total project cost and then there's the cost in my head because I'm dealing with the rates and what goes in the fund and how that works. So we are counting on um uh >> what number are you using for this >> 84 million for this half 84 million for the connection fee side half >> for the city of Reno's portion. >> Okay. So in six months, you don't think that is going to change drastically? >> I don't think that's going to change drastically in in the uh um when we get the final GMP. >> Okay. >> And again, those are net because we because we also have the grants and things that are offsetting some things, but yes, those are the >> And then in one of the presentations that I saw, it was there was a 0% or zero dollar change if we took out APWF. And I think that what has happened in that time um since the briefing when we removed APWF with and we had CPI um included the the amount needed was $0. >> Nothing has changed um because we would obviously be able to go through a few years without having without meeting or breaking one of our fund requirements. what's changed or or I think the concept I want to communicate is we are outspending our revenue. So even without APWF we would still need a rate increase. In fact we ran a we ran a scenario um to say well what does that look like and we would still need a 4% increase plus the CPI. >> So one of my questions might be is what can we do with what we have? And I don't know if you have an answer with that right now, but and I'll I'll yield my time and think about that. Thanks John. >> Councilman Ree. >> Well, I think Vice Mayor Taylor raises a good point, Mr. Fansburg. So perhaps there's an answer. I I I think I'm looking at alternative 4, which I think is the scrap APWF or shelvet, which is I think what Miss or Vice Mayor Taylor is suggesting is an option, which results in no increase. Right. But from my perspective, I think that that kicks the can down the road too much. It also strands the asset. Right. We've already made assumptions about how RZWorf would off operate and without APWF, it doesn't allow it to do reach its capacity level. So that means we would have invested 55 million in that project plus the design cost for APWF. Right? So in my mind, that's not an alternative, right? So, I don't know. It's been presented as an alternative, but that's not realistic. That just allows us to strand an asset and kick down the can to some other council who would be forced to pick up the pieces of it. Uh, for my part, I think you've done a good job of identifying the alternatives. Um, I'm inclined to think that alternative one is the best path forward because it is not significantly different on an annualized basis. I mean, the difference between um alternate one and alternate 2, for example, is literally pennies. I I'm it's pennies, right? And so, while I understand the difficulty of all of these costs on a household budget because we're all dealing with, as you said in the feedback, um, the increased cost and of course some multi-millionaire largecale housing owners will pass that cost onto their tenants, right? They think that that's the way to do it, right? I think that people have to understand that those are costs that we're all bearing and some people who are multi-millionaires are going to pass it along their tenants, which I think is shameful, right? But I don't think that's a reason not to make the best decision we can. What is the professional recommendation of staff? >> Um I would recommend um either alternative one or two. Um and I and I say that because they're not, as you mentioned, they're not materially different. We did receive some public feedback on trying to go a little lower for longer. Um but either one or two in my opinion um uh meets our our sustainability fiscal sustainability that we need for the fund. >> Yeah. I'm just not sure that the difference between the 44 cent spread out over 12 months. I I know maybe messaging wise it seems like an easier number, but it doesn't really move the needle financially. And I just think we have an obligation to not do what the council did prior to 2014. I think was the benchmark you put which is that they just delayed delayed delayed. So then the councils over the last nine or 10 years have had to replace all this pipe. They've had to spend all the money that you've identified. I think that's unfair. Right. It it burdens future councils when we really have to just take the adult path and be thoughtful in our approach. Um so I'm I'm interested to hear my colleagues comments. I don't know that anyone has said which position they are. I I think alternative one is perhaps the best path. >> Okay, Councilman Dur. >> Yeah, thank you so much. Well, thanks for an excellent presentation and I appreciate the work that you guys have done and I'm particularly impressed with the fact that when you heard we'll take out this big project, this advanced purified water APW, that you did it and you ran all the numbers. And I think your last statement was important a few minutes ago where you said even when we took it out, it did not materially change things. And I think that's probably because the time frame we're looking at is like a 30-year bond or something. And when you look at these long time periods, it's it just doesn't make that much of a difference. Is that did I state that correctly? >> It it the uh the difference was even though it's a large project and it's early on, we and we've been saving for it for many many years now. Um the material difference is that a reality is because of the inflationary increases and our just general construction costs and in our operations >> those are over topping. >> We are still spending 9 million a year more than we're bringing in. And we've and we and that's not a good that's not sustainable at all. >> Right. And can you put up this slide over our team with the record or clerk uh the slide that shows alternative four the the details about that? >> This one. >> There you go. So, I think it's incredibly important. I some people weren't here when we made some of the decisions we did and you didn't get a buyin, but let me just remind you of some of the decisions we made. We decided to double the size of the Reno Sparks treatment plant from 2 MGD to 4 MGD. And at that time, we did not know where we were going to put the wastewater. We had had 2017, we had the flood in Swan Lake. We've had almost a $4.5 million judgment or settlement against us because of things that happened in that event. Um, so we looked at things. Do we put more water in Swan Lake? Do we build a reservoir? Do we discharge water to California through Long Valley Creek? Well, the council at the time said, "We do not want to send any water to California, no matter how clean or dirty it is." That's just off the table. The reservoir, very outdated technology. Half the water evaporates. and you're losing four feet off top of the reg the reservoir a year due to evaporation. So we said we challenged our staff to come up with something better. What else can you do? Well, they looked all around the country and they said this advanced purified water is a really good idea. We we many of us that were serve on Tamwa or Western Regional Water Commission, we went to California, we went to Colorado, we went to Florida and we saw what they're already doing there, which is a simplified version of what we're trying to do here. We have extra requirements because DP D decided we should do extra sand filtration, store water for 5 years, and now they're looking at removing those requirements. But if we do not do this, we are going to have to have a mortorium there. You cannot treat more water and have no place to put it. We we built the the plant on the idea that build it and we'll figure it out. So we can't just sort of not figure it out. Otherwise, we can't add this is your um what do you call the uh program where we're sending the water dirty water back to Tammorph. >> Oh, the the flow shave. >> The flow shave. We're out of room. There's no more flow shave. I mean, we we can't add another unit, another development, uh, industrial buildings. We we are out of capacity. So, we've got to recognize where we are. And I don't know if anybody wants to sign up. We discussed a moratorum. We said, should we just do a moratorum? And there wasn't an appetite for that. And then, um, remind this, we can't send more dirty water down the Chucky River. The the Native American tribe, the Pyramid Lake PA tribe has a bright line and by the time no water gets there, it has to be ex pure. We we can't continue to load Pyramid Lake. So, we're really we're really in a tough place. And 10 years ago, over 10 years ago, all the electeds that are on regional planning said the number one issue in our Reno Sparks area is not fire, it's not water provision, is not policing, it is sewer. 10, well, now almost 12 years ago, we all got together. There was a 100% commitment to that. So, I I have to just end this little part with complimenting you guys for saying, "We heard you. Let's see what it does." I got to compliment you, Jackie, for staying the mission. I've heard you say, "This is a very expensive project. Can we afford it?" And we have to afford it. Otherwise, we must stop growing. Sparks is already out of um sewer capacity. They're borrowing it from us at Tom Warf. They're they're on loan and we are out. So, we got to do something. I think we've got to uh bite the bullet and do our APWF and I I can't give either you Jackie and your predecessors and you John and the team here retrina etc for facing the problem and dealing with it. So thank you. >> Thank you Council D. I would only make a slight correction to what you said and that would just be we didn't move forward with the expansion of Resworf until we landed on a solution. So >> well we had a solution but today >> but all those things were leading us to advanced purified water and moving forward with it. But I mean, just I've heard some conversation about maybe we don't do that thing. And I I'm I'm sorry. We're very far down the path. Our whole growth model is built on it. I you know, you can always stop. If you're out of money, you can stop, but you have to also recognize the consequences. That's all I'm saying. And I'll come back with round two on my thoughts on the actual rates. >> Okay. Counciloman. >> Yeah. Thank you for all this information, John. I know you and your team work so hard on this. Um, I have a couple questions. One of them being um, what when was the last time we had an increase on new development sewer connection fee? >> That would have been January 2023. >> Okay. And prior to that, when was the last increase? >> It was a long time. >> Okay. So, we've only had about one increase on the development connection fee piece. Correct. >> Very, very recently. And we also had put in there that it would increase by inflation um each year as well. >> Okay. So it is now increasing. Yes. Okay. And you mentioned the cost per shower and toilet flush all that. That's very interesting information. I'm curious about how we could move forward with having a fee per use. I we clearly know how much water is going in. um why aren't we looking into ways to um bill people for usage? You know, you hear the cost of doing business, you know, that's people doing their business. They should pay for it, right? Um so I'm curious why that hasn't been kind of pursued more. Um >> so we we actually did take I'm sorry if I may. Um, for the record, John Flansburg, we actually in 2015 14 2015, we actually did look at doing a water usage at that time, uh, Tumbla and and, uh, Wash County Water Resources were combining >> and so they didn't have a lot of bandwidth to put in towards that project in terms because we get the water billing from them to know what the usage is. >> Okay. Um, and as we were looking through that process at that particular time, it was going to cost something in the neighborhood of $400,000 a year, additional administrative costs to pull that information in, just uh run all the numbers and then pull out because what you you don't bill people for their water usage in the summer because they're doing irrigation and stuff like that. So, you look at their wintertime use and then that's what you charge them for that following year. And so, that's the process you have to go through. And then you have a um administrative costs of of just answering questions that come in uh different things. Let's say it's January and your pipes froze and you uh and you have a big water usage because your pipe froze and and was spewing water everywhere. Well, um that you obviously don't want to be built for your sewer for that. So, we just have to take some of those um things, special cases, if you will, and make sure that we're handling those. That being said, um uh we think that it it may be worth looking into again. Um we we have uh the data sets that we have today and what we can do with data sets is so much more advanced than what we had 10 years ago. Yeah. >> Uh it may be a much less cost pulling that information >> and I would really like to see analysis of you know what potentially how that could impact the revenue kind of generated from that. you know, if it's worthwhile. Um, I think that's something we should definitely look into. Um, also, um, you know, I've I've heard some comments today that I completely agree with, um, regarding, um, the importance of of water. Um, I bring this up because of, you know, a Stonegate development that's coming in and, um, I personally have concerns about water infrastructure and, uh, I'm kind of seeing this similar type of problem happening down the road in that area where, um, the development is not going to build the infrastructure and in some time the city council and county commission are going to be looking for ways to build um infrastructure. So, I'm really concerned about doing things like taking away uh expiration date for sewer connection fee credits, things like that. Um and you know, any any kind of way where development isn't paying for itself. I think that um as a strategy we need to make sure that we stay on that course because um we're dealing with the fallout now um of some of the the previous decisions and um I I just hope that um the leadership can kind of learn from I don't want to call mistakes but learn from history um to to do better in the future. But I really want to make sure that we're exploring the fee per use. Um, I know that I personally have seniors on a fixed income that, you know, they tell me they're not going to the bathroom that much, but they have to say pay the same fee as someone else. You know, these are single people. And I I think it's appropriate in this time of of trying to figure out how to pay for this that we figure out who who should be paying more of the share of that. So that's it for right now. I might have another round later. >> Okay, Councilman Martinez. >> Yes. Thanks so much, Madame Mayor, and thank you, Miss Vber, for the presentation. Um, I am curious sort of just to hear more about the alternatives and I there was one point that you made about a requirement of the ending cash balance and your graph seem to mention the first point being at about $20 million. So, I couldn't really tell what the ending cash balances were on some of those alternatives. I don't know if you can clear up some of that information on your graphs that you have up right now. >> Yes, I certainly. So in the alternative one, we we actually do in that last year fall a little bit below. It's 10 years out. Um the reasons that alternatives two and three do not do that is just because we extend that rate increase over more years and and the compounding effect of the of the inflation over those that third and fourth year does just raise that up by some pennies and and really in 10 years pennies matter. Um and and that's why uh we we get above that uh line and that line also increases uh from the minimum. The rust colored on the bottom that's the that's the required operating reserve and the blue is our goal which is two times the required operating reserve. Why is that? Well, we are only talking here today about operating reserves. Uh we we don't we we don't have anything in here for capital reserves. The only thing that gives me comfort that we don't have that is because we have um a fairly significant capital improvement program, replacement program. And so you look at that as like pay as you go. We are bringing in those revenues and we're spending those projects and getting those down. So we we don't have as much risk of having some failed capital because we haven't we don't have those kind of projects going on every single year. Was I was I able to answer your question, Council Member Martinez? >> Miguel or Councilman Martinez? >> Maybe we lost them. >> Oh, no. >> Maybe we lost him. Okay, Councilman Anderson, go ahead. >> Yeah, I just wanted to um get out there that I am inclined to support alternative one. I agree with you, Miss Door. we're too far down the road on this and this is going to be a really important project for the future of just our infrastructure in general and potentially for the region at large. Um, one thing that I and I also think that making the hard decision and doing it once is is the right idea and if we're going to make the decision, um, let's do it in the way that sets the city up in the best, you know, success to get these projects off the ground. One thing that um I'm I don't know the answer to. So I thought it would be beneficial to ask you when you say um now we're creating water rights with this. Why why is that important to the city, you know, to any Joemo that's paying this? Why is it important that the city's creating water rights? >> Yeah. So great question. Thank you. For the record, John Fansburg. Um we have a partnership with Tamwa and in that partnership, you know, they're paying a portion of the project, we're paying a portion of the project. Um we al also are getting back the water rights. What's important about that is we're spending this money up front to do this project, but we're going to have revenues coming back to the sewer fund to offset uh some some of these costs that we put into it. And so, um I see that as being very important because it it helps our fund stay strong. And that's what our models do show that, you know, we give ourselves several years before we start bringing those revenues in, but then we start doing that. Um and that's what I mentioned about when you look at alternative four, you see those last few years and it and it dips down quite a bit. is because we have offsetting revenues coming in in alternatives one through three. We do not have that alternative four because without the project we don't make the water. We don't have the water rights to sell. We don't get the revenue. >> Right. Council Taylor, >> thank you. I I just it's not really a question. It's just a comment for my colleagues. I'm not like I said, I'm not necessarily against a rate increase. Um but I want to make sure that we do this at the right time. And I think from a financial responsibility perspective, I would rather wait until we have a GMP. I think that the the price could change and then we would need to reset. So, um that's those are my comments at this time. Thank you. >> All right. Anything council? No. Councilman Der, go ahead. >> Um just a few follow-ups. Um so, you know, I know I was sounding a little stern and I didn't mean to have a stern tone. What I meant was it is very hard when we make decisions. You will all experience this. You make a decision, you do the best you can, but then hindsight or people are questioning that decision. And to your point, John, um we have received of the 84 million. I want to make sure this is true for APW. Um 30, it says 39 million, I think. Um is that 39 million? That's what we've already received. 39 million is what we have in grants towards this project to offset the overall costs. Um again our portion is the 168 84 times two because 84 in the user fee side which is what we're talking about today 84 in connection fee side. The 39 is the total grants okay >> received for the project. Um but um if we were to delay the project and we weren't able to enter and and begin spending the money and doing that grant, we we would lose that. That's not a >> we have to pay that back. Not that's not an ongoing thing. We we wouldn't be able to take advantage of it. We're not it's not paying it back. It's we wouldn't be able to take advantage of >> Oh, so it's pay as you go. Like in other words, we haven't received it yet. >> Reimburseable type. >> Gotcha. And then the other thing is I great question by council member Anderson about the water rights. So you wrote down that uh going back to that last slide again 60 million I think and is that coming to Reno or Tamwa or how does that work? So that would be um so the the agreement we have is Reno pays 70% of the cost of the project uh TAMWA pays 30%. On water rights, Reno gets 60% of the benefit. Tuma gets 40% of the benefit and then on ongoing replacement so future maintenance of the advanced purified water outside of the fence we call it at Rizworf. That's 100% TAMWA. >> Tamwa. Yeah. Okay. But >> that's how we set the agreement. >> So do we get 60% of 60 million? we're going to get 60% of >> so 36 million. >> Okay. So that's really good to know that what we're doing is we're taking something that is considered bad and we're turning it into a valuable asset. >> I mean something worth value that people pay $60 million for. I mean that's huge. Um, and I think it's important in the driest state to understand that we have sustainable water resources, especially in north valleys where at least going through the middle, we got the Truckucky River and we got groundwater. But in the north valleys, you know, we're quite challenged. I mean, we have groundwater levels dropping. I think council member Eert was bringing alluding to that. We have some challenges there with water availability. So, they're really going to end up being restricted north valleys by both sewer and water availability. So anyway, as far as the uh which way to go, I had decided prior to this I was going to go with the group because all many of these options are equal one, two, and three in terms of how much they bring in. It's more do you want pain up front, pain spread out, you know, it's it's six of one, half dozen another. I always like simple, so I was leaning towards alternative two because they're very easy to explain. And I did want to put in a pitch. I would like to see us go to a uh usagebased billing. That would be so much fairer. You know, if you're going to use a lot, you're going to pay more. If you're going to use a little, you're one or two person household, you're going to pay less. And number two, billing monthly, a quarter of the bill is is a lot easier to face. Or a third of the bill, excuse me, um is a lot easier to face than the whole bill. And is the whole bill something like $180 per quarter or something? So, I mean, it's a lot easier to think about, let's say, $60 a month, making it more real as to what you just did and what you're paying than quarterly. I mean, people have a hard time sometimes saving up for a bigger bill, like a an um quarterly bill or an annual bill. So, I I'm with Council Member Eert on that. If we could do that as part of this, I think it'd be great. >> Go ahead. >> Oh, yeah. Hold on one second. >> I just want to make a response. We won't be able to do it as part of this. It's going to take some time. Um I have sent an email request in to ask the finance team to give me a cost allocation and an explanation of how we would get both to monthly billing and to a usage base. So it's the request has been made. We will report back to you. I just want to make sure that we manage expectations. It won't be in the same time frame, but I hear you. >> But maybe within a year maybe. I I think that's doable. Yes. >> Um go ahead. Okay. Um I had a question about the Swan Lake area as well. I know that we had flooding out there. Um is part of the um motivation for this project to get rid of wastewater that we, you know, need a place to put it. We aren't by the Treky um river or anything like that. Is that is that part of what we're trying to solve for? >> So, we treat the water and so it's a highly treated effluent. Um, but yes, one of the things we're trying to do is to not be dependent on only having a discharge to Swan Lake, but actually uh >> treating the water to portable water standards so that we can uh store it for future use in water. >> Okay. Okay. So, I only bring that up because I know that there has been a lot of frustration from um a golf course in my area. I believe it's technically county land, but there's been um a lot of frustration because of the bill that this golf course is receiving. Um but there are golf courses in the South Reno area that are getting their their water for free. And I know an explanation that I've been given many times is, well, they need a place to get rid of the water in South Reno area, but it sounds to me like there's a similar issue in the north valleys. And I guess what I'm trying to get at is I don't understand why that the north valleys should be charged for doing the same thing as golf courses in the south. And if we're looking for ways to generate revenue, um then why aren't we charging the golf courses in uh the south part of Reno? Like I just really struggle with um discrepancies in how we um do business with different people. I really am not comfortable with this person gets this, this person gets this, they don't pay anything. and up there where we literally had a homes flood um because of Swan Lake that we were we are um charging a golf course, you know, a significant amount of money and um I don't personally golf, but I've been there and they're only watering little strips, you know. Um so they're definitely, you know, not not super users, but they've offered to create like a retention area too, reservoir. Um I we've had a lot of requests from them to kind of engage with the city and and share the load. So I don't I don't really understand those two parts. One, why are we not charging everyone for water? And two, um you know, why uh I just lost my train of thought. Why didn't we engage more with outside solutions that didn't cost the city of Reno as much money? Cuz I know that the golf course also paid for the purple pipe to bring the affluent out to their location. That's something I'd like to see continue with other types of development, data centers, whatever out that goes out there that um needs to use water like we have solutions for um using these waters. So I just want a little more information on that. No, thank you for the question. For the record, John Flansburg. So, I too have the same frustrations that you have and I want to be very clear about this. The city of Reno does not send a bill to the Sierra Sage Golf Course. We have an agreement with Wo County. We send the bill to Wo County. It's part of the agreement when we built the infrastructure out there that we both shared in the cost of of building it out uh their golf course. um they make make the decision to pass that cost on to the golf course and so they they have moved that over. They also being Wo County have made the decision in the south to not charge for water. We benefit that from the city of Reno because they they don't charge us for our parks in South Reno. Um but they made the decision to not charge for the water um because they want to get as much usage down there as they can. they only have so much uh volume that they can hold in the reservoir and they need to be able to have a place to to use that. So, it's the county who chooses not to charge the golf courses in the south and it is the county who chooses to pass those costs on to the golf course in the north. So, they they they incur costs both ways. Um because they incur costs at the treatment plant for that whole system they have going out there, they just reallocate those costs to the sewer users. Mhm. >> So if you live in W 6, you are going your bill the of course we bill you our rate. We have to pay watch county their rate. That's kind of that's one of the things I'd love to talk to you all about. Maybe we will us the regalization study um coming out. But um but that's the discrepancy. Councilman Reird. It's not it's not a matter of that you know that that we're treating people disparitly at the city of Reno. >> Okay. So, if I'm understanding correctly, we send a bill to the county for the water for the golf course in the north valleys. Do we send the same equivalent bill to the golf courses in South Reno for water usage to the county? >> We we're not their service provider. >> Okay. Okay. >> Their service provider is Wo County. We send Wo County a bill that covers the water use that we send to uh the golf course and to the sports complex. Okay. And they so they they pay they they separate those costs themselves. >> Okay. So has there been any communications with Wo County to maybe modify this agreement? Because something that I run into a lot and it's frustrating is you get into Ward 4 and there's a lot of patchwork of um annexation and services and who does what out there. And it's really frustrating to get things done when it's a lot of well that's not us, that's them and the back and forth. Um, I'm not really interested in that. I'm looking for a way to um get rid of those areas where it's we can't fix it because it's another jurisdiction. I think we should be focusing energy on like how do we not have this problem anymore? I mean, it's ridiculous. I know you're probably sick about sick of hearing about it, but we need to to work together on this and fix it. >> You know, one person own it then county or city, whatever. But it shouldn't just be, well, I send it this and then they send that and whatever. Um, and it just it looks like it's um, you know, intentionally kind of difficult to, you know, be be hard to unravel by design, you know, like it's a feature, not a bug. And I'm not saying that's true, but um, that's definitely the perception um, in some of these cases. So, and that's not your fault. I know um county has a part in it, but I'm just kind of expressing um >> feedback and I appreciate you you mentioning that because it it was like this, but that was the process for ever um before that even came up and it wasn't and it wasn't ours, it was counties. So I I think there I think there was some um communication efforts of who it was and they thought it was the city and that happens a lot actually people think oftentimes oh that's the city and really it's sparks or whatever like it just happens people don't understand the jurisdictional areas and I think that that's very common and um makes sense and then then I I I mean, how many times have we gotten blamed for other things that you're like, that's not in the city. So, it just happens because people don't understand the jurisdictional boundaries, which is okay. But, you know, to your point, then it makes it look like what's going on. >> Anyway, um, thank you so much. Uh, I'm going to send it Councilwoman Der. >> Yeah. >> Um, you you're the one that >> has really dug into this. >> Well, water expert. What do you >> Yeah, I mean I am listening to my colleagues and I I expressed that I didn't personally have a preference other than I always like simplicity and that's why I thought it was easier to understand explain alternate two where it's almost like a you can understand the increase. It doesn't go up and then really up and then down and then further down. I mean and and people are like what are we doing? Um, so my preference is two, but I heard two people say of the seven say that they like alternative one and I'm fine with that, you know, whichever way we want to go. Um, but I'm happy to make a motion. Um, no one's happy to make a motion on raising rates, frankly, but I'm willing to take the bullet, so to speak, on that. >> And I do have item number two. It's a very much smaller item than the first. >> Well, what if we just tackle this first and Okay. So >> Susan, you want to come? >> Oh, here we go. >> Oh, okay. Separate. >> Yeah, separate. >> Separate. Uh, Susan's part two. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Exactly. So, um, I would move to direct staff to create an ordinance introduction following alternative one as it relates to sewer user fees and for staff to create a resolution to make the following changes. Well, and and just leave it at that. >> Okay. I have a motion. I have a second. Any discussion? >> I do. >> Go right ahead. >> Um, yeah, I really really understand the importance of an infrastructure. That's a constant pain point in my ward is that infrastructure has been kind of kicked down the road and now like the chickens have come home to roost kind of deal, right? So, I definitely understand that, but I have a difficult time making a decision on this that's going to affect people um on fixed incomes when we haven't done an analysis. We don't know how much revenue we would generate if we did use more of a um um fee scale or um usage fee scale. Um, and I know council member Derer has brought that up several times. It's not like this is a a new idea, but I'm just not able to support this. I I I know people that can't afford this. Um, so I just can't I can't do that. Um, and also it's it's difficult for people to have a big bill. I know it's quarterly, but people get sticker shock. you tell them it's, you know, for 3 months and they feel a little better, but to get that big bill, if they haven't been planning for it, if you're living on a tight budget, um that's a big hit at once, you know. So, I'm very sorry. I would love to be supportive of this in the interest of infrastructure, but I just um can't with not knowing those other variables. And if I may, just to be clear, I mean, you make great point. It's going to be not $444 the first year. It's going to be 12 13 about 13 and a half dollars. >> Yeah. >> Uh the first quarter that's 13.5 dollars, not $4 just because of how we bill. And so they're looking at their bill getting a you almost $15 increase and doesn't feel comfortable. And I have to ask my colleague, what if we did spread it out? I mean, does that give you any greater comfort or do do you just want us to see those two issues you brought up monthly and usage based until you could get comfortable? >> You I'm going to head over here. Go ahead, Councilwoman Anderson. >> Yeah, I just wanted to um lend my support to the monthly billing um concept in the future if we can get there. I I think your points are well well made. I did want to offer a point of caution on the usage um billing by usage um as it relates to residential um homes. We may I just want to prepare your yourself for it may end up um costing our people that make the least and are doing the most with the money that they make more than maybe a larger property in a more um prestigious neighborhood where fewer people live on bigger properties and use less water. So I just want to prepare you that it could end up being that we don't want to burden our constituents with usage based billing. So just yeah just >> be prepared. >> It is relevant though to pay for what you use. I mean >> larger homes don't have to necessarily buy more groceries, right? You pay for what you need. >> So the consequence of that is people not flushing their toilets and then you have a public health outbreak. So there there really is I mean we just need to prepare ourselves for that consideration. >> Yeah. Well, that's very true and I think it's really relevant again considering the kind of um issues we have that we're discussing in Stonegate with when do we bring out infrastructure, when is that appropriate, and making sure that we do have water and people can flush their toilets. So, very timely. Thank you for that. >> Great. Uh, Councilwoman Taylor, >> thank you. Um, I I I support the rate increase, but not at this time because of the uncertainty of APWF and we were supposed to have a GMP in December and now we're looking 6 months out. I just don't have that confidence level yet. I know we need to raise rates. I just wish we could wait a little bit. So, I I do support a rate increase, but not at this time. Thank you, >> Madam Mayor. Um, Councilman Martinez, go right ahead. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And my apologies. My Zoom for some reason got cut off. >> Don't worry about just butt in whenever you need to. >> My question. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Yeah. I just I similar thought patterns to some of what my colleagues have already said. It is tough situation that we're in with a can that has been sort of kicked down. We have to face this decision. And I just I would have been more supportive, I think, of alternative two. And that's where I uh would have hoped that the motion was made. Um, and I understand that the that that's the motion that we're currently looking at. But I just wanted to make sure I put that on the record and making sure that I put the concerns that I have for the renters and the folks living on fixed incomes in our communities that are going to be probably the hardest hit with these changes and making sure that we're being um aware and sensitive to their situation as well. >> Well, let me let me ask a question, Mr. Martinez. Um, I mean I too favored alternative two, but not by a big margin, just whatever the group felt like in the interest of getting more people to support this. I mean, I'm willing to amend my motion, but my seconder, which I think was council member Reese, would have to agree um to amend the motion >> um to be alternative two. He said he could support alternative two, but not one, but he wants to, you know, be part of it, but he's just not there on alternative one. Oh, I um so can I just clarify, Mr. Martinez, you are a fan of alternative two, >> correct? Yes. >> Yeah. I I have no objection to withdrawing my >> I mean, and it looks like I had nod for Miss Anderson, too. So, >> objection. >> Yeah. >> So, without objection, I would change my motion to um uh move forward with alternative two. >> And I'll second that. And and for the purpose of discussion, um Mr. Flandsburg, I just want to make sure I'm clear on something. Um Vice Mayor Taylor makes a very good point about the guaranteed maximum price contract. And in a perfect world, I I would like to see it as well. My concern is that um a I agree with you that in principle there's not a lot of changes that happen between 90 and 100. Certainly not like hundreds of millions of dollars of swing. Um would do we have the ability to revisit the issue if something just wildly inappropriate happens um when we get that back? >> Yeah, for the record, John Flansber, of course, you always have the opportunity to revisit um the rate structure. It's an ordinance. It would be you you would request something come back and and we would have that discussion. >> Well, and maybe that helps Miss Taylor be more comfortable with it. Right. I I she's not wrong about being thoughtful about that contract being out there. um none of us want to see that project escalate in cost any further. I don't think that uh things are getting cheaper. So the more we delay our efforts to start moving this process forward, I think it puts us behind the eightball in terms of how we structured all of these proposals. That's why I don't want to wait on it until the spring or whenever it turns out that we get that. But as long as you are comfortable with the idea that if something goes off the rails with that project and the guaranteed maximum price that we are in a position as a council to say mayor would call a special meeting or whatever the need would be uh to fix it because what we're not trying to do is hurt our community. We want to make sure that when they flush the toilet the pipes work right. And this concept um of making sure we provide infrastructure very important. Of course, development provides infrastructure. We are the ones who are going back and maintaining it once it's turned over to us. The city of Reno does not go out and put infrastructure into a place, right? We take it once it's been turned over to us by the development that happens in an area. So, that that's sort of my thought on it. um and why I'm inclined to support this modified motion and and encourage of course my colleague to revisit the issue >> and and I appreciate that comment on timing too because I I just want to what we in what we intended um and and and I don't think you would object. We currently set our rates on October 1st of every year. Yes. Because we're going to be delayed till like January 1st on this. We would propose moving our rate increases to January 1st of each year rather than the October 1st. So we already have this one that's going in this bill. We'll do the the differential. >> Yeah. a true up, >> not the $4, but the $255 increase in January. And then we'll just keep that for the whole year and then do those increases on January 1st going forward. >> Well, I think Mr. Fleberg, you've heard us and and Madame Manager has heard us say we're very interested in exploring a couple of other parts to this puzzle. Um, those will have to come back. Um, but for today's purposes, happy to support alternative 2. And and Mr. Martinez and Miss Der and Miss Anderson, thank you for getting us there. Um, Mr. Flansberg, can you just clarify? Does alternative 2 is that include the CPI? >> It does. >> It does. Okay. >> Yeah, those rates all include CPI. >> And then um talk a little bit about having um those numbers that Councilwoman Taylor is referring to. >> And can you go back to the >> numbers? >> Yes. >> Because I I also agree with that. So there is certainty. >> So >> can you talk about that because I I'm >> know that um >> you know I mean everyone is very very concerned about the infrastructure. >> Sure. >> Right. So I want to talk a little bit more about that clarity piece. >> Um talk a little bit about that John. So on the advanced purified water project, um if I on the question it was can we revisit this if something goes ary on that project and costs go out of control or something. Um can we can can we bring this back to council for your consideration? Of course we can at any time. >> Um and in fact uh if something went arry at the prices, you wouldn't agree to the guaranteed maximum price, right? Um and so the project wouldn't even go forward and we'd have to come back with what our alternatives are. that would be a bit of a scramble um just because we we've been going in this route for a while. We don't anticipate that that's going to be a problem, but if it were, you wouldn't approve the GMP for the project to move forward and we would be able to come back and revisit the rates. And as I mentioned previously, um even removing that project was going to we still were not $9 million offset. We didn't we our revenues were $9 million below our expenditures and so we still needed a rate increase and so that that would not um uh uh we would be able to provide another recommendation that would keep us solid and straight. Does that make sense? But what are we talking about time frame whenever you say to Councilwoman Taylor's point about until that um assessment >> I think the guaranteed maximum price I think we're about six months out. >> Okay. Well to be honest with you I think everyone is mentioned different alternatives. I think we're some people are here some people are there people are moving back and forth. I would be, this is just me. I think the best thing to do is hold off for those six months and then bring it forward and then that would give you more clarity and feel comfortable moving forward. >> Yeah. I mean, what was the original what was the engineer's estimate of APWF? >> Um, I I don't have that information right now in my head, but if I look like I'm going white, um, it's because I I know what the fund is and where we are with it. Um I I would be concerned just because of those uh dollar amounts. I never want to put a situation where we are are having to bring higher rate increases in. Um but uh I I I >> we're going to increase rates two and a half% anyway. Right. >> I would recommend Yeah. that just by the CPI, but I would I would recommend >> at least going with a firstear increase on one of these alternatives >> um because we were going to need that at a minimum regardless um to make sure that we're not outspending our our our revenues are are keeping pace with our expenditures um as opposed to delaying the entire decision alto together. That just just um I would be much more comfortable with that. I'm not exactly sure what you're saying, just going with a one-year rate. What what my I'm not, again, I I'm totally in favor of a rate increase. I understand we have to maintain our infrastructure. My my goal is that we do this once and we do it right with all of the information. And watching APWF, which is $270 million total at this time, I see this keep going up. >> That's not Is that right? >> The total project cost. total project >> cost are the 84 plus 84 after after the grants and stuff come up. >> But it I mean I I want to make sure I have all the information when I'm asking people to make pay more for something. >> I appreciate I I I totally understand that if if uh if >> $270 million project is a huge it's a huge project. We need it. I'm not saying we don't need it. We absolutely need it. >> Doesn't go away. If we were to approve an alternative today, >> um we would make that decision and then if something with the al with the advanced purified water project uh changes our scenarios drastically, we we could come back at that time. >> Yeah. >> Otherwise, we come today, we make it one it's a one-time decision and and we are we have a um a direction we can go. >> I'd like to propose something and this is something that we've done at Tamwa with rates when we're looking at fairly significant rate increases. We've approved the package tenatively and then we've requested a check-in at each year that the new rate is supposed to take effect to do a final confirmation and I think it would get us where we need to be. You're asking for at least this first year which we could approve but before we did year two you would get an affirmative approval from council and before we did year three you would get an approval from council. And in that way that those are some of the ways that we've sort of moderated the rate increases and done a check-in, what's the economy doing, what's the new prices looking like and all of that. And I I just think it might get us where we need to be, which is to recognize the problems that we have, deal with year one and uh require check-ins at year two and three, but it's it's been approved. And so if we do nothing at year two and year three, it just stays the course. But you can make a change. it's built into the system to have a an off-ramp or a modification ramp. So, it's just a way of getting there that I think preserves the options and and you know moves us forward. So, we've done it at Tom almost every rate increase. So, just some thoughts >> what I mean is there any response? >> Are you comfortable with that? >> Well, here's my concern. I appreciate the option and the alternative, but when did you when did we first start talking about this? This isn't the first time we saw this. So, it's not I I don't see us moving in the swift manner of just bringing it back and doing it. I would rather, like I said, wait, make sure we have all the information, gather all the data, and then make a decision based on that. We have a 2 and a half% increase going in effect. Is that October when you said? >> Yes. And the bill is going out this month. >> And the bill is going out this month. So I And then you said that if we did this, we wouldn't even be implementing it until January and that would be due in March. >> Next, no in the January bills that would go. >> Yeah. So I don't see the I don't see the big challenge in waiting to see what APWF comes in at. That's that's my position. >> My hesitation is only that um when we do our capital project planning, we are not looking at just oh here's a project, let's get it out and go. It's it's a three two three four sometimes five APWF sub 7 8-year project uh timeline. So that's that's that's my only hesitation is that sometimes uh these decisions can can have an impact on our ability to get projects go underway in terms of design and moving forward. That's my concern. >> Okay. Um I would I would say this. I feel like everyone's sort of all over the place, different alternatives. I would like to bring it back to the next meeting. Councilwoman or um city manager Bryant um and then let's revisit this conversation um so that there can be more discussion on why this is so critical and where we're going and talk about because I want everyone to be on the same page and if we have to wait uh you said six months um >> the we won't we won't have a GMP for by the next meeting loop it'll it it's likely to be you know four four five months six months before we would have something that then we could agendaize that then we could bring before you to have the discussion. >> Okay. Well, and that's the direction I would like to go. >> So, you're asking me to re remove my motion. I mean, I do sense that we have support for this motion, but at least four, but I agree. I don't like doing such important actions with a split council and a lot of >> concerns. I think and especially for this topic, >> yeah, >> you know, I think it can be seen and used as >> well, if we could bring it back in two weeks, I'm fine with removing my motion. But I have to tell you, I really >> bring it back. We'll see if we can get there. >> Yeah. I would really feel bad. I would feel like we're letting down both the city and and all of the work that's been done if we take no action like for six months or a year. >> I I I think we're like failing in our fiduciary duty if we do something like that. But I'm I'm okay if you want to uh wait for two weeks. >> Sounds good. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> So, with that, I'll I'll remove my mo I'll withdraw my motion. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I have to get a withdrawal of the second. I think >> I've done it. Okay. >> So, I have a removal of your motion. >> Yeah, I'm withdrawing my motion. >> Um >> you will do a motion to continue >> and then I will do a motion to continue. Do I have a second >> to two weeks from now or Okay. Yeah, I'll second that. >> Okay. >> I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries. Okay. Thank you so much or appreciate it. >> Okay. >> Here we go. Item D1. Uh, Madame Clerk, I will now open the public hearing. Was proper notice given? Any correspondence received? >> Madame Mayor, proper notice was given on item D1. We did receive correspondence as one letter of neutral or concern which has been distributed to the Reno City Council. >> Okay. Thanks so much. All right. All you All right. Uh good afternoon, Madame Mayor, members of the council. Jeff Foster, associate planner for the record, bringing you ABN26-2, which is the Snow's Monroe Street abandonment cleanup. Uh so the abandonment request is approximately 239 square feet of public rightway uh consisting of a portion of Monroe Street at the south end of the previously abandoned Wright Street and that's in the area shown here. Um it's approximately 265 ft east of South Arlington Avenue and 225 ft west of Lander Street at the southwest corner of the Our Lady of the Snows campus which is there. The Snow's campus consists of a primary parcel here as well as three parcels on the west side of Wright Street and those are shown there. Uh, one parcel to the west of the proposed abandonment area remains in private ownership and it's this parcel here. Uh, the abandonment is proposed to meet the required setback for the new parish center building that was approved in December of 2023 under case LDC 24-10. and it is in order to meet the required setback for the approved building the the proposed abandonment area is necessary to become part of that parcel. Key issues are the abandonment background as well as financial. So some background information. Right street uh between Walker Avenue at the north and Monroe at the south was abandoned by council in March of 2018. Um the proposed abandonment area which is in the uh mint green area there could have been and perhaps should have been abandoned as a part of the previous right street abandonment. Um staff has determined that the abandonment would not have a negative impact on the adjacent street network or the overall traffic circulation in the area and that's primarily because Right Street has already been abandoned and this portion of Monroe Street at the south end of Wright Street is not within the travel lane along Monroe. Continuing with the background, the ride ofway was dedicated by track map and other than the public sidewalk, there are no bus stops, city- owned trees, benches, or other public amenities in the proposed abandonment area, which is uh indicated by the red box there. Um the uh pedestrian access is proposed to be preserved as shown on the site plan for the LDC 24-10 case uh that was approved in December of 23 which shows the sidewalk continuing to the exist on the corner of the proposed abandonment area and per condition number six the applicant shall grant the city a public use easement in order to maintain pedestrian connectivity through the abandonment area. Um, and last but not least, there are no known utilities in that proposed abandonment area. The zoning, it's the adjacent uh parcel is split zone multif family 30, multif family 14. The adjacent MF30 zoning would be applied to the abandonment area which extends to the center line of Right Street. Financial uh the ride ofway is held in easement only, not in fee title. Therefore, if abandoned, the area would revert back to the adjacent property owner with no associated fee, and the city will benefit from reduced liability and maintenance responsibility. About ready to wrap it up. The abandonment requires one recommended finding in approving any abandonment. The city shelf city council shall find that the public will not be materially injured by the proposed abandonment. Um again, uh sidewalk and pedestrian connectivity will be maintained. There are no public amenities other than the sidewalk. Um, and there will be no negative impact on the adjacent street network or traffic circulation in the area. Uh, therefore, uh, here is the recommended motion and I'm available for questions. >> Thank you, madam clerk. This is a public hearing. Did we receive any public comment? >> We do not have any public comment registered, but we did receive the correspondence as one neutral letter. >> Okay. Uh, council members, council member Dor. >> Yeah, thank you. Uh, this is my ward. Can you go back to the picture uh with the star, the yellow, the blue? Um >> you got it. >> Yeah, this one here. >> Yeah. So, I just have um first of all, this has to be the smallest abandonment that we've ever considered. I mean, how many square feet is this? What >> likely? Yes. >> It's like I don't know, >> 10 square feet or 20 square feet or something. I mean, it's incredibly small, right? It's amazing to me that this was an oversight when the um abandonment of Wright Street was done already, but so I'm I'm totally supportive. I have two questions. >> One um I I know you said maintain thoroughare or or pedestrian access. Are they leaving the sidewalk on the right side or that would be the north side I think or sorry the east side? that so the I'm right >> the sidewalk uh will be perpetuated from Monroe up to Walker >> um when the it continues to exist now and then even with the development of the proposed expansion for the snows it will continue to exist >> will that be a city sidewalk do we have to take care of it or it would now be a snows sidewalk or >> it's an it's an easement it'll be an easement there's already an easement granted through there so it will be perpetuated it may need to be altered but for the alignment But I'm saying for re maintenance of the sidewalk, whose job is that? >> It's it's the applicant's responsibility to maintain the >> Okay, I just want that's what I wanted to find out. And number two, the the person in the blue star, I have talked to them and I just wondered if if an arrangement has been finalized with them because when I talked to them, it hadn't been and they were feeling I'll just put it I and I apologize if I misconstrue or misunderstand. They're feeling fairly pressured. They wanted to work with snows. They wanted to give them and there was a trading going on expanding their backyard, cutting into their sideyard. Is that I got it right? I see head nods. I just wondered where that stood. >> Yeah, I I will defer to the applicant to to address that issue. >> Gregory, the architect for the project with Snows, and there has been a uh written agreement between the owner of the starred property, Mr. taxer and snows and there is some property adjustments in the process of working through that Justin can speak to but uh documents are being in the process of being signed as we >> I'm so happy to hear that because you know it's the best way forward for you it's the best way forward for him he gets something out of the deal right a bigger backyard yes >> and he lose a little sideyard but you get what you need for travel and it it seemed good >> we hope it's a win-win for both parties >> yeah All right. All right. Well, that with that, Madam Vice Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve this abandonment. >> I'll second and say that I can make all the findings necessary under the Reno Municipal Code that there will be no material negative impact to the public. >> Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I >> I >> Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. >> Okay, Madam Click, we're moving on to item D2 was um we're going to open the public hearing. Was proper notice given and any correspondence received? >> Madame vice mayor, proper notice was given and we have not received any correspondence on this item. Additionally, we do not have any public comment registered. >> Okay. Any council members need to make disclosures? Okay. Hi Leah. >> Hello. Good afternoon, madame vice mayor and members of the council. For the record, my name is Leah Picotti and I'm an associate planner with the city of Reno Development Services. And this afternoon I am presenting an application for an abandonment of the northern portion of JRo Street. So the request before you today is for a 13,800 square foot segment of JRo. This is um just south of the Truckucky River as you can see and north of its intersection with Kunlay. This abandonment is being requested to support the Reno Sparks Indian Colony and their expansion of the tribal health center which is that big building located adjacent to the abandonment. Just to give you a little bit of context here, we have surrounding zoning districts on the left hand side of your screen. You can see that in that blue area though there adjacent to the abandonment area. That's the Reno Sparks Indian colony. And to the left is mixeduse urban zoning. Master plan corresponds to that with an urban mix um urban mixed juice uh over the top of the the Reno Sparks Indian Colony. And then we do have some PGOS there because that's John Champion Park there. And that does provide parking and access to the river. So, here's an aerial image on the left hand side of your screen and it just kind of shows you that area and adjacent to the tribal health center and you can see the parking area on the lefth hand side of your screen that is also um owned by the colony and used for parking for the tribal health center at this time. This uh particular area of JRo Street was dedicated to the city in 1951 by John Counley and the city did pay $1 for this portion. The recommended abandonment findings are on the screen. Uh there is only one finding and that is that the public will not be materially injured by the proposed abandonment. Staff review and analysis found that this supports the Reno Sparks Indian Colony and there will not be an impact to traffic or parking. it might actually make parking in that area a little better. Therefore, staff is recommending approval of this abandonment. Um, I do want to point out that staff is recommending that we convey the real property to uh Reno Sparks Indian Colony without charge as the property is going to be used by a public purpose which is allowed under Nevada Revised Statute and the abandoned area will become part of the adjacent parcels and the Reno Sparks Indian Colony will be responsible for all maintenance of the subject area. With that, the recommended motion is on the board. I'm available for questions. The applicant um does not have a presentation, but she is here uh for answer any of your questions as well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Leah. Council Leah Council, any questions? Council member Reese, >> I don't have questions, but I think it's an outstanding use of our abandonment authority. Right. The tribe is an incredible partner in this community and any opportunity we have to work with them to expand healthc care options. Um I've had the privilege of walking with uh Dr. And I'm sorry I'm pronouncing Edwarte who is working there as well. He works with us at the district board of health and they're just doing great programming there and so we've got to really lean in where we can. I also tell will say for anyone's benefit I drove to the subject site. It is rather unusual. Right. First of all, I was trying to get to John Champion Park which I missed the turnoff there. And so then I go down and it's not a thoroughare. It's like a a roundabout turnaround. And I think people mostly are doing what I did, which is they miss the park turnaround and then they maybe they park there. Um there's really no purpose to it. It just needs to be abandoned and and let the uh tribal partners do what they're going to do with it. >> I totally agree. Thank you. >> Would you like to make a motion? >> Yeah. >> Neither one. >> Yep. Madame or Miss Der, I will defer to you. >> Oh, all right. Well, I'd like to make a motion to approve the JRo Street abandonment and go on the record that I can make all the findings that there'll be no harm to the public um in any uh fashion. So, >> second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> Just just real quick, uh subject to conditions. I just wanted to clarify the motion. >> Oh, subject to the conditions in the um staff report. >> Thank you. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> I >> Okay, motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you for sitting through council. Okay, we are on item F1 which is ordinance adoption. Carl, >> thank you madam vice mayor. Ordinance adoption. Ordinance number 6727, case number TXT24-00002, accessory dwelling units. Ordinance amending Un Municipal Code, Title 18, Annexation of Land Development, specifically in chapter 1803, use regulations. Section 1803 206 entitled Table of Allowed uses. Section 1803 402 entitled Accessory Buildings and Structures and Residential Zoning District. Section 1803 405 entitled Standards for Specific Accessory Uses. Chapter 1804, development standards. Section 180475 entitled off street parking requirements. And chapter 1809 definitions. Section 1809 302 entitled accessory uses to add use standards 5,000 foot lot minimums, parking standards, design criteria and definitions as they relate to accessory dwelling units together with matters which pertain to or are necessarily connected therewith. >> Thank you, madam clerk. Do we have any public comment? >> Madam vice mayor, we do not have any public comment registered. We did receive four letters um I'm sorry, five letters, sorry, four letters, uh three letters of opposition and one letter that was neutral or concern that has been distributed to the Reno City Council. >> Council members, questions, discussion. Council member Dur. >> Yeah, thank you. Um as you know, I made the motion on this last time and I'm prepared to do so today, but I did want to go on the record with a few comments. Um, in the intervening time, I've had not just four residents, but more uh reach out to me, mostly those disappointed that were moving forward. And they were particularly disappointed that we changed the planning commission recommendation that was to not allow 28 day uh rentals less than 28 days. In other words, a short-term rental. Um, we said, "No, we're going to allow that." And I wanted to explain a little bit about why I supported that. And I'm sure everyone has their personal opinion and they're welcome to as well, but from my perspective, we already allow individual homes to be rented as short-term rentals. We allow individual rooms within homes to be um rented as short-term rentals. We allow um ADUs that were created before around 2000, if I got the date right, to be rented as short-term rentals. And to me to come in with this ordinance which focuses on getting ADUs built and to only put a restriction on ADUs saying you can't rent a an ADU which would be in this case probably a freestanding uh separate building I I think is discriminatory. And secondly, I'm I'm very worried about terminating ongoing businesses that have been operating in good faith, maybe haven't paid attention to the ADU ordinance because didn't think it affected them to suddenly have their business stop suddenly with no warning. So, um, for those reasons, I supported removing the 28day requirement. However, this is a big however. I am looking forward to us very quickly tackling or completing our work on short-term rentals. I I think we've left a loophole. We've left people in uncertainty. Um there are people worried and I have to say I support generally short-term rentals. I've used them. I've used them in foreign countries. I've used them in America. Um I think they're generally a good thing, but there are some that are problematic. And if we can adopt regulations that deal with the problematic cases proactively, I think that would be the council doing a great job. So, I just wanted to get that out on the record and tell you where I'm at. Okay. >> Did you want to make a motion or did >> I'm happy to, but I think other people Does anybody else have >> Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. >> I do. Um, so I have also spoken with a lot of people that have strong feelings about the short-term rentals and I had a lot of apprehension at the last uh meeting we discussed this um because of um just the difficulty enforcing something like a restriction on short-term um rentals. I completely understand the sentiment of being concerned about what type of um things are going to happen if these places are rented for short-term rentals, but we do have code to um enforce um things that we have. But we don't necessarily have the resources to make sure that we're not um people aren't building ADUs and then using them as short-term rentals. We just don't have the capacity to do to do that. And also in speaking with legal about um you know the feasibility of putting on a a deed restriction um on an ADU so that it can't be used as um a short-term rental. But um there are places where people build ADUs um they move into the ADU and then they use the primary residence as a short-term rental. So, um you know, it's I understand the desire for this and I wish that we had um a better option right now, but um it's it's not going to um prohibit people from actually using them as short-term rentals. And um I think it just would take more time away from our our general code enforcement that um should be used as a as a tool and a resource to make sure that these um short-term rentals are not um behaving badly. So just just to be a realist about what resources we have available. I don't think we have the capacity to um monitor um every ADU and make sure it doesn't become a short-term rental or you know the other way around that the primary residence becomes a short-term rental. So, just wanted to say that. Um and I I I am disappointed that we can't give some people more assurance about the short-term rentals, but we just don't have the ability. So, >> thank you, Council Member Eert. Are we to a motion point yet or council? >> Well, I I think I wanted to just commend Miss Eert's comment and it mine is sort of falls between Miss Eerts and Miss Der's comment. Um, I think that Miss Eert's right that there were some costs that were related to the standing up of a short-term rental like monitoring or enforcement group. That was really concerning to me. What my position has always been, because I know that folks um on next door like to misrepresent my position is that what we need to do is get the ADU ordinance off the ground, right? And then we can look within the next year about whether there's like some massive movement towards them in any space and then we'll have the opportunity to do that. I think our um you know our our planning staff is busy so with so many of the things we've tasked them with that to just say we're going to race out next week and start manhandling a short-term or person handling a short-term rental policy is not what I hope they will be doing with their time. So again I'm sort of between Miss Eert and Miss Der. I think we will figure out in the coming months years as Mr. Pingri uh so wisely told us that there are not going to be a mad rush towards ADUs. So um I I think we'll be okay. Um I am a firm believer that um Miss Der is right about people who exist today and and not wanting to discourage or trample on the rights that those people have either. Um but it's kind of like an in between point and so I'm happy to support Miss Der's motion uh when she makes it. Miguel. Okay. Well, see no more speakers. Um I will make a motion to um do uh ordinance adoption of bill number 7317, which is this case number TXT24-0000002, accessory dwelling units. And um let me ask our attorneys if I have to make any more statements. No, I would just indicate that the ordinance number is 6727. >> 6727. Sorry. >> Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> Wait, I do I do have discussion. I just want to say that I I I want to make sure that staff does keep an eye out for issues that arise with short-term rentals. like I don't want that to fall off the radar because that's something that um I want to nip in the bud, so to speak, if it starts becoming an issue. Um I don't want people to think that, you know, it's it's free rain. I want us to kind of keep tabs on what's going on. And I know we have Reno Direct is a great resource to get information like that, but we can also pull pull from, you know, code enforcement, whatever. But I really want to make sure that that we do keep an eye on this. So, um, we're monitoring it. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> And I'm going to make one final comment before we do our final vote if I may. And that is that, um, I believe in being proactive and communities all across America have had challenges with STRs. They just have. And to just say, I'm just going to be honest, just to say, well, we'll wait and see if we do. It's pretty guaranteed that five or 10% of these are going to be problematic. Or maybe it's only 1%. But secondly, and and I don't want to be so crass, but it is a another revenue source that we are not taking advantage of, and it is not um affordable housing. It's not housing. It's a rental business. Um a short-term rental business, more like a hotel, more like a motel. And I do think that they regulate them and uh issue business licenses on them and every city in America almost. And I just I don't want to miss the opportunity. So, I'm just I just want to go on the record. But anyway, right. We're ready for a vote. Madam Vice Mayor, >> we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? >> I I motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much, Madame Mayor. We are on boards and commissions since we don't have any. So, I think we're on to uh council comments. >> Okay. Any comments? >> I have a few. Go ahead. Okay. Um this is uh I'll just go on record. We're about to start my last year on council and there are some things that I've been trying to get done for 11 previous years and in the press of business sometimes those fall off the radar. Um but I want to list a few uh things that I hope we get to tackle in the coming year because we're asking for um any proposed agenda items and that kind of thing. And I I know that our mayor is in conversation with Jackie, but I did want Jackie to hear this. I can wait. >> Are you okay to hear or Okay. So, I want to make sure I know that um our manager has been leading an effort on the tree ordinance and we're about to come into conclusion on the first phase and I'd love to see that agenda very quickly. It's should be fairly non-controversial. It's all about what the city does, not not anybody else but the city's resources, city properties, uh city processes. So, I hope we could get through that. Number two is about I want to say six months to a year ago, our staff said they were going to begin a rule making on enhanced um conditions related to wildlife over in the Virginia range. So whether it's horses or other wildlife and we haven't moved forward and I understand there's so many things on the plate, but I do hope that we'll be able to address it in the next year. Um and then finally I wanted to mention um last meeting we had a conversation about unsolicited proposals and I know that a lot of people are not that much in touch. People said well the the process was followed and I want to beg to disagree there. We actually have a process listed in the website. It's a little bit hard to find but it involves consultation with the staff um various departments looking at unsolicited proposals. There's no requirement that they come to city council. Um, I don't believe that process was followed in its entirety in our last unsolicited proposal and two years ago I had a conversation um with Miss Bryant and she was not in her current position and we discussed the need maybe to beef this up and I had an experience with the county where they had I was working on an unsolicited proposal with a bunch of residents for the county and I became aware of the county's process and they have a fairly extensive process and and I have sent that I'm going to send it again. I just think so that we can avoid um confusion with our residents and we can increase transparency. It would be good for us sooner rather than later to just administratively make this in a place on our website it's easier to find and then look at are there areas for improvement based on maybe what other governments are doing with these. So I just want to save everybody um some of the heartbreak or challenges or misunderstandings that we've experienced. So, I'd like, you know, I'd like to request that as a a future item. What whatever shape it takes, but it's all staff time comes back to council. I don't know. >> Okay. Any other council members? >> Oh, yes. >> Go ahead, Councilman Reese. >> Thank you. Um, Madame Mayor, I wanted to just share uh two thoughts with my colleagues. One is uh and this is something that uh I uh spoke to some of you about earlier, but we're very close to being able to bring um a baby box or two to the city of Reno. And so it's something that we're now in the process of working through with the company that does them. As you can recall, maybe about six months ago, we had an incident where a a newborn was found in a dumpster. And a baby box is a safe way to for people to um you know trust their loved one or their infant to the care of our fire department. So we're working on that process. So very exciting. Um and then the second thing is we're working with the city manager's office on doing some work around food insecurity. So it's something we're going to be talking about in the coming months as well. So just two things to be on your radar screen about. uh no agenda item or anything like that, but just that those are two exciting things that we're working on in W five. >> Okay, Councilman Martinez. >> No, you there. >> Thanks so much. Yes, I'm here. Sorry about that. >> No, it's all good. I I just want you to know we didn't forget about you. >> Thank you. Uh yeah, the only comment I had showing appreciation to our partners for sponsoring the highest e-waste cleanups. And the next one is going to be this Saturday at 900 a.m. at inboard 3. So looking forward to continue to support our neighbors and getting rid of the trash. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you. Anyone else? No, >> I think I had one more positive thing. >> Okay, positive. >> It is positive. Um, I just wanted to invite you all and anybody that's interested to go on a tree walk with us. We're going to have a a tree walk at Virginia Lake, not this weekend, but next weekend. Um, should be peak color and uh we'll have Rod Holland Beek who's written a very well- reggarded book on trees in Reno um in our community. So, he's going to be our expert tour guide. We may have our um city arborist or forester Matt Basil. I'm not sure about that. And then Matt and I are both scheduled to be on a um uh some type of media outreach on trees generally. What's happening? Why do they change colors? But I just wanted to extend an invitation in case you're up for a little work walk on a Sunday at Virginia Lake. Please join us. >> Um you know what I think is one of the most beautiful areas that you can absolutely see where the leaves change to like >> brilliant. Oh, it's incredible. Is if you're on McCarron and you're going down to um Plum. Is it Plum? Yeah. >> Yeah. >> On to Plum, right? >> So on on >> Yeah. Um but if you overlook look that area, it's it's absolutely stunning. Carl, have you seen it? >> You have? Isn't it gorgeous this time of year, but it you only get a short window. So, if anyone can go if they're big tree lover and the and but it just kind of highlights the seasons and it's very it's a like this very short window, but do it because it's gorgeous. It's incredible. >> And I will just say I'm doing it in response to resident request. >> We did it once before. They loved it. They've been bugging me. Are we going to do this again? This was so cool. And so, here we go. >> We're doing it. >> Okay. Well, have have fun. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Anyone else? No. Counciloman Anderson, do you have anything positive? >> Yes. Good. All right. Thanks so much. Um okay. >> Yeah. Did you >> Megan? >> This is just comments, right? >> Yeah. >> I just wanted to say we had our third annual fall festival last Saturday and it was great and thank Yeah. >> Awesome. >> Thank you to council member Taylor for coming out. Um she seemed to have a good time hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. She brought her her beautiful pup out there with her and um we had a great time. Really um familyfriendly event. So um just want to thank staff for all their work putting it together and um you know hopefully this is something we could just do annually going forward. So thank you to everybody that went and um help make it happen. >> That's awesome. Good. Okay. Anything else? All right. Um Madame Clerk. >> All right. All right, Madame Mayor, we're on item J1, closing public comment. I don't have anybody registered to speak at this time, but we did receive two letters of opposition and two letters of neutral or concern. Those have been sent to the Reno City Council and we have no additional public comment. We're moving to a motion for adjournment. >> Okay. I have a motion. >> Second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Thanks everyone.